Antigone

Jean Anouilh’s adaptation of Antigone was written and subsequently performed towards the end of World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied France, and is renowned for its successful evasion of Nazi censorship. After all, “On the one hand, M. Anouilh had to content the Germans in his portrayal of a ruler. On the other hand, he had his compatriots to think of” (9). In the end, the playwright was able to find a balance in Antigone, which became his most famous work. Galantière, who translated this edition, writes:

Under the stress and the indignity of the Occupation, M. Anouilh’s Antigone was able to symbolize for all Frenchmen, France herself, France rejecting the German “New Order” with its promise of prosperity, of ‘happiness’, provided the French people would agree to surrender their spiritual independence—which is to say, their souls. (9)

The central theme of choosing between moral conscience and obedience to authority is a direct parallel to the choice faced by the people of France during World War II. In Antigone, Anouilh used a literary device called anachronism, which is a deliberate mixing of historical periods. Anouilh mixed the world of Ancient Greece with that of the 1940s, making the story more contemporary and therefore more immediate for his French audience. The references throughout the play to playing cards, guns, coffee, and other modern elements made it easier to draw conclusions about the intended parallels between Antigone’s world and that of Nazi-occupied France. For instance, “in the matter of Polynices, Creon’s case was founded upon a moral equivalent of political purges, Matteotti murders, and lynchings” (9). Although none of these connections are explicitly stated in the play, it is likely that many French audience members would have been able to make the connections for themselves.

Anouilh had to handle the character of Creon with extreme care. Any portrayal of a ruler, especially a dictator, could be seen as a critique on the Nazis by the censorship. However, he managed “to put into Creon’s mouth words which satisfied the Germans while permitting patriotic Frenchman to interpret them as a call to place the general interest higher than their separate private interests” (10). Creon is depicted as an artist who took control of a “sinking ship” when no one else would. He is a father that Haemon admired, and at first wants to spare Antigone’s life. His arguments about his duty to his country would have appeased the similarly duty-minded Nazi soldiers, and to them, Antigone’s death would have been just while Haemon’s and Eurydice’s would have been dismissed as senseless, but not Creon’s fault.

One of the most haunting passages in the play is when Ismene describes what she is sure the guards will do to them if they get caught. If placed in the historical context of World War II, one can easily imagine this being a description of Nazis:

You know how Creon works. His mob will come running, howling as it runs. A thousand arms will seize our arms. A thousand breaths will breathe into our faces. Like one single pair of eyes, a thousand eyes will stare at us. We’ll be driven in a tumbril through their hatred, through the smell of them and their cruel roaring laughter. We’ll be dragged to the scaffold for torture, surrounded by guards with their idiot faces all bloated, their animal hands clean-washed for the sacrifice, their beefy eyes squinting as they stare at us. And we’ll know that no shrieking and no begging will make them understand that we want to live, for they are like trained beasts who go through the motions they’ve been taught, without caring about right or wrong. (24)

It is important to note that Ismene—who is originally more aligned with Creon in her pursuit of a happy life—is the one who gives this speech. In speaking this way, she reveals that her inaction is not based so much on complacency as much as it is on fear. The moral dilemma between fear and conscience is precisely what the people of France under Nazi rule also faced. At the end of the play, Ismene decides she will finally act and bury Polynices with her sister and willingly die if she must. However, at this point Ismene is too late—an outcome that serves as a potential warning to the original audiences in France, to whom Anouilh suggests that if they wait too long for the courage to fight back, they may find it is too late for them as well.