Jean Anouilh's Adaptation Of Antigone

John Paul Di Giovanna
CLSS 105-11
11/14/14

The play Antigone by Sophocles is a very famous and that is read in schools all over the world. The play simply shows someone standing up to an unjust and unfair state and it can be used to bring people together depending on the situation. One person that adapted Sophocles’ Antigone was Jean Anouilh, who was a French playwright. Anouilh’s adaptation of Antigone came out in the year 1944 but was written in 1942. The fact that this adaptation came out in France during the year 1942 is very important to French as well as world history. In 1944 when this adaptation came out, France was being occupied by the Nazis during World War II. This is important because it shows the basis of why Jean Anouilh

One example him doing this is the rivalry between Antigone and her sister Ismene. In Sophocles’ version Ismene is seen as responsible, timid, and obedient and can be seen at that time a perfect girl where Antigone contrasts as being impulsive, resistant and can be seen as moody and is not seen as being like everyone else who follows the state. In Anouilh’s version there is a different form of rivalry. In this version Ismene is the best version of a beautiful girl where as Antigone curses her girlhood where she expresses her hatred for the ideal of feminism that her sister shows off. There are also some symbols Anouilh puts into his Antigone one is Creon’s attack. While he is mad at her proud defiance of the law and him not being able to change her mind in anyway Creon grabs Antigone’s arm and does so really tightly in which Antigone feels nothing which then shows that Antigone has passed beyond the reach of the state power and the control of men. These two different examples can also be related to France at the time of Nazi occupation. The rivalry of Antigone and Ismene can be seen as the rivalry of the Allies and the Axis powers of world war two where Antigone in this case represents the Allies just as she represented the French resistance and Ismene would represent the Axis powers. This comparison is shown due to the differences in Ideals between the Allied and Axis powers as the differences between the two sisters. The symbol of Creon’s attack can also be seen as the Germans taking over France and imposing their ideals on them and the resistance which is represented by Antigone does not feel or in the French resistances case does not recognize or follow the Nazi government in southern France’s ideas and actions (Gildea,