Heroism of Antigone’s Character in Sophocles’ and Anouilh’s Plays
Kiera Cavalleri
Professor Griffith
English 104
15 February 2012
Both Sophocles and Jean Anouilh told the story of Oedipus Rex's daughter, Antigone. Each version of the play follows the same basic storyline: Antigone wished for her brother, Polyneices, to have a proper burial after he had been killed in battle, even though her uncle, King Creon, strictly banned that exact action. Both plays contained the same important events, however, both writers presented the same characters very differently. On the one hand, Sophocles told the story of a woman who could not live with herself had she not fulfilled her traditional duty (to properly mourn the dead), on the other hand, Jean Anouilh went into much more psychological depth and portrayed Antigone's character as a girl who has been greatly affected by the tragic experiences of her childhood. The variations between each play are most directly influenced by their historical contexts. Sophocles was writing to a paternalistic society where women had very little power. Today, Sophocles' Antigone could easily be interpreted as a very feminist play, but traditionally, it was probably seen as a warning for women to remain in their place. Anouilh, rather, used the storyline to make a statement about the social and political atmosphere of Nazi-occupied France. Despite all of these differences, that so easily influence interpretation, heroism is something that has demanded respect throughout all of recorded history, and while the Antigone in each play did act bravely, neither could truly be considered heroic.
Generally, the roles of women in Ancient Greek drama, especially tragedy, were feared. According to Greek tradition, women had power over life and death - they gave birth and the took care of the spirit after death. According to Sue Blundell, reading Greek tragedy greatly helps one to clearly understand the attitudes men had towards women at that time. Sue Blundell wrote in the chapter “Women in Drama” in her book Women in Ancient Greece, “the fact that Athenian dramatists felt able to project these notions of difference onto their female characters indicates the existence of a general sense of anxiety about women, stemming from an awareness of the anomalous position which they occupied in Athenian society” (Blundell, 180). Deciding whether Antigone’s actions could be considered heroic then, or can be considered heroic now, largely relies on how women were viewed at the time, and from there, her intended role in the play. If there was a “general sense of anxiety” towards women, it would prevent a male audience from thinking of Antigone as their equal, much less think of her as heroic. In addition, the superstitious fear men had of crossing women (because they would not want their spirit to be left with nothing after death) led to a general hatred of the power women held over them. At that time, one of the main duties for women was to mourn the death of a lost loved one. Antigone clearly demonstrated this devotion to her brother and that duty when she said,
And even if I die in the act, that death will be a glory.
I will lie with the one I love and loved by him—
An outrage to the sacred gods! I have longer
to please the dead than to please the living here:
in the kingdom down below I’ll like forever.
Do as you like, dishonor the laws
Sophocles portrayed her intentions as wholly pure and selfless. This quote also shows a greater concern for the gods, not people. She cares more about the dead than the living.
Creon on the other hand, was tyrannical, ill tempered, and extremely fixated on being viewed as weak or feminine. As he says,
“There’s no room for pride, not in a slave,
not with the lord and master standing by
This girl was an old hand at insolence
when she overrode the edicts we made public…
I am not the man, not now: she is the man
if this victory goes to her and she goes free” (533-542).
In other words, Creon is concerned about Antigone undermining his masculinity. He also refers to Antigone as being his slave, which clearly reflects his attitude towards women. The Sue Bundell quote from earlier mentioned the “anxiety” men had towards women because men feared women undermining their masculinity and not caring for them when they passed away. Creon’s quote does speak negatively of women. Also, this attitude towards women at this time would explain why he was so afraid of possibly looking less masculine. For Creon, there was an immense amount of anxiety associated with fear of losing control, and in his mind, if he did not win, she would. His fear of Antigone winning shows how much he believed social order depended on men maintaining the dominant role in making decisions. The decree against anyone burying Antigone’s brother itself shows that he believed women making any sort of decision would bring anarchy, therefore, he feared a society where Antigone would be considered a greater “man” than him.
This stark contrast between Antigone’s and Creon’s character controls how Sophocles wants each one viewed by the audience. Because Creon’s actions were so intimidating and nasty, many of Antigone’s actions seemed very brave, but not quite heroic. Antigone’s actions seemed rash and not fully thought through. Rather, she seemed much more driven by an inability to stray from what society had always told her was her main role: to care for male relatives after their death. Being raised to believe that this was her most important role and that there would be repercussions for doing otherwise in the afterlife, she would have been terrified to have left her brother’s remains uncared for. While there is no single quote that explicitly says that, her actions throughout the play seem to lack emotion. She says to Ismene, “Why not? Our own brothers’ burial” (Sophocles, 26). Her reaction to her sister not wanting to act with her seemed much more shocked than hurt and disappointed, as if she could not understand why she would not want to act with her. Even though the gesture of providing her brother with a proper burial, so that he could be respected and hopefully live a happy afterlife, is incredibly respectable, her motivations must be taken into account. There is a huge difference between doing something because one feels it is the right and necessary thing to do, and doing something for fear of straying from the way one had been raised. For Antigone, it would have been incredibly unnerving for her to think she was not fulfilling her duty as a woman, and scary for her to think her brother was left lying in the dirt (once again, because she did not do as society generally would have expected her to). Sophocles also indicates that her actions were out of fear when he wrote,
"Gladly will I meet death in my sacred duty to the dead. Longer time have I to spend with them than with those who live upon the earth. Seek not to argue with me; nothing so terrible can come to me but that an honored death remains."
Antigone was much more concerned with how she would be treated after death (which then, makes her actions just as selfish a Anouilh’s Antigone) and her ability to live not burying her brother (which would be her own dissatisfaction, and selfishly rooted as well). Now, this is understandable considering the life she has led. So many tragic events had happened in her life that she may not have felt like she had much left to lose. Also, all those who mattered most to her were the ones she would have to face when she died; she wanted to please them. While this type of selfishness is different than the type Anouilh’s Antigone exhibits, her motives are equally as impure. Her actions were caused by two main factors: her inability to stray from what society had taught and then her fear of the afterlife.
In his version of Antigone, Jean Anouilh took a very different approach to the same story, but he did not portray Antigone as heroic either. He wrote it during the Nazi-occupation of France as a social critique where the characters were intended to parallel certain aspects of society. In this version, Antigone was much more selfish and naive. She was doomed to death before the play even started,
“She’s [Antigone] thinking that soon she’s going to be the girl whose family didn’t take her seriously, and rise up alone against everyone. Against Creon, her uncle…the king. She’s thinking she’s going to die…though she’s still young and like everyone else would have preferred to live” (Anouilh, 3).
Anouilh created her more to be much more young and wild and she idolized her brother. Also, being that this was written several centuries later than Sophocles’, more was known in the field of psychology so Anouilh was able to incorporate that into his writing; his development of Antigone was highly reflective of a girl who had a traumatic childhood and was therefore permanently psychologically affected by it. Being the result of an incestuous marriage, following her father around the desert alone for years, and then living through the death of her two brothers all would have taken a toll on her emotional stability and ability to thrive as a member of society. She says, “I don’t care about dying” (Anouilh, 27), which contradicts what she says earlier on in the play. She chose her words to make a point at a certain time, not necessarily because she believed them. Her indecisive and immature behavior is a result of her upbringing - the trauma in her childhood did not allow her to fully develop handled the situation she put herself in.
Whereas in Sophocles’ play Creon was unsympathetic towards Antigone, in this story, Creon was much more compassionate. Instead of being a controlling, power-hungry leader, he had been thrust into a role that he did not really want. He was willing to cover up everything Antigone had done, which made her drama even more childish. Creon asked her if anyone knew of what she had done, and when she said no he told her, “Listen, then. Go back to your room, go to bed, and say you’re ill and haven’t been out since yesterday” (Anuoilh, 31). But, she did not comply with his requests. Instead she decided to be difficult and turned his peace offering into an argument, when all he had initially wanted was to protect her. When told in this light, it is near impossible to view her character as, in any way, heroic. Her actions had no real drive, and by the end of he play even she realized that she did not know what she was dying for.
“And Creon was right: it’s awful, but here, with this man beside me, I don’t know any more what I’m dying for...I’m afraid...Oh, Haemon! It’s only now I realise how easy it was to live...” (Anouilh, 56).
She realizes how immaturely she went about handling the situation with her uncle and that all of the tragedy could have been avoided. The value in her role, however, is much more relevant in the perspective of the intended audience. When put into the context of Nazi-occupation, as Freeman pointed out, the Germans and their French collaborators took Antigone’s defiance as being nothing more than the threat of a weak and poorly behaved child, and they liked that Creon was portrayed favorably. However , for the French Resistance, they saw Antigone’s actions as brave therefore, she would have served as a positive model for them in their attempts to eradicate Nazi occupation. Their interpretation of Anouilh’s play would have been much more along the lines of: Antigone acted strongly and managed to cause quite a bit of damage within Creon’s, or “the enemy’s,” life. This easily allowed them to incorporate this mentality of “try to mess with us and we will destroy everything you have” into their mission.
One main lesson of each play, is that no matter how noble something may seem beforehand, its result can be incredibly unwise (hindsight is 20/20). The audience learns how easily events can interconnect, and in the case of Anhouilh’s play, how tragedy can simply be avoided by taking a moment to think about the situation. Regardless, both were incredibly meaningful at the their time, and still hold significant value. For the people of Ancient Greece, it was a warning that women needed to be kept in their place or else tragedy would ensue. For the French people of the twentieth century, it symbolized hope and strength; that no matter how far they had to go, the Nazis could still be overthrown. The Nazis, however, would have seen the French Resistance simalarly to how they saw Antigone: that the French Resistance was compulsive, unwise, and weak. Today it is difficult to see the characters as they would have been seen during their time. Today it would be easy to claim Sophocles’ Antigone’s actions as heroic because the feminist movement seems to consider anything a woman does outside her expected role to be brave. Within each version of the play, Antigone’s portrayal could be interpreted as selfish. In Sophocles’ work, her compliance with the society’s expectation that women need to care for men coupled with her underlying motivation of fear of the afterlife, makes it very difficult for the reader to interpret her actions as being derived from pure love for her brother. For Anouilh’s Antigone, her clearly underdeveloped psyche and immature reactions to the situations she found herself in also make it difficult for the reader to label her as heroic. Heroism would have required that the motivation for each character was love for their brother; it calls for one to be completely selfless. Both plays reflect how things were interpreted at the time, and some interpretations can live on; moreover, regardless of what time period or society in which either is viewed, Antigone’s character was not heroic.
Works Cited:
Anouilh, Jean, Barbara Bray, and E. Freeman. Antigone. London: Methuen, 2000. Print.
Blundell, Sue. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1995. Print.
Sophocles. Antigone. Robert Fagles. The Three Theban Plays. United States: Viking Penguin Inc., 1982.
