Antigone

Study Guide by Course Hero

her own point of view without compromise until her death.

What's Inside
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1 d In Context
d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1

a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 3

Pirandello and Metatheater
h Characters .................................................................................................. 3
French theater in the early part of the 20th century was
k Plot Summary ............................................................................................. 6 technically sophisticated but artistically conventional. As
Anouilh was coming of age, however, new ideas were starting
c Part Summaries ....................................................................................... 12 to have an impact on French theater. The Italian playwright
Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) had a particularly profound impact
g Quotes ......................................................................................................... 18
on Anouilh and his mentors. Pirandello developed the idea of
l Symbols ..................................................................................................... 20 metatheater, which explores ideas about identity and suggests
people are always playing roles.
m Themes ........................................................................................................ 21
Pirandello's plays—particularly his most famous work, Six
b Motifs ........................................................................................................... 21 Characters in Search of an Author—use a metatheater
technique in which characters suddenly break free from the
e Suggested Reading .............................................................................. 22
"actors" playing them. This technique forces the characters to
ask themselves, "Can any of us be certain of our own identity
when others hold radically different perspectives on our

j Book Basics
actions, on who we are?" Pirandello's technique and influence
is clear in Anouilh's Antigone, when Antigone admits she
doesn't know why she is dying. She voices metatheatrical
AUTHOR uncertainty about her role in the drama.
Jean Anouilh

FIRST PERFORMED
1944
Sophocles's Antigone
GENRE Anouilh's Antigone is based on Sophocles's tragedy by the
Tragedy same name. Sophocles was one of the foremost dramatists of
Athens' Golden Age in the 5th century BCE. Among his most
ABOUT THE TITLE famous surviving works is the Oedipus Cycle, which recounts
The title Antigone is an allusion to Sophocles's play of the the myth of Oedipus, the Greek king of Thebes. The first play,
same name on which this play is based. Anouilh's Antigone is Oedipus Rex, dramatizes the tragic tale of Oedipus who blinds
clearly the tragic offspring of her father, Oedipus, insisting on himself when he learns he unwittingly killed his father and
Antigone Study Guide
married his mother. Oedipus at Colonus takes place during the
king's exile, where, cared for by his daughters, Ismene and
Antigone, he refuses Creon's plea to return to a Thebes racked
by civil war.
Oedipus at Colonus ends with the hero's death. Antigone—the
third play in the cycle's chronology—begins in the aftermath of
Thebes' civil war. Sophocles's Antigone decides to bury her
brother, the rebel Polynices, despite Creon's solemn
prohibition. In refusing to allow Polynices's burial or to spare
Antigone's life, Creon believes he is doing his civic duty. His
actions, however, defy the gods' will and common decency.
When his son and wife commit suicide following Antigone's
death, Creon is a broken man. He also becomes fully aware
that his stubbornness caused the tragedy.
Since the revival of classical drama after the Middle Ages,
many European dramatists have retold the story of Antigone.
From Renaissance writers who saw her as a Joan of Arc figure,
through the French Revolution to the Napoleonic era,
dramatists have used the character of Antigone as a symbol of
religious or political martyrdom.
Antigone was also a particularly popular subject of drama in
the 20th century, when artists used Greek mythology in
general to comment on the dehumanizing effects of war and
industrialization. As critic and poet T.S. Eliot observed, Greek
mythology was "a way of controlling, or ordering, or giving a
shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and
anarchy which is contemporary history." Twentieth-century
writers used the plays of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles
as mirrors for contemporary society. When Anouilh's Antigone
was well into its second year running in 1945, two other
dramatizations of the myth were also being performed in Paris.
While Anouilh's play closely follows the plot of Sophocles's
Antigone, he makes several important changes. For example,
he eliminates the role of the blind seer Tiresias (Creon's
strongest critic in Sophocles's original) and introduces the
character of the nurse, highlighting Antigone's youth (which
scholars of both the Greek and French plays place at around
age 15). Most importantly, his attitude toward the play's central
figures, Creon and Antigone, is far more ambivalent than
Sophocles's. In the classical play Sophocles makes it clear that
Creon's stubbornness causes Haemon's and Eurydice's
deaths. Anouilh's drama provides no such certainty; instead the
audience is left to decide who is the more tragic figure.
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In Context 2
Antigone in World War II and
Beyond
In Nazi-occupied Paris, adaptations of classical Greek drama
flourished in part because they provided comforting familiarity
in an uncertain world. In 1940 when Marshal Phillipe Pétain, the
leader of the French military, surrendered to the Nazis, France
was divided into two zones. The South, or Vichy France, was
nominally free but closely aligned with Germany; the North,
including Paris, was occupied by the German army. From the
relative safety of London, General Charles de Gaulle worked to
rally an army of resistance to the occupation.
Meanwhile, the citizens of Paris lived in fear of the brutal
German occupation administration and their collaborators, the
Vichyites. Under the direction of this administration, Vichyite
censors kept their eyes on theatrical scripts, down to the
props and costumes. How did Antigone, with its rebellious
heroine, bypass the censors? The answer lies in the ambiguity
of Anouilh's text. While resistance sympathizers saw Antigone
as a hero, the Nazi regime and its collaborators saw Creon as a
firm but fair authoritarian leader.
Yet when Antigone hit Broadway in 1946, it was received
across the board as a pro-resistance drama. In fact, one
American critic said, "one wonders why [the Germans]
permitted it at all." His question was answered in the play's
program notes, in which the translator, Lewis Galantière,
explained how he had changed parts of Anouilh's text to make
it feel more overtly pro-resistance. On learning about
Galantière's changes, the same critic said he would have
preferred the translator "give us the argument precisely as it
was given in the French version."
Anouilh objected angrily to Galantière's changes, but the
translator insisted they were necessary: "I must say," he wrote
to Anouilh, "it would be impossible to play your text in the
States without the press crying Fascism." Although these
changes were retracted in later editions of Galantière's
translation, some critics think American critics' early
interpretation cemented Antigone's reputation as a tribute to
the rebellious spirit. To this day Antigone is still read as a play
about resistance to tyranny.
Antigone Study Guide
a Author Biography
Jean Anouilh (pronounced "ahn WEE") was one of the 20th
century's most acclaimed French dramatists and one of its
most controversial. In his 40-plus-year career, he wrote dozens
of plays, adaptations, and translations, as well as screenplays
for film and television. Of his many international successes, the
most enduring is Antigone, adapted from the classic Greek
tragedy.
Anouilh was born in the Burgundy region of France on June 23,
1910. He said his father, a tailor, taught him the value of
craftsmanship, but his artistic bent and love of theater may
have come from his mother, a violinist; when she played
accompaniment at local theaters, Anouilh tagged along.
In 1922 the family moved to Paris, where the young Anouilh
attended plays whenever he could. As a young man he studied
law but soon gave it up, determined to become a dramatist. To
support himself he wrote advertisements, which he said taught
him ''precision, conciseness and agility of expression.''
When Antigone opened in Paris in 1944, Anouilh was already a
well-known dramatist; beginning in 1932 he'd had a string of
successful productions. His run was briefly interrupted by
World War II, when he was drafted into the army, captured by
Germans, and sent to a German prison camp. Eventually
making his way back to Nazi-occupied Paris, Anouilh found a
society bitterly divided in its sympathies between the Nazi
sympathizers on the one hand and the French resistance on
the other.
Anouilh also found the Paris theater scene as vibrant as ever.
The German administration saw the theaters as vehicles for
fascist propaganda, while the citizens of Paris were eager for
escape from the uncertainty of their daily lives. When Antigone
opened in 1944, it was received with a furor that was dubbed
"the Antigone Crisis." Both collaborators and the resistance
embraced the play—for the opposite reasons. Antigone, the
rebellious heroine, appealed to the pro-resistance crowd;
Creon, the reluctant leader making hard decisions for the
safety of his nation, appealed to the collaborators. Anouilh
himself insisted his play was apolitical, later claiming he was
not even aware of the underground resistance effort.
During the postwar purges—when the French tried to bring all
collaborators to account—an anti-Semitic and pro-
collaborationist journalist named Raymond Brasillach was
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Author Biography 3
sentenced to death. Anouilh barely knew Brasillach, but he and
other prominent French writers signed a letter asking for stay
of execution because they believed Brasillach was being
punished for thought crimes, not for deeds. The left wing of the
French press labeled Anouilh a collaborator, and thereafter the
French left would view Antigone as collaborationist
propaganda. The French bourgeoisie, however, continued to
view the play as a metaphor for resistance.
While many of the plays that followed Antigone were criticized
as dated, such as The Baker, the Baker's Wife, and the Baker's
Boy (1968), later plays reestablished Anouilh as a master
French playwright:
Dear Antoine; or, The Love That Failed (1969)
The Goldfish; or, My Father, This Hero (1970)
Do Not Awaken the Lady (1970)
The Arrest (1975)
The Trousers (1978)
Anouilh eventually relocated from France to Switzerland,
where he died on October 3, 1987, of a heart attack.
h Characters
Antigone
Antigone, who is probably around 15, shares her late father's
passionate nature. She wants to live life purely, on her own
terms, and at the same time knows she is fated to die. She
burns with the rebellious spirit of youth, and is determined to
bury her brother, although Creon's prohibition against it carries
a death sentence. Much of the play centers on her argument
with Creon, in which he tries unsuccessfully to dissuade her
from her purpose.
Creon
Creon never wanted to be king, but when his nephews kill each
other in battle he has no choice. Now he tries dutifully to
maintain order in his war-torn kingdom. He reveals his
pragmatic, even ruthless, nature in restoring peace after the
civil war. He wants to find a way to avoid carrying out a death
sentence on his niece Antigone, but his concerns about
Antigone Study Guide Characters 4

disorder trump his sense of family loyalty. His attempts to calculating, and callous.
dissuade Antigone from her chosen fate reveal both
tenderness and canniness.

Chorus
Unlike the chorus in a Greek tragedy, Anouilh's Chorus is not a
member of Thebes's populace. From the play's first scene, he
stands outside the action, providing background and
introducing the characters. Later he provides commentary on
the nature of tragedy. After the play's climax, he enters the
action to condemn Creon; then he returns to the role of
commentator for the final scene.

Ismene
Ismene, Oedipus's older daughter, is one Antigone's foils.
Whereas Antigone is "sallow and scrawny," Ismene is "gay and
beautiful." Whereas Antigone is impulsive, Ismene is deliberate.
She has determined that defying Creon will result in death at
the hands of an angry mob. When she eventually musters the
courage to help Antigone, it's too late.

Haemon
To everyone's surprise, before the play begins Haemon has
become engaged to Antigone instead of Ismene. A bit of a
playboy, he is drawn to Antigone as if by fate. When Creon
condemns her, he declares he will not live without her.

Nurse
The nurse is a warmhearted, fretful, protective presence in
Antigone's life. Her role at the beginning of the play helps
highlight the fact that Antigone is still very young, teetering on
the brink of adulthood.

Private Jonas
The guards represent both the common man and the
police—neither of whom Anouilh paints in very flattering light.
Private Jonas is alternately bombastic, officious, cowering,

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Antigone Study Guide Characters 5

Character Map

Mother

Creon Father
Weary King of Thebes;
Spouses cares only about order Conscience

Eurydice
Chorus
Disengaged queen;
Master of ceremonies
knits and commits suicide
Uncle

Commentator

Antigone
Solemn yet unshakeable
Guard
tragic heroine

Engaged Haemon
Private Jonas
Tormented prince; begs
Creon's brutish henchman
his father to spare Antigone

Caretaker
Sisters

Nurse Ismene
Strong and warmhearted Talkative and flirtatious

Main Character

Other Major Character

Minor Character

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Antigone Study Guide
Full Character List
Character Description
Antigone is the idealistic younger
daughter of Oedipus, the late king of
Antigone
Thebes, and the niece of Creon, the
current king.
Creon is the recently appointed king of
Thebes, following the deaths in battle of
Creon
his two warring nephews, Eteocles and
Polynices.
The Chorus, played by one actor, serves
Chorus as the audience's guide and also, later,
as Creon's conscience.
Antigone's older sister, Ismene is afraid
to defy Creon's prohibition against
Ismene
burying Polynices, although she
eventually decides she will.
Haemon is Creon's son and is engaged
Haemon
to Antigone.
The nurse has been Antigone's primary
Nurse
caretaker since the girl's mother died.
The first guard, Private Jonas catches
Private Jonas Antigone burying her brother and later
guards her.
Eteocles is Antigone's brother who died
fighting his brother Polynices in single
combat before the play begins; Creon
Eteocles
gives him a state funeral, though he
later confides that Eteocles was as
much a villain as his brother.
Creon's wife, Eurydice has no speaking
role and is only seen knitting; the
Chorus says she is "a good woman, a
Eurydice worthy, loving soul. But she is no help to
her husband." She commits suicide on
learning of the deaths of Antigone and
her son Haemon.
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Plot Summary 6
At the beginning of the play, the Chorus
tells us the messenger has had a
"premonition of catastrophe." It will be
Messenger
his job at the end of the play to
announce the grisly deaths of Antigone,
Haemon, and Eurydice.
Oedipus, the king of Thebes whose
tragic life and death are legendary, is
Oedipus Antigone's father. Creon sees his
brother's "stubborn pride" in Antigone's
defiance.
The page is Creon's young assistant,
Page
still a child.
Antigone's brother has died fighting his
brother Eteocles in single combat
before the play; he is considered a
Polynices traitor for refusing to share the throne
with his brother and inciting war, so
Creon has left his body exposed outside
the city walls.
Second Called Binns in some translations, the
Guard second guard shares duty with Jonas.
Called Snout in some translations, the
Third Guard third guard shares his duties with the
other guards.
k Plot Summary
All the actors are grouped on the stage. The "neutral setting"
indicates neither the time nor the place. The play has no formal
divisions of acts and scenes, but stage directions indicate
changes in lighting, suggesting the sun's passage across the
sky, and some natural divisions occur as players make their
entrances and exits.
The Chorus, represented throughout the play by one actor,
says he's here to tell us "who's who and what's what." He
points out Antigone, a "thin little creature" who knows she must
die because her name is Antigone. He introduces Antigone's
sister, Ismene, and Haemon, the son of the new king. He says
that everyone expected Ismene and Haemon to become
engaged, but to their surprise, Haemon chose Antigone, and
like her, he will die young.
Creon is introduced as a reluctant, newly crowned king, the
Antigone Study Guide Plot Summary 7

brother-in-law of the late King Oedipus. After introducing minor and Antigone tells Creon to call the guards. He has them take
characters—Eurydice, the messenger, and the three Antigone to prison.
guards—the Chorus explains that Oedipus's sons Polynices
and Eteocles, at war for control of the kingdom, have recently The Chorus now pleads with Creon to have mercy on Antigone,

killed each other in battle. As king Creon has honored Eteocles and soon an incredulous Haemon does the same. The young

a hero and branded Polynices a traitor. He has prohibited the man declares he will not live without Antigone. Creon stands

burial of Polynices's body, on pain of death. firm.

Now the action of the play begins. Antigone sneaks home at In her cell Antigone asks Private Jonas to write Haemon a

dawn past her nurse, who suspects she's returned from letter, which she then begins to dictate. In her dictation she

meeting a lover. Antigone tries to allay the nurse's concerns admits that she doesn't know what she is dying for, but she

and convince her that she is still "pure." Her sister, Ismene, immediately asks Jonas to scratch that part out. Moments later

enters; she tells Antigone she doesn't dare help Antigone bury guards take Antigone to the cave where she will be walled up.

Polynices, and she tries to dissuade Antigone from doing so.

In late afternoon a messenger tells the Chorus he has news for

Ismene exits, and the nurse enters. Antigone makes the nurse the queen: Antigone hanged herself in her tomb, witnessed by

promise to take care of her dog, Puff—or put the dog to sleep if Haemon; Haemon also killed himself in the tomb as his father

it becomes too lonely. This discussion is interrupted by watched.

Haemon's arrival. She tells her fiancé she loves him, but she
Creon enters, and the messenger leaves. The Chorus tells
cannot marry him. Finally Ismene returns. Making one last
Creon that Eurydice too has committed suicide. Creon wearily
appeal to Antigone not to defy Creon, she tells her sister that
turns to his page and asks him what's next on the schedule.
Polynices never cared about her.
The two depart for a cabinet meeting.

Later that morning Private Jonas, one of the three guards, tells
The Chorus addresses the audience one last time, remarking
Creon that someone has tried to bury Polynices using a toy
that the survivors "won't remember who was who or which was
shovel. Creon, anxious to keep this quiet, tells the guards to
which," adding Antigone "has played her part." The last scene
uncover the body and keep a closer watch over it.
reveals the three guards playing cards.

At mid-afternoon the Chorus appears onstage. He says the

"spring is wound up tight" and "the tragedy is on." He goes on
to point out the difference between a tragedy, like the one
unfolding onstage, and a melodrama, in which chance could
intervene to prevent disaster. He assures the audience they
can relax because chance will not intervene here.

News comes that someone has buried the body—and Antigone

defiantly confesses. Creon tries to cover up her involvement.
He doesn't want to have to deal the death penalty to his niece,
fearing that doing so will only intensify the rancor that fed the
flames of civil war. He tries bullying and reasoning to dissuade
her from her purpose. Finally he plays his ace card—giving
Antigone evidence that her brothers were not worthy of her
loyalty. She is almost ready to go along with Creon, but he
pushes too far: he extols the virtues of leading a happy,
peaceful life, and says Antigone should marry his son, Haemon,
and have a family. Antigone reacts passionately, saying, "I spit
on your happiness!"

Ismene comes in to declare that she will help Antigone after all,

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Antigone Study Guide Plot Summary 8

Plot Diagram

Climax

11

10
12
9
Falling Action

Rising Action 8
13
7

6 14
5
15
4
Resolution
3

2
1

Introduction

9. Creon nearly persuades Antigone to forget Polynices.

Introduction
10. Finally Creon urges Antigone to marry Haemon and be
happy.
1. Chorus explains Creon's edict against Polynices's burial.

Climax
Rising Action
11. Antigone rejects Creon's "happiness"; Creon condemns her.
2. Antigone comes home at dawn; the nurse questions her.

3. Ismene pleads with Antigone not to defy Creon's edict.

4. Antigone tells Haemon she loves him but cannot marry him. Falling Action

5. Ismene again pleads with Antigone. 12. The Chorus and Haemon rail against Creon's decision.

6. Guards tell Creon someone has tried to bury Polynices. 13. Antigone admits she doesn't know what she's dying for.

7. The Chorus explains tragedy is now inevitable. 14. Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice all commit suicide
offstage.
8. Antigone buries Polynices; guards bring her to Creon.

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Antigone Study Guide Plot Summary 9

Resolution

15. Creon goes to a meeting; the guards play a game of cards.

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Antigone Study Guide Plot Summary 10

Timeline of Events

Before the action begins

The Chorus introduces each character and explains

Creon's prohibition against burying Polynices.

Dawn

Antigone sneaks inside; the nurse scolds her; Ismene

pleads with Antigone not to defy Creon's edict.

Early morning

Antigone declares her enduring love to Haemon, then

tells him they can never marry.

Noon

Creon learns someone has tried to bury Polynices; the

Chorus announces the inevitability of tragedy.

Mid-afternoon

The guards catch Antigone attempting to bury Polynices;

they bring her to Creon.

Moments later

To make Antigone give up burying Polynices, Creon

begs, reasons, and threatens.

Moments after that

Creon nearly persuades Antigone to forget Polynices;

but when he tells her to be happy, she rebels.

After the argument

Haemon joins the Chorus in condemning Creon's

decision to put Antigone to death.

A little later

In an unfinished letter to Haemon, Antigone admits she

doesn't know what she is dying for.

A little later still

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Antigone Study Guide Plot Summary 11

The audience learns Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice

have killed themselves; Creon returns to work.

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Antigone Study Guide
c Part Summaries
Antigone has no acts or scenes. This study guide uses stage
directions, entrances, and exits to divide the text into sections
for analysis.
Prologue
Summary
The set is plain, usually a bare stage with three entrances. The
actors wear evening clothes. The Chorus tells us that the cast
members, who are grouped on the stage, are about to act out
the story of Antigone. He introduces the play's characters, and
they file offstage as he does so.
Next, the Chorus explains that since the death of the king
(Antigone's father, Oedipus), his sons Eteocles and Polynices
were to take turns ruling Thebes, each for a year. But when the
time came for Eteocles to give up the throne, he refused,
throwing the country into civil war. The brothers killed each
other in combat outside the city walls. Creon gave
Eteocles—whose side he favored—a state funeral, but he
branded Polynices a traitor. He has prohibited the burial of
Polynices's body on pain of death. It lies rotting outside the city
walls as a warning to would-be rebels.
Analysis
The Chorus focuses the audience's attention on the
theatricality of what they are about to see. Speaking directly to
the audience and pointing out the actors' role-playing are
hallmarks of metatheater. Instead of persuading the audience
that what's happening in the theater is real, metatheater
suggests that what happens in the real world is something like
theater. The audience is all, to some extent, caught up in roles.
Neither all of the audience nor all of the characters are aware
of how decisive these roles are. However, Antigone is different:
"From the moment the curtain went up, she began to feel
inhuman forces were whirling her out of this world." The
Chorus says that when Haemon abruptly asked her to marry
him, Antigone wasn't at all surprised: "She looked up at him out
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Part Summaries 12
of those solemn eyes of hers ... and said 'yes.'" She knows how
things are going to turn out.
Creon too is aware he has a role to play, though he doesn't
relish it: "like a conscientious workman, he does his job." Unlike
Antigone he doesn't comprehend the disaster that is about to
unfold. Among the rest of the characters, only the messenger,
who "has a premonition of catastrophe," seems to feel the
"inhuman forces"—which explains why he, like Antigone, is
"brooding."
Audiences familiar with Sophocles's Antigone will notice the
absence of Tiresias in the cast of players. Tiresias was Creon's
most vocal critic in Sophocles's drama. His absence will make
it harder for the audience to conclude that Creon is the villain.
Another difference between Sophocles's Antigone and
Anouilh's is the complete absence in the latter of any reference
to the gods. Whatever "inhuman forces" are controlling the
characters, they don't seem to be divine. What those forces
are is a question audiences can ponder during the play and
long after it ends.
Part 1 (Early Morning)
Summary
In the early morning, as suggested by the lighting, the action of
the play begins. Antigone tries to sneak inside past the nurse.
When caught, she talks about how beautiful the gray world is,
as if it were "breathless, waiting." But the nurse is having none
of it: she suspects Antigone of coming back from meeting a
lover and frets about keeping her "little girl pure." Antigone
tries to convince her nurse she is still "pure" and tells her to
save her tears because she may need them later: "When you
cry like that, I become a little girl again."
The nurse exits as Ismene enters, determined to dissuade
Antigone from burying Polynices. Ismene doesn't want to die.
Antigone responds, "He is bound to put us to death. We are
bound to ... bury our brother." Ismene argues that she herself is
reasonable while Antigone is impulsive. Antigone doesn't
disagree—she doubles down on her impulsive, unreasonable,
willful decisions. Finally Ismene admits her biggest fear is being
caught and then exposed to the angry mob, "the smell of them
and their cruel roaring laughter." This argument gives Antigone
pause. Then Ismene tells Antigone she can be happy: "All you
Antigone Study Guide
have to do is reach out for it."
Ismene leaves with a promise from Antigone they'll talk again,
and the nurse returns. Antigone makes the nurse promise to
take care of her dog, Puff—or put the dog to sleep if it
becomes too lonely.
Analysis
There is dramatic irony in what Antigone knows and what the
audience might suspect: unbeknownst to the nurse, Antigone
has been out burying her brother. Much of their talk is at cross
purposes: when the nurse says she wants to keep Antigone
pure, she means she doesn't want her to lose her virginity;
when Antigone protests she is pure, she's referring to her
essential purity, the character trait that sets her at odds with
the corrupt world.
The touching scene between Antigone and the nurse is not
part of Sophocles's original. The interaction reveals how young
Antigone is; yet she also senses her youthful idealism is
incompatible with approaching adulthood. The transition from
predawn to morning from which she has just emerged
symbolizes the border between childhood and adulthood. She
revels in the "gray" predawn world; the world of adults is false,
"like a postcard: all pink, and green, and yellow." When she
asks her nurse if every morning "it would be just as thrilling ... to
be the first girl out of doors," she already knows it can't be.
Antigone reveals her youth in other ways. Her argument with
Ismene is full of childish contrariness: "I don't want to 'sort of
see' anything," "I don't want to be right!" and "I don't want to
understand!" she tells her sister. Ismene stands for the kind of
ordinary happiness that holds no interest for her, but she does
share her older sister's fear of the "mob," of being exposed to
the cruel, vulgar judgment of others. This aversion will return to
her when she is in a cell awaiting death. Finally, Antigone's
concern for her dog, Puff, reminds the audience that this girl on
the verge of a grueling ordeal is still a child. At the same time
her thoughtfulness about the dog's fate reveals her
compassion.
Part 2 (Meeting with Haemon)
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Part Summaries 13
Summary
Haemon arrives while Antigone is still talking to the nurse, who
exits. He has come to make up after an argument they
apparently had when they last met. She seeks reassurance
that he shares the intensity of her love. When she asks
whether he feels, like her, "that there is something inside ... that
is just—dying," he agrees. Then she makes him promise he will
leave her with no questions asked after she tells him two
things: first, she confesses that on their last meeting she had
intended to sleep with him—partially to allay the great pain she
is about to cause him. Then she tells him she can never marry
him. Haemon, stunned, keeps his promise and leaves the stage.
Ismene enters and makes one last effort to dissuade Antigone
from her purpose. She says everyone just wants Antigone to
be happy. She says Polynices was a bad brother. Finally she
says, "You are always defying the world, but you're only a girl,
after all." Antigone shocks her sister with the truth: she has
already buried her brother.
Analysis
This scene between Antigone and Haemon does not appear in
Sophocles's play. As theater scholar Leonard Pronko says in
The World of Jean Anouilh, "It not only serves to reveal the love
between the couple and the heroism of Antigone in renouncing
this love, but it heightens the pathos of her death, and
prepares us for what is to happen later." The scene certainly
does heighten the pathos; in fact some critics feel Antigone's
scenes with Haemon and with her nurse are entirely too
sentimental, undermining the overall quality of the play.
As in the scene with the nurse, Antigone talks at cross
purposes, this time with Haemon, who seems only dimly aware
that his fiancée is deeply troubled. Even when she asks
whether he shares her feeling of something "dying" inside
him—surely not something he hopes for—he agrees too readily.
She seems to have been testing him. Her pause after his
agreement shows she understands he doesn't understand.
Haemon, unlike Antigone, is unaware of the role he is about to
play in the coming disaster.
The audience, however, knows Antigone is seriously troubled.
Her whole conversation with Haemon is presented in terms of
what might have been. The closest she came to reaching out
for adult happiness is when she "wore Ismene's dress and
Antigone Study Guide
rouge," planning to sleep with Haemon. She tried to play a role,
using the actor's tools of costume and makeup, but she
couldn't follow through. Her role is a different one, less tawdry
and purer; she is incapable of renouncing it. The dream of a
happy, ordinary life as a wife and mother is a lie.
Part 3 (Later That Day)
Summary
The lighting indicates late morning. Creon stands on the stage,
and the page brings in Private Jonas, one of the three guards,
who quakes with fear. He shares the news that someone has
tried to bury Polynices using a child's spade. Creon believes a
rebellious element is trying to stir up trouble and has used a
child for political purposes.
Creon wants to ensure the matter is covered up. He swears
the guards to secrecy and tells them to uncover the body and
arrest the perpetrator if he returns. Turning to the page, he
asks if he would have risked his own young life by defying the
guards, adding, "Of course you would." He and the page exit,
leaving the stage empty.
Analysis
Creon reveals a coolly calculating nature in his response to the
crisis. He immediately assumes it is a politically motivated stunt
and overlooks no detail in planning a cover-up. The guard's
fear turns out to be well founded, as Creon threatens to have
him shot if rumor of the burial gets out. He also assumes the
worst of the child who attempted the burial, calling him "a
baby-faced killer"; then, looking at his page, he changes
course, thinking the rebels have used "a real white-faced baby
of fourteen who will spit with contempt on the guards who kill
him." Though Antigone is presumably older than 14, his words
foreshadow a future encounter.
When Creon says he believes his page would be willing to die
for him, he reveals something universal about the youth, purity,
and idealism Antigone champions. Creon's sensitivity to
youthful idealism will be evident in his coming argument with
Antigone, but it's clear for him idealism is a thing of the past.
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Part Summaries 14
Part 4 (Chorus)
Summary
At mid-afternoon the Chorus appears onstage. He says, "the
spring is wound up tight" and "the tragedy is on." He goes on to
explain the difference between a tragedy like the one unfolding
onstage and melodrama.
First he describes tragedy as a "machine" that "runs without
friction." It exists in the moment before the executioner's axe
falls at the end of the play, or the moment before two lovers'
touch at the beginning of one. It is "the silence inside you when
the roaring crowd acclaims the winner ... and you, the victor,
already vanquished."
Melodrama, on the other hand, depends on the intervention of
chance. Death in melodrama is worse than tragic death
because it could have been avoided. In melodrama, "you argue
and struggle in the hope of escape." He assures the audience
they can relax because chance will not intervene here. Then
changing tone, the Chorus announces that Antigone has been
caught in the act of burying her brother. He exits.
Analysis
In describing tragedy, the Chorus addresses the audience
directly, again drawing attention to the theatricality of what is
happening on stage. He moves from describing tragic scenes
in the theater (an execution in the final act, a lovers' tryst in the
first) to describing scenes in life, like winning a race. In this way
the Chorus draws a parallel between theater and reality; in
both places "you're trapped," like a character in a role. "All you
can do about it is to shout." The shouting is absurd but
necessary; ultimately tragedy is restful because it is inevitable.
Melodrama only encourages hope, a "foul, deceitful thing." The
hopeful struggle of characters in melodrama is "vulgar; it is
practical." Tragedy happens in stillness, outside of a confusion
of words and actions. Anouilh scholar Lewis Falb observes,
"The focus of attention is on the moment when the crucial
actions have to be interpreted by the central character and by
others." That's why there's more talk than action in Anouilh's
Antigone. Antigone's two attempts to bury her brother take
place out of the audience's view. The tragedy will unwind, like a
Antigone Study Guide
spring, in later scenes, where Antigone will first embrace her
martyrdom and then—when it is too late—question it.
When informing the audience of Antigone's capture, the
Chorus says, "For the first time in her life, little Antigone is
going to be able to be herself." His statement is paradoxical.
He has just explained that tragedy is "automatic"; Antigone's
fate is sealed—how can she be herself? Perhaps because she
doesn't have to struggle against the "inhuman forces" she
sensed in the Prologue? The clamor and confusion of
melodrama is gone. In the absence of struggle, the inevitability
the Chorus mentioned earlier takes hold.
Part 5 (Mid-Afternoon)
Summary
Antigone enters in the clutches of the three guards. They don't
know her identity and don't care. As Private Jonas says,
listening to a citizen's complaints gets in the way of doing their
job. They don't believe her when she tells them she is Creon's
niece. The guards discuss how to spend the reward they will
receive. They want to drink and play cards at a bar, and they
discuss whether they should bring their wives and kids along.
Creon enters, and after a lengthy explanation of how he
caught Antigone, Jonas releases her to his custody. Antigone
defiantly confesses to Creon, who sends the guards away.
Analysis
This scene belongs to the guards. It's worth reviewing the
Chorus's introduction of these characters in the Prologue:
"One smells of garlic, another of beer," but "they are not a bad
lot." On one level the guards—who are virtually
indistinguishable from one another—represent the common
man: they have families and petty everyday concerns; their
fondness for card playing is apparent in the first and last
scenes, and here, where they discuss their plans to celebrate
their bonus with a card game.
They also represent the henchman of the police state—in
occupied Paris they would be identified with the Fascist
enforcers of Nazi law. As Private Jonas, their spokesman
throughout the play, explains, their job isn't to worry about the
right and wrong of what they're doing; they just do their job.
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Part Summaries 15
Their callous indifference to Antigone's suffering, signified in
their dirty hands, is more disturbing to her than the prospect of
death: "I don't mind being killed, but I don't want them to touch
me." These words remind audiences of an earlier scene in
which Ismene makes her most powerful argument to stop
Antigone: if either one of them is caught burying Polynices,
they will be at the mercy of the mob. Pure, idealistic Antigone
can't live in the world and can hardly bear to be touched by it.
Part 6 (The Daughter of
Oedipus)
Summary
Once Creon determines Antigone really is guilty as charged, he
tries to understand her motive. She says she owes Polynices a
burial because he is her brother; his soul doesn't deserve to
wander for eternity. Creon responds that Polynices was a rebel
and a traitor. He assumes that she risked burying Polynices
because she believes she, as the daughter of a queen, can get
away with it. But Antigone assures Creon she knows he will
have her killed. Next he rails against her pride, the "pride of
Oedipus," for whom "mere human misery was not enough to
satisfy his passion for torment." Creon then declares Thebes
doesn't need this kind of king; he is a new kind of king—one
who sees his job as a trade. Antigone ignores all of this and
proceeds back to the city gate to bury Polynices. She knows it
is a hopeless cause but says, "That much, at least, I can do."
Next Creon interrogates Antigone's faith; does she really
believe in the priests' "jibber-jabber"? She admits she has no
respect for their "mumbling ministrations." Both agree "the
whole thing is absurd," and Antigone finally admits she is intent
on burying her brother "for nobody. For myself," and she tells
Creon he cannot save her or stop her. "You are going to have
to put me to death."
Now Creon becomes physically threatening; he is determined
not to be "one of your preposterous little tyrants"; but in his
determination to discover Antigone's motive, he squeezes her
arm so hard she can't feel it anymore.
Creon is also desperate to make Antigone see his point of
view. The whole business with Polynices is political, he says,
part of the job that was foisted on him. He agreed to be king to
Antigone Study Guide
introduce "a little order into this absurd kingdom," though he
would have preferred not to. Antigone responds, "Then you
should have said 'no.'"
Creon reacts with frustration: Can't Antigone see Thebes is a
sinking ship, and as captain it is his job to do everything in his
power to save it? Desperate times call for desperate
measures. He berates her easy choice: "It's easy to say 'no' ...
All you have to do is sit still and wait." Saying yes, he argues, is
hard. It requires action. Saying yes is also natural: imagine if
trees and animals said no. Antigone responds: "What a king
you could be if only men were animals!"
Analysis
Creon is not an unsympathetic character in these passages,
and he makes some good arguments. For the moment he has
the upper hand, mainly because Antigone by and large refuses
to engage with him.
When Creon contrasts himself with Oedipus, he mentions a
"wild and bearded messenger" who revealed Oedipus's curse.
Creon says if such a messenger did show up, he would tell him
to "go back where he came from." He has no sympathy for the
romantic, mythical view of kings. His practical view of
leadership contrasts with the mythic view shared by Oedipus,
who became obsessed with a prophecy, and by Antigone, who
would sacrifice everything for pride's sake. Creon would
decline to get embroiled in the obsessions that destroyed
Oedipus, he says, because "Kings ... have other things to do
than to surrender themselves to their private feelings." Yet
paradoxically his feelings for Antigone compel him to make her
see his point of view.
Creon's critique of the priests who perform burial rites, the only
extended discussion of religion in the play, does not paint a
flattering portrait of the clergy. Antigone admits she would
have despised the funeral rites if they'd been performed for
Polynices, thus drawing a huge distinction between Anouilh's
Antigone and Sophocles's. Religious duty is a key motivation
for the heroine of the Greek play; not so for Anouilh's Antigone.
But even when this rationalization has been stripped away, she
stands firm in her resolve. She is determined to play her role
and wants Creon to play his. Though he is an omnipotent king,
he cannot avoid killing her.
Creon is falling into the role Antigone sees for him. Even as he
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Part Summaries 16
is determined not to behave like a tyrant, he is hurting her. His
painful grasp on her is symbolic, too. He can't force her to see
his point of view: the harder he squeezes, the less she feels.
As Antigone sees it, Creon sealed his fate when he said yes to
being king. He claims he doesn't want to kill Antigone; he
values his son's happiness. But from the moment he began
trying to introduce "a little order into this absurd kingdom" (as
he puts it), he compromised his values, which forced him to
make unsavory decisions for political expediency. "You are too
fastidious to make a good tyrant," she tells him, adding he will
have to kill her anyway. Creon's and Antigone's positions would
have looked familiar to audiences in German-occupied Paris.
Many who collaborated with the occupiers sympathized with
Creon's yes. And while very few French were active members
of the resistance—it was a desperately risky
undertaking—many sympathized with Antigone's passionate
no.
Part 7 (One Last Appeal)
Summary
Creon continues to insist that Antigone's stand is meaningless,
and he plays his ace card to prove it. He tells Antigone the
truth about her brothers. Polynices attacked his own father
when he refused to pay his gambling debts. Both he and his
brother Eteocles, the supposed hero of the rebellion, had paid
assassins to kill their father. When they finally killed each other,
their bodies were so damaged Creon couldn't tell who was
who, adding, "and I assure you, I don't care." At last Creon has
shaken Antigone's faith in her family—her last defense against
Creon's arguments. When he tells her to go marry Haemon,
she wearily agrees. But then Creon pushes too far: he
compares Antigone to his own, younger, idealistic self. "His
mind, too, was filled with thoughts of self-sacrifice." Then he
explains the point of life is not self-sacrifice; instead he says,
"life is nothing more than the happiness that you get out of it."
Suddenly Antigone seems to wake up. She tells Creon she
loves Haemon as he is today, but not the man he would
become "if he too has to learn to say 'yes' to everything." She
says Creon can no longer understand that she occupies "a
kingdom you can't get into, with ... your hollow heart." She
rejects Creon's "humdrum" happiness; she will not
Antigone Study Guide
compromise, "not be moderate."
Now Creon is really angry and violently tries to silence
Antigone; he's afraid she'll be overheard. He calls Antigone
ugly, but Antigone says it is he and those like him who are ugly.
Finally, exasperated, he calls the guards to take her to her
death.
Analysis
In revealing the truth about Polynices and Eteocles, Creon
invokes the image of the kitchen of politics. It's similar to a
commonplace comparison between making laws and
sausages: few people would like to see the process, but they
appreciate the results. This image isn't what persuades
Antigone, however; it's the devastating realization that her
family isn't who she thought they were. Etecoles and Polynices
did not inherit Oedipus's heroic nature—why should she defend
either one of them?
But just when Creon thinks he has gotten Antigone to
compromise, she comes roaring back with righteous anger.
This is Antigone's moment, the climax of the play. Creon's
mistake is belittling her idea of self-sacrifice and implying she
does not know her own mind. She tears apart Creon's idea of
happiness as little more than a series of moral compromises:
"What are the unimportant little sins that I shall have to
commit?" she asks him. "To whom must I sell myself?"
The last time Creon grabbed her, Antigone said she couldn't
feel him. Now she says she is beyond his understanding, "from
a kingdom he can't get into." She is too pure for him, and, as
her next diatribe shows, she is too pure for this world, which
she insists must "be as beautiful as when I was a little girl. If
not, I want to die!" Finally Antigone is able to articulate the
reason for her defiance. It has nothing to do with her brother;
it's her insistence on living purely, with integrity and without
compromise. She contrasts her purity with Creon's stink of the
kitchen of politics: "you smell of it!" Egging him on to seal her
fate, she says, "Come on, cook!"
Part 8 (What Have You Done?)
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Part Summaries 17
Summary
The Chorus now pleads with Creon to have mercy on Antigone
for the good of the people: "We shall carry the scar of her
death for centuries." Creon defends his decision, saying she
determined "to reject life and to die." The Chorus pushes back:
she is a child. Soon an incredulous Haemon does the same; the
young man declares he will not live without Antigone. Creon
stands firm. "I am master under the law. Not above the law."
Furthermore he urges Haemon to accept his judgment, telling
him he must "cease to be a child and take up the burden of
manhood."
The guards arrive with Antigone, who begs Creon to keep her
away from the angry mob: "I don't want to hear them howl." All
exit, except Private Jonas and Antigone.
Analysis
The Chorus's warnings to Creon seem a little
disingenuous—after all, earlier the Chorus explained "the
spring is wound up tight" and tragedy is already inevitable. His
interaction with Creon does reinforce the idea that Antigone is
not dying for Polynices—he was "a mere pretext"—she is dying
because in her youthful idealism she believes she cannot live in
a corrupt world. Haemon feels something similar: he will not
live in a world without Antigone, a promise he will later make
good on.
Antigone's revulsion for the real world is once again reflected
in her attitude toward the mob. She wants to die while the
world is still as beautiful as it was when she was a child; seeing
the faces of the angry crowd would ruin that.
Part 9 (In Her Prison Cell)
Summary
In her cell, realizing that Private Jonas is the last face she will
see, Antigone asks about his life. After a while she cuts him off
and asks him to smuggle out a letter to Haemon. Private Jonas
refuses—he'd be punished—but suggests writing it down in his
book, in his own hand. Antigone reluctantly agrees. She asks
him to write, "I don't even know what I am dying for," but then
Antigone Study Guide
tells him to scratch that out, saying, "Nobody must know that."
Moments later guards take Antigone to the cave where she will
be walled up.
Analysis
As Jonas prattles on about the benefits of being in the guard,
Antigone seems to physically weaken, her responses become
more and more muted. Her plan was to die in a state of purity;
Jonas's prosaic outlook and petty complaints corrupt her final
moments. The idea of Jonas as the medium of her message to
Haemon is repulsive—another sign of her disdain for the
corrupting world.
In Sophocles's original, Creon experiences anagnorisis—the
moment in Greek tragedy when the hero learns the truth. At
the play's climax, Creon learns his stubborn pride and flouting
of divine law have caused disaster. If anagnorisis exists in the
Anouilh's Antigone, it's experienced not by Creon but by
Antigone herself, after the emotional climax of the play has
already passed. In her cell she realizes, anticlimactically, that
dying is terrible and her death is pointless. Her determination
to keep this idea hidden from others, however, undercuts the
value of her revelation. Haemon, for example, unaware of her
new insight, will kill himself too. The audience, at least, can
ponder whether Antigone or Creon is more heroic.
Part 10 (Late Afternoon)
Summary
The play rapidly winds down in the final scene. In late
afternoon a messenger announces he has news for the queen.
Before he finds Eurydice, he shares his message with the
Chorus: no sooner had Antigone been walled up than those
outside heard Haemon moaning within. Everyone including
Creon worked furiously to reopen the cave. There they found
Antigone hanging by the neck, Haemon clutching her body.
Haemon rose up, struck his father with his hand, and drew his
sword; then he killed himself, eyeing his father spitefully.
Creon enters and the messenger leaves. The Chorus tells
Creon that Eurydice has committed suicide as well. Creon
wearily tells his young page that, in spite of everything that has
happened, there is still work to attend to. He adds, "Never grow
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Quotes 18
up if you can help it." The two depart for a cabinet meeting.
The Chorus addresses the audience one last time, remarking
that the survivors "won't remember who was who or which was
which," adding Antigone "has played her part." The last scene
reveals the three guards playing cards.
Analysis
In spite of the deaths of his wife and son, Creon remains
steady in his resolve to continue working: "If we didn't do it,
who would?" He doesn't blame himself for what happened; he
blames the necessity of being an adult.
The Chorus echoes something Antigone said in her cell: "If it
had not been for Antigone, they would all have been at peace."
But he blames her no more than Creon blames himself.
Ultimately, he seems to say, none of this matters. No matter
what anyone believed, all were "caught up in the web without
knowing why." His words recall the idea he introduced in the
Prologue: the characters more or less blindly play their roles.
As if to reinforce this idea, the final scene shows the three
guards doing what they were doing in the Prologue: they play
cards, something people do to while away the time when there
is nothing important to attend to. Their role has nothing to do
with the quarrels of kings and princesses. These ordinary
people, the Chorus suggests, exist on a different plane, and
that plane—the plane of mundane, insensible existence—is the
one the audience is left with.
g Quotes
"You are always defying the world,
but you're only a girl, after all."
— Ismene, Part 2 (Meeting with Haemon)
Ismene uses this argument—"you're only a girl"—more than
once to stop Antigone from burying her brother. For Antigone
that's the point; as a girl—not yet a woman—she still burns with
youthful idealism. As for her sex, Antigone says at one point,
"Haven't I spent my life cursing the fact that I was a girl?" Her
girlhood makes it more important she act on her ideals now,
Antigone Study Guide Quotes 19

before she is forced into the passive role of wife like the ever-
"My part is not an heroic one, but I
knitting Eurydice.
shall play my part."

"Tragedy is restful; and the reason — Creon, Part 7 (One Last Appeal)

is that hope ... has no part in it."

— Chorus, Part 4 (Chorus)
The Chorus makes this remark after he announces "the spring
is wound up tight"—nothing can affect the outcome of the play.
He says that unlike melodrama, which keeps audiences on the
edge of their seats hoping for the hero's rescue, tragedy
provides no "foul, deceitful" hope.
"If we had to listen to ... people ...
tell us what's the matter with this
Creon speaks this line in his last-ditch effort to show he is
serious about putting Antigone to death if she buries Polynices.
Throughout the play Anouilh emphasizes that each character is
playing a part in the tragedy, and there is no hope that a
chance intervention will change the course of events.
"Paint me the picture of your
happy Antigone ... To whom must I
sell myself?"
— Antigone, Part 7 (One Last Appeal)

country, we'd never get our work

This marks the point in the play at which Creon loses his
done." argument with Antigone; by appealing to her to be happy, he
reawakens her ire at those who say "yes" to life's
— Private Jonas, Part 5 (Mid-Afternoon) compromises.

Private Jonas says this to Antigone, whom he has caught red-

handed, as she tries to explain who she is. He and the other "We are of the tribe that hates
guards represent the police, whom the Chorus calls "eternally
your filthy hope, your docile,
innocent ... eternally indifferent." They also represent the
mediocre masses, a common motif in Anouilh's plays. They are female hope."
not susceptible to argument or pity; they simply play their role
without ever questioning why. — Antigone, Part 7 (One Last Appeal)

Antigone shouts these words when Creon says she sounds like
"Nothing has a name—except the her father, who embraced his tragic fate. From this moment,
ship, and the storm." it's clear Antigone too is embracing the same role. She echoes
the Chorus's earlier line: "Hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no
part in [tragedy]."
— Creon, Part 6 (The Daughter of Oedipus)

In justifying tyrannical actions, even shooting into a mob, Creon

"Life is nothing more than the
compares war-torn Thebes to a ship foundering in a storm.
There is no time, he argues, to worry about individual people or happiness that you get out of it."
personal notions of right and wrong when civilization (the ship)
itself is under attack (the storm).

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Antigone Study Guide
— Creon, Part 7 (One Last Appeal)
Creon uses this argument to persuade Antigone to forget
about self-sacrifice, marry Haemon, and be happy. "Life is not
what you think it is," he says; instead it is the simple moments
of joy, like "a child playing around your feet." He warns
Antigone to guard against people who want to use her passion
for their own political purposes.
"You would all have been so happy
except for Antigone."
— Antigone, Part 9 (In Her Prison Cell)
Antigone asks Private Jonas to write this line in a secret letter
to Haemon, just before she dies. Antigone realizes that in her
stubborn idealism she has destroyed everyone else's chance
for happiness. The Chorus echoes this line at the end of the
play, adding everyone involved is now long dead; no one
remembers Antigone or "the fever that consumed her." Her
death was meaningless, he seems to say, but then again, so
was everyone else's life.
"Those who have survived ... won't
remember who was who or which
was which."
— Chorus, Part 10 (Late Afternoon)
These lines echo the Prologue, in which the Chorus tells the
audience "who's who and what's what." At the beginning of the
play, this background seems important to the audience. In the
end, however, the Chorus seems to suggest that none of it was
important. Here Anouilh, not for the first time in the play,
reflects on the absurdist philosophy that human existence is
meaningless.
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Symbols 20
l Symbols
Antigone
Anouilh's heroine acts out a symbolic struggle to remain pure
in a corrupt world—symbolic because her actual goal, burying
Polynices, is of questionable value. After all, God is absent from
the play, and her brother was a lout. But she must do it,
because, as the Chorus says, "when your name is Antigone,
there is only one part you can play." Though Antigone herself
symbolizes purity, she is not a static character. She is by turns
childish, passionate, ugly, needling, questioning, and finally,
hopeless. Although she embraces her symbolic role, she does
not control it. In the end, by admitting she doesn't know what
she is dying for she seems at her most human—and her most
tragic, trapped as she is in a symbolic role she doesn't feel
sure about.
Creon
Anouilh's Creon is a symbol of pragmatism or the act of
approaching problems practically. The Chorus tells the
audience he is like a "conscientious workman." His politically
expedient approach to governing places him in direct conflict
with Antigone. Antigone sees him as hopelessly compromised;
he sees her as infuriatingly stubborn. Still he sees in his own
tarnished image the youth who once saw the world as
Antigone does. If Antigone were to live, this is what she would
become.
Child's Spade
In a play relatively free of props, the spade with which Antigone
tries to bury Polynices certainly stands out. Polynices gave the
spade to Antigone, so it has sentimental value for her. His
name is carved on its wooden handle; he used to use it when
they played on the seashore. The spade also has symbolic
Antigone Study Guide
value for the audience. It's a child's toy, hopelessly ill suited to
the task of digging a grave. Antigone's use of the spade
underscores the futility of her task and highlights her
youthfulness. The symbolism suggests that Antigone isn't
competent to make the very serious choice that she does in
defying Creon.
m Themes
Integrity
Anouilh's Antigone is determined to adhere to her convictions
at all costs. Her convictions drive her to bury her brother
Polynices in defiance of Creon's edict. In so doing she seems
to be a paragon of integrity; not even the prospect of being
sealed alive in a cave deters her. Yet the principles underlying
her conviction seem shaky and changeable. At first she claims
burying her brother is a religious duty, but this claim crumbles
under Creon's interrogation. Finally she agrees with Creon that
her stance is absurd, but she remains defiant, determined to
play the role she feels is her fate.
The idea of defiance resulting in meaningless sacrifice seems
to be taken straight from Albert Camus, whose essay "The
Myth of Sisyphus" (1942) uses another classical figure to
outline his theory of the absurd. Sisyphus is forever pushing a
boulder up a hill; when the boulder falls back he starts over
again. Sisyphus's fate may be hopeless, but it is his fate; to
continue struggling is his choice. Like Sisyphus, Antigone
embraces her fate, which is "to reject life and to die." Yet
central to the philosophy of Camus and other existentialists is
the idea of choice: his Sisyphus makes a choice, but it's not
clear Antigone does. She believes "inhuman forces" drive her
to act out her fate; the Chorus tells us that from the beginning.
Antigone seems to be more a symbol of integrity than a
representative of an actual, struggling human being.
Freedom versus Constraint
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Themes 21
Antigone and Creon personify the tension between the desire
to follow one's ideals versus the need to operate within an
imperfect world. Creon assumed the leadership of the kingdom
reluctantly. He feels a duty to make personal compromises for
the good of the kingdom, and he expects others to do the
same. In making an example of Polynices, he's trying to make
the best of a bad situation.
Antigone feels no such constraint. She is young, and she has a
fiancé but not a husband. She is little more than a child herself
and has no children of her own to worry about, much less an
entire kingdom. A picture of youthful idealism, she is free to
follow her conscience. The purity of her passion, her defiant
no, is transfixing for the audience, but it galls Creon. He
believes saying yes to life and all its complications is the more
courageous choice.
Political Expediency
Anouilh's play explores causes and effects of political
expediency through Creon. The king of Thebes makes it clear
he doesn't think Eteocles has any more right to a state funeral
than Polynices: both brothers, he says, were unworthy of this
honor. However, honoring one corpse while desecrating the
other serves Creon's political ends. He believes it is the only
way to preserve order in a kingdom reeling from civil war. While
his strategy does seem effective—the play ends without a
renewed rebellion—the consequences for Creon's loved ones
are dire. Creon's choice resonated strongly in France, which
was still under Nazi control when the play opened early in
1944. Many French saw Creon as a stand-in for Marshal
Pétain, who surrendered to the Nazis early in the war and
became the authoritarian leader of southern France. Members
of the resistance and their sympathizers despised the
character. They felt Pétain's capitulation to the Nazis brought
great shame on the nation. These audience members
preferred Antigone's defiance to Creon's compromises.
b Motifs
Antigone Study Guide Suggested Reading 22

Card Playing Happiness

In Antigone images of the three guards playing cards serve as
bookends to the main action of the play. The drop of the cards
echoes like a drip, drip, drip of everyday life going on amid the
epic, life-or-death, philosophical struggle between Antigone
and Creon. Anouilh seems to be saying that, no matter the
outcome of the conflict between these two royal characters,
life will go on with all of its banality. The guards, as the Chorus
points out in the play's opening, "are not a bad lot"; but then, as
if to undercut this judgment, he says they are "policemen ...
they are quite prepared to arrest anyone at all, including Creon
himself, should the order be given by a new leader."
The idea of happiness recurs throughout the play and is
central to the way Anouilh develops the themes of integrity and
freedom versus constraint. Creon claims the purpose of life is
to grasp whatever happiness one can from it—and he defines
happiness as domestic comfort: a child, a comfortable bench, a
garden. Whatever constraints life puts on you are bearable if
you can grasp a few moments of happiness. To Antigone this
idea is repulsive; this pale version of happiness is nothing
compared to the bright, beautiful world she envisioned as a
child. She would rather die than have to settle for Creon's kind
of happiness.

The card-playing guards reveal the ugly underbelly of political

e Suggested Reading
expediency. Creon's actions, however effective, also involve a
wrenching sacrifice. He really does not want to put a family
member to death, but he wants to avoid deepening civil unrest.
His expediency, however, seems like high idealism compared Falb, Lewis W. Jean Anouilh. New York: Ungar, 1977. Print.
to the guards', whose only thought is their own survival. For
Gross, Jane. "Jean Anouilh, the French Playwright, Is Dead at
them doing what is expedient is all about avoiding sacrifice so
77." New York Times. Oct.–Nov. 1987: n. pag. The New York
they can go on living their mediocre lives. "None of this matters
Times Company. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
to them," says the Chorus in the play's final scene; "they go on
playing cards," an activity based on random chance and with Krutch, Joseph Wood. "Review of Antigone." Nation 162.9
no consequence. Their own lives, Anouilh suggests, are just (1946): 269. Rpt. in Drama for Students. Ed. Ira Mark Milne. Vol.
that meaningless. 9. Detroit: Gale, 2000. Literary Sources. Web. 3 Oct. 2016.

Lenski, B.A. Jean Anouilh; Stages in Rebellion. Atlantic

Burying Polynices Highlands: Humanities, 1975. Print.

McIntyre, H.G., and Jean Anouilh. The Theatre of Jean Anouilh.

Nothing reinforces Anouilh's theme about integrity better than
Totowa: Barnes, 1981. Print.
the motif of Antigone burying Polynices. Her repeated
attempts to bury her brother represent the struggle to maintain
purity of purpose in an absurd universe. The first attempt
occurs before the action of the play begins; the guards
discover someone has used a rusty toy shovel to cover the
body. Her second attempt also occurs offstage, after Creon
has learned someone has defied his edict. When the guards
catch her in the act and bring her to Creon, she vows to
continue her struggle even after being forced to admit neither
religious duty nor family loyalty compels her to do so. Her
seemingly meaningless struggle resembles Camus's Sisyphus,
condemned to push his rock up a hill for all eternity. To bury
Polynices and to die are her fate, and she embraces her
destiny.

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