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

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