Antigone

The theme of following a higher moral law and the dictates of conscience vs. obedience to authority is at the heart of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone. This conflict is explicitly illustrated during the debate between Antigone and Creon at the climax of the play. This theme is all the more significant when considered against the historical backdrop of Anouilh’s version, the themes in Sophocles’ original Oedipus trilogy, and the clever way in which the playwright managed to get his political drama past the Nazi censorship and onto the stage.

When adapting Antigone, Anouilh could have just as easily set the play in a different location, but he decided to keep the setting in Thebes. In Ancient Thebes, it was common for the bodies of enemies to be left to rot. Like Sophocles before him, who “virtually makes Athenians of his principal Thebans” (8), Anouilh instills the morals of Athenians into Antigone. Lewis Galantière, who translated this edition of Anouilh’s play into English, explains:

[T]he people of Athens had a deep sense of the sanctity of human personality, a profound belief that all men—friends and enemies, the righteous and the unrighteous—were created by God, possessed some sort of immortality, and deserved sacramental burial. (8)

This Athenian-style moral positioning enables Sophocles, and later Anouilh, to subtly side with Antigone over Creon. By omitting that Creon, a Theban, would have not been abnormal in leaving Polynices to rot, he is not allowed to “argue like a logical Theban, but […] like a criminal Athenian” (8). Anouilh’s decision to keep this moral framing in his own version of Antigone is a significant and deliberate choice that helps to bring the moral debate between the law of conscience and the law of civil authority to the forefront of the play’s conflict.

From the start of the play, Anouilh pits Creon and Antigone’s philosophies against each other. Creon believes the act of leaving Polynices to rot is merely offensive to Antigone on a political level. Some characters—even those who side with Antigone—also view it this way. In fact, “It is this political injustice against which Creon’s son, Haemon, protests. It is this dictatorship that frightens the half-protesting Elders of Thebes” (9). For Antigone, however, there is a higher moral law that must be obeyed over anything to do with politics: a law of conscience that makes any of Creon’s arguments about politics invalid.

Antigone reveals her ideals about the sanctity of human life in multiple scenes in the play. When she is speaking to Ismene about the burial, Ismene defends their uncle: “I sort of see what Uncle Creon means. Uncle Creon is the king now. He has to set an example!” (23). This initial dialogue between the sisters establishes clear parallels between Ismene and Creon. Though Ismene is not the one who ordered Polynices’ body be left to the vultures, her complacency towards the act makes just as strong of a statement. In fact, her complacency might be considered a warning cry from Anouilh to the people of France: inaction during a time of dictatorship makes just as strong of a statement as civil disobedience.

Antigone’s reply reinforces her idea of a higher moral law. She tells Ismene that Creon’s orders are “an offense against every decent human instinct, against the laws of God and Man” (23). The laws that Antigone feels she must follow are operating on a different plane than those of Creon’s decrees: She will be a criminal against “the laws of God and Man” if she does not bury her brother. As she insists during her debate with Creon, “No, Creon [ . . .] You are not fee to do with men as you wish, not even when they are dead” (47). Her challenge to Creon is to lay down his stubborn pride and acknowledge that there is a law higher than that of his own: a moral law.

Antigone is at peace with what she has done because she knows that she is right, and what her uncle calls pride is actually her refusal to trade her morals to keep a happy life. She says, “I don’t have to do things that I think are wrong” (51). Creon, by contrast, believes that political order, expediency, and the unshakeable exercising of his own authority are more important than ethics. When Creon’s own son, Haemon, begs him to spare Antigone, Creon says, “Too late. The law must be obeyed. I can do nothing” (61). Haemon fights back, reminding him that Creon wrote the laws himself and could therefore break them. Creon remains unmoved, and the Chorus warns him: “Creon, the gods have a way of punishing injustice” (63). Still, Creon refuses to spare Antigone’s life, and his actions end up costing him the lives of his own wife and son as well as Antigone’s.

At the end of the play, Creon is left alone to face the consequences of his actions. It is then that the Chorus makes one final statement on the battle between conscience and obedience to authority. The Chorus says, “The gods take a hand in every game, Creon. Even in politics” (70). This statement sums up the argument, reminding the audience that Antigone was indeed in the right. For the people of France, the statement is one of hope: there is a higher law than the Nazi occupation that rules them, and justice will eventually be served.