Antigone sorty5/7/2023 ![]() Considered a treasonous rebel for challenging his brother’s rule, Polynices is left to rot as a warning to other rebels. To restore order, he has ordered a grand funeral for one brother, Eteocles. After the brothers killed each other, Creon assumed control of the throne. The chorus also chronicles the fight between Antigone’s brothers, Eteocles and Polynices-a momentous battle that occurred before the play’s opening-over control of the region of Thebes. PLOT SUMMARY PrologueĪt the play opens, the chorus offers brief introductions to the play’s main characters: the beautiful Ismene her sister Antigone Antigone’s lover and cousin Haemon and Ismene’s uncle and Haemon’s father, Creon. Critics often disparage his plays as overly verbose and too intellectual however, in his native France, he has been called “the most distinguished playwright in France, the most literate, the most interesting, the most controversial.” He died of a heart attack in 1987. His work is divided roughly into two categories: his early, dark plays that explore hypocrisy and evil and the later lighthearted work that incorporates elements of humor or fantasy.Īnouilh’s work has not enjoyed wide popularity in the United States. His work during this period, such as his well-known work, Antigone, was a thinly-veiled attack against all French people that collaborated with the Germans. This experience inspired him to begin writing his own plays.Īnouilh served briefly in World War II by the end of the war, however, he returned to Paris, disillusioned and distraught over the Nazi occupation of France. In 1931 he worked as a secretary to the actor, director, and producer Louis Jouvet. ![]() He abandoned law, however, for a brief career in advertising. As a young man, his family moved to Paris, where Jean attended secondary school and law school. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHYīorn in a small town near Bordeaux, France, in 1910, Jean Anouilh was raised in a middle-class family. The play was an instant success when it was first staged in Paris in 1944. Often considered his masterpiece, Antigone cemented Anouilh’s reputation as a dramatist. ![]() ![]() These plays explored the role of destiny in people’s lives. Disillusioned and shocked by the events of World War II, he also wrote Eurydice (1942) and Médée (first performed in 1937 published 1946), which were also adapted versions of the original Greek classics. The play was also interpreted to represent the struggle of the French Resistance movement against the forces of the Vichy government during the height of Nazi occupation.Īntigone is one in a series of Anouilh’s plays based on Greek mythology. Written in 1942, when Nazi forces occupied France, the story revolves around the conflict between the idealist Antigone and her rigid uncle, Creon, over the proper burial of Antigone’s brother, Polynices. Jean Anouilh’s Antigone is an adaptation of Sophocles’ tragic play of the same title. ![]()
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