Humanities (2012)

James Joyce’s Ulysses is a venerable and yet intimidating tome, slashing rules of plot, narration, and style with relentless acuity, and presenting a new vision of what the novel should be. When considering the intricacies that make this work function on the many levels that it does, the role of the author himself is called into question—for what sort of an author might Joyce have been to create such a work as Ulysses? And when considering Joyce’s role as author, the question of art itself surfaces in terms of the composition of the novel (i.e., what artistic vision prompted Joyce to write the novel as it is written), but also within the context of plot and characterization (i.e., how art is infused within the novel itself, affecting the characters therein). In lieu of the question of the role of the artist, one might look to a quotation regarding art and the artist from Joyce’s prior work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which presents the artist as being “like the God of creation, [in that he] remains within or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, paring his fingernails” (Joyce, A Portrait, 269). In light of that statement, bearing in mind Carlyle’s sentiments regarding the true nature of the Poet, and by examining the craftsmanship of Ulysses, particularly in the use of style and objective narration, James Joyce’s view on the artist emerges: the artist, whether he/she takes the form of the writer, the reader, or the characters themselves, is any individual that is able to see the world through untainted lenses, to rip aside illusory vestures in order to reveal the heart and meaning which lurks subtly within the innocuous events of daily life.

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen ruminates on the role of the artist in the creation of his/her art, and determines that “the personality of the artist, at first a cry or a cadence or a mood and then a fluid and lambent narrative, finally refines itself out of existence, impersonalizes itself.” Here, he suggests that though the artist himself is deeply immersed within the work, his personality “flowing round and round the persons and the action like a vital sea,” he also takes great care to eliminate traces of his opinions and personal thoughts from the narrative. The work of art then becomes universally accessible, and is “no longer personal” (248). Joyce’s role in Ulysses mirrors Stephen’s notion, in that Joyce is simultaneously absent from the text and involved in it.

In order to examine how Joyce achieves this balance of objectivity toward and immersion within his text, we must first isolate the narrative devices he employs, for, as Stephen determined, the narration must be free of the artist in order for it to be read universally, and in order for the characters to be allowed to speak for themselves (249). Ulysses is renowned for its use of stream of consciousness narration. A classic example of stream of consciousness within Joyce’s Ulysses occurs in the closing segment of the novel, the “Penelope” episode, which features the unadulterated flow of Molly Bloom’s thoughts as she attempts to fall asleep. The episode is comprised of eight enormous sentences of no punctuation, and thereby effectively portrays the continuous flow from thought to thought. The following lines begin the episode, and stand as an adequate representation of the stream of consciousness method of narration:

Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs. Riordan… (Joyce, Ulysses, 871)

In utilizing the stream of consciousness form to portray the psychological nature of his characters, Joyce is able to distance himself from the work, and to thereby portray the characters in an untainted, unbiased way. In order to illustrate the extent to which Joyce’s characters are made to speak for themselves, one might look to another novel with a psychological preoccupation. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf shares much in common with Ulysses; they both portray the happenings of one single day, and both focus on the psychological nature of the characters. Woolf’s style of narration is differentiated from Joyce’s in her frequent use of interior monologue, which allows for a third-person perspective to help guide the reader through a character’s thoughts. This is exemplified in the following passage: “How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did . . .” (Woolf 1). While the third-person guidance is helpful in navigating the thoughts of the character, Woolf’s use of interior monologue instead of straight stream of consciousness allows for an interlocutor in the character’s thoughts, thereby making the thoughts into less of a genuine or natural reflection of the character.

Joyce does employ third-person narration so as to portray the unfolding of action around the central character, but he uses it less frequently, and more seamlessly within the characters’ thoughts than Woolf does. This occurs, for example, in the following passage: “Mr Bloom, alone looked at the titles. Fair Tyrants by James Lovebirch. Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes. He opened it. Thought so” (Joyce, Ulysses, 302). There, a third-person narrator is present, but is integrated so intricately within Bloom’s thoughts that it is hardly noticeable, and hardly distracts from the thoughts themselves. Joyce’s form of narration, especially when compared to Woolf’s, depicts Joyce’s view of the artist: that is, that the artist “refines himself out of existence” in order to present an unbiased portrait of the characters’ thoughts. This allows an honest portrayal of daily life to emerge, from which the reader is then challenged to gather meaning and understanding. And this vision of reality is critical to the notion of art, as Carlyle explains in “Hero as Poet.” According to Carlyle, “The job of … the artist, is to reveal to us the divine mystery, to pull aside the vesture and to bring the meaning to the surface. That always is his message; he is to reveal that to us, that sacred mystery which he more than others lives ever present with” (Carlyle 2).

Though Joyce inserts no personal opinion within the narration on the characters’ thoughts, actions, and choices, he bears indisputable artistic presence in the novel’s intricate craftsmanship. This is particularly evident in Joyce’s use of style; the novel functions as a sort of compendium of Western literary style and form. Stylistic approaches in the novel vary from the journalistic approach (in Aeolus), the mathematical/scientific, naturalistic approach (in “Ithaca”), and the musical approach (in “Sirens”), and so on. An ideal example of Joyce’s stylistic control is “Oxen of the Sun,” an episode brimming with imitations and parodies of a full panorama of major English prose styles. The episode tours through English literary history, touching upon the most renowned works and authors of the language, such as Everyman, Morte d’Arthur, Pilgrim’s Progress, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, David Copperfield, andFaust. In his scrupulous stylistic rendering of this episode, which begins in the Anglo-Saxon period and ends in the garbled slang language of twentieth century America, Joyce implies disdain at the decline in the efficacy of the English language. Here, then, Joyce is present; through artistic craftsmanship, he calls attention to a personal concern or observation.

When considering the complexity of the composition of “Oxen of the Sun,” the reader is forced to ask the question: why? Certainly the episode is not just the product of some literary experiment. The constant fluctuation in style is Joyce’s way of calling attention to some greater idea, of alerting his readers to some greater truth. Multiple interpretations have been offered in regards to what that greater truth or idea may be. One critic, Lawrence, suggests that “Joyce is at pains to show that style confers a role on character; when the style changes, a new fictional role is created” (Lawrence 131). Evidence for that notion lies in the ongoing changing of the characters’ names: Bloom becomes traveller Leopold, Leop. Bloom of Crawford’s journal, and Mr Cautious Calmer (132). Rod Mengham purports that the episode stands as an indictment of literary anthologies, which are created with the intention of representing the English language. In keeping with that theory, “Oxen of the Sun” exemplifies the inability to anthologize Ulysses, because no one style reigns. The digression into common slang at the end of the episode, with the use of such phrases as “Lovey lovekin,” “sitinems,” and “chokeechokee,” is perhaps suggestive of Joyce’s most obvious criticism in this episode (Joyce, Ulysses, 558-560). For, in tracing the evolution of the English language, and in ending with the muddled slang of the twentieth century, Joyce points to the steady disintegration of the English language. Words are misused, phrases corrupted, and the eloquent prose of the past is reduced to nonsense. His presence is subtle, and yet Joyce, as the artist, calls upon and reveals an issue of great importance, upon which the reader is then challenged to contemplate and reflect.

“Oxen of the Sun,” and the novel as a whole, is so meticulously crafted that the reader senses a degree of authorial expectation. Ulysses is no breezy paperback to be read wistfully on the beach; instead, it seems that each word is charged with layers of meaning, ready to be unravelled by the careful reader. Joyce, then, expects his audience to commit to the novel, and to devote a good amount of reflection and contemplation to each word written on the page. Otherwise, the meanings of the novel are lost, and much time has been wasted. The difficulty of understanding the text requires that the reader be an artist him/herself. The scrupulous reading that Ulysses requires is a form of intricate craftsmanship, yes, but also, if the reader is able, by means of that craftsmanship, to understand the novel, to hear the whispered words of meaning latent in the text, a connection has been made, and a barrier between reader and writer has been felled. This calls to mind Stephen’s theory of aesthetics in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which claims that lyrical literature is effective when “the centre of emotional gravity is equidistant from the artist himself and from others.” In reading Ulysses, the reader is involved in the text, or becomes a part of the novel itself, due to emotional involvement and discourse with the author, but also due to personal responses to it. In the words of Stephen:

To speak of these things and to try to understand their nature and, having understood it, to try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, to press out again from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound and shape and colour which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of the beauty we have come to understand—that is art. (242)

And is that not the exact process undergone in not only the writing, but in the reading ofUlysses? The reader is presented with a text, which in a way represents the very “nature” that Stephen speaks of, and “slowly and humbly and constantly” attempts to understand it. And once it is understood, the reader is able to hold that understanding, that “image of beauty” within them, and to integrate that new knowledge within their own lives. In reading it, then, and in reading it well, the audience creates art, too. Echoes of Carlyle are heard here, for he affirmed that “We are all poets when we read a poem well” (Carlyle 2).

Joyce, as the artist, is present in Ulysses in his stylistic flourishes, and in his challenges and expectations of the reader, but is also present in a more straightforward way. As Stephen suggests in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, “the simplest epical form is seen emerging out of lyrical literature when the artist prolongs and broods upon himself as the centre of an epical event and this form progresses till the centre of emotional gravity is equidistant from the artist himself and from others” (Joyce, A Portrait, 269). Joyce as the artist encapsulates this notion, since he based the two main characters of his novel, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, after various aspects of himself. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has been referred to as a semiautobiographical work; it chronicles Stephen Dedalus’ youth, including his boyhood experiences with bullying, burgeoning sexuality, and increased dissatisfaction with the constraints enacted by his country and by his religion. It is commonly understood that Joyce drew upon his own boyhood experiences for the writing of the novel, and indeed the parallels between fact and fiction are many: Joyce too was subject to bullying, was faced with his mother’s death, and was wrought with anger and confusion regarding nationalism and religion. Stephen is not a perfect echo of Joyce, of course; his character fluctuates persistently throughout A Portrait, and as Thomas Grayson suggests, “After the fourth chapter of A Portrait, the author’s attitude toward Stephen becomes one of estrangement. It is almost as if A Portrait serves to exorcize Stephen from the personality of Joyce, thereby permitting the emergence of the artist” (Grayson 2).

Correspondingly, A Portrait ultimately serves as Stephen’s (and perhaps Joyce’s, by extension) growing understanding of art, of what it means to him, and of what role art shall play in his adult life. Stephen comes to realize that he must shun those conventions which he finds limiting in pursuit of self-expression: "I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning." (Joyce, A Portrait, 286). The same can be said of Joyce, who shunned his religion, nation, and home in exchange for exile and a life devoted to literary self-expression. In A Portrait, Joyce masterfully imbues personal experience with artistic flourish. As Roy Pascal points out, “while a great deal in [A Portrait] could be taken over, as true fact . . . and is attested by his family and friends, at the same time it clearly is arranged and shaped by an artist’s hand; it is mysteriously lit . . . so that the distinctive features of the artist-hero are lifted into prominence” (Pascal 2).

While A Portrait can be seen as a reflection of Joyce’s youthful sparring with maturity, restraints of convention, and with the notion of art, Ulysses can be viewed as an expression of Joyce’s middle-aged identity. Indeed, upon examining the authenticity of Bloom’s character as a reflection of an aging man, especially in comparison to the youthful vivacity of Stephen in A Portrait, Harold Bloom suggests that “Ulysses might indeed be called A Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Man” (Bloom 2). Joyce’s perception of himself as a middle-aged adult helped him to form the character of Leopold Bloom: “He was prodded to [Bloom’s creation] by a conviction that his own nature was cast in the heroic mould, although physically he was as cowardly as morally he was intrepid,” claims Richard Ellman, author of The Consciousness of Joyce (Ellman 11). In examining his own feeling of potential heroism, in combination with his physical limitations, Joyce came to the conclusion that “yet another heroism, too everydayish to be recognized as such, might be secretly at work in a seemingly unheroic age” (11). From such a notion blossomed the character of Leopold Bloom—morally and artistically advanced within a mundane, illusory world.

In fashioning the protagonists of his novels after former or current versions of himself, Joyce exercises the ultimate form of honest writing—that is, writing from experience. And as Stephen suggests in A Portrait, such immersion of the artist within his characters allows a naturalness that is unique to personal experience. Yet, because of his retraction from the narration itself, the characters are universally applicable and sympathetic. Stephen’s notion that an artist must be ingrained within the content of his work in order for it to be true art is echoed in Carlyle’s “Hero as Poet.” Carlyle claims that true art is not formed by mere effort and self-discipline; he posits that “in order for a Poet to be effective, he must be experienced with the matters which he discusses or portrays” (Carlyle 1). Carlyle’s notion of the Poet, used interchangeably with the notion of the Great Man, can be in this case extended to the artist in general. So, in keeping with Carlyle and Stephen’s claims, personal experience is necessary to effectively convey emotions or truths. As Carlyle claims, “To know a thing, what we can call knowing, a man must first love the thing, sympathize with it: that is, be virtuously related to it” (10). Only upon knowing a thing truly, through love or experience or sympathy, can the artist authentically replicate or portray that thing. Joyce’s personal intimacy with Bloom and Stephen allows for that authenticity, and allows for an emergence of truth and meaning from their relationship with each other, and from their separate wanderings through an ordinary day.

Stephen and Bloom, as extensions of Joyce himself, have artistic aspects to their characters. Stephen is identified as an artist in the very title of A Portrait, and his quest for art predominates in both that novel and Ulysses. Unfortunately, Stephen’s preoccupation with his as-of-yet artless life actually prevents him from creating anything, and prevents him from seeing the world from the artist’s perspective, which is one based on observation and understanding of underlying truths. Some critics, such as Peake, suggest that Stephen-the-artist is born through association with Leopold Bloom. While the theory is interesting, and perhaps even plausible, Stephen’s existence, obfuscated by religious concerns, political concerns, and self-imposed isolation, is not one of artistic bearing, as far as this reading is concerned. Trapped in his own mind, Stephen is unable to see the world around him, and is therefore unable to understand the world around him. Instead, it is Bloom who truly triumphs in terms of artistry, and who effectively observes, understands, and reveals truth about the world around him.

Leopold Bloom has more than just the touch of the artist about him, for he navigates through the inane trivialities of daily living, and in doing so, reveals underlying truths and meanings. Leopold Bloom’s perambulations through humdrum routines and everyday trifles may not be remarkable in and of themselves; it is Bloom’s understanding of those routines which is remarkable. Bloom is keenly perceptive, and is able to see to the heart of things, and to peel back the chimerical layers of falsehood, corporeality, and superficiality to reveal the essence and meaning within daily living. We see Bloom’s observant nature and understanding of that which he observes in the following passage:

Cityful passing away, other city coming, passing away too: other coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of pavements, piledup bricks, stones. ... Piled up in cities, worn away age after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves. Chine wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerry-built, Kerwan’s mushroom houses, built of breeze. Shelter for the night. No one is anything. (Joyce, Ulysses, 208)

This passage shows the extent to which Bloom is aware: he observes the houses, the street, the evidence of mankind stacked up, brick by brick all around him, and perceives in it the transience of it all, the insignificance of it all. He is able to understand the smallness of mankind and the mortality of man and all his creations. Of this passage, William Schutte contends, “In the eye of history, the individual is literally nothing” (Schutte 6). Bloom’s reflections on the streets of Dublin suggest that he “is not ... merely a commentator. Despite his detachment from many of the concerns of his fellow Dubliners, his musings reflect an intense involvement with the world that streams by him as he walks” (6). In this way, Bloom himself is an artist, for “he incarnates not only kindness and goodness, but high art’s vision of reality” (Bloom 2). Bloom embodies Joyce and Carlyle’s shared view on the artist: that individual who looks, sees, and understands, that individual who sees past the physical world and into the mystery underlying it all, and who reveals that mystery to those who might have difficulty seeing it.

Through the examination of Joyce’s works, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man andUlysses, much evidence can be found regarding Joyce’s view of the artist, in reference to himself, and in general. Consistent with Stephen’s premise about art—that the artist is simultaneously within the text and above it—Joyce fashions his art around real experience and observation from his own life, while maintaining objectivity through the use of stream of consciousness and narration. His techniques, manipulation of style, and the characters he created all indicate Joyce’s notion of the artist as he who is able to see the meaning in life, and to reveal it to others. So be it reader, writer, character, or any innocuous wanderer of sidewalks and streets, if he or she sees the truth and expresses it, art has been created, and another artist has been born.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. James Joyce. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. Print.

Carlyle, Thomas, and Carl Nimeyer. "The Hero as Poet." On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History.Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1966. The Literature Database. Web. 13 Aug. 2011.

Ellmann, Richard. The Consciousness of Joyce. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1977. Print.

Grayson, Thomas W. "James Joyce and Stephen Dedalus: The Theory of Aesthetics." James Joyce Quarterly4.4 (1964). JSTOR. Web. 14 Aug. 2011.

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New York: Viking, 1964. Print.

Joyce, James. Ulysses: Annotated Student Edition. London: Penguin, 2000. Print.

Lawrence, Karen. The Odyssey of Style in Ulysses. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1981. Print.

Pascal, Roy. "The Autobiographical Novel and The Autobiography." Essays in Criticism IX.2 (1959): 134-50.Oxford Journals. Web. 14 Aug. 2011.

Peake, Charles H. James Joyce the Citizen and the Artist. London: Arnold, 1977. Print.

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Harcourt, Brace and, 1925. Print.

          Political issues have a tendency to manifest in popular culture in an overwhelmingly polarizing manner. The content of such conversations often revolves around monologues in which opposing factions seek to one-up each other in order to emerge victorious, rendering true dialogues in which the nuances of complex issues are elucidated and actually discussed all but obsolete. Taken at face value, Antigone by Jean Anouilh can be interpreted as an inventive re-imagining of Sophocles’ Ancient Greek play of the same name. It can also be taken as an examination of the coming of age process in which idealism meets harsh reality. However, when viewed in light of the political climate of 1944 France, where this play was written and when it was first performed, Anuoilh’sAntigone emerges as a complicated exploration of the various responses to the Nazi occupation of France in the early 1940s. Beyond the political climate in which the play was written, the mere mention of the name Antigone conjures the tragic image of an inescapable fate. Thus, in presenting his political commentary through the frame of an already defined story in which the end result is known from the beginning, Anouilh creates a forum through which he is able to engage in the particularities of the issues at hand within a pre-defined scenario eliminating the mystery and focusing on the motivations. It is through Anouilh’s presentation of the conflict between Antigone and Creon that he is able to explicate the complex, multi-faceted motivations behind both those who resisted and those who colluded with the Nazi occupation of France in a way that neither condemns nor shows full support of either side. Instead, Anouilh’s argument can more effectively be seen as embracing the intricacies of both sides in a way that acknowledges the struggles and decision making practices that are used to justify standing as collaborator or member of the resistance. 
          At no point in Antigone does Anouilh claim to present a new story, or even a significant variation in plot from the familiar, original Sophocles version. In fact, at two separate times throughout the unfolding of events, Anouilh, through the characters of the Prologue and Chorus, speaks directly to the audience, reaffirming that the story will end as they expect. Anouilh’s manifestations of the characters here are introduced in the prologue not just as characters, but as actors who are playing the characters. This effectively blurs the line between performer and character, introducing an aspect of meta-theatre that serves to strengthen the impact of the allegorical relationship between the characters as they are written and the larger political ideals that they represent. The prologue explains, “the people gathered here are about to act the story of Antigone. The one who’s going to play the lead is the thin girl sitting there silent . . . She’s thinking she’s going to die” (3). This introduction clarifies that this is a set of actors enacting the roles of individuals who are written, the actors are merely performing parts. Beyond the audience’s assumed prior engagement with the material, Anouilh, with this prologue, provides a reminder that the actors too are aware of the events of the play. Anouilh goes on, “but there’s nothing to be done. Her name is Antigone, and she’s going to have to play her part right through to the end” (3). She has no choice but to portray a character meeting her death. Creon too is introduced in the prologue. His background is given as he is described “before, in the reign of Oedipus, when Creon was only the most influential man at court, he loved music and fine buildings, would spend hours prowling round Thebe’s little antique shops” (4). But, due to factors far outside of his own control, “Oedipus and his sons are dead. And Creon, forsaking his books and his collector’s pieces, has rolled up his sleeves and taken their place” (4). Anouilh then introduces a note of doubt into Creon’s character when he reveals that “he wonders whether it’s not pointless, being a leader of men. Whether it’s not a sordid business that ought to be left to others less . . . sensitive than himself” (4). Again, Anouilh makes no effort to reinvent the plot of the basic story. The characters find themselves in the same situations and under the same obligations as Sophocles’ characters. However, as early as the prologue, Anouilh begins to redefine their motivations.
          Another aspect of the structure of the play paramount to developing Anouilh’s political exploration is the Chorus’s speech that occurs once the definitive events have taken place and the ramifications are beginning to be acknowledged. Anouilh breaks the action to remind his audience that he has written a tragedy, which is “nice and neat” (26). It is unlike a drama, which presents “glimmers of hope” in which “death becomes something terrible, a kind of accident” (26). No, Anouilh is dealing in tragedy in which “there’s no lousy hope left. You know you’re caught, caught at last like a rat in a trap, with all heaven against you” (26). He further explains that “tragedy is gratuitous. Pointless, irremediable” (26). Tragedy seemingly has no reason or cause and there is no cure. Once the events have been set into motion, there is no option but to see it through as any attempts to contest or change the structural factors of the situation will prove futile. It is within these parameters then, from which there is no escape, that Anouilh is able to present, in a non-threatening and exploratory manner, the complexity of the motivations of the different characters, namely Antigone and Creon, as they attempt to navigate their way through an unbeatable convergence of events. In presenting the seemingly opposed nature of Antigone and Creon as a representation of the struggle between the resistance and colluders of the Nazi occupation of France, Anouilh creates the freedom to work within a defined and definite space. He removes the importance of cause and effect, thus isolating motivation and paving the way for his intensive character study in which motivations are explored and justifications are attempted. 
          Now that his structure has been explored it is possible to examine Anouilh’s discussion of the nature of those who colluded with the Nazi occupation of France through his depiction of Creon, the world worn, politically savvy but reluctant king of Thebes. As is revealed in the prologue, Creon did not seek this position, but in a move that is vital to his character, he did not fight it once it was bestowed upon him. When he is presented with Antigone as the violator of his decree, his law, he is astonished and immediately attempts to devise a cover-up that would keep Antigone from suffering the consequences of her actions. He says to her, “Listen, then. Go back to your room, go to bed, and say you’re ill and haven’t been out since yesterday. Get your nurse to say the same. I’ll get rid of those three men” (31). In this moment, Creon demonstrates that he is not fundamentally committed to the law, as he appears only too eager to violate it in order to protect his family at the first instance of discontent. When Antigone refuses this offer, he launches into an explanation of the differences between his style of ruling and that which had previously been employed by members of Antigone’s immediate family. He claims that “what Thebes needs now is an ordinary king with no fuss. . . all I aim at now I’m king is to try to see the world’s a bit more sensibly run. There’s nothing very heroic about it – just an everyday job, and like the rest of them, not always very amusing” (33). Creon does not view his kingship as some kind of grand decree, bestowing upon him unlimited power over the Thebans; rather, Creon describes his relationship to the job as that of a typical laborer, charged with enacting a role. Further, he demonstrates his keen understanding of the political climate in which he exists. He tries to explain to Antigone, “don’t you realise that if anyone other than those three louts gets to know what you’ve tried to do, I shall have to have you killed?” (34). He does not have to kill her for her actions, but rather for the public perception of her actions. Essentially, to Creon, it does not matter what she has done on a moral or ethical level. What matters is that he is perceived as keeping the law, as he has defined it, by those over whom he is ruling. Not only is he aware that these are the motivations under which he operates, but he is willing to share his thought process with Antigone, apparently feeling no shame or regret over ruling in such a manner. While these acts and philosophies exist on a personal level for Creon, each of his moves can be seen as a calculated attempt to justify his behaviors and, by extension, the actions of the collaborators.
          In a passionate attempt to convince Antigone to understand his point of view, Creon constructs a metaphor through which he attempts to paint his role as peacekeeper as not only more important, but also far more difficult than the role of rebel that Antigone ascribes to herself. Creon explains that

Someone has to say yes. Someone has to steer the ship. It’s letting in water on all sides. It’s full of crime and stupidity and suffering. The rudder’s adrift. The crew won’t obey orders. . . the sails will soon be in shreds, and the whole lot of them will die together because they think of nothing but their own skins and their own petty concerns. (39-40)

Creon paints a picture of widespread destruction that, as has been established of the nature of tragedy, cannot be curbed or escaped by any amount of heroics or effort. In such a situation, Creon believes that somebody must steer the ship, somebody must step in and contend with the conflicting forces attacking from all directions. Somebody must balance the threat of the Nazi forces, attempting to impose their power from the outside while simultaneously keeping some sort of peace in the kingdom that is already chaotic and in the midst of political upheaval. Without a central figure, a voice striving to keep these competing forces in check, the kingdom will either descend into anarchy, in which the citizens heave themselves into destruction, concerned only for their own ideals and well being, or they must relinquish power to horrific and  unjust rule by force. Creon goes on to claim that “to say yes you have to sweat, roll up your sleeves, grab hold of life, plunge in up to the neck. It’s easy to say no, even if it means dying” (40). So not only is he able to establish his view as right and necessary for the survival of the state, but it is more difficult and requires more sacrifice and suffering, even more than, as he puts it, simply dying for a cause.
          Creon, at this point realizing that there will be no rehabilitating Antigone and that she has resigned to die, decides to explain to her the truth behind the deaths of her brothers and his role in constructing the story behind their demise. He weaves a tale of their insolence and mistreatment of their father, their exile and attempts to end their father’s life and their eventual murder of each other (43-44). He then claims “it was necessary for me to make a hero of one of them. . . I gave orders for whichever corpse was least damaged to be scraped together for my national obsequies. And for the other to be left to rot. I don’t even know which was which. And I assure you I don’t care” (44). In this revelation, Creon attempts to paint this extreme act of obscuring the details surrounding the lives and deaths of the brothers and his decision making process that went into declaring one hero and one as traitor as normal and even necessary to maintain the balance that he is striving to project as king. In creating a hero and an enemy, Creon is able to harness the emotions of the people in such a way to affirm his own power as ruler. Once again, Anouilh imbues Creon with a thought process that attempts, on one level, to explain away and justify these, what can certainly be seen as, horrific and even criminal acts in the name of a semblance of peace and happiness, however surface-level this ideal may seem. In the end, Creon, and through him the colluders, exist to perpetuate the survival of their people, giving little thought to the quality of life they are able to achieve. Creon himself has had to give up his former passions, “music and fine buildings” (4) in order to keep the boat afloat. In fact, in the name of keeping the boat afloat, Creon turns his back on his entire immediate family, losing both his son (58) and his wife (59) to self inflicted deaths. All the while, after the tragedy and loss, Creon explains, “You can’t just fold your arms and do nothing. They say it’s dirty work. But if you don’t do it, who will?” (60). Thus, Anouilh presents a view of the collaborators as hard workers, more concerned with the survival and maintenance of the state than they are with any other aspect of life. Personal happiness, tragic losses and difficult sacrifices take a back seat to mere existence.
          Antigone, on the other hand, encapsulates Anouilh’s depiction of the resistance movement against the Nazi occupation of France. Antigone is the young, idealistic, and some might say stubborn niece of the king. Antigone is presented as an individual who is unwaveringly devoted to her cause. Whether or not she is able to conceptualize and convey exactly what her cause is, she certainly knows what it is that she stands against. From the beginning, Antigone has chosen a path, and nothing will deter her from burying her scorned brother and facing death for her actions. She explains to Ismene, “Everyone has his part to play. Creon has to have us put to death, and we have to go and bury our brother” (11). Not only does she stand firmly in her convictions regarding what act she will take, she does so with the full knowledge of the consequences of her actions. As the events of the play unfold, however, Antigone finds that her reasoning, her justification for her actions, is eroded away one excuse at a time. First, Creon calls to her attention the question of legitimacy in the burial process where the priests of Thebes are “scrambling through it like overworked clerks, gabbling the words, skimping the movements, getting the deceased out of the way as fast as they can so they can botch another one before lunch?” (35). In this moment, Antigone’s justification of providing her brother with a proper burial is problematized, as the burial rights she perceives as so important are not even taken seriously by the religious leaders of the state. She claims that she must bury him because there is “nothing else” she can do, “but at least I can do that. And one must do what one can” (35). Interestingly, here she backs up her actions with a justification similar to Creon’s own: doing what one can with the situation in which they find themselves. Antigone then frames her resistance in terms of her actions in opposition to Creon’s; she explains “I didn’t say yes! What do I care about politics and what you ‘have’ to do and all your paltry affairs! I can still say no to anything I don’t like, and I alone am the judge. You, with your crown and your guards and your paraphernalia – all you can do, because you said yes, is have me put to death” (38). Through this explanation, the resistance view can be seen as responding to the collaborator’s willingness to forfeit a certain degree of personal freedom and freedom of choice in order to perpetuate a way of life that is neither satisfying nor worth the sacrifice.
          After learning of the true nature of her brother’s demise, Antigone is once again thrust into uncertainty as her justification, the moral center around which she has structured and defended her argument up until this point, has been effectively proven unworthy. Antigone admits to Creon that “Perhaps. I believed in it” (44). She, like the rest of the citizens, bought into Creon’s political spectacle in which the brothers died in their attempt to claim the crown over a sense of duty to the state. Antigone’s illusions are shattered and she, for the first time, abandons her convictions as she agrees to go to her room and let Creon orchestrate a cover up so that Antigone can continue to live as she has been. However, Creon takes his minor victory too far in his attempt to illustrate the type of life that Antigone has just reclaimed in escaping death. He describes a life in which he wishes her to “get married quickly, Antigone, and be happy. Life’s not what you think. It’s like water – and the young let it slip through their fingers without thinking. . . life is probably nothing other than happiness” (45). Using the word happiness is his fatal flaw as Antigone begins to wonder for herself what her happiness would consist of in the climate that Creon and the collaborators are securing. She exclaims,

You disgust me, all of you, you and your happiness! And your life, that has to be loved at any price. . . With just a little hope left every day – if you don’t expect too much. But I want everything, now! And to the full! Or else I decline the offer, lock, stock and barrel! I don’t want to be sensible, and satisfied with a scrap – if I behave myself. (47)

Thus the resistance stands strongest not for what it supports, not for its attempts to justify their actions based on individual acts or beliefs, but instead they gain their strength and backing in what they stand in opposition to. They are responding to a way of life that has forgone what they see as worth living for in favor of a mock happiness, content to survive but to the detriment of standards and a quality of life that Antigone, and by extension the resistance, deem necessary to maintain a worthwhile existence. Finally, just as Creon’s reality involves unimaginable sacrifices, specifically the loss of his entire immediate family, Antigone does go to her death, though in the end she too kills herself. However, Antigone does not go to death with the unwavering certainty she exhibited at the beginning of the play. She admits to the guard “’I don’t know any more what I’m dying for . . .’ . . . ‘I’m afraid. . .’ (She stops, straightens up.) No, cross all that out! It’s better no one should ever know” (57). Unlike the collaborators, members of the resistance, as captured by Anouilh, are unable to effectively articulate their position. They have no carefully constructed metaphor justifying their actions. They must rely on their instinct and passion to live a life that has more to offer than survival at any cost. Despite her never-ending attempt to justify, perhaps just for herself, her motivations for her actions, Antigone goes to her death, young and idealistic and without having truly experienced life outside of the comfort of childhood: an unnecessary death indeed.
          The importance of Anouilh’s Antigone lies in its rare capacity to present a situation in which the cards have been dealt. There is no contesting the actions that have occurred or the end results that will follow. The contribution of this play centers less on whether or not it makes a persuasive argument for those who resisted or colluded with Nazi forces; rather it provides a forum for the vast complexity of motivations behind both positions to be explored and the harsh reality faced by both to be understood beyond the theoretical implications. Creon, as representative of the colluders, exhibits noble motivations in his desperate attempt to keep the ship afloat. He recognizes in himself the fact that he has given up on the way of life expected by youth. He knows he has sacrificed, but he does so in order to ensure the survival of as many people as possible. However, in trying to prevent death and destruction he plays a part in perpetuating just that in his own family. The colluders are painted as realists posed to sacrifice, perhaps everything they hold dear, for the benefit of the survival of the state. Antigone, as she typifies the resistance, also enacts complex but equally flawed ideals. She wants to sacrifice nothing, but with no regard for her personal well-being. She searches for a valid justification for her actions, unable to effectively articulate her position other than that she stands for what the opposition has forgone. Despite her flaws, she does not deserve death. In the end, Anouilh presents two flawed but passionate individuals representative of the opposing factions in a deep-rooted political, moral and ethical struggle. Antigone moves the discussion from polarizing political debates to a fully formed exploration in which Anouilh delves deeply into both sides of the issue, allowing his audience to engage in both arguments; neither fully condemning nor declaring one superior to the other.

Works Cited

Anouilh, Jean. Antigone. Trans. Barbara Bay. United Kingdom: Methuen Publishing, 2000.

Wyrd and Wyrm, Brenda Kessenich