Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs's Reviews > Antigone

TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS -
WE LIVE IN TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS.
1960's song.

If Sophocles' version of this is the best, Anouilh's is the one that's most like we all are INSIDE.

When I was 16, a callow youth, I thought Anouilh's heroine just couldn't compromise. I thought, how dumb! Creon was right to imprison her… But later in life, when my personal shibboleths were challenged by my seniors I wouldn't budge.

How come?

Well, our personal experiences in an amoral world can force our ethical hand, and then we create personal principles. That’s the change that youth endures. We must FIND ourselves.

And when we do, sometimes it’s: My way or the highway!

Not all our moral choices come from upbringing, schooling, or culture. Some are created OURSELVES by our personal idiosyncrasies and histories.

A traumatic childhood event can begin the personal conditioning process. So can parental abuse or sibling rivalry. Or, a sudden, earth-shaking shock. We are all different because of our private reactions as well as our parental conditioning. And especially today, because we are freer to choose.


But are we luckier? Would Antigone be luckier today? No, because the law is the law, and Creon's law is the Law in Athens. As it is here now.

Our freedom becomes a thorn in our side in the end with the endless conditions imposed on it. So we choose sides. And we naturally go for the most personally satisfying side.

The other side chooses practical Necessity. Same thing: My way or the highway!

But come, says the Law as the Lord says to Isaiah - let us reason together...

YES. Let us Reason! For we can indeed lead with our heart - BUT WE MUST FOLLOW WITH OUR HEAD. Exactly as Creon says to Antigone…

Like Antigone, and like all kids when faced with their seniors' ultimatums, reasoning is PASSIONATE. For Creon, and us adults, reasoning is HUMAN. It bends. As WE must bend, though not to the extent of committing a Wrong action. And Reason and our Heart TOGETHER will lead us to the Golden Mean.

We must charitably bend. And that will Hurt.

But you know, adults see kids as unreasonable, and kids sometimes see adults as middle-class moral mediocrities. The impasse isn't going to go away without the Balm of Time.

Unfortunately neither Creon or Antigone HAS time! And, really, neither do we.

It’s DOWN TO THE CRUNCH time! Time, as Auden says, to face the music:

We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

And we must face that blaring music over, and over again - without sacrificing our personal values. Our personal Cross will turn it to Harmony. And one day its “music will untune the sky.” On that day we will see our life as it really is.

And we can finally Face the Face of truth. For it is Good...

Anouilh's characters are as real as we are.

And his play isn't about compromise, as I thought at 16.

It's about living a real life among real people, WIDE AWAKE - with ALL our differences intact!