KEY LITERARY ELEMENTS

SETTING

Modern French dramatist, Jean Anouilh, is a great tragic playwright of the twentieth century. His best known work is Antigone, a modern version of Sophocles' tragedy. Anouilh's Antigone also provides a commentary on the Nazi occupation of France. In rewriting the myth in modern times, Anouilh revives the issue of free will under the power of the state.

Sophocles' tragedy is set in Greece, but Anouilh wishes to indicate the timeless, universal nature of this conflict of human law versus divine law. He sets the play on a simple stage that could be anywhere. There is a staircase of three steps forming a semicircle, with two archways at the bottom. Curtains part in the center for entrance and exit. A table and chairs on the left serve as the only furniture.

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