Political Controversy
Anouilh remained staunchly apolitical for most of his life and career. He served in the military during at least two periods, having been drafted into the French Army in 1931 and 1939. He was a prisoner of war for a short time when the Germans conquered France and willingly lived and worked in Paris during the German occupation of France during World War II. Because he refused to take sides during France's collaboration with the Axis Alliance some critics have branded him as a potential Nazi sympathiser. This controversy escalated as a result of Anouilh's public clashes with leader of the Free French Forces (and later President of the Fifth Republic), General Charles de Gaulle. In the 1940s Anouilh and several other intellectuals signed a petition for clemency to save the writer Robert Brasillach, who was condemned to death for being a Nazi collaborator. Brasillach was executed by firing squad in February, 1945, despite the outcry from Anouilh and his peers that the new government had no right to persecute individuals for "intellectual crimes" in the absence of military or political action. Nevertheless, Anouilh refused to comment on his political views, writing in a letter to the Belgian critic Hubert Gignoux in 1946, "I do not have a biography and I am very happy about it. The rest of my life, as long as God wills it, will remain my personal business, and I will withhold the details of it." Anouilh's plays provides the most important clues about his political point of view, though their reputation for ambiguity further complicates the matter. For instance, Antigone, provides an allegorical representation of the debate between the idealistic members of the French Resistance and the pragmatism of the collaborationists. Though many have read the play as having a strong anti-Nazi sentiment, the fact that the Vichy Regime allowed the piece to be performed without censure testifies to the fact that it was potentially seen as supportive of the occupation in its time. Though the playwright romanticizes Antigone's sense of honor and duty to what is morally right, in this case resisting the Nazi forces, it can also be said that Anouilh, like Sophocles before him, makes a convincing argument for Creon’s method of leadership.
Read more about this topic: Jean Anouilh, Life and Career
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