The Story
Chayefsky drew from three chapters in the Book of Judges in writing this play, which explores the relationship of an ordinary man to God.
"The Angel of the Lord" appears before Gideon and drafts him to perform one of God's miracles. Gideon is to save his people from idolatry by winning an impossible battle in which 300 Israelites will defeat 120,000 Midianites.
In the second act, which a Time Magazine review described as the weaker of the play's two acts, Gideon asks to be released from his "covenant of love" with God. Gideon ignores God's order to kill some idolatrous Hebrew tribal chiefs, one of whom has a daughter who performs a seductive dance.
Gideon tells God, "You are too vast a concept for me." Gideon explains that his pity for fellow humans is above God's law. The Lord acknowledges that man wants to be "a proper god. You know, he might some day."
Read more about this topic: Gideon (play)
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“Well, I know you haven’t had much experience writing and none at all in pictures. But I’ve heard about you. It all sounded like you’re just the man I wanted for a story about the Navy. I don’t want a story just about ships and planes. I want a story about the officers.... I want this story from a pen dipped in salt water not dry martinis. Do you know what I mean?”
—Frank Fenton, William Wister Haines, co-scenarist, and John Ford. John Dodge (Ward Bond)