Antigone “outsider” in Creon’s democracy: analysis of a contemporary reinterpretation of the Sophoclean myth1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34624/fb.v0i21.41512Keywords:
Ancient Greek theatre rewritings, Antigone, Creon, Sophie Deraspe, Kamila Shamsie, Inua EllamsAbstract
My paper analyzes four contemporary rewritings of Sophocles’s Antigone: the novel Home Fire (2017) by Kamila Shamsie, the Canadian film Antigone (2019) by Sophie Deraspe, and two British dramas: Aaliyah (After Antigone) (2021) by Kamal Kaan and Antigone (2022) by Inua Ellams. These works present an original vision of Antigone as an Islamic girl (Pakistani, Algerian or Bangladeshi) whose family has emigrated to a Western democracy (Britain or Canada). In this reinterpretation as a foreigner, Antigone takes on traits traditionally typical of Medea. Although Antigone is well socially integrated, the situation of one or both of her brothers (terrorism, delinquency or political opposition) leads her to reveal the condition of racism, intolerance and marginalization faced by minorities in a theoretically democratic, libertarian and inclusive country. At the same time, the characterization of Creon also undergoes a profound change, compared in particular to the Brechtian interpretation: he (or she, in Kamal Kaan’s drama) is not a violent dictator, or a politician who came to power in an exceptional situation, but a legitimate leading exponent of a democratic Western government, who (except in Deraspe’s film) shares the same foreign origins as Antigone’s family, but precisely for this reason must be even tougher in order not to lose the consensus acquired among the nation he governs, a consensus obtained also by denying part of his/her own native culture and satisfying the people’s need for order and security. This new interpretation thus allows the myth of Antigone to be used as a very current tool for social denunciation, not only of the failed integration of minorities in the great Western democracies, but of other problematic aspects of contemporary “civilized” countries, such as the populist tendencies of politics or the use of (social)media, through which, for example, the choruses are rendered in some rewritings.
Downloads
References
Ahmed R. (2021). Towards an ethics of reading Muslims: encountering difference in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. Textual Practice, 35(7), 1145-1161.
Ajidahun, C.O. (2022). Sophocles’s Antigone and Osofisan’s Tegonni: A Comparative Analysis. Imbizo, 13(2), 1-17.
Akbar A. (2022). Antigone review – a poetic tragedy about modern British Muslim life. The Guardian (online) 11/10/2022. In https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/11/antigone-review-inua-ellams-regents-parkopen-air-theatre.
Arimatea, G. (2018). L’umana cecità nell’Antigone multietnica diretta da Giuseppe Massa. In https://www.ateatro.it/webzine/2018/08/08/lumana-cecita-nellantigone-multietnica-diretta-da-giuseppe-massa/.
Beltrametti, A. (2013). Padri e figli. Uno snodo politico, un nodo tragico. In D. Susanetti & N. Distilo (eds.), Letteratura e conflitti generazionali. Dall’antichità classica a oggi (pp. 19-32). Roma: Carocci.
Billings J., Budelmann F. & Macintosh F. (2013). Choruses, Ancient and Modern. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.
Canfora, L. (2004). La democrazia. Storia di un’ideologia. Roma-Bari: Laterza.
Chieppa, V., L’Antigone al cinema, da Liliana Cavani a Sophie Deraspe. Ondacinema 07/12/2021. In www.ondacinema.it/speciali/scheda/l-antigone-al-cinema-da-liliana-cavani-a-sophiederaspe.html.
Del Corno, D. (1989). Erinni e boy-scouts. Il coro nelle riscritture moderne della tragedia greca. In L. De Finis (ed.), Scena e spettacolo dell’antichità (pp. 79-88). Firenze: Olschki.
De Luca, G. (2022). Antigone Power: una straniera alle frontiere dell’Europa. Il Tolomeo – Rivista di studi postcoloniali 24, 235-250.
Deraspe, S. (Director). (2019), Antigone [Film; DVD]. Cinema Libre.
Dunlevy, T. (2019), From Greek tragedy to Bill 21, Quebec film Antigone bridges millenniums. The Montreal Gazette (online) 08/11/2019. In https://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/local-arts/from-greek-tragedy-to-bill-21-quebec-film-antigone-bridges-millenniums.
Ellams, I. (2022). Antigone (after Sophocles). London-New York-Dublin: Methuen Drama.
Fornaro, S. (2012). L’ora di Antigone dal nazismo agli “anni di piombo”, Tübingen: Narr.
Fornaro, S. (2016). Antigone ai tempi del terrorismo. Letteratura, teatro, cinema. Lecce: Pensa Multimedia.
Gentleman, A. (2022). Home Office policies take centre stage in modern-day Antigone adaptation. The Guardian 09/09/2022, 36.
Gonçalves, R. T. & Nascimento, J. (2019), A tradutora e o diálogo intermidiático em Antigonick de Anne Carson. Classica, 32(1), 79-91.
Graeber, D. (2007). trans. Critica della democrazia occidentale. Milano: elèuthera.
Hughes, J. (2011). Performance in a Time of Terror: Critical Mimesis and the Age of Uncertainty. Manchester: Manchester University Press
Hutchinson, C. (2021), Kamal Kaan’s Aaliyah: After Antigone to be premiered live and online simultaneously. In https://charleshutchpress.co.uk/kamal-kaans-aaliyah-after-antigone-tobe-premiered-live-and-online-simultaneously-at-impact-hub-bradford-from-f%E2%80%A6.
Jain, J. (2021). Thinking Past ‘Post-9/11’. Home, Nation and Transnational Desires in Pakistani English Novels and Hindi Films. London-New York: Routledge India.
Kaan, K. (Author). (2021). Aaliyah (After Antigone) [Video]. Freedom Studios. https://www.freedomstudios.co.uk/production/aaliyah-after-antigone/.
Karakantza, E. D. (2022), Antigone. London: Routledge.
Muredda, A. (2019). Her Brother’s Keeper; Classic Tale Of Antigone Gets Forceful Modern Remix. National Post 06/12/2019.
Krause, P. (2020). Antigone in Pakistan: Home Fire, by Kamila Shamsie. Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, 43(4), 13-22.
Liapis V. (2021). Adaptation and the Transtextual Palimpsest. Anne Carson’s Antigonick as a Textual/Visual Hybrid. In V. Liapis & A. Sidiropoulou, Adapting Greek Tragedy. Contemporary Context for Ancient Texts (pp. 355-388). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
