Antigone #12

Anouilh develops the conflicting idea of truth versus lies to emphasize the conflict between characters. Most of the disagreements in the story are spawned from a lie or ambiguity that has previously happened. The early fights came from Antigone sneaking out and being unclear about her motives. In the reading tonight, the argument between Antigone and Creon grew out of Antigone's past, as Creon says. Also, it comes from Antigone not knowing the real story behind Polynices and Eteocles, but it is hard to know that Creon's account of the story is truthful too. I think that Anouilh created this tension between truth and lies to highlight that no one really knows anything, and that it's hard to know who to believe. The entire back story of Oedipus and all of the contradiction in the events of Antigone  all build into this tension. It could be that Anouilh is using this tension to create a theme for the play, which is that not everything is true. Of course that needs elaborating, so in a longer phrase, you can't believe everything you hear, and sometimes even what you see, and the only truth there is is the truth that you make for yourself. Essentially, each person is entitled to their own beliefs.