Determinism in Antigone and Freedom in Huis Clos

Huis clos, is a French play that means no exit which was written in 1944, which involves three souls locked up in hell, same room by a personal attendant to hi employer. The three souls who include Estelle Rigaut, Joseph Garcin and Ines Serrano find furnished plain room opposite to what they expected, being punished and tortured excessively. Initially, they start lying to themselves on issues regarding their placement there, but then they later realise that they are placed together as part of the punishment to make each of their life miserable. Joseph then comes up with an idea of stay away from each other and being silent but the other two cannot practise it with Ines singing and Estelle looking for a mirror vainly to see how she appears (Sartre, and Keith Gore, 1990, p. 65). In order to silence them, Ines becomes her virtual mirror by telling her the exact appearance on her face making her scared.

It is then realised that Ines is attracted to Estelle, while Estelle to joseph and joseph has no feeling towards the women. They then confess their crimes after their arguments, and despite that they still bother each other. With time, Joseph begins to fall into Estelle seduction attempts and this makes Ines jealous and crazy, in turn tries to tell him Estelle is only begging for his attraction whenever he tries to explain his problems to her. Joseph then gets confused and tries to escape, and so opens up the door but cannot leave (Sartre., 2000, p. 3). He then concludes that he has to make Ines trust him, she laughs off and calls him a coward while Estelle also tries to tolerate her seduction to joseph but then he denies and rejects to make love while the other is watch. This then stirs up infuriation and Estelle stabs Ines with a paper knife, which does nothing and Ines stabs her back and begins to chuckle. Estelle brings up the notion of being stuck in hell forever and they all laugh with Joseph closing it on (Wilcocks, 1975, p. 58).

Antigone is also another play, which involves two brothers who passed on before the play and the current ruler, Creon honoured one of them, Eteocles and the other, Polyneices in public shame. The two have sisters, Antigone and Ismen, and so the play is about Antigone who tries to bury his brother Polyneices (Cairns, 2016, p. 108). So, the lady was brought to the king and advised against mourning for his brother but then chose to break it. Creon then decide to lock her in a tomb but then changes mind and goes to release her. On seeing that Antigone hanged herself in the tomb, Creon’s son engaged to Antigone stabs himself. The queen Eurydice also kills herself following the son’s death.

Freedom is the act of not being enslaved and can think or speak how one wants, while determinism involves human beings lacking the free will to something and so they are not morally responsible for their actions. The act of free will, ability to choose between several options, and is closely related to actions in the play which are freely chosen such as sin, guilt, responsibility and praise. When It comes to plays, free willed actions deserve credit and rewards (Sophocles, 1998). Determinism on then says that when it comes to courses of action, only one is possible with the existence of free will. In this there is incompatibilism which claims that determinism is incompatible with free will, hard determinism which suggests that determinism is factual and so free will is impossible and finally metaphysical libertarianism whereby determinism does not exist and so free will is at least possible (Armstrong, 2010, p. 98).

The play Huis Clos, displays explores personal freedom. It shows that man is not limited to anything and whatever he wants to do he can as long he ready to accept the consequences ahead of him. Freedom is always accompanied by responsibility, where every action you carry out you must own and be ready to follow the consequences (Goldthorpe, 1984). In the above play, the characters involved, Estelle Rigaut, Joseph Garcin and Ines Serrano, are forced to follow the freedom terms and also own up the consequences. They react in various ways as the try to escape from hell differently like trying to escape to accepting they are stuck in there. Analysing how their freedom is withheld, reasons why they are in hell are first discussed. Initially, joseph claims he is there for being a disarmer and so he is being executed for that, Estelle claims there is a mistake for their placement there but then after several arguments, they change the answer and confess their doings truthfully. Joseph maltreated and cheated on his wife, Estelle resulted to a man’s’ suicide by having an affair with him, leading to her having a baby and later killing the child and finally Ines induced to have sex with her cousin while living with her (Mikhail, 1993, p. 62). The actions are then the reasons why their freedom is stripped off.

Another character in the play who controls their freedom in the play is the valet who prevents Garcin and the friends from leaving. The mysterious valet in the play, is the one who locked up the three in the plain furnished room in hell to prevent them from escaping. The valet is also not free, and his freedom is confined probably by Satan whom he works for in hell to lock up all the souls who are sent there. Free will in the play involves the actors paying a price for what they did (Earley, M. & Keil, P, 1993, p. 48). For instance, the crimes they committed each one of them is in hell because of their actions. If they had not followed their free will and acted on their wisdom, hell could be avoided according to the play.

In the play Antigone, freedom is undermined in the occasion when the ruler of Thebes, Creon denies Antigone the right of mourning his brother Polyneices and his body given funeral rites. This is the point when he gets angry and orders the sentry to find the culprit who organised that and covered the body with thin layer of earth. Antigone is then brought to furious king together with her sister ismene and questioned. Ismene tries to protect her sister in vain, and they Are both arrested. The arrests messes with other characters freedom such as Haemon’s, Antigone’s husband and Creon son who threatens to leave his home town when his father also threaten to execute Antigone (Sophocles., Kitto, H. & Hall, E, 1994, p. 59). Ismene is then spare whilst Antigone is buried alive in the cave. Antigone’s hangs herself while she is in the cave, Haemon’s seeing this, laments and stabbed himself and finally Eurydice disappears into palace where she kills herself due to the son’s death (Seigneuret, 1988, p. 68).

Determinism, is a universal theme in the play and so it proves more the characters have more flaw than an asset. Ignoring the importance of the lead actors in the play and the fact that they are all focuses in being self-driven their stubbornness. Determination of the characters in the play have gone to the extent of being rude and stubborn like Antigone who does not heed any word uttered from the king and thus resulting to her imprisonment (Sophocles. & Mulroy, 2014, p. 189). The king himself, Creon is disobedient and egocentric. when he does not heed to the blind prophet Tiresias who orders him to bury Polyneices because the gods are upset but then does not do that instead calls Tiresias a corrupt man. One thing to note is that all the characters in the play are not stubborn and arrogant like the blind prophet but then one who displaces a higher level of arrogance is the areas king Creon who is the cause of all the deaths in the play despite the warnings (McCalla, 1998, p. 102).

In Antigone, a major theme on freedom is the tension that exists between the action of the characters and their consequences. The free will of human beings is responsible for creating the most devastating and critical moments in history. For instance, the king paid his price for choosing to follow his own will which costed him lives of his beloved (Anouilh, J., Bray, B. & Freeman, E, 2000, p. 154). In controlling their fate was Antigone, the family heroine chose not to marry but as she is heading to die, she regrets dying for following the gods laws by burying his brother. The consequences as a result cost her life.

In both plays, the significance of freedom is clearly depicted and so in our world when we are convicted with something that tries to rob us, man uses his freedom of thought, action and choice to combat it (Donohoe, 2005, p. 26). The route of course chosen and acted upon cannot then be turned back as it turns out to be the human makeup and will follow man rest of his days. According to philosophers, they show how looking at our past life is not sweet, especially when we did not choose a course of action when there was an opportunity. The importance of freedom is that when man is alive, he is able to rearrange his life properly and start it a fresh and live the way he desired but the disadvantage comes in when he dies, all his life events are then put to a top, frozen and put into a mould that can never be broken. The play Huis Clos clearly shows this by the three souls being trapped in hell dead and cannot amend their lifelong activities.

The set rules and orders are always prominent in Antigone where the gods have their way of dealing with dead people and so disobeying this makes them angry forcing them to punish Creon. In conclusion the theme freedom and determinism played a huge role in both plays and are clearly depicted on how they are defied and respected in the plays.

References

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