Abstract
This paper attempts to compare Sophocles’ Antigone to the Egyptian adaptation Antigone’s law (2022), to highlight the significance of intertextuality. The study entails contributions to intertextuality that will be integrated in analyzing the adapted discourses. It will also capitalize on the political and social dimensions illustrated in the adapted play. The study aims to explore the oppressed female voices in the concerned texts and how the adapted work is appropriating to any oppressed culture that suffers from the same sense of oppression throughout the ages. In this respect, the paper reflects the oppressed female character who defies her uncle who embodies the tyrannical figure that does not want her to bury her brother. In this respect, the paper rests on Julia Kristeva’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s development of intertextuality. It will also rely on Lorna Hardwick’s and Robert Fraser’s reference to the use of verbal and semiotic techniques which give the audiences a new comprehensive meaning that could be linked to their real life. This paper will also explain Susan Bassnett’s concept of polyphony or plurivocality that is set in contrast to the earlier model imposed by the colonial power of univocality. In other words, the other voices can be heard rather than the dominant single or monolithic voice. Plurivocality is capitalized on as it is at the heart of post-colonial thinking. Therefore, the study aims at proving that the experience was not only limited to the individual, but also to a whole community and humanity as well, and that reflects and highlights the power and the wisdom of women through the ages with different manifestations in the examined discourse. The study therefore, attempts to prove how the notion of intertextuality is found deeply in the Egyptian adapted work.
Keywords
Adaptation, Appropriation, Intertextuality, Feminism, Tyrannical Figure, Oppressed Voices
1. Theoretical Framework
1.1. Influence and Intertextuality
Over the past two decades, the concepts of influence and intertextuality were sites of conflict between generations. The new “style” of “Intertextuality” has been a generational sign for younger critics who end up doing a lot of what their elders or seniors do with influence of the terms of “context”, “allusion”, and “tradition”. Precisely, influence should refer to relations built on dyads of transmission from one unit to another. The shape of intertextuality, in turn, depends on the shape of influence
| [9] | Clayton, J, and Rothstein, E. Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wis., 1991. |
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. Intertextuality might be taken as a general term, working out from the broad definition of influence to include unconscious, socially prompted types of text formation for example (by archetypes or popular culture), modes of conception such as ideas in the air, styles such as genres and the other prior constraints and opportunities for the writer. Hence, Intertextuality might be used to replace the kinds of issues that influence addresses which is the main concern of the author and conscious authorial intentions and skills
| [9] | Clayton, J, and Rothstein, E. Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wis., 1991. |
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When we look at the difference between influence and intertextuality, we find that both terms have too many operative definitions, we will try to fix in one definition for each term. We will start with the generalization that influence has to do with agency, while intertextuality has to do with a much impersonal field of crossing texts, because the study of influence is so tied to specific cases and has largely proceeded anonymously while that of the far more egalitarian intertextuality has had great impetus from a serious of masterful, highly personal critics, such as Bakhtin, Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Kristeva, and Lacan.
Influence contrasts with intertextuality because influence is an old notion or old given while intertextuality is a recent term, which dates from Julia Kristeva’s
Sémiotique Recherches Pour Une Sémanalyse (1969). The interest in influence appears around the middle of the eighteenth century with the interest in originality and genius, and the notion still holds the signs of this origin. According to Clayton and Rothstein, “originality was a key to a work of literature and the only true sign of an author’s genius”
| [9] | Clayton, J, and Rothstein, E. Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wis., 1991. |
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In the nineteenth century, influence becomes an essential element, developed as it was under the aegis of idealistic theories that stressed agency. In the late 1960s, the time that intertextuality was entering into currency, there was very limited interest in reflection on the theoretical problems implied in influence. The exception of this is Ihab Hassan’s “The Problem of Influence in Literary History”, which takes an issue with what he saw as naïve expressionism, dealing with the feelings, ideas, and values of an author as they are presented in a literary work which supported a lot of criticism to the concept of influence
| [6] | Ihab, H. “The Problem of Influence in Literary History: Notes towards a Definition.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 14, no. 1, 1955, pp. 66–76. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/426642 |
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. Hassan opposed the idea of exiling the author from the work as were some of his New Critical contemporaries, but rather in complicating the notion of literary expression by enlarging artistic expressionism, so as to consider the biographical, sociological, and philosophical perspectives that can help the critic uncover the play of the unconscious involved in every instance of influence
| [9] | Clayton, J, and Rothstein, E. Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wis., 1991. |
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1.2. Julia Krestiva’s Contribution
The lexicography of the term “Intertextuality” took on its force through its French introducers. There were diverse interpretations of the term that make it unstable in meaning. Kristeva has contributed to the great development of “intertextuality” that includes both inclusion and selectivity and her development itself was a complex intertextual event. As Clayton and Rothstein clarifies, “she initially used it in her dialogue with the texts of Mikhail Bakhtin. One of the first to introduce Bakhtin in France, she employed his ideas as a lever to displace semiotics, shifting it toward a more openly ideological criticism”
| [9] | Clayton, J, and Rothstein, E. Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wis., 1991. |
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She used it at the beginning of her dialogue with the texts of Mikhail Bakhtin. For Kristeva, Bakhtin represents the possibility of opening linguistics to society. As she states, “Bakhtin situates the text within history and society, which are seen as texts read by the writer, and into which he inserts himself by rewriting them”
| [10] | Kristeva, J. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Ed. Leon S. Poetics Today, vol. 3, no. 4, 1982, pp. 193–194. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1772011 |
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. Bakhtin attempts to expand the unit of analysis across the boundaries of ordinary linguistics. Kristeva attempts to follow Bakhtin to transform semiotics into a new method of analysis called “translinguitics” which is to face the literary work on the formal and the social levels simultaneously. Kristeva transforms Bakhtin’s concepts by causing them to be read in conjunction with ideas about textuality that were emerging in France in the mid-sixties.
Among theorists of intertextuality, Kristeva seems at first unique in not emphasizing the role of the reader. The only reader in Kristeva is the writer reading another text, a figure that becomes “no more than a text rereading itself as it rewrites itself.”
| [10] | Kristeva, J. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Ed. Leon S. Poetics Today, vol. 3, no. 4, 1982, pp. 193–194. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1772011 |
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. Therefore, later theories of intertextuality have kept and further textualized Kristeva’s strong basis in semiotics. Furthermore, Clayton and Rothstein support Kristeva through maintaining that:
Reception theory developed in the 1970s out of reader‐response theory, which reminds us that the meanings of a text are ‘neither manifested in the printed text, nor produced solely by the reader's imagination’, but generated by a synthesis between the two. This dispels the notion that there is a single, timeless, objective, sui generis, independent, meaning of a text and introduces the notion of reader agency: the notion that a reader actively negotiates and interprets rather than passively receives a text. Stanley Fish subverted the authority of the text by pointing out that readers bring interpretative strategies to a text that exist ‘prior to the act of reading and therefore determine the shape of what is read’ rather than the other way around”
| [9] | Clayton, J, and Rothstein, E. Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wis., 1991. |
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1.3. Adaptation and Appropriation
Intertextuality is not the only theoretical concept that traces the influence of the text on another. Adaptation and appropriation also trace the relationship between an earlier text, or what is called hypotext and subsequent text that was influenced by it, or the hypertext. Firstly, adaptation can simply be defined as transforming matter into another matter. Linda Hutcheon’s defines the adaptation as “deliberate, announced, and extended revisitations of prior work” (p. xiv)”
. If intertextuality is connected with what Julia Kristeva states that all texts invoke and rework other texts in a rich and constantly evolving cultural mosaic, adaptation, as well, can be a transitional exercise, casting a specific type of genre to another generic mode, a process of revision itself. Adaptation can be a revised point of view by being involved in offering commentary on a source text and adding hypnotical motivation or voicing silenced and marginalized voices
. In addition, Sanders mentioned that the intertext with different texts could allow readers to link to the post-colonial theory, when she says that “The interleaving of different texts and textual traditions, which is manifest in that intertextual impulse, has also been linked to the now-contested postcolonial theory of ‘hybridity’”
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Secondly, appropriation is a process of transformation of the work to be acceptable to the target audience or to be appropriate for the target culture that will be taken to. Frequently the effect of adaptation and appropriation are intersected and interrelated and it’s important to clarify between them as creative activities. Adaptation refers to a relationship to a source or original text. On the other hand, appropriation greatly affects a more crucial journey away from the real source into a totally new cultural product and domain
Adaptation can be a revised point of view by being involved in offering commentary on a source text and adding hypnotical motivation or voicing silenced and marginalized voices.
2. Antigone: An Overview
Sophocles’ Antigone has a long history over the years through its effect on the audience and the perception of the play in different contexts. Sophocles’ Antigone in the beginning was an ancient Greek play that presents a female struggle against oppression. Through the ages, it becomes a myth that has a lot of variants all over the years, although that shows no sign of being changed. The earliest representation we have of Antigone dates back to the late fifth or early fourth century BC is a vase painting. Later, it was transformed into a play by Sophocles in 441 BC.
Sophocles’ Antigone was first staged in the fifth century BCE in Athens. Sophocles was appointed as one of the ten strategic (commanders) in the Athenian action against Samos because of his success with the production of Antigone which is taken from one of the summaries (hypothesis) in the surviving manuscript of the play comments. The Samian revolt prompted an aggressive initiative by the Athenian democracy to maintain its power in the islands of the eastern Mediterranean, which took place in 441–439 and so. It is argued that Sophocles’ election to be a commander really did result from his success as a playwright of Antigone. Hardwick and Fraser (2009) mentioned in their book Antigone across Worlds that Antigone was performed in the open-air theatre of Dionysus in Athens and more than 14,000 audiences attend. The names of the winning playwrights were inscribed in stone on public records and the judges were representative of all areas of the Athenian city and surrounding land. The original language for Antigone was Greek language and it is translated into many languages and has been adapted and rewritten from a lot of different perspectives.
Since it was first performed, a great number of theatrical, operatic, choreographic, cinematic, and narrative versions of Antigone have been produced throughout the years and until now. As aforementioned, there is a great number of adaptations of Antigone and each adaptation is taken to serve different interests whether they are political, social, religious, or gender and it is becoming what is called “Antigone’s fever” because it is adopted all over the world. The bibliography would extend from Aristotle’s Rhetoric to the exultant apologia for Creon in Bernard-Henri Levy’s Le Testament de Dieu. The years of 1943-4 and 1978-9 were in fact years of “Antigone fever” (Steiner 110). In fact, Sophocles’ Antigone survived and became part of the western canon. In all the adaptation versions, the voice of the oppressed and the confrontation of justice and law are rooted.
The main objective of this paper, is exploring how the
Antigone play migrates across time and place and is translated with appropriate language for each culture, and how the reader or spectator read and experiences it in different ways and in different contexts, and how the spectators make links between the theatre and the current events they experienced. It is clearly a story without an end because it is always the voice of the oppressed throughout the ages.
Antigone was translated in many languages and in different forms that is why it is interpreted in different ways. The debate about its meaning and significance in the ancient context of its first production is continuing, which is what Walter Benjamin argued that the most ancient of texts may still contain elements that are awaiting discovery. An alternative way of expressing this, perhaps, is to mine Antigone’s ancient and modern to try to identify how and when the dialogue between the different histories of production and interpretation actually arrives at some kind of sense of simultaneous experience and interpretation
| [11] | Lorna, H and Robert, F. Reading Guide for Block 1: Antigone across worlds, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, 2009. |
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The play revolves around Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and sister of Polyneices and Eteocles, who defies her uncle Creon's order and buries Polyneices who had attacked Thebes to regain the throne. After her act is discovered, Haemon, who is Creon's son and Antigone’s fiancé attempts uselessly to convince Creon to relent from his order that Antigone be buried alive. Creon thought to relent but it was too late. At the cave beside Antigone who has hanged herself, Haemon unsuccessfully attacks Creon with his knife and then stabs himself. After a messenger relates these events to Eurydice, Creon's wife, she stabs herself while cursing Creon.
When the work of art is translated and performed on the stage, it takes different dimensions. When it is performed, the act of performance and the environment of the theatre give additional meaning to the written text because of the use of verbal and semiotic techniques, which make the work more comprehensive, giving the audience a new and comprehensive meaning that could be linked to their real lives. That’s what the magic of the theatre can do in the audience’s perception of the events. Hardwick and Fraser refer to:
The question of the relationship between source and target texts, cultures and readers takes on an additional dimension in the case of translation for and to the stage. This is because actors use their bodies as well as words, and the set design, costumes, properties, music, soundscape and other theatrical features are integrated in framing the audience’s response. So the somatic, the semiotic and the verbal come together to create the whole performance ‘text’. Something of the variety of possibilities in staging Antigone is shown in the images reproduced in your set text Sophocles: Antigone…Equally important is the impact of theatrical space – the size and shape of the acting space, its relationship to the audience, the environment in which the theatre is set, and the cultural spaces (shared and alien) that the production assumes the spectators inhabit. These, together with the set design and architecture of the stage can have profound effects on how the spectators relate the play to contemporary experience
| [11] | Lorna, H and Robert, F. Reading Guide for Block 1: Antigone across worlds, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, 2009. |
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In November 2022 the theatre of the American University in Cairo hosted the great myth of Antigone by the Greek ancient writer Sophocles. The performance is directed by the professor of theatrical studies at the American University in Cairo, Dina Amin, and interpreted by Yehya Abd Elghany. Dr. Amin’s performance Antigone’s Law is derived from the tragedy of Antigone. The play is presented in the modern era and in the colloquial or vernacular Egyptian language. It depicts the grief of an entire city in the aftermath of a civil war, then depicts the curse that was put on Antigone and her grief along with the Thebes women for the dead. The play discusses issues such as state versus family and civil disobedience versus patriotism.
In her useful article “Antigone’s law: A Contemporary Dramatic Egyptian Version”, Dalia Mansour wrote that this performance shows a contemporary Egyptian drama which is considered as an Appropriation (Adaptation) because the Egyptian director Dina Amin makes a dramaturgy and resets and mixes some dialogues and some scenes in order to be appropriate for the Egyptian audience as well as to be appropriate for the contemporary time and events in Egypt. In an interview with the director, Dina Amin, she said that she used the slang Egyptian language to be accessible for the young people
Hence, we can use the term “Appropriation” which seems to be suitable for the work and the target audience as well. The show has a lot of meanings and dimensions that could be linked to the Egyptian societal reality at the present time which is considered as an intertext.
The main focus in this paper, as aforementioned, is intertextuality, which is founded deeply in the chorus singing because it holds a lot of meaning and dimensions, Choral Odes shape the moral and religious environment of the performance as well as its interaction with the main figures and helps the transitions between events. The chorus itself functions as an intertextual web, because some of the songs are including Biblical verses and in the Sophocles’ time there was no Christianity. In fact, the Biblical verses are universalizing the theme of sacrificing the soul for humanity. By talking about the intertextual web, we have to mention the role of Antigone because she is voicing women, religion, and voicing the political rights and religious rights as well. On another level, she is voicing women’s rights which means that she is against oppression and against the tyrannical figure represented by her uncle - Creon.
3. Theatrical Techniques
The term “Performance” is very broad and has a lot of dimensions; performance could be defined as the widest, sharpest disc. The whole constellation of events, most of it goes unnoticed, occurring in/between both the performers and the audience from the time the first spectator enters the field of performance - the area where the stage is set - until the time the last spectator leaves. Marvin Carlson points out that the term performance has recently developed “as a central metaphor and critical tool for a bewildering variety of studies, covering almost every aspect of human activity. Performance discourse and its close theoretical partner, ‘performativity’, today dominate critical discourse not only in all manner of cultural studies, but also in business, economics, and technology”
| [5] | Fabrizio, D. “Performance Studies Floating Free of Theatre. Richard Schechner and the Rise of an Open Interdisciplinary Field”, Article in Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses · January 2014. pp13-25. https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.2013.26.02 |
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. Performance adds different dimensions that sometimes are not focused on in the original text. This section will focus on the different theatrical techniques that were employed in the Egyptian performance, namely, light and sound effects, symbolism, and Brecht’s alienation techniques. Light will also be shed upon the play as an intertext, and the feminist reading of the play.
The use of light, the sound effects, and the songs of the chorus are very significant. The use of dim lights and almost dark stage present the sadness and the conflict among the characters who called for preserving humanity by burying and honoring the dead, and the oppressor character “Creon” who rejects and even suppresses everyone who could support Antigone and her act of burying her brother’s dead body. The point of burying the dead body functions as an intertext with the Islamic religion because in Islam there is a strong call for hurrying up in burying the dead body, so it is an intertext with the Islamic religion in this point and its appeal for the Muslim faith.
In addition to light, the great sound effect of the chorus adds to the sad atmosphere prevailing the whole play. The chorus is composed of girls only who have a magical sound even without music. They bring some songs from the Egyptian culture and “Nubian Folklore”, which are stories of a community passed through the generations by word of mouth, which represent the Egyptian roots and identity. These songs are considered an intertext with the Egyptian traditions and folklore. This idea is stated by Dalia Mansour in her article saying that:
In line with the Egyptian culture and the Nubian folklore that represented the roots and the Egyptian identity, the female Chorus charmingly sings Nubian songs that represent the Egyptian traditions and rituals. These intertexts foster Antigone's humane point of view of burying her brother in the context of the dramatic performance
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Figure 1. A pyramid of jackets on the stage showing the light effects.
There are some words of the chorus’s songs that are not clearly heard but the sound effect is very sad and we can feel the sadness in their voices; in other times somehow they appear as Biblical verses calling for sacrifice for the sake of salvation and the preservation of humanity from doom, and calling for the importance of applying the laws of the Gods, and that’s Antigone was calling for supporting humanity and rejecting oppression in all its forms. Some countries in the contemporary world practice it by mentioning that we all must obey and apply the law of the state, and that’s what Dalia Mansour mentions in her article:
Unlike the traditional classical chorus, all the characters that act as Chorus were women whose songs embed so many intertexts that reveal many rich dimensions of meaning. For example, one of their choral songs includes some Biblical verses that call for sacrifice for the sake of salvation and saving humanity from damnation. This Biblical intertext implies a necessity of adhering to the gods' laws - the message Antigone was calling for throughout the whole performance
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One of the theatrical techniques that the director used is the symbolism as in
Figure 1 above; upon entering the theatre you find something like a pyramid of jackets on the stage. In the beginning, one might think that those jackets were in a red color but when the actors take them away, it can be noticed that they are in a beige color, which means that the director was very skillful in using the light effects to give us the effect of the blood of the dead body and to make the audience imagine throughout the performance how catastrophic it is to leave the dead body on the ground without burying. In addition, the red carpet which has black spots, as shown in
figure 1, can refer to the shame of what happened by wasting the souls of the deaths. The wonderful mix of the two red and black colors combines the idea of shame of what happened to Thebes, that is what the red spotlights on the jackets and the red carpet could do in the perception of the events. Then when the actors take the jackets and hold them, it is noticeable that those jackets were a sign of the unlimited number of inhumane practices of not burying the dead bodies. This reflects how a tyrannical figure Creon is.
In addition to the significant use of light and sound effects, it is apparent that the performance is using Brecht’s alienation techniques, which refer to the unconventional theatrical conventions developed by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht to convey Marxist ideas and critique bourgeois society. Some key techniques include the alienation effect, didacticism, breaking the fourth wall, and gestus.” These techniques were known by Brecht as "epic theatre", which “was episodic and non-representational, intended to turn spectators into observers who critically examine social, political, and economic issues rather than experience emotional catharsis. Songs, narration, gestural acting, and other techniques aimed to distance audiences and force them to think rather than feel.”
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Brechtian techniques are apparent in this performance and can be traced in the intentional interruptions that break the linearity of the play, which reflect its episodic structure. This leads to the audience alienation who got confused by the unconventional narration adopted in the play. These breaks, which could be intentional and without a clear meaning, allow the audience to participate in the meaning making and let them think in the events that could be related to their reality.
4. Feminist Perspective
In the light of the feminist perspective, the director Dina Amin asks the producer Yehya Abd Elghany to change the composition of the chorus which is considered an important intertext because it was only men in Sophocles. Dr. Amin adapts scenes from The Trojan Women play by “Euripdius” produced in 415 BCE, and she replaces the original male chorus with a female chorus in a scene of Antigone to refer to the time of war when the women took the responsibility of the house and the children at the same time, and she brought songs specified for that purpose.
Figure 2. The power and independence of Antigone.
The feminist sense was very clear in the performance, not only because most of the actors are women but also because of the real force and independence that the actress acting Antigone represents all over the show as in
Figure 2, which is very clear in Dr. Amin’s work who stated, “I have always wanted to direct the play Sophocles
Antigone because it embodies a strong heroine with firm convictions”
| [12] | Mahmoud, N. “Antigone’s Law”, The Journal of All Playwrights 793, November 2022. |
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As the oppression of woman in the examined work takes different forms, the study entails looking closely at all the voices of the oppressed and the marginalized whose voices have long been denied. The most important thing Susan Bassnett emphasized is the concept of polyphony or plurivocality which was against the earlier model imposed by the colonial power of univocality. In other words, the other voices can be heard rather than the dominant single superior voice. She states that "[p]lurivocality is at the heart of post-colonial thinking"
. Despite her existing in tyrannical patriarchal society, the heroine defies the tyrannical figure ‘Creon’ and tries to bury her brother and save humanity from doom. Bassnett asserts that the other voices have to be heard rather than the single dominant power voice. In that sense, it is the voice of Antigone which represents the voice of the humanity as a whole.
Moreover, the title of the performance,
Antigone’s Law, gives the authority for the women and their role reversal and reflects the feminist perspective of the show. The heroine’s enforcement was also evident in her choice of the manner of her death and her rejection of her uncle’s oppression, who represents the so-called state’s law. Professor Mansour comments on the show by saying that “Antigone's choice of her death could be interpreted as an intertext of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for the salvation of humanity. The intertexts, therefore, form a web that embeds numerous universal meanings and dimensions despite the different time, culture, and place”
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Figure 3. Thebes’ women represent the wisdom voice.
At the same time, Dina Amin uses Thebes women as a voice of wisdom by trying to convince “Creon” not to do what could threaten to destroy humanity and lead to bloodshed as it is represented in
figure 3, which confirms the feminist perspective and shows that women are wiser than men. Furthermore, it is an intertext in showing the Egyptian traditional women’s wisdom as well. Dr. Amin focuses on the idea of having a solitary heroine appear on stage with the aim of burying her dead brother and defying the king “Creon”. She is a strong woman who wants to assert that the call of humanity in burying the dead is a universal call and she wants to please the gods as if she is empowered by them. Furthermore, she courageously prefers to sacrifice herself to be with her dead beloved family in an immortal life after death, instead of living in such oppressive community. She rejects the patriarchal system and the oppression, so she commits suicide willingly to protest against injustice which seems to be an act of resistance and glorifying death. This is an inspiration because it’s built in the audience’s perception, even if you thought you are helpless you can resist; this reflects a theatrical aim which is to inspire people to resist. This reflects a feminist perspective and postcolonial dimension as well. The name of Thebes is an intertext in itself because in the Pharaonic era there was a city in the south of Egypt called Thebes, so some Egyptian people could link it to the old Egyptian city of Thebes.
5. The Intertext with the Egyptian Tradition
Figure 4. The black gowns and the Intertext with the Egyptian rural traditions.
In
figure 4, the actresses’ costumes were very well significant because all the women in the play except Antigone and her sister were wearing simple black gowns, which represent the conservative, rural Egyptian dress that adheres to traditions. These costumes express their sadness over the fate of the “Oedipus” family due to the curses of the gods. They could also serve as an intertext with the Egyptian tradition, because the black dress is always worn in the case of death and here in the performance all actresses are wearing it because of their sadness and their deep sorrow over the violation of humanity and human rights. In fact, the performance was very well performed and the actors and actresses, the stage, the songs, and the customs and all these elements make a comprehensive show that could inspire the audience by encouraging audience to relate and to link the events with the real events in Egypt. What proves that the performance is really successful in conveying its message to the humanity all over the world and is what Erin B. Mee Helene refers to in his book
Antigone on the Contemporary World Stage:
The location and context of a performance, its staging, gestures, costumes, sets, songs, dances, and interpolated texts and media, all give performance its (p. 14) force. Hana Worthen shows us how a particular historical moment can shape the reception of production, while Ziter and Hardwick both write about the ways in which international theatre festivals can shape the ways spectators interpret productions
.
In addition, the connotative acting and emphasis on symbolism when they use the jackets as a symbol of the dead persons, and when
Antigone wears and holds her brother’s jacket as in
Figure 5, as a symbol of admitting what she did of burying her brother and holding his jacket to the end could be seen as a sign of holding to the dead and bravely challenging oppression as in
figure 5.
Figure 5. The actress holding the Jacket as a symbol of taking the responsibility.
6. Sophocles’ Antigone and Dr. Amin’s Antigone’s Law: A Comparison
Comparing the original play to the Egyptian adaptation shows that the two works have a concern for family funeral obligations, traditional rituals, and burial customs and their ceremonies because they are both dramatic tragedies that reflect and question rituals. However, the two works have major differences in terms of their respective interpretative traditions. While the original text was written in a very critical time of sociopolitical change in ancient Athens, and keeps the traditional patriarchal vision of women, the context of the adapted work Antigone’s Law is really different because it explores the role of women in that time and how a simple girl could be inspirational by her independent character and her call for human rights. It is worth noting that the performance is directed by a powerful female voice in the modern Egyptian theatre - Dr. Dina Amin. Her choice of composing the chorus of women only, instead of the traditional male chorus, as well as presenting the women in maturity voicing reason shows that the context in the adapted play is different because in Egypt the patriarchal role is rejected in its all forms, and the women have already their roles and existence in society compared by the context of Sophocles’ time.
Both works represent the idea of pleasing the gods and preserving humanity from doom, as well as the idea of celebrating the independent, courageous, and simple girl who face the tyrannical figure “Creon” in order to bury her brother and please the gods. That was recurrent in Antigone’s speech in Seamus Heaney’s adaptation of Sophocles’
Antigone in
The Burial at Thebes, when she says in her speech with her sister Ismene: “And I’ll go with my head held high. The Gods will be proud of me”
, and in the Egyptian adaptation, she says the same. In both works, she was firm in her decision in burying her brother and answering the call of gods as she says in Sophocles’
Antigone: “I have nothing to hide from the powers that see all. I’m doing what has to be done”
. With all courage that shows in both works, it is worth noting that in both texts, Antigone could be seen as a religiously and socially conservative character because of her concern for family funeral obligations, traditional rituals, and burial customs, and politically radical because she wanted her female voice to count. The assertion of the powerful female voice emphasizes Bassnett’s concept of the plurivocality of voices and gives the authority to the voice of the oppressed to be heard rather than a single dominant voice. By doing so, she represents a challenge to the power system represented by Creon.
7. Conclusion
Through analyzing the Egyptian adaptation Antigone’s Law, this paper revisited Sophocles’ Antigone from the feminist and postcolonial perspectives. For this purpose, this paper relied on Julia Krestiva’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s development of Intertextuality to show the role of the reader, and how Krestiva’s notion of Intertextuality is deeply founded in the Egyptian adapted work through many points such as the chorus’s songs, the customs of Thebes women, the force of religion and the feminist perspective which is very clear and deep in Antigone’s role and her effective and inspired role in facing the patriarchal system. This is in addition to the use of verbal and semiotic techniques mentioned by Lorna Hardwick’s and Robert Fraser, which gives the audience comprehensive meaning that could be linked to their events and real time. Furthermore, exploring Linda Hutcheon’s and Julie Sanders’s concept of adaptation and appropriation and how Antigone’s Law could be considered as an appropriation because it is voicing Egyptian audience and it is an intertext with the Egyptian culture and traditions as aforementioned.
End Note
All photos were taken by me during live performance in 2022 at the American University in Cairo Theater.
Author Contributions
Mariham El-Assal is the sole author. The author read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest.
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Cite This Article
-
-
@article{10.11648/j.ellc.20240902.12,
author = {Mariham El-Assal},
title = {Re-visiting Sophocles’ Antigone: Dr. Dina Amin’s 2022 Egyptian Version Antigone’s Law
},
journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
volume = {9},
number = {2},
pages = {42-49},
doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20240902.12},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240902.12},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20240902.12},
abstract = {This paper attempts to compare Sophocles’ Antigone to the Egyptian adaptation Antigone’s law (2022), to highlight the significance of intertextuality. The study entails contributions to intertextuality that will be integrated in analyzing the adapted discourses. It will also capitalize on the political and social dimensions illustrated in the adapted play. The study aims to explore the oppressed female voices in the concerned texts and how the adapted work is appropriating to any oppressed culture that suffers from the same sense of oppression throughout the ages. In this respect, the paper reflects the oppressed female character who defies her uncle who embodies the tyrannical figure that does not want her to bury her brother. In this respect, the paper rests on Julia Kristeva’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s development of intertextuality. It will also rely on Lorna Hardwick’s and Robert Fraser’s reference to the use of verbal and semiotic techniques which give the audiences a new comprehensive meaning that could be linked to their real life. This paper will also explain Susan Bassnett’s concept of polyphony or plurivocality that is set in contrast to the earlier model imposed by the colonial power of univocality. In other words, the other voices can be heard rather than the dominant single or monolithic voice. Plurivocality is capitalized on as it is at the heart of post-colonial thinking. Therefore, the study aims at proving that the experience was not only limited to the individual, but also to a whole community and humanity as well, and that reflects and highlights the power and the wisdom of women through the ages with different manifestations in the examined discourse. The study therefore, attempts to prove how the notion of intertextuality is found deeply in the Egyptian adapted work.
},
year = {2024}
}
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Re-visiting Sophocles’ Antigone: Dr. Dina Amin’s 2022 Egyptian Version Antigone’s Law
AU - Mariham El-Assal
Y1 - 2024/07/15
PY - 2024
N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240902.12
DO - 10.11648/j.ellc.20240902.12
T2 - English Language, Literature & Culture
JF - English Language, Literature & Culture
JO - English Language, Literature & Culture
SP - 42
EP - 49
PB - Science Publishing Group
SN - 2575-2413
UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240902.12
AB - This paper attempts to compare Sophocles’ Antigone to the Egyptian adaptation Antigone’s law (2022), to highlight the significance of intertextuality. The study entails contributions to intertextuality that will be integrated in analyzing the adapted discourses. It will also capitalize on the political and social dimensions illustrated in the adapted play. The study aims to explore the oppressed female voices in the concerned texts and how the adapted work is appropriating to any oppressed culture that suffers from the same sense of oppression throughout the ages. In this respect, the paper reflects the oppressed female character who defies her uncle who embodies the tyrannical figure that does not want her to bury her brother. In this respect, the paper rests on Julia Kristeva’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s development of intertextuality. It will also rely on Lorna Hardwick’s and Robert Fraser’s reference to the use of verbal and semiotic techniques which give the audiences a new comprehensive meaning that could be linked to their real life. This paper will also explain Susan Bassnett’s concept of polyphony or plurivocality that is set in contrast to the earlier model imposed by the colonial power of univocality. In other words, the other voices can be heard rather than the dominant single or monolithic voice. Plurivocality is capitalized on as it is at the heart of post-colonial thinking. Therefore, the study aims at proving that the experience was not only limited to the individual, but also to a whole community and humanity as well, and that reflects and highlights the power and the wisdom of women through the ages with different manifestations in the examined discourse. The study therefore, attempts to prove how the notion of intertextuality is found deeply in the Egyptian adapted work.
VL - 9
IS - 2
ER -
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