Haemon [pleading now]. This is all a bad dream, Father. You are not yourself. It isn’t true that we have been backed up against a wall, forced to surrender. We don’t have to say yes to this terrible thing. You are still king. You are still the father I revered. You have no right to desert me, to shrink into nothingness. The world will be too bare, I shall be too alone in the world, if you force me to disown you.
Creon. The world is bare, Haemon, and you are alone. You must cease to think your father all-powerful.
The passage starts off with Haemon “pleading” with his father. Haemon’s tone is almost one of disbelief, he refers to it as a “bad dream”, and says that “it isn’t true”. This could establish that Haemon, although he sees these horrible things happening, he wants to believe in the goodness of his father. The goodness of the king, and the laws that he has always trusted. Haemon’s attitude of disbelief suggests that he doesn’t really want to question it, he wants the law to be right.
Haemon says “we have been backed up against a wall”. The reader can’t be sure exactly who “we” is. It could be Haemon and his father, but “we” could suggest an entire group of people. Or, possibly, mankind in general. Mankind is stuck against a wall and forced to surrender. So, this could suggest that people are stuck and they are forced to “surrender” their personal beliefs and morals.
However, Haemon argues that maybe man doesn’t have to “say yes to this terrible thing”. Haemon implies that his father is acting as if there is no other option, but that maybe there is another option. And sometimes a person should say “no” and not agree with what is going on if it is wrong.
Haemon’s next lines repeat “you”, “You are still king. You are still the father I revered. You have no right to desert me, to shrink into nothingness”. The repetition makes it sound like he is trying to convince himself. Haemon is trying to convince himself that his father is still the ruler of Thebes, and still the good man that Haemon has always looked up to. He claims that his father has “no right to desert” him, and “shrink into nothingness”. His attitude that his father doesn’t have the right to not do anything, suggests that Haemon believes the lawmakers should enforce the power that they have and not act as if they can’t do anything about it. A government should not do nothing.
Creon’s response is interesting when he says “the world is bare, Haemon and you are alone”. Creon suggests that there isn’t anything anyone can do, that it is straightforward. The word “bare” suggests a lack of substance. The world becomes plain, another indication that he is “backed up against a wall”. Creon also tells Haemon that he should stop thinking that he, Creon, is “all-powerful”. Since Creon represents a government, this suggests that a citizen shouldn’t believe that the government is all-powerful, that maybe the government doesn’t have power.
The basic significance of this passage, if looked at from a historical point of view, is that it can easily be associated with the Nazi occupation of France and the place of the French puppet government. Haemon wants to believe in the goodness of the government, like many people during World War 2 wanted to believe that the government would act, wouldn’t let something happen. Haemon suggests that the government acts like there is nothing it can do, but really that “isn’t true” and they shouldn’t “surrender”. That people don’t have to say yes to terrible things. This could suggest that basically, the French puppet government was acting like they were stuck against a wall and there was nothing they could do, but really they didn’t have to just say yes to something so terrible. They were still the government, they didn’t have a right to “shrink into nothingness”. However Creon, representing the puppet government, argues that the government isn’t all-powerful like people want to believe.
If taken in historical context, this passage seems to suggest that the French puppet government was being weak, they left the citizens alone and acted as if it was their only choice. They said yes to a terrible thing, the holocaust, and chose to act as if they were not powerful. Anouilh could suggest that people are alone, and one cannot rely on the government to fix the problems, because it isn’t necessarily all powerful, but should work to the best of their own ability to fight for what they believe in.
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