JEAN GIRAUDOUX'S TIGER AT THE GATES (LA GUERRE DE TROIE N'AURA PAS LIEU): THE NONSENSE AND NECESSITY OF HUMAN CONSTRUCTIONS OF MEANING

Jensen Mabe Dr. Dave Worster Department of English Peace College 15 East Peace Street Raleigh, NC 2704

Jean Giraudoux's Tiger at the Gates (La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas Lieu) portrays a society that looks to poets and intellectuals to glorify, romanticize and sentimentalize the inciting forces of an allegedly inevitable Trojan War through political, literary, mathematic, philosophic and gender constructs. Often, the narcissistic architecture of a history constructed by complex human egos engaging philosophical ideals in intellectual struggles yields just as flimsy a structure as belief in fate or destiny. The play itself is such a construction, thus rendering itself a self-conscious parody of its own attempt to create a structure of meaning—and of the reader's attempt to decipher this meaning—attempts demonstrative of a human need to explain and create order out of words. Nevertheless, the play seeks simultaneously to realize the redemption in such constructions. Giraudoux brilliantly epitomizes this paradox by writing the play on the eve of World War II as an impassioned plea to the French to avert conflict with Germany. Through Helen of Troy's character, Giraudoux examines gender as a social construct, which is inextricably tied to the construction of a palatable logic for war that relies on her as its default cause. Helen's body is literally the building site for competing masculine structures that seek either to idealize or degrade her—both constructs dehumanize her. Nevertheless, the joke is on the men, for Helen seems to be the only character who realizes that idealism and realism cannot be harmonized but must be held in tension. The primary question resulting from my analysis is whether Giraudoux still reaffirms the human construction of meaning through language and art as a necessary and even sacred element of human existence; I conclude that sometimes, these constructions can and do redeem the senseless world from which they are created.

Additional Abstract Information

Time and Location