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Antígona furiosa

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About the author

Griselda Gambaro

74 books33 followers
Novelista y dramaturga, Griselda Gambaro nació en Buenos Aires en 1928. Comenzó a escribir tempranamente, dedicándose en principio a la narrativa, género que alternó después con la dramaturgia.

Desempeñó distintos trabajos hasta que la obtención de premios y la percepción de sus derechos de autor le permitieron, hacia 1982, vivir de su tarea específica. Durante la dictadura militar argentina, un decreto del general Videla prohibió su novela “Ganarse la muerte” por encontrarla contraria a la institución familiar y al orden social. Debido a ésto y a la situación imperante, se exilió en Barcelona, España.

Actualmente reside en un barrio suburbano de la provincia de Buenos Aires.



Griselda Gambaro was born in Buenos Aires. Although known primarily as one of Latin America's most accomplished dramatist, she began her literary career by writing novellas and short stories. She has won several prestigious national awards in Argentina and has been a Guggenheim Fellow in the United States. El Campo is the most powerful of her more than dozen plays.

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5 stars
51 (16%)
4 stars
83 (26%)
3 stars
135 (42%)
2 stars
39 (12%)
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9 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
Profile Image for Azu.
64 reviews6 followers
June 2, 2023
No sé si me dio risa el libro o como lo leyeron mis compañeros de curso, pero suma puntos
Profile Image for Gabriela Guerrero.
108 reviews1 follower
July 9, 2019
“ Cuando se ultraja el poder y se transgreden los límites, siempre se paga en moneda de sangre.”
24 reviews1 follower
March 17, 2021
3.5 i enjoyed the throwback to studying greek tragedy but i slightly felt like too many things were going on at once
Profile Image for Sofia Ash.
7 reviews1 follower
March 18, 2021
"Remembering the dead is like grinding water with a mortar and pestle- useless."

Desiring death, consumed by grief, Antigone remains in her cage, ontologically shackled. She is crazed and wilful, rooted in her morals, seeing lunatics in those deemed sane.

The Antigone of Sophocles is an archetype- an embodiment of her tragic error; that of pride, of familial duty, of unruly obstinacy. But Anouilh's is consumed solely by her strive towards a senseless sacrifice- a fatalistic farce, a fervent tumble of the crisis of free will. Hers is a tale of nihilism and autonomy, a confusion of will, an existential rumination on ontological paradoxes. She is depicted as a thin, pale child- an individual skittering on the threshold, hanging suspended between life and death, will and fate, the hollow ignorance of adolescence and the bitterness that accompanies age.

Here, Gambaro's Antigone is arguably another archetype- an embodiment of the madwoman trope, an Ophelia clawing at her cage. She is insane, some morbid, rabid creature, psychologically estranged and suffocating slowly within her grief and pride... "Do you see me, Creon? I am crying! do you hear me, Creon? (deep lament raw and guttural)." She is voiceless to the rulers, a slave to the state.

And her insanity is infectious, it is as though she is the carrier of some contagion, as others around her begin to adopt her mad ramblings. "I will be your body, your coffin, your earth... the living are the great sepulchre of the dead!" Here, the one is insane who dares defy, the one who transgresses, the one who interrogates. And of course, as a woman, she is all the more insane, there is nothing noble in her sacrifice, she is merely mad, "a mortal believing to share the fate of gods."

And like Anouilh's Antigone, she too hangs in a state of suspension, inhabiting a liminal status, teetering on the threshold between worlds. She claws at her cage, "uncounted among the living and among the dead... an eternal prisoner where I will be together with my own."

[This marks my having read 3 adaptations of the tale of Antigone, and all are weighted by the political contexts in which they were conceived. Antigone as more of an archetype than an individual? perhaps. Some marionette to be arranged and rearranged... a lump of clay to be moulded? She is defined by her wilful death, and her desire for it. To her, it is a threshold, not an end, and she herself is the sacrifice, the sacred ceremony, the cry of the voiceless.]
Profile Image for Nadia Ash.
29 reviews
March 17, 2021
When power is affronted and limits transgressed, payment is always in the currency of blood.

Playing upon the Sophoclean tragedy, Gambaro crafts a tale of grief, pride and the bitter repercussions of despotism. It is a tale with no coherent sense of linearity; time is fluid, we oscillate back and forth between the living, the dead and the dying, and this threshold between the two stages of existence is a pervasive presence throughout the play. Grief propels the fury of Antígona, it moulds her behaviour, sharpens her pride. And yet the others look upon this with disdain, with flippancy. Remembering the dead is like grinding water with a mortal and pester - useless.

Still, she persists with her all-consuming wish to bury the corpse of her brother. Neither God nor justice made the law. The living are the great sepulchre of the dead! She is an embodiment of the endurance of honour, of virtue, in the face of despotic rule. Her voice is an echo of the voices of las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, the women whose grief granted them power in spite of Videla’s oppressive reign. Gambaro used this timeless tragedy to bring to sharp relief the endurance of despotic rule across centuries. But though despotism clings to those in power regardless of time or nation, as does the insistence of the people to confront these reigns of tyranny. Under Videla’s rule, over 30,000 were deemed ‘missing’, branded los desaparecidos by state officials. It was the mothers of these missing people who demanded the truth of their fates. Grief and fury propelled their thirst for justice.

And it is grief and fury which propels Antígona. Though she is imprisoned for her desire to bury her brother, still, her faith in justice endures. They doubled her solitude, yet her honour also multiplies.

I will drink and stay thirsty, my lips will grow slack, my tongue will grow thick like that of a mute animal. No. I refuse this bowl of mercy that masks their cruelty. Mouth moist with my own saliva, I will go to my death.
Profile Image for chacierrr.
172 reviews19 followers
March 13, 2023
Getting real bored of these plays
31 reviews1 follower
May 25, 2016
Meh. I suppose it has good intentions, setting the story outside of time and linking it to Argentina's last coup d'état and enforced disappearances, but it falls short. In the end it's just a summary of Sophocles' play.
Profile Image for Erin.
156 reviews1 follower
May 1, 2023
Upon reread, I actually enjoyed this even more!
Profile Image for Patricia Vidal.
154 reviews23 followers
February 22, 2024
Por ser mujer, nací para compartir el amor y no el odio. Dicté muchas veces esta Antígona, lado a lado, con la Antígona de Sófocles. En 1986, tres años después de la dictadura militar, Griselda Gambaro despierta a Antígona en la horca, ella ya ha pagado con su vida la desobediencia. En su boca, el lenguaje elevado de la tragedia se convierte en parodia, se teje la re-vuelta del mito para arrojar luz sobre una realidad histórica con expresión de denuncia política y social. Antígona se retira la soga del cuello, proviene de otro espacio-tiempo, uno mítico y atemporal, y en un bar de Buenos Aires, se encuentra con Corifeo(quien se desdobla para representar a Creonte) y Antinoo, personajes de este espacio-tiempo presente que se burlan de ella, el pueblo silencioso y el gobierno de la dictadura cómplices.
El conflicto dramático reposa en palabras y no acciones, se trata de dos temporalidades que dialogan para volver a contar el mito de Antígona, contaminándose mutuamente. La lucha por la memoria, por poder narrar lo que sucedió con el cuerpo insepulto de Polínices (símbolo de los desaparecidos) es el punto en el que Gambaro retoma el mitema Antígona/Creonte, oprimidos/opresor.
Se repasa el mito de Sófocles : Antígona llora por el cuerpo de su hermano Polinices, caído en batalla, aun sabiendo que esta acción fue prohibida por el poder de turno. Acusada de loca, Corifeo insiste en llamarla Ofelia. Así emerge la figura de las perseguidas madres de la Plaza de Mayo, quienes fueron tildadas de locas con el objetivo de deslegitimar sus voces; la oposición entre dos leyes, la de los Dioses y el derecho que da la herencia, contra la del Estado y el poder; la injusticia del aprisionamiento de Antígona, ocultada en una cueva, sin el agua ni el alimento para vivir lo suficiente (un desaparecido no es un muerto ni un vivo, es un desaparecido, diría Videla); la oposición de Hemón, su prometido, ante esta injusta sentencia y el enfrentamiento, por este motivo, con su padre; la advertencia de Tiresias de que la injusta acción de Creonte acarreará la peste y la desgracia; la muerte de Antígona, la de Hemón por su propia daga y el suicidio de Eurídice: su madre; el falso arrepentimiento de Creonte y su inútil perdón hacia Antígona ya muerta. El desenlace es el del tiempo mítico: circular, muerte y silencio. En un país fragmentado por la memoria del pasado, Antígona siempre retornará, furiosa, para alzar su voz contra la injusticia, para enterrar a Polinices una y mil veces más.
Profile Image for Jacky Chan.
261 reviews7 followers
April 9, 2020
A very, what's the word, probing play. I gave it three stars after a first reading, but returning to it armed with a knowledge of Sophocles' Antigone and the Argentinian 'Dirty War' I realised how ingenious and powerful it actually is. Antigona Furiosa is a play that dramatises the significance of linearity, of gender and sexuality, of memory, and of the corporeal to politics, specifically the politics of a hyper-masculine hyper-repressive Argentina attempting to remove and eradicate dissidents from the face of the nation and history. Anyone reading or watching the play for the first time will, as I most certainly have, be baffled, but what is living under such a regime if not baffling? It is far too easy to give up trying to understand contemporary politics due to the discomfort, confusion, and 'anarchy', to slightly misquote James Joyce, it thrusts at us, but Antigona Furiosa tells us not to. It forces us to look at the corpse of Antigona, first dead, then reanimated, and finally dead again, on the stage, and explode upon us, just as Michel Foucault theorises, a kind of power. But this is not the power of oppression; no, it is rather the power of resistance. And as the vices of the world close their grip on us (what with the happenings in Hong Kong and Bernie Sander's loss in the US, among many, many other events), we must do what we can to resist.
Profile Image for Anapanini.
69 reviews4 followers
September 21, 2022
«¿No terminará nunca la burla? Hermano, no puedo aguantar estas paredes que no veo, este aire que oprime como una piedra. La sed. (Palpa el cuenco, lo levanta y lo lleva a sus labios. Se inmoviliza) Beberé y seguiré sedienta, se quebrarán mis labios y mi lengua se transformará espesa en un animal mudo. No. Rechazo este cuenco de la misericordia, que les sirve de disimulo a la crueldad. (Lentamente lo vuelca) Con la boca húmeda de mi propia saliva iré a mi muerte. Orgullosamente, Hemos, iré a mi muerte. Y vendrás corriendo y te clavarás la espada. Yo no lo supe. Nací, para compartir el amor y el odio. (Pausa larga) Pero el odio manda. (Furiosa) ¡El resto es silencio! (Se da muerte. Con furia)»

Espectacular.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Ana Enriques.
259 reviews12 followers
April 18, 2022
Como siempre, me costó un poco disfrutar de la lectura de una obra con tantos elementos vanguardistas. Sin embargo, esta recreación del mito de Antígona, con todos sus juegos formales, sus rupturas y sus resignificaciones, me parece magistral. No es el tipo de lecturas que se puede procesar de una sola vez, pero tiene mucho para analizar y reflexionar.
Profile Image for Julieta en palabras.
28 reviews2 followers
July 6, 2020
"Nací para compartir el amor y no el odio.
Pero el odio manda.
¡El resto es silencio!"

Hermosa obra que, tomando como referencia a Antigona de Sofocles, denuncia las atrocidades de la última dictadura militar Argentina. Compleja. Triste. Realista.
Profile Image for Ali's Library.
378 reviews7 followers
July 17, 2020
Entiendo porque habla sobre las madres de plaza de mayo y la dictadura militar, sin embargo, muy a pesar mío, no pudo interpelar me. No vi todo lo que después me explicaron. Es una buena adaptación pero no me produjo nada...
Profile Image for Felicidad.
91 reviews1 follower
January 20, 2022
Esta obra revive en un recuerdo intenso la tragedia griega de Antígona, aumentando aun más, si cabe, cuantas reflexiones en el teatro de Sófocles aparecen. Es difícil de interpretar, pero cada detalle tiene su sentido.
Profile Image for catalina.
54 reviews1 follower
August 16, 2023
le doy 2.5 porque no estoy tan acostumbrada a leer obras entonces no conecté bien con el texto, me costó seguir el hilo y entender el trasfondo.
igual me gustaron dos frases:
“nací para compartir el amor y no el odio”
“¿a qué dios he ofendido? ¿pero cómo creer en dios todavía?”
207 reviews1 follower
March 23, 2025
Antigone reset in Bruno’s Aires to talk about to the dirty war in Argentina, where it fits very well. The substance of the play I feel is substantially the same, but the style and setting have been updated.
Profile Image for Laura Janeiro.
213 reviews7 followers
January 18, 2021
Tiene de todo, texto lineal, interpretaciones entre líneas, métrica de poesía, imágenes potentes, clasicismo y presente, drama, amor, crimen y castigo, todo en unas pocas páginas
Imponente!
Profile Image for Jasss.
83 reviews1 follower
November 17, 2024
debería de leerme un análisis de esta obra porque me costó un poquito comprender ciertas cositas, de igual manera me encantó.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews

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