The Island

4 ideas

1. Two cellmates rehearse Antigone on Robben Island

   John and Winston, political prisoners sharing a Robben Island cell, spend their days in a pointless labour of shovelling sand from one pile into the other's while guards beat them. At night John rehearses Winston to play Antigone for the prison concert. Midway through, John learns his ten-year sentence has been cut to three years, while Winston, serving life, is left to face the island alone. Winston rejects the role as humiliating drag, but in the end performs it, telling the audience of prisoners and guards that he goes to his living tomb for honouring the gods rather than the laws of the state.

2. Futile labour as a tool of degradation

   The prisoners fill a hole with sand while another prisoner digs it out again. The purpose of the task is to show them that their effort means nothing, which is a harsher punishment than hard work that produces something. The work breaks a person by removing any link between what he does and what results from it.

3. Classical tragedy as a coded political indictment

   Staging an ancient play lets the oppressed voice defiance under the eyes of their jailers, because the text looks like harmless culture. When Antigone chooses the higher law over Creon's decree, the prisoner performing it accuses the state that holds him. Old material becomes subversive through who performs it, where, and in front of whom.

4. Unequal fates strain solidarity from within

   John's shortened sentence gives him a future, and his hope becomes a wound for Winston, who has none. The regime does not need to force the bond apart.

Save and mark ideas in the app