In the following essay, Fazia finds parallels between the plays of Anouilh and those of the Italian dramatist Luigi Pirandello.

In the excerpt below, Pronko explores Anouilh's technique of characterization, in which he mixes "characters who are often convincingly alive" with those that are symbols or general types.

In the following excerpt, della Fazia provides an overview of the recurring themes, situations, and concepts of Anouilh's plays.

In the following essay, Amoia provides an overview of Anouilh's heroic heroines and contrasts these female characters with their unimpressive male counterparts.

In the following essay, Vlasopolos explores the reasons for the relative obscurity of Traveler without Luggage.

In the following essay, Roy underscores the differences between T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, Christopher Fry's Curtmantle, and Anouilh's Becket.

Anouilh's view of life and man's place in the universe has remained essentially unchanged throughout his career. The later plays clarify and elaborate upon ideas presented in the early ones. To be sure, there is a certain development and a shift in focus as the author matures. But it is noteworthy that Anouilh's basic concepts are present from the beginning and have not changed fundamentally in the course of almost thirty years. If this has led to some degree of repetition, it is to be ...

The controversies which arise about [Jean Anouilh's] plays stem from the fact that he escapes clear-cut identification. This is due not to obscurity in his oeuvre or deviousness on his part but simply to the Protean aspect of his plays. They are variations on given themes, and as such they give the impression that they constitute contradictions. This apparent inconsistency may originate in the ambiguous behavior of the protagonists. But it is simply a fact of life that ambiguity is an integral compon...

In this excerpt, Archer examines elements of satire and black humor in Anouilh's piéces griçantes.

In the following review, Bentley praises the sets and acting in the 1954 New York production of Colombe.

In the following unfavorable review of the 1964 New York production of Traveller without Luggage, Clurman argues that the play “shows some of the salient features of Anouilh's personality and an attitude which were to place him in the front rank of French playwrights between the late thirties and the fifties.”

In the following excerpt, Chiari detects elements of the absurd in Anouilh's plays.

In the following review, Hayes provides an unfavorable assessment of the 1954 New York production of Colombe.

In the following negative review of the 1963 New York production of The Rehearsal, Gilman contends that “we are supposed to be left with a troubled but gratified sense of how the world really goes, but what we are actually left with is a sense of how to use the theater exquisitely for the purpose of simulating art.”

In the following review, Clurman gives a mixed assessment of the 1973 New York production of The Waltz of the Toreadors, deeming the drama “the play which reveals most of Anouilh's essential traits in perfect balance.”

A mainspring of Jean Anouilh's work has been a savage indictment of society, despite his belonging to the political right (although there is, to be sure, the phenomenon of right-wing anarchism). His work has had an abundance and diversity that puts it in the first rank. Anouilh was famous before the war for L'hermine (1931, The Ermine), Le voyageur sans bagage (1936, Traveler without Luggage), and La sauvage (1934, The Savage). In these, the Anouilh hero, obsessed by youthful idealism and reje...