Woody Allen, Moliere and Aristophanes

Woody Allen, Moliere and Aristophanes

Woody Allen's characters tend to reflect the underlying anxiety of the existentialist world in the 20th century and especially during the 1960s and 1970s. His main characters generally focus on their identity (notably Jewish identity) and, as full New Yorkers, they have a passion for blending into the urban framework of the city. With interests in areas such as literature and, especially, human psychology, the typical Woody Allen character finds himself a neurotic persona, mainly because of all the anguish and anxiety of existentialism problems.

Moliere focus is not on the individual himself, although he does create some interesting reflections of the individual, but on the reactions of the individual to different stimuli of his period and, especially, of the world's different social, moral or ethical characteristics. From this perspective, the character of Moliere generally tends to be more diverse, but one can underline some common traits that they all share, such as love for money, desire to become socially respectable or integrated within the society they live in.

Compared with Allen's characters (who are not necessarily reclusive), Moliere's are much more open to the exterior world. Indeed, they are also quite concerned with the way the others conceive them and the impressions they give to other people. In this sense, they are much more interested in being integrated in the society they live in and in putting on a good impression.

The characters of Aristophanes seem to be constantly static and caught in a past time rather than dynamic and looking towards the future. The old times are the ones that seem to be functional and characters are always adverse to taking new chances. From this point-of-view, the characters of Woody Allen may seem closest, but not because they are referring to older times, but because they are so focused on their own existence that they don't take into consideration the idea of potentially changing it.

At the same time, Aristophanes's characters are very involved in the politics world, very important during Antiquity as the main place of the Greek society and where the Greeks exchanged ideas and participated to every day life. Allen's characters are not at all so, as they are more interested in exploring the interconnectivity between individuals and the individual in himself as an entity rather than the public faces of the era. Compared to Aristophanes, the focus remains on the individual, but we also need to understand that in Aristophanes's case, through politics was the best way for people to come together.