Wealth Versus Poverty
Two sets of class conflicts occur in Ring Around the Moon: that of older, aristocratic wealth versus newer, capitalist wealth, and both of these versus poverty. Old money is represented by Madame Desmermortes, her niece, and nephews; new money by Messerschmann, his daughter, and Romainville, head of Messerschmann’s pig-iron company. When Madame makes her first entrance with Hugo, discussing Messerschmann’s keeping of Lady India, Madame calls it ‘‘monstrous’’ and ‘‘humiliating,’’ because old money kept by new money indicates aristocratic demise, dependence, loss of status. In Act III, Scene ii, Madame Desmermortes proceeds to make sure her two charges are married happily. This is a somewhat complex matter: Frederic must not marry Diana because she will be in complete control of him because she doesn’t need his money and because he is servile. This is humiliating in terms of Frederic’s wealth and status, and his gender. At least if the confident Hugo marries Diana, the emotional balance will tip in Hugo’s favor. Further, if Diana is poor, then a marriage between Hugo and Diana will be even less objectionable, as she will be totally dependent upon Hugo. And Madame does not object to Lady India’s swooning over Messerschmann’s financial ruin because he will be unable to disgrace the Desmermortes family by keeping her. This is partially why Messerschmann wants his doubled wealth kept secret. At play’s end, everyone is able to retain or increase his or her wealth. Even Romainville and Patrice keep their positions in Messerschmann’s even stronger financial empire.

The other conflict in Ring Around the Moon is wealth versus poverty, the latter represented by Isabelle and her mother. But while Isabelle’s mother has a generous dose of class envy—either new or old money being very acceptable—Isabelle is not only not envious but, at least as a result of Hugo’s and Messerschmann’s attempt to buy her, rather contemptuous of wealth. She therefore plays the heroine. Not only does Isabelle display enough strength of character to refuse Messerschmann’s and Hugo’s money, but after she and Messerschmann finish destroying the money, she realizes it might have been used to help the poor. Neither she nor Messerschmann feel as if destroying the money has been of any lasting value. Anouilh, then, while criticizing certain aspects of wealth (vanity, egregious power, pettiness) and poverty (envy and awe of the upper classes), denounces neither wealth nor poverty in themselves, nor class inequality. Instead, he spins out an ending unusual in the real world: both rich and poor get richer.

Appearance versus Reality
The most obvious example of the theme of appearance versus reality in Ring Around the Moon is the use of identical, indistinguishable twins played by the same actor. But readers have an ‘‘advantage’’ over audience members: while readers know who is speaking, audience members cannot always tell. This robs readers of an intended confusion accessible to only those seeing a performance. That is, unless a director dresses Hugo and Frederic differently, or alters their appearance.

The only characters confused about who is Hugo and who Frederic, are Diana and Isabelle. Diana’s confusion is, however, far less total: while she mistakes their appearance on occasion—or pretends to —she is able to distinguish their personalities. Isabelle, on the other hand, hardly knows one from the other. If Isabelle had met Frederic before Hugo, she might even have been as infatuated with Frederic as with Hugo. Why does Anouilh wants to confuse not only the audience, but Diana and Isabelle? A partial answer is that he wants to preclude simplistic assessments like ‘‘The rich are all alike,’’ since even identical,...