From Job to J.B.

I thought everyone had forgotten this play. I still remember it from high school; well, actually only these key lines:

I heard upon his dry dung-heap
That man cry out who cannot sleep:
"If God is God He is not good,
If God is good He is not God;
Take the even, take the odd,
I would not sleep here if I could
Except for the little green leaves in the wood
And the wind on the water."

— Nickles, in J.B.: A Play in Verse by Archibald MacLeish [The Pulitzer Prize play, 1959] (New York: Samuel French, Inc., 1958), p. 18.

But I'm not the only who remembers this play:

The Book of Job and J.B.: Faith vs. Reason by Gary Sloan (July 2003)

I think Sloan left out something important about the conclusion. J.B. rejects God, but he rejects "Satan" as well; more precisely, he rejects nihilism. In spite of suffering, J.B. learns to stand on his own two feet, to find dignity in his autonomy, not in God or circumstance.