The Room

Quentin Crisp in his Chelsea bedsit, circa 1980.

Play title: The Room
Author: Harold Pinter
Written: 1957
Page count: 26

Summary

Rose and Bert occupy a single room in an old tenement house. She’s incessantly chatty while he’s the stolid, silent type. He’s 50 years old, and she’s 60. Their landlord, a Mr Kidd, or maybe it’s another name; anyway, he forgets how many tenants he has and even how many floors are in the apparently labyrinthine building. On the evening in question, it’s icy cold outside and dark too, but Bert needs to do a run in his van since that’s his job. Rose, who is soon all alone, is visited by a young couple named Sands, then by Mr Kidd, and finally by a mysterious, blind Black man named Riley. Each of the visitations – which intimate unsettling yet unclear dangers – makes the reclusive Rose ever more nervous and increasingly fearful. Finally, Bert gets home safely, and he finds Rose in the company of Riley who sits in an armchair by the gas stove. What exactly is occurring here? The play closes with a mysterious and suddenly violent scene.

The Room was the first play written by Harold Pinter. He wrote the work “in four afternoons” (16), and according to Bernard F. Dukore, it “ranks among the most astonishing first plays ever written” (25). The play depicts a strange domestic scene full of escalating levels of menace and fear, but the text offers no tangible explanations for the eventual happenings.

Ways to access the text: reading

It is reasonably easy to find a free copy of The Room online. For example, it is available via the Internet Archive.

There is no audiobook version of The Room to my knowledge. However, if you would like to listen to a selection of Pinter’s more famous plays, then please look up “BBC by Harold Pinter” on the Internet Archive. This is a selection of audio files of Pinter’s works that were aired on the BBC.

Why read The Room?

The Room is not among Pinter’s well-known plays nor is it his best work (no surprise since it was his first). It is nonetheless a solid introduction to his – at that point – emerging, distinctive style. It’s a short play that still manages to thoroughly unsettle a reader. One is unsure whether it should be treated as an allegory, straightforward realism, or Theatre of the Absurd. In fact, Pinter employs aspects of all three aforementioned genres. The main theme of the work is that of an impending threat. The threat is never just one thing – it includes a multitude of factors from the treacherous weather on a winter’s night to a polite, apparently bodiless voice that speaks in the dark basement of the building. Reading the play is like walking in on an odd scene in someone else’s house, and you know nothing about the people, their pasts, or why they act as strangely as they do. You leave that room even more confused, mentally fumbling for some sort of answer. If that intrigues you, then The Room is an apt introduction to Pinter.

Post-reading discussion/interpretation

Pinter’s Portrait of Inverted Fear

Harold Pinter’s most esteemed plays include The Homecoming, Betrayal, The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, and The Caretaker. His first play entitled The Room was written in 1957 and though it has received some academic attention, it is usually overshadowed by the later works. The main ‘problems’ with the play are that the climactic ending is arguably too sudden, too brief, and too disproportionate for the otherwise well-crafted lead-in. Also, and probably more importantly, the work remains far too mysterious. Bernard Dukore helpfully explains that “Pinter does not consider himself obliged to inject a remedy or thematic summary in the final act simply because we have been brought up to expect, rain or sunshine, the last act “resolution”’ (6). Indeed, Dukore states that his own book on Pinter’s body of work “makes no attempt to explain the meanings of his [Pinter’s] plays. Rather it aims to explore Pinter’s dramatic and theatrical stratagems which provide ways of enjoying and appreciating his plays” (2). Despite this assertion, Dukore does, unsurprisingly, give significant insights into The Room and thereby provides a good general interpretation. For instance, one prominent and well-documented feature of The Room is the story of how Pinter was inspired to write it – “At a party in London, Pinter was ushered into a room where he saw two men. The small man talked while he prepared food for the other, a large lorry driver who had his cap on and did not speak a word” (16). The image stuck in Pinter’s mind and ended up being the defining blueprint for his first play. Even though Bernard Dukore, Michael Billington and Arnold P. Hinchliffe have all written books on Pinter’s collection of plays, and each of them mentions the inspiration for The Room, none of them have mined the fact for its interpretive importance. Incidentally, the ‘small man’ that Pinter saw in the room was Mr Quentin Crisp. Delving into the hidden connections between the play-inspiring room that Pinter haphazardly stepped into one evening in the mid-nineteen-fifties and the various bedsits that Mr Crisp occupied his entire adult life (in London and then New York) reveals, upon a little research, much about the theme of an impending threat.

Prior to outlining a new interpretation of The Room that complements existing criticism, it is helpful to briefly outline how others have interpretively approached the play. Dukore, for one, makes many insightful observations about the play. He notes its similarity to the realism of British kitchen-sink dramas of the 1950s. For instance, Rose busily cooks for her husband in their kitchen (come living-room come bedroom). Additionally, the working-class characters’ language “is naturalistic, as if tape-recorded, with mumbling, repetitiveness, poor grammar, incomplete sentences, non sequiturs, sudden shifts of subject matter, refusal or inability to leave a subject another character has left, and the like” (Dukore 4). Yet the scene progressively departs from straightforward realism when the conversations become a bit too disjointed, too odd, and reflective of something surreal rather than real. Dukore recognises that one may soon attempt to read the play allegorically, but he issues a warning by quoting Pinter – “When a character cannot be comfortably defined or understood in terms of the familiar, the tendency is to perch him on a symbolic shelf, out of harm’s way” (7). Billington echoes such sentiments and writes, “Patently Pinter, writing in haste over four days and simply opening a channel to his subconscious, did not set out to write an allegory” (68). Therefore, an allegorical reading appears ill-founded and an intellectual cop-out too. Then there is the play’s intrinsic “unsettling quality” (25), which Dukore explains as one of “the characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd” (25). Pinter managed to create a quite specific effect – “events and actions are unexplained, and apparently illogical or unmotivated, [so] the world seems capricious or malevolent” (25). There is a hint of existential angst. Dukore states that “Fear of a menace may suggest the universal trauma of man in the universe” (25). When Dukore reduces the play to its essence, he simply writes “In The Room … characters who hope they have sanctuary try to defend themselves from intruders” (48). As a reader of the play, one understands that the ominous threat is external, unknowable, and imminent.

In Hinchliffe’s reading of The Room, he makes the observation that “Pinter’s terror and menace are greater because they exist in the house next door” (41). This intersects with Dukore’s point about the similarity of the play to kitchen-sink dramas. Mundane domestic scenes, which are immediately familiar and normally considered safe, become most unsettling when crazed violence erupts. Getting to the crux of why the play appears inexplicable, Hinchliffe talks about the pivotal character of Riley and uses a quote from George E. Wellwarth, author of The Theater of Protest and Paradox, to expand on his ideas.

“It is this Negro who causes most trouble in the play: ‘The Negro may symbolize death, the woman’s past, or some hidden guilt complex – probably the latter, since she is struck blind when her husband beats the Negro. But there is no hint as to what his function really is nor as to why the husband beats him so savagely. He is simply an emissary from the outside who has succeeded in breaking into the circle of light.’”
(Hinchliffe 46)

Hinchliffe’s reading highlights how the play refuses to offer succinct or comprehensive answers to the simplest of critical questions. Billington, like Hinchliffe, focuses on the character of Riley. However, he takes a quite different approach. He writes, “One aspect of The Room which has been little noticed, however, is its social accuracy: in particular, its portrait of a walled-in isolationism and paranoid xenophobia that was to become a feature of English life in the late 1950s” (Billington 70). For Billington, “the play’s dynamic” (67) arises chiefly from “the confrontation of an anxious recluse with the demands and pressures of the outside world” (67). One specific demand was that white, British people had to accustom themselves to the first substantial influx of foreigners including people of other races. In the 1950s, there was also a huge wave of economic migrants from Ireland. Riley is a homonym of Reilly (Irish name), so the Black man’s name appears to be a coded reference to all foreigners. When Billington reduces the play down to a key point, he sees Pinter’s play as “dealing with the perils of withdrawal from the outside world and the emotional hazard of turning a room into a fortress” (69).

All three aforementioned writers see The Room as being about Rose’s self-imposed imprisonment in a seemingly safe space. Dukore is sympathetic to Rose, whereas Billington’s reading hints at derogation. Yet question marks still abound. Who is Riley? Why is Bert so excessively violent? What is Rose hiding? Hinchliffe makes the bold claim that “In The Room, it is not so much, we feel, that motives are unknowable as that the author will not let us know them” (47). Dukore provides a helpful tip, even if he doesn’t quite follow through on it: “A logical starting point for an examination of The Room is Pinter’s statement, ‘My plays are what the titles are about’” (26). The Room is, therefore, chiefly about ‘the room’ that originally inspired the play: a room in Chelsea occupied by Mr Crisp and a male companion. Tracking the play right back to its prenatal embryo helps one to demystify the text. This approach does not simplify the play but rather simplifies the core meaning.

Pinter’s brief encounter with Mr Crisp left an enduring impression – “I went into a room one day and saw a couple of people in it. This Stuck with me for some time afterwards, and I felt that the only way I could give it expression and get it off my mind was dramatically” (Hinchliffe 40). But what was so extraordinary about the scene that required mental unpacking? Dukore matter-of-factly writes, “The Room begins with a dramatisation of Pinter’s chance encounter at a party in London” (26). It is simply left at that. However, Billington provides a hint, even if unintentionally, as to why the scene was so arresting. He explains, “It was, in fact, Quentin Crisp, a flamboyant, henna-haired sexual outsider immortalised in television’s The Naked Civil Servant, who unwittingly inspired Pinter’s first play, The Room” (66). Crisp was presumably a well-known character in London at that time and most certainly in the Chelsea area where he lived for some twenty years. He stood out for several reasons. As Billington notes, Crisp’s hair was dyed an artificial red colour. This had been Crisp’s custom since at least the late 1930s – “When war [WWII] was declared I went out and bought two pounds of henna” (Crisp 107). Additionally, Crisp recounts in his memoir that he wasn’t “merely a self-confessed homosexual but a self-evident one. That is to say I put my case not only before the people who knew me but also before strangers” (5; emphasis added). As a result, Crisp frequently suffered verbal and often physical attacks in public as recounted in his memoir. Nevertheless, Billington and others failed to discern any connection between Crisp’s life, a brief snapshot of which inspired Pinter’s play, and the main theme of The Room, which examines the sometimes-overwhelming menace posed by the outside world. Billington dismisses the connection as follows.

“Needless to say, the finished play has nothing to do with Quentin Crisp and his chum, but it capitalises on that same arresting image Pinter glimpsed in the Chelsea house and invests it with theatrical tension.”
(Billington 67; emphasis added)

The theatrical tension is primarily menace. Moreover, the ‘arresting image’ is actually the source of that tension. Pinter was most likely intrigued by the open-door policy of an unashamedly flamboyant homosexual who had, despite all appearances of ease, so much to fear from strangers. One brief anecdote encapsulates Crisp’s modus operandi for dealing with the world. In England, Quentin Crisp’s name was listed in the public telephone directory. He had, at times, even invited those who called on the telephone to subsequently visit his room in Chelsea. This practice initially arose from Crisp’s sincere disappointment at the absence of “confederacy among homosexuals” (112) during that conservative historical era. Yet he also admits – “I realized that I was placing myself in some danger” (112). Crisp would later joke about some of the nastier telephone calls on the Letterman show– “They ring me up threatening to kill me – I say do you want an appointment” (YouTube). It was Crisp’s own perception that he could not possibly hide his difference combined with his understandable insistence on still living his life that led to his amplified vulnerability. His own bedsit room was not a secure fortress but only because he made a conscious decision not to make it so. This is proven by his indiscriminate acceptance of either party guests like Pinter or those who may have intended to kill him, like his mystery callers.

Crisp’s life experiences, as detailed in The Naked Civil Servant, make the menace of the outside world incredibly tangible. Like in Pinter’s play, one comes to appreciate that there is always a level of threat, even though the source is often obscure. Dukore explains this quite well: “While menace may take the shape of particular characters, it is usually unspecified or unexplained – therefore, more ominous” (24). To create the play, Pinter took the ‘arresting image’ of the two men in the room and first conventionalised it by making them into a heterosexual, married couple. He then took the lead character’s reaction to menace and inverted it; Rose practically barricades herself in her room as part of her ongoing delusion that she can protect herself from threats, but Crisp understood that to avoid the threat meant to avoid life itself. Pinter begins by depicting a familiar, homely environment and even propagates, at first, the illusion that a brick wall or a wooden door will protect the fragile Rose. However, as the story unfolds, one gains an understanding of the psychology of fear. Real dangers automatically inspire fear but so does one’s perception of the world, which may be wholly accurate or sadly askew. What’s more, sometimes a threat that is perceived to be external is already nestled in the home but remains somehow invisible. Take for example Bert’s violence, which curiously leads to Rose’s blindness. Pinter takes an ‘arresting image’ and cleverly manipulates it into a familiar scene that ultimately implodes in unexpected violence. The benign, everyday scene eventually frightens an audience by exposing the hidden threat.

At one level, The Room is a metaphor for one’s attitude to life. For Rose, the room means her life has a degree of security – “This is a good room … you can come home, you’re all right … You stand a chance” (Pinter 95). This echoes Crisp’s sentiments on becoming independent – “my ecstasy at moving into a room of my own. Once I had achieved this I was happy” (48). Crisp’s phrasing reminds one of Virginia Woolf’s essay entitled “A Room of One’s Own” in which she describes the most basic necessities of artistic/personal expression. Quentin Crisp and Virginia Woolf saw a room as an essential starting point for real independence, but one cannot say the same about Rose. For Rose, the goal is safety alone – if she makes her life so small and inoffensive, practically invisible, then things will be manageable. The long-term repercussions of such an attitude become apparent when Mr and Mrs Sands ask the otherwise innocuous question about the location of Mr Kidd’s room. The landlord lives in the same house so directing them to his room shouldn’t be difficult for Rose, yet she can’t. Her interactions with others have become so superficial and curtailed that she doesn’t even know the other tenants in her building or their rooms. Rose’s world has shrunk not just to the area of a district or the length of a street but to the confines of a room.

Rose: “We’re very quiet. We keep ourselves to ourselves. I never interfere. I mean, why should I? We’ve got our room. We don’t bother anyone else. That’s the way it should be.”
(Pinter 105)

As Hinchliffe observes – “Pinter’s plays are simply about people bothering people who want to keep to themselves” (43). What intrigues one about Rose is her hidden motivation for such a reclusive life. Dukore states that “In the early plays [of Pinter,] menace lurks outside, but it also has psychological roots” (24). It is possible to distinguish between Rose’s headline fears about external threats and earlier, more subtle hints of a pre-existing, domestic problem. Rose’s fear crescendos with Riley’s visit and his plea for her to come home, but she’s also afraid that the young Mr and Mrs Sands may take her treasured room, and she’s scared for Bert since he must drive on a treacherously icy night. Subtler hints of Rose’s psychological state appear in her assertive proclamations about her abode and daily habits. She tells the Sands, “I never go out at night. We stay in” (Pinter 103). The noticeable shift from I to We reveals that she never goes out at night since we know he sometimes works at night. Bert can trust her. There is also considerable menace in Bert’s initial silence when assessed in the context of his later violence. Is this why she chatters at him while busily waiting on him hand and foot? How should an actress playing Rose deliver the line “I look after you, don’t I, Bert?” (95). Is she a nervous, domestic handmaiden to a violent husband? The root of Rose’s generalised fear of the world could be a fear of the man she loves, lives with, or merely serves. In Rose’s eyes, Bert is either a heroic, manly protector or a choleric, sometimes violent oppressor. Within the environment portrayed by Pinter, – “One can rely upon nothing. What is apparently secure is not secure. A haven does not protect” (Dukore 25). One can only speculate on the origin of Rose’s fears, but they certainly exist prior to the visits by Riley and the Sands. Rose’s instinctual response to her environment, which is a visible manifestation of those fears, is her downfall. Ruby Cohn gives a fascinating insight into the rooms depicted in Pinter’s plays – “At the opening curtain, these rooms look naturalistic, meaning no more than the eye can contain. But by the end of each play, they become sealed containers, virtual coffins” (56). Rose is being buried alive, but she is an unknowing even though avid participant in the process.

An analysis of Rose’s interactions with the other characters reveals her fear but not much else of any significance. Much like following footsteps in the sand, they seem to lead somewhere but the trail soon dissolves to nothingness. One tactic is to depart from Pinter’s play and return to the play’s genesis – but from Mr Crisp’s perspective.

Quentin Crisp: “When I had lived in my room for some fifteen years, and I was feeding a starving outcast, we were called on by a small deputation of guests from a party going on elsewhere in the house. They brought glasses of sherry. As the rest of us sipped and chatted, one visitor sat silent. Through thick horn-rimmed spectacles he gave the scene a panoramic stare. His name was Mr Pinter. Later he confessed that this was the moment when he first felt that he might write a play.”
(Crisp 111)

Crisp’s description of the starving outcast whom he was feeding suggests a benign figure in need of some charity instead of a menacing, hulking brute. In contrast, the inscrutably silent Mr Pinter becomes the Bert character in the scene: the unfathomable and subsequently menacing figure. Crisp was acutely sensitive to the dangers of silence because it was, to him, the most familiar mask of menace. Writing about male attackers he encountered in London, Crisp recounts – “While I talked, they remained silent if only to enjoy the luxury of hearing themselves called ‘Sir’. But even I could not prolong a filibuster indefinitely” (42). As soon as Crisp’s subservient chatter would cease, “they started to work themselves into a frenzy by shouting, swearing and laughing—a device that I [Crisp] am told is standard procedure in bayonet practice” (42). He would then be slapped or punched. Pinter obviously posed no threat to Crisp, but he was nevertheless an all-too-common figure in Crisp’s life: one who looked on in judgment. Crisp’s openness and hospitality made such figures a constant reality. In the play, Bert says not a single word to Riley, except his derogatory descriptor of “lice!” before he kicks the man unconscious, or possibly to death. Rose had similar feelings when she described Riley to Mr Kidd, “I get these creeps come in, smelling up my room” (Pinter 113). The same relentless fear of outsiders inhabits Rose and Quentin Crisp, but they handle it in their individual, contrasting ways. Both characters fuss and chatter but are, at all times, alert to the hidden menace.

Did Pinter see beneath the busyness of Crisp’s entertaining manner of amusing his guests to the fact that it was sadly indivisible from a lifelong tactic of subtle defensiveness and diversion? Did the playwright intuit the covert layer of menace that inevitably haunted Crisp’s life? In an interview with Charlie Rose, Pinter simply refers to the memory of the party and further states that he was surprised by the violence of the play as it was not pre-planned. However, the tension in The Room is clearly the basis for the eventual violence. A sense of menace may pre-exist in a domestic setting, or it may be activated only upon the arrival of an outsider. Pinter bases his play on the outsider’s perspective: the one who is invited in and alters the dynamic. What organically manifests itself in The Room is what Pinter intuitively garnered from his snapshot into Crisp’s life. Maybe Pinter grasped it subconsciously, but he would certainly have understood that Crisp’s lifestyle was a lightning rod for criticism in that era.

Billington quotes a rare interpretative insight from Pinter that helps one’s understanding of the play. Pinter said: “I’ve always seen Riley … as a messenger, a potential saviour who is trying to release Rose from the imprisonment of the room and the restrictions of her life with Bert” (69). Rose fails to grasp this opportunity because she is unwilling to acknowledge her past. Dukore explains how this situation adds to the play’s effect – “it is not the characters’ background that is of major dramatic concern but their avoidance of revealing it” (27). Again, this is where Rose is an inversion of Crisp since she cannot express herself openly, especially not anything about her history. According to Billington, Pinter “is writing about the loss of identity that comes through the pincer-like claims of past and present” (69). Rose is hiding from the present-day world while she simultaneously hides her past from Bert. In Cohn’s opinion, “The essence of the Pinter victim is his final sputtering helplessness” (68). This is true of Rose, especially given her eventual blindness, but it is also perversely true of Crisp. Therefore, Pinter’s core message is not simply about the merits of openness, especially to potential saviours.

The foundation stone of Rose’s characterization is Quentin Crisp. Pinter takes a flamboyant, flame-haired homosexual and turns him into a docile, fearful housewife. Yet the playwright importantly retains Crisp’s chattiness plus the true essence of his vulnerability. Crisp could only be himself and had to suffer the world’s many grievances being hurled against such an identity, or else hide. Menace constantly lurked within the most mundane of everyday interactions. Rose is Crisp’s logical alter ego: the one who hides, cowers, shrinks, and is eventually rendered helpless. For both of them, the outsider symbolises the saviour or the annihilator, but there is no way of predetermining which one it will be. Upon repeated requests from Riley to “come home” (Pinter 114), Rose begins to open up. She suddenly confides that “The day is a hump. I never go out” (115). This evokes a sense of Rose’s painful imprisonment, so Riley is indeed the potential saviour as explained by Pinter. Unfortunately, at that moment, Bert returns, and the scene ends in horror and violence. The play depicts an extreme situation where a pathologically reclusive figure is robbed of the last vestige of independence: her sight. Rose is a hostage to the menacingly silent Bert. However, he is just a typical representative of British society in the 1950s: a society that feared sex, foreigners, homosexuals, and anyone different. At its core, The Room is about the menace of the public mob and the resulting pressure to be normal. Pinter takes the example of Crisp, an unbendingly obstinate outsider, and transforms him into Rose, a meek, reclusive woman, and yet both of them fail.

Pinter highlights without actually approving the safety of the middle ground of conventionality. The creation of Rose merely facilitates the playwright’s exercise of wholly inverting a character and watching them fail for the same yet somehow different reasons. Rose is utterly neurotic about propriety and her life contracts into a single room’s space of misery due to her guardianship of this societal ideal. Her past is somehow unconventional, possibly shameful, and her resulting excessive caution is her demise. Crisp, in contrast, disregards caution in a society that cannot accept him and thus he pays an equally cruel price. The violence that erupts in The Room is a predictable expression of the growing menace. The playwright is expressing, in quite a coded play, a clear condemnation of the straitjacketed society in which he lived. Rose is simply a more sympathetic figure to communicate the message than the outlandish Mr Crisp.

Neither the fictional Rose nor the real-life Crisp could ultimately process the level of menace that infiltrated their lives. Though Crisp was no prisoner to his room and readily defied conventions, he admits – “It would have been impossible to get through the kind of life that I have known without accumulating a vast unused stockpile of rage” (218). In later life, he dreamed of having “revenge on the world” (218), but he had to reabsorb his anger in polite quietness, and this proved a heavy burden.

“By constituting myself the one among the many I had provoked the worst behaviour in others. With this I felt compelled to deal politely. This wrought no change whatever in the character of my enemies but caused the total disintegration of my own.”
(Crisp 221)

Some knowledge of Crisp’s life story sheds light on Rose’s dilemma. They stand at opposite ends of a spectrum, both at the extreme, but their fates are nonetheless similar. Crisp made a conscious choice to meet the world head-on, whereas Rose hides her past, compromises her present and turns her back on the world. Crisp evidently understood this dilemma and the ‘right’ choice because he recounts an illustrative tale of two New York brothers who lived quite reclusively in an apartment. In fact, “To keep out intruders every inch of this labyrinth was mined with booby traps” (Crisp 143). When the healthy, mobile brother died in one of his own traps, then the bed-bound, second brother subsequently starved to death. Their bodies were discovered months later. Crisp sums up the problem of self-imposed solitude as follows – “The place where no harm can come is the place where nothing at all can come” (221). This is the essential message of Pinter’s The Room but with the discomfiting proviso that society must also accept you for the experience to be tolerable. There is always a hidden layer of menace: the silent, unpredictable onlooker.

Works Cited

Billington, Michael. The Life and Work of Harold Pinter. Faber and Faber, 1997.

Cohn, Ruby. “The World of Harold Pinter.” The Tulane Drama Review, vol. 6, no. 3, 1962, pp. 55–68. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1124935.

Crisp, Quentin. The Naked Civil Servant. Flamingo, 1985.

Dukore, Bernard F. Harold Pinter. Macmillan, 1985.

“Harold Pinter interview (2001).” YouTube, uploaded by Manufacturing Intellect, 17 September 2017, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVchqMXobVQ. 

Hinchliffe, Arnold P. Harold Pinter. The Macmillan Press, 1976.

Pinter, Harold. The Room. Samuel French, 1960.

“Quentin Crisp Collection on Letterman, 1982-83.” YouTube, uploaded by Don Giller, 11 March 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaXPFuIXpk4.

The Strangest Kind of Romance

Play title: The Strangest Kind of Romance
Author: Tennessee Williams
First performed: 1942
Page count: 23

Summary

The Strangest Kind of Romance: A Lyric Play in Four Scenes is a short work by Tennessee Williams. The subtitle suggests a play that captures a particular emotional state, which it does. The setting is a boarding house presided over by a Mizz Gallaway. One Autumn day, an Italian man of quite a small stature arrives looking for a room. He is also seeking work in the locality as a labourer. Upon being shown a room vacated by a previous tenant, a Russian, the Little Man makes his acquaintance with the Russian’s recently orphaned cat named Nitchevo. The pair soon form a special bond, which amuses all those who later witness it. The Little Man quickly finds work at the local factory and makes friends with his landlady’s father-in-law, but he mostly just keeps to himself. Williams’ play is a character study of loneliness. Solitary, fragile people are shown to be especially vulnerable to the whims of fate.

Ways to access the text: reading/listening

The text of the play is available via Scribd, which offers a free trial. The playscript is quite short and is reader-friendly thanks to Williams’ free-flowing dialogue.

It is also possible to listen to an audio recording of the play on Mixcloud. It is listed on the site as “Short Play 25: The Strangest Kind of Romance by Tennessee Williams.” The recording is 42 mins long and stars Kathleen Turner as the landlady and Michael Stuhlbarg as the Little Man.

Why read/listen to The Strangest Kind of Romance?

A friendship between a lonely man and a cat is a strange idea upon which to construct a play. However, Williams does just that in this imaginative and enigmatic work. The charm of the piece is that nothing is quite as simple as it appears. The Little Man is an unskilled factory labourer, and yet he is a fragile soul in a world that does not understand him. The local factory is a vital source of labour but also a symbol of heartless capitalism. Mizz Gallaway’s father-in-law is a senile, drunken, old fool. However, he is also kindness personified, and incidentally, a look-alike of Walt Whitman. Overall, the play communicates far more than one would expect. At the centre is a little man who has somehow been emotionally damaged and has subsequently retracted almost completely from the world. A stray cat becomes his only friend and a lifeline too.

Post-reading discussion/interpretation

_{Living a}_{Boxed-In Life}

The Strangest Kind of Romance is an odd, little play with a diminutive, foreign-looking, vagabond-type figure at its heart. The Little Man arrives in a boarding house with a suitcase that is so old and battered that it falls apart, and everything tumbles onto the floor in his soon-to-be new room/home. It is a play about an emotional state, let us call it loneliness – but it is somehow more tragic than a single word can accommodate. Williams returns one to a bygone era of American boarding houses and the transient workers who occupied their confining, often soul-destroying, little rooms. The play is out of date, far too reflective of its author’s own struggles with his sexuality, and worst of all – it is uneventful. Unless one considers a depiction of crushing self-doubt to be a full story (?). Like Philip Larkin once wrote, “Man hands on misery to man / It deepens like a coastal shelf.” That particular poem entitled “This Be the Verse” is famous as it humorously tackles the progeny of bad parenting, but the Little Man will unlikely ever parent a child or even be remembered after he dies. He does, however, carry the burden of some old hurt, or secret, which progressively wears him down, like the attrition elegantly described by Larkin. The play is engaging for the very reasons that one would not typically like it; it is about the sad, tragic side of life. It is also the study of a character that seldom takes the lead in any story – the almost invisible loner. Unboxing the Little Man requires one to contemplate the pressures, both past and present, which have led him to his final predicament in the coffin-like space of his rented room.

There is a homosexual subtext to the Little Man’s story. This is a salient yet not defining element of Williams’ play. The risk is that by focusing on the Little Man’s sexuality, one may, albeit unintentionally, tie him a little too closely to his creator, Williams, and thereby reduce the character to a revelation by proxy of Williams’ own demons about his sexuality. Nonetheless, an exploration of the Little Man’s hinted-at sexual preference lends itself to a better understanding of his life including the apparently celibate time he spends in Mizz Gallaway’s boarding house. Misaligned with the flow of normal society, the Little Man is the essence of queerness, but sexuality is just one façade of that label.

The play’s title is the first signal of the protagonist’s divergent life. The use of the superlative ‘strangest’ places the romance at the very edge of what can be considered acceptable: while still technically qualifying as a romance. Williams wrote the play in 1941 so whether one imagines the romantic partner as being a much-loved cat or another man is unimportant, since either would have been spoken of derogatorily, even with a little disgust. The title assumes a level of justified moral unease and a healthy measure of related condescension. A man who chooses a pet cat to the exclusion of human relationships is an oddity. Loving Nitchevo is branded “the strangest kind of a romance” (144) by Mizz Gallaway, the red-blooded, heterosexual woman who runs the boarding house. She had an intimate relationship with the room’s former tenant, the Russian, but she felt excluded from his full affection due to his pesky pet. The Little Man adopts the cat yet has no interest in performing the Russian’s other duties. For Mizz Gallaway, the cat becomes a barometer of a man’s sexuality. The Little Man’s love of the cat evolves into an excuse to avoid Mizz Gallaway’s amorous attentions, but it may also be a clear indication of the romances he formerly pursued, namely with men.

The second word of interest in the title is ‘kind,’ which may be defined as a group with similar characteristics: a particular type. What type is the Little Man? Although not published until 1976, gay writer Christopher Isherwood’s memoir entitled Christopher and his Kind is a helpful reference point for a definition of who is being referred to here. The strangest kind of romance by 1940s standards is unquestionably one that excludes women. For a man, this most typically means homosexual. The title can mean the disproportionate love of a pet but only ever in a humorous way. Suspicions arise if the man subsequently shows no interest in the opposite sex. Dean Shackelford states that “Of course, the relationship to which Williams’s title refers is clearly encoded as a metaphor for gay romances” (127). Thus, the play title is the first, easily solvable clue to the Little Man’s story. The first burdensome truth that must not be revealed.

The room

The “furnished room” (Williams 135) that the Little Man rents from Mizz Gallaway is an uncomplicated symbol of refuge. Shackelford argues that while the play “discloses homosexuality only indirectly,” the room “symbolizes the protection of the closet” (120). He writes that “As long as the Little Man is in his room with Nitchevo, he can feel secure and invulnerable. He can find the protection of the closet” (120). Although sexuality is a crucial theme in the play, the Little Man’s problems encompass wider issues. Williams deliberately provides a detailed description of the meagre room. For instance, the room has two windows with one overlooking the manufacturing plant while the other offers a view of a tree. The room’s occupant looks out upon either nature or industry. The Little Man cowers before the demands made on him by his new factory job (capitalism) and by Mother Nature (the demand to be normal). Thus, the room is a refuge from various demands encircling his life, not just a homosexual hideaway.

Another salient point about the room is that it is not fashioned to suit the Little Man. It is a basic room in a boarding house that serves the plant’s need for fresh, unskilled labour. Williams explains that the occupants of the room are “the itinerant, unmarried working-men of a nation” (135). In this regard, one is speaking about a large, diverse community of lone men who are tragically disconnected from one another. The room is a mark of the men’s failures in society in myriad ways. Robert Skloot highlights the fact that Williams uses the potent motif of single rooms in his plays and explains the relevance as follows:

“With good reason do Williams’ plays, stories and poems take place in motels, hotels, rooming houses, whorehouses, or decrepit and crumbling houses, for it is in these environments that his transients are most vulnerable and most desperate to touch another wandering creature before they are evicted, committed, or destroyed, all the while contesting to the limits of their fragile strength the demons of greed, drink, bad luck, disease, and death.”
(Skloot 202)

Conversely, Mizz Gallaway chooses to explain the plights of the working men as somehow natural. She dismissively comments on the various signatures adorning the room’s wall: “Birds of passage. You ever try to count them? Restlessness – changes” (139). The tale of the illiterate Russian gives the lie to this description. He was not merely a large man but “tremendous!” in stature (139), and yet the strain of working at the factory resulted in his poor health and eventual death from tuberculosis. He vacated the rooming house as a broken man. Rather than face reality, Mizz Gallaway shares her theory that the Russian’s “bad run of luck” (136) was on account of the cat. In truth, she rents the room to hard-up, unskilled labourers, who are often foreigners, and then she facilitates their speedy introduction to Mr Woodson at the plant. The room is the first cog in an exploitative system.

It is subsequently surprising that from the Little Man’s perspective, “the room is home” (145). The antithesis of homeliness becomes a home out of sheer necessity. A consideration of this point leads one to consider the intimacy of the space too. The room is furnished including bed linen, so a succession of single men has slept in the same bed with the same old, washed-out sheets. These men would have looked out of the same two windows onto the same scenes. They likely even had similar thoughts concerning the plant’s working conditions, money, and their futures. There is an accidental intimacy to the space on account of all the past and even prospective future male occupants. Within the privacy of this small room, the men dress and undress, bring back sexual partners, or sometimes masturbate alone at night. The room encloses each man’s life in a tiny space for a fleeting period. It is a doomed space that constricts lives that will, in many cases, soon expire. The room is a false friend since it facilitates the Little Man’s further exploitation as opposed to his rehabilitation or recovery.

The sole record of the room’s numerous tenants is the list of signatures, x’s, and drawings on the wall. Mizz Gallaway tells the Little Man of her plans: “Some day I’m going to take me a wire scrubbing-brush an’ a bar of Fels Naphtha an’ leave them walls as clean as they was before the first roomer moved in” (140). The ease with which Mizz Gallaway may cleanse the room of the traces of its many inhabitants strikes up connotations of washing away filth, dirt, or possibly guilt. Her father-in-law hears her words and chastises her, saying, “These signatures are their little claims of remembrance. Their modest bids for immortality, daughter” (140). The empathic old soul, who is said to resemble Walt Whitman, defends the dignity of the transient workers. Total anonymity becomes both a threat and a grievous insult.

The Little Man

The Little Man is a mystifying character. It is far easier to classify him as a loner and societal outsider than to decode his inner motivations and worldview. Williams’ depiction of this strange character is all surface. Society generally casts a dispassionate eye on such people. Therefore, an audience is enrolled in the same subtle game of devaluing him. Yet Williams is sympathetic to his protagonist. Williams highlights this through his depictions of cold-hearted and selfish people like Gallaway and Woodson. Of course, the Little Man has a past, a family, possibly old loves, stories, and experiences; but we learn none of these essential elements that are a basic requirement to understand any man.

Williams acquaints us with one of life’s silent losers. The obvious defeat is not necessarily on account of any flaw in the Little Man’s character but rather because of the circumstances and job opportunities with which life has presented him. The mismatch between the man and his lot in life is succinctly outlined by Mizz Gallaway’s first impressions of him. She describes him as “dark and more delicate and nervous in appearance than laborers usually are” (135). These three distinct markers, namely the darkness of skin colour, the delicacy of physical build, and nervousness are all negatives. They instantly brand the Little Man as a foreigner, a weakling unsuited to hard labour, and a person with a social impediment in the form of low self-esteem. Nonetheless, Gallaway directs the Little Man to the factory to get work, which shows her insensitivity. A lack of options seals the Little Man’s fate. Skloot gives a summation of the kinds of characters Williams specialises in, and one can immediately recognise the Little Man in the following description.

““Freaks” is the harsh word which inspires Williams to create his most troubled characters. The word is organized society’s term for the incomplete people whose presence irritates and disturbs the vulgar and insensitive “normality.” These “freaks” become victims of the world’s cruelty, cruelty which often is manifested in the destruction of individual freedom, often seen in the denial of sanctuary or rest.”
(Skloot 200)

What is apparent is that the Little Man is fragile. A closeted homosexual, he may be, but there are numerous other hypothetical reasons for his inability to deal with the quotidian demands of life. He may have experienced trauma, physical illness, or mental illness in the past. Whatever the reason, the Little Man no longer feels like a real person and describes himself instead as “A kind of a – ghost of a – man” (145). He explains the situation to Mizz Gallaway.

“The body is only – a shell. It may be alive – when what’s inside – is too afraid to come out! It stays locked up and alone! Single! Private! That’s how it is – with me. You’re not talking to me – but just what you think is me!”
(Williams 146)

Mizz Gallaway makes the facile summation of his predicament as one of loneliness. Skloot explains Williams’ aim when depicting such damaged characters.

“A state of incompletion, then, is the state of the oppressed people who inhabit Williams’ world, and their struggle to overcome their condition is the action which his art describes. The unique part of his vision is that it is infused with a compassion for the plight of his characters which reaches to the deepest part of our understanding; it gives his early work a brooding often melancholic texture which no other American playwright possesses. But rather than detracting from the quality of his art, this compassion enriches it because it is based on an indomitable belief, an insistent faith in the worth of the most fragile and broken human soul.”
(Skloot 201)

The only person with whom the Little Man bonds is the landlady’s father-in-law. The old man is another broken individual: unemployment, old age, and alcoholism. As Skloot writes, Williams’ “fragile people seek each other out; whatever anguish they feel they know that the pain of life can be softened in the presence of others who are similarly pained” (202). The Little Man’s active search for completeness and healing is most evident when he accepts the companionship of a sympathetic friend. The bond is not sexual or even romantic. It is merely about the kindness that one person can lend to another. The Little Man is a victim of a harsh world, but his salvation is not entirely hopeless.

Nitchevo the cat

The Russian most likely gave the cat its unusual name. John Foster Fraser explains the word nichevo (without a t) as “Russia’s motto of don’t care.” If one insists that it be spelt with the ‘t,’ then one may refer to the Bulgarian word nitchevo, which means threadbare. Thus, the cat’s name sums up the generally apathetic disposition of the broken Little Man in his cheap, shabby accommodation.

One need not doubt the Little Man’s affection and reliance on Nitchevo and still comprehend that the cat acts solely as a protective shield. Williams employs the cat to serve two quite distinct roles. First, the cat is a substitute for a romantic relationship with a member of the opposite/same sex. Second, the cat is a metaphor that communicates the kinds of trysts gay men had when homosexuality was still illegal and taboo. To begin with the substitute relationship – it is clear that the Little Man is too fragile to engage in a full, healthy relationship. He chooses an animal over a human since the cat is reliant on him for food, and therefore unwaveringly faithful to him. Additionally, the cat is a vital sounding board for his own inner dialogue. The Little Man chats with the cat, like when he explains the horrible incident at the factory, and he thereby enacts the illusion of never being alone. Despite his youth, the Italian never goes out except to work at the plant (143). When he is at home in his room, he is usually “Carrying on a one-sided conversation with a cat” (144). The cat stands in for a real partner whose profile we may only guess.

Williams presents the cat as the partner of last resort while simultaneously layering the story with sexual innuendos. The cat is a metaphor that describes forbidden homosexual trysts. For instance, Mizz Gallaway thinks at one point that the Little Man has brought home a woman when she hears chatter in his room. Gallaway cautions about the risks of picking up women on the street since they “aren’t likely to be very clean,” and she goes on to refer to “feminine hygiene” (144). The insinuation here is that prostitutes (or easy women) carry disease and therefore should be avoided. One may compare this to the tale of how the Russian found the “stray alley cat” and “let ‘er sleep in his bed,” which Gallaway calls “a dirty practice” (137). The alley is the taboo spot where lonely men may find companionship of one kind or another. If the Little Man did not have a cat for a companion, then maybe he would have to entertain his own troublesome questions about whom he is attracted to and where to find such company.

Sex

Mizz Gallaway makes what she believes is a deal with the Little Man to fulfil the duties of the late Russian, which included domestic and other (read sexual) duties too. She scolds the Little Man, advising that “Men that – live by themselves – get peculiar ways. All that part of their lives that was meant to be taken up with family matters is all left over – empty” (139). One may assume that she is not actually referring to the importance of parenthood, but rather the necessity of releasing pent-up sexual energy. When the Little Man shuns her numerous sexual advances, she unsubtly reveals her true desires – “Quit dodging the issue! … I thought I explained things to you. My husband’s a chronic invalid” (145). Sex becomes a test of normality that the Little Man utterly fails. Gallaway succeeded in initiating intimate relationships with the Russian and the newest tenant, the Boxer, so she undoubtedly possesses a particular sexual allure. In a later burst of anger, Gallaway tells the Little Man: “You’re not a man at all, you’re a poor excuse” (152).

Gallaway speaks with all the authority of a designated spokesperson of Mother Nature: “Nature says – “Man take woman or – man be lonesome!” (144). The Little Man’s response indicates a deep level of sexual repression or the possibility of asexuality.

“Nature has never said anything to me. …Oh, I listened. But all I ever heard was my own voice -asking me troublesome questions!”
(Williams 144)

One subtle clue provided by Williams at the opening of the play suggests an explanation for the Little Man’s sexual dilemma. When his tattered suitcase disintegrates in front of Mizz Gallaway’s eyes, various objects fall to the floor, including a rosary (135). Given that the Little Man is Italian, a once staunchly Catholic country, then his sexual repression may be interlinked with old-fashioned feelings of sinfulness and shame. One witnesses his fastidiousness, and his undisguised repulsion to any talk of sanitary matters (140) or female sexuality/hygiene (144). He is even embarrassed to be seen shirtless by his landlady (143). His apparent sexual repression is a key obstacle to any potential relationship. It is noteworthy that he welcomes the comforting, motherly embrace of his landlady while shunning her numerous sexual advances on him. Based on this example, he may see women only as nurturers and carers but not as sexual partners. If Nature says nothing to the young man, then it may be that he does not understand the ‘natural’ sexual urges that prompt men like the Russian or the Boxer. The ‘troublesome questions’ indicate a deviation from what was considered normal and acceptable, which could denote homosexuality or the complete lack of sexual urges. The repercussions for the Little Man are negative, stigmatizing labels like unmanly and odd. Nature, as represented by the tree outside his window, is strangely no less of an oppressive taskmaster than the factory bosses.

The Plant (factory)

The Little Man is an insignificant worker caught in the heart of the capitalist system maelstrom. Unfair transactional relationships define Williams’ play. There are oppressive forces that push down on the Little Man to perform according to conventional, external demands. If Mizz Gallaway is the representative of Mother Nature, then Oliver Woodson stands in for the God of Industry. Woodson represents the unceasing demands of the free market for cheap, disposable labour. In the Little Man’s room, “The window in the right wall admits the flickering ruddy glow of the plant and its pulse-like throbbing is heard faintly” (141). The throb of the machinery has an undeniable hint of sex to it, but the juices are oil and diesel, and the progeny are market products.

In the factory, the Little Man experiences demands to perform beyond his capacity. He has problems with his hands and as a result, he cannot work the machines efficiently. One day he causes the machine to jam and the production line to grind to a halt. Mr Woodson grabs him and humiliates him on the factory floor, saying, “You clumsy Dago! Jammed up the works again, you brainless Spick!” (142). The Little Man is overwhelmed with shame and breaks down in tears. This is a turning point. The landlady’s father-in-law is an ex-worker from the plant, and he is a foreshadowing of the Little Man’s future: broken and alone. Reminiscent of a Christian martyr, the old man describes how he was nailed to the cross of “Cupidity and Stupidity” (150). David Radavich describes the enormous influence of industry in The Strangest Kind of Romance: “In the one-act set in Saint Louis, the [plant’s influence] … permeates the boarding-house where anonymous workers pass through, get used up as expendable human resources, and go away to die” (141). All the key relationships (work and personal) that the Little Man becomes entangled in merely exhibit the many ways in which he can be and is exploited.

Conclusion

After the incident at the factory, the Little Man has a mental breakdown and is temporarily committed to the care of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy. He cries when he returns to Mizz Gallaway’s after his hospitalisation and finds that the cat is gone and his room is newly occupied. A man named Bill now sleeps in what was once his bed, and the cat that was his only friend in the world has disappeared. The disposable nature of the Little Man’s life is emphasised by Mizz Gallaway’s final words to him – “Your stuff, your few belongings, are packed in the downstairs closet. On your way out you may as well pick them up” (155). The season has changed as attested to by the new leaves on the branches outside the window. The Little Man must now join the lengthy line of those who had bad luck and moved on. Williams presents a character whose problems may be summed up as a general sensitivity to the pressures of life. The complexity of his personal back story is never revealed but the effects are apparent.

“Turn out the light. I’ve lived too long in a room that was nothing but windows and always at noon and with no curtains to draw.”
(Williams 152)

Yet a glimmer of hope appears right at the conclusion of the story. The old man finds Nitchevo in the alley, so the Little Man is reunited with his friend. The alley, which was previously stigmatized as a dubious location, is now transformed into a place of redemption. The landlady speaks of “The funniest pair of lovers” (158), but the statement is ambiguous in the context. Has the young Italian found a soulmate in his friend the old man, or is it simply that he and Nitchevo are together again? What is ultimately important is companionship and mutual sympathy. Williams depicts a man on the edge of society and yet hope is never lost.

Works Cited

Foster Fraser, John. “Nichevo!”–Russia’s Motto of Don’t Care.” The New York Times, 17 March 1918.

Larkin, Philip. “This Be The Verse.” Poetry Foundation, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse 

Radavich, David. “Regional Tensions in Tennessee Williams’s Candles to the Sun and Spring Storm.” South Atlantic Review, vol. 72, no. 3, 2007, pp. 38–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27784724. Accessed 15 April 2023.

Shackelford, Dean. “‘The Ghost of a Man’: The Quest for Self-Acceptance in Early Williams.” The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, no. 4, 2001. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/48615476. Accessed 17 April 2023.

Skloot, Robert. “Submitting Self to Flame: The Artist’s Quest in Tennessee Williams, 1935-1954.” Educational Theatre Journal, vol. 25, no. 2, 1973, pp. 199–206. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3205870. Accessed 12 April 2023.

Williams, Tennessee. The Strangest Kind of Romance. 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays, New Directions, 1953.

Breath

Play title: Breath
Author: Samuel Beckett
First performed: 1969
Page count: 1

Summary

Breath is a play by Samuel Beckett. No actors are required for a performance. The scene is a stage strewn with assorted rubbish. The sound effects employed are recordings of a child’s cry (vagitus) and a person inhaling and then exhaling. Stage lighting is brought up to ample brightness and then reversed to dim lighting. Beckett’s stage directions indicate precisely how each of the previously mentioned elements is to be calibrated and sequenced. The duration of a performance of this play is less than one minute: in fact, closer to about thirty seconds.

Ways to access the text: reading/watching

Samuel Beckett: The Collected Shorter Plays published by Grove Press is freely available online and contains the text of Breath. There are multiple other online sources from which to choose.

There are several different interpretations of Breath available to watch on YouTube. One of the more famous examples is a piece directed by Damien Hirst. It is worth mentioning that none of the videos of Beckett’s play correctly adhere to the stage directions laid out in the text.

Why read/watch Breath?

It is a strange experience to view a play in which no word is spoken. Breath is a meticulously calculated mix of imagery, sounds, light, temporal space, and silence. The significance of this theatre piece is the sum total of what one can decipher from it and/or project onto it. Breath may have a bland, obvious meaning or it could be exceptionally erudite and ground-breaking. Watching the play is certainly not an egregious drain on one’s time so there is little excuse to ignore it especially after having learned of the existence of this little-known work. The effect of the play on an observer is normally a quick pop of understanding and this is a worthwhile experience.

Post reading discussion/interpretation

[Almost] No Comment

It seems foolhardy, absurd and even comical to comment on Beckett’s play-ette, Breath. After all, the playwright manages to compact a complete theatrical scene, which appears to represent a human life, into the shortest imaginable timeframe. This is surely a dire warning against superfluous comment. A life is just a cry, a wheeze and an expiration! It is all over before one has time to even think about it. The litter-strewn stage may be interpreted as a wry commentary on the impact of the average person’s life achievements with the short timeframe an indication of how relatively insignificant a lifespan is when compared to eons of human history or to the even more imponderable history of the planet. One could accuse Beckett of being pretentious for assuming that he could credibly tackle such a weighty subject as human existence despite using only the most basic props and a timeframe that it little more than a few good sneezes in length. This accusation, however, would require one to ignore his Nobel Prize for literature, and the significant and influential body of work he produced prior to Breath. On the other hand, maybe we could all be accused of having egotistical pretensions: believing that our lives are so tremendously significant when, in fact, they are not. Then again, who knows for sure if Beckett’s playlet is a metaphor for a human life. This is a verbose way of saying that no comment is possibly the shrewdest commentary on Breath. In this way, one avoids looking like an affected pedant. It seems utterly incongruous for a minimalist play that communicates its message in less than a minute to result in reams of explanatory text.

Having said that, a few accomplished academics have interpreted Breath and produced worthwhile results. Three examples follow which will whet the intellectual appetites of those who require additional cerebral stimulation.

In an essay entitled “‘BREATH’ AS ‘VANITAS’: Beckett’s Debt to a Baroque Genre,” Claire Lozier provides an interesting and convincing interpretation of the play. The term Vanitas will not be familiar to everyone, but the style of painting described is immediately recognisable.

“The kind of painting known as Vanitas, is also described as “Still life with skull,” which expresses visually the saying in Ecclesiastes “Vanitas, vanitatum et omnia vanitas” (1.2) along with the Christian moral ideas of contemptus mundi (contempt of the world) and memento mori (remember thy end).”
(Lozier 241)

van Utrecht, Adriaen, Vanitas still life with a bouquet and a skull. 1643 – Picasso, Pablo. Nature morte aux oursins. circa 1960.

Lozier was initially prompted to make a connection between Beckett’s short play and this style of painting due to information from Beckett’s diaries and an interview he gave in the 1970’s. The interview was with Charles Juliet in 1973 when Beckett specifically referenced how certain works of Dutch art acted as memento mori (Lozier 241). In an old diary entry from the 1930s, Beckett recounted seeing and admiring Vanitas paintings that were on display in art galleries in Germany. In addition to the above information, Lozier underlines the relevance of the re-emergence of the Vanitas style in the second half of the twentieth century, in the wake of WWII (Lozier 241). Thus, the style was not dead but rather reinterpreted and reinvigorated for a contemporary audience. Lozier also supports her argument by making the astute observation that “The very fact that this play is meant to be a single, motionless image also suggests a kind of postmodern painting” (243). It is indeed easy to forget that, apart from lighting and sound effects, an audience is presented with a wholly static scene on the stage during a performance of Breath. Upon these somewhat embryonic links, Lozier proceeds to build a full argument.

The crucial link between the Vanitas genre and Breath is that they essentially depict the same things and thereby communicate the same theme: “Vanitas, vanitatum et omnia vanitas,” or vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Lozier explains that, even though “there is no skull or hourglass [in Beckett’s play], miscellaneous rubbish is perfectly fitted to signify time passing, decay and death, the inanity of life and the vanity of pleasures and possessions” (244). Beckett is referencing a style of art, but without necessarily paying homage to it. It is Lozier’s opinion that, “Beckett himself invites us to adopt a satirical reading in describing Breath as a “farce in five acts” (244). M. H. Abrams gives a broad definition of farce as “a type of comedy designed to provoke the audience to simple, hearty laughter – “belly laughs,” in the parlance of the theatre (39). Is life a joke: an all too brief farce? Beckett’s response seems to be yes. Lozier explains that “The allegorical dimension of the play is in fact so obvious that it destroys the allegorical effects and realises, instead, a tragic-comic caricature of the Vanitas” (245). Beckett is reworking an old genre of painting by placing it in a theatre setting and manipulating it so that the effect on the audience is quite different; a laugh replaces melancholic musings.

One may still be left pondering the significant difference between a Vanitas painting and Beckett’s play, which accounts for the first being serious while the second is comedic. The answer lies primarily in a non-religious interpretation of Breath. Lozier summaries the action of Beckett’s play to have the following meaning. Note the importance of the word nothingness.

“Inspiration as a movement of opening betokens ‘life,’ expiration as closure, ‘death’ – to expire is here indeed to die. The silence that is held twice for “about five seconds” suggests the nothingness from which life emerges and to which it returns.”
(Lozier 246)

It is the apparent absence of an afterlife that distinguishes a style of art inspired by an anti-materialist message in a book of the Bible (Ecclesiastes) from a play that shows the accumulated rubbish in our lives as the sole thing that remains after we are gone! Lozier sums up her interpretation of Beckett’s play as follows – “Far more than a mere play or a game with the codes of a certain kind of painting, Breath is above all to be read as a poetical text offering a tragic-comic view of the postmodern condition” (249). Beckett’s play is very much situated in the modern world; it just owes a debt to an old genre.

Dror Harari endeavours to find a comprehensive meaning for Breath by looking at the influences of the artistic world upon Beckett. Unlike Lozier, who cites 17th-century-art, Harari seeks to understand the play by examining the significant interplay between the emerging artistic trends of 1960’s France and Beckett’s dramatic output. This does, notably, include the contemporary paintings of that era. According to Harari, “Given their minimalist aesthetics, Samuel Beckett’s shorter plays tend to be read in light of the reductive tendencies operating in modernist literature, or as self-contained and independent objects that incorporate their own explanatory code” (423). As already highlighted by Lozier, the allegorical meaning of Breath is almost too obvious and that in itself becomes ironically frustrating. Harari explains a consequence of this fact by writing of how “The critical tendency responds not only to Beckett’s growing use of condensational techniques, but also to his consistent abstention from interpreting his own writing, which challenges his researchers to find more in less” (423). Harai accepts the challenge. For instance, he writes “Even if a reading which suggests that this play is a metaphor for ephemeral existence is self-evident …. Why rubbish (“miscellaneous rubbish,” to be more precise)?” (425). For context, Armand Fernandez (Arman) was a French artist who created an exhibit in 1960 entitled Le Plein which consisted of a whole gallery stuffed full of trash (image below). For Harari, it is not so much the message of Beckett’s play but how that message is communicated and the influences underlying the choice of style.

Harai gives an erudite overview of the cultural and artistic influences at play in 1960’s France and their likely impact on Beckett’s work and he lays most emphasis on the resulting form of Breath. He writes, “It is not unreasonable to perceive Breath as an instance of innovative theatre in the tradition of twentieth-century experimental modernism” (424). Harai makes his definition even more specific by labelling Breath as an example of performance art. The play is a painting of detritus that comes to life: a performance sans actors told in real time and possessing a clear symbolic meaning. The argument is that Beckett produced a piece of New Realist art. Harai explains that the young artists of the “French School of New Realism” (426) were “invent[ing] new creative methods and modes of representation, in direct reaction to a growing materialistic culture that was obsessively engaged in over-production, over-consumption, and the mythologising of capitalist abundance” (426). In the abstract of Harari’s essay, he writes that Breath will be “consider[ed] as a manifestation of “new theatre,” which blurs the line between theatre and the plastic arts” (424). One cannot fault the author on the resulting essay since it accomplishes its goal.

The third critical response to Breath is by William Hutchings in his essay entitled, “Abated Drama: Samuel Beckett’s Unabated ‘Breath.’” Hutchings opens his essay by comparing the message of Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure with Beckett’s Breath. In both works, the human breath is employed as a most powerful metaphor for life. Hutchings explains that “Whatever else Beckett’s characters lack — limbs, mobility, sight, memory, or even life itself—They “are” breath; that is, their existence is confirmed by (and their subsistence consists of) breath shaped into words” (85). For Hutchings, “Breath — the most succinct of Beckett’s “dramaticules” — offers the ultimate distillation of his inimitable world-view” (86).

Much like Lozier and Harari, Hutchings does not approach Breath as a play of hidden or obscure meanings – “The theme of Breath is the most comprehensive in all of literature: the human condition and the state of the world in which this life is passed” (87). However, while Lozier focuses on the satirical tone of Breath and Harari looks to the cultural milieu that helped birth the play, Hutchings provides a somewhat wildcard reading of the end of the play.

“Considered in the context of Beckett’s other works, the final cry seems especially disheartening, even though it is a cry of (re-) birth and not a “death rattle” as a number of critics (including Ruby Cohn in the passage cited above) have claimed.”
(Hutchings 88)

It is Hutchings’ contention that the second vagitus is “an indicator of entry into an unknown post-mortem realm” (88). This clashes with Lozier’s solid interpretation that Beckett’s play is indeed a farce due to the lack of an afterlife: the lack of the religious certitudes that made the Vanitas paintings of old so replete with cautionary meaning. Hutching’s does not say that it is a specifically Christian afterlife. He just provides an intriguing interpretation of the second cry and then confidently states that “The precise nature of the other-worldly existence in Breath remains unknowable” (89). It is something rather than nothing and may even be a form of eternal obscurity and abandonment. However, it is an interpretation that jolts one into a reassessment of a seemingly simple play. Hutchings closes his essay by praising Beckett for what he achieved with such a slight piece of theatre work.

“To have proffered an image of the human condition and the state of the world in a mere thirty seconds, in an “act of theatre” without characters, during a performance without the presence of actors, in a scene without dialogue, through a Shakespearean metaphor expressed without language, in a “dramaticule” without plot, is, indeed, Samuel Beckett’s Breath-taking achievement.”
(Hutchings 94)

The problem with Breath is that it is almost too concise. The examples of the various readings by Lozier, Harari and Hutchings prove this point. Academics feel that the piece, which on the one hand has a message too obvious to require any explanation, needs to be padded with contextual explanations, artistic progenitors or protective praise. The written text of the play fits on a single page and yet no one, especially theatre directors, seems to be content to stage the work as the playwright originally intended. There is an insatiable desire to tweak something. For example, there is the infamous example of Kenneth Tynan who received permission from Beckett to stage Breath (along with some other playwrights’ short plays) before performances of his own record-breaking revue called Oh! Calcutta! Tynan decided to have naked actors on stage amid the rubbish which infuriated Beckett. S. E. Gontarski explains that after the Beckett-Tynan debacle, Beckett “wrote to agent Jenny Sheridan on 27 April 1972: “I have come to the conclusion it is almost impossible to do Breath correctly in the theatre so I must ask you to decline this request and all future ones for the play” (147). Beckett was notoriously demanding when it came to strict adherence to his stage directions, but it would have been infuriating for anyone to deal with deviations from the instructions for a play that takes only half a minute to perform.

Breath is a stand-alone piece, but it somehow attracts attention that is alternately aggrandizing or deprecating. Defending the play and thus falling into the former camp, Hutchings wrote, “the longest word in the OED — floccinaucinihilipilification — accurately describes the prevailing critical assessment of Breath: the act of estimating something as worthless because it is small or slight” (90-91). Probably the sincerest approach to Breath is to read it, imagine the scene in one’s mind’s eye and interpret it instinctually. Admittedly, academic interpretations of Breath are captivating, but they inescapably pull one away from the simple, impactful message that Beckett crafted. In short, it is best to refrain from commenting on Breath since comment is largely superfluous and I include this essay in that criticism. The below quote outlines how Breath was originally conceived and written, and this will surely pierce any stubborn bubble of pretentiousness that remains. The play says quite enough and maybe our communal discomfort with the simple message, so much so that we long to obscure it, reflects its primal power.

“When Ruby Cohn asked Beckett in the summer of 1968 whether or not he had a new play in the offing, ‘He answered, almost angrily, ‘New? What could be new? Man is born – vagitus. Then he breathes for a few seconds, before the death rattle intervenes’ (qtd. in Knowlson and Knowlson, 129). He then wrote out the entire play called Breath for Cohn on the paper table cover of a café.”
(Gontarski 139)

Works cited.

Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms: Seventh Edition. Boston: Thomson Learning, Inc. 1999.

Beckett, Samuel. The Collected Shorter Plays. Grove Press, 1984.

Gontarski, S.E. “Reinventing Beckett.” Reading Modern Drama, edited by Alan Ackerman, University of Toronto Press, 2012, pp. 135-156.

Harari, Dror. “‘BREATH’ AND THE TRADITION OF 1960’s NEW REALISM: Between Theatre and Art.” Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, vol. 22, 2010, pp. 423–33. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25781940. Accessed 13 March 2023.

Hutchings, William. “Abated Drama: Samuel Beckett’s Unabated ‘Breath.’” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, vol. 17, no. 1, 1986, pp. 85-94.

Lozier, Claire. “‘BREATH’ AS ‘VANITAS’: Beckett’s Debt to a Baroque Genre.” Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, vol. 22, 2010, pp. 241–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25781928. Accessed 13 March 2023.

The Last Witch

Goudie, Alexander. Dancing ‘Cutty Sark.’ c 2000.

Play title: The Last Witch
Author: Rona Munro 
First published: 2009
Page count: 120

Summary

Playwright Rona Munro presents her audience with a tale of Devil worship in The Last Witch. The play is based on the historical, Scottish case of Janet Horne who was executed in 1727 and holds the dubious honour of being the last person executed for witchcraft in Britain. Set in Dornoch, Scotland, the story is chiefly about Janet and her disabled daughter named Helen.

Although Janet has a long-held reputation as a witch, the first serious accusation of sorcery comes from her neighbour, Douglas Begg, after his animals mysteriously fall ill. Janet is a poor yet wily woman who courts the rumour of witchcraft because it works to her advantage, putting food on her table and placing fear in the hearts of her enemies. When a new sheriff, Captain David Ross, arrives in Dornoch then Janet’s whimsical tales of casting spells find a new, legal interpretation that is far less tolerant. Additionally, Janet becomes a victim of her own vanity and stubbornness. David Ross insists on asserting his power and Janet proves too bothersome to tolerate. The play’s central themes are witchcraft, threatened masculinity, disability, poverty, and narcissism.

Ways to access the text: reading.

Munro’s play was published in 2009 so it is a contemporary work and therefore less easily sourced for free online. However, the text is available via Scribd which offers a 30-day free trial.

Why read The Last Witch?

History reworked.

Munro crafts a modern play from a notorious, historical case. Devil worship and witchcraft appear quaint topics for a contemporary work so Munro must invest it with special elements. These extras include elegant, poetic language; a proto-feminist protagonist; and a storyline that deals with the current, trending topic of threatened masculinity. Janet is an appealing character because she is vivacious and articulate, but also on account of her stubborn defiance! Rightly or wrongly, she is unwilling to comply with the conventions of female conduct deemed appropriate for her era and tragic events are thereby set in motion. Though the essential details of the case remain true, Munro’s fictionalization revitalizes an old story which makes it relevant for modern audiences. The play is still unavoidably historical, but the playwright diminishes one’s perception of a centuries long time gap by thrusting into the spotlight a woman who will never cower to the power of men.

Old Nick.

The mystical aura of witchcraft is set against the grubby realities of crushing poverty in Munro’s play. It is amid a landscape of aching need and hunger that Satan materializes as one who holds the answer. The depiction of Satan in The Last Witch is seductive, a man who gently extends his hand to offer something that surely will not be refused. Yet, Satan is also just a metaphor to describe all the moral shortcuts one is forced to choose from when empty stomachs begin to growl. Munro cleverly conflates Satan with one of the central male characters to communicate how certain bargains will always turn treacherous in the end.

Post reading discussion/interpretation.

Witchcraft – A Quest for Power.

Introduction.

Is the Janet Horne whom we meet in The Last Witch a bone fide witch, proto-feminist, egotistical fiend, or simply an impoverished but resourceful woman? One may immediately, though sadly, discount the first option since there is no evidence in the text of Janet Horne possessing any supernatural powers. The daughter, Helen, highlights the hollowness of her mother’s fanciful spells and Captain David Ross vehemently denies Janet has any true power. Had Janet conceded to what others already knew and therefore simply denied witchcraft then she would have been freed from jail. What then is the true topic being addressed in Munro’s play if not witchery? Is Horne’s error not so much that she purportedly dabbled in witchcraft but that she furthermore challenged the patriarchy? Munro depicts a formidable, middle-aged woman who is not amenable to good advice nor accustomed to backing away from a confrontation. Horne is a maverick, a complex and uncompromising character. One may, as many do, interpret the text as a semi-fictionalized story of a woman of the Early Modern period who challenged the patriarchy and paid the ultimate price. However, that would be a reductive approach to the play and unappreciative of Munro’s writing skills. Munro depicts Horne in an often-unflattering light so the resulting portrayal of a famous witch of the early 18^th century is multi-layered and challenging. The core theme of the play is not witchcraft per se, but power and how the wielding of power is enmeshed in gender politics. Janet Horne is an amorphous mix of faux-witch, fiend, feminist, and impoverished fantasist and the play shows how she temporarily and most gladly held great power in her own hands. In this essay, Munro’s play will be interpreted as an example of an historical play complicated by strong, postmodernist elements. Upon close scrutiny, the play evades providing easy answers but instead leads us to more complex, even frustrating questions. Labels that one would like to use when describing Munro’s characters, like heroine or villain, turn out to be inept and rudimentary and therein lies the motivation to dissect the play.

This essay is divided under various, autonomous topic headings. Each mini discussion will disassemble a particular aspect of the play in order to show how Munro’s work is not, after all, the conventional historical play it appears at first.

Witchcraft – a Misinterpretation.

Go to the website of any online bookstore and type in ‘witchcraft’ and the results reveal the public’s enduring interest in this topic. Many recent, best-selling examples are books which provide practical guides to the art of magic. Even so, who genuinely believes in witches or their craft? Apparently, not even Helen, the daughter of the infamous, 18^th century witch at the heart of Munro’s play. However, to question the credibility of witchcraft is not a straw man argument but rather a circuitous route to the truth of the matter. In typical postmodernist style, to dismantle the idea of witchery is the means by which one finds a surprising, underlying conundrum.

In The Last Witch, the proposition that Janet has supernatural powers is unreliable from the outset. Instead, underhand trickery is hinted at when Elspeth drinks from Janet’s water jug and notices that “Something… tastes green” (Munro 59). Elspeth is soon lost in a dream-like state of gustatory delights as well as musicians playing delightful music. Janet’s trick is later revealed by Helen when she flatly tells Ross – “It’s no magic. It’s just herbs she puts in the water” (75). But a witch’s tale without some witchcraft would be anticlimactic, so Munro portrays Helen, not Janet, as the one who communicates with the dark side. Helen professes to Ross that – “The Devil came to me when I’d swallowed nothing at all… I saw him clearer then” (98). This is an engaging, dramatic ruse because the physically disabled girl who trudges through an array of laborious, daily tasks is surely the most unlikely wielder of magical powers. Helen’s double imprisonment in a deformed body and subservient living situation are proofs, not of magic but of an aching helplessness. If one questions the scenario just a little further then one may arrive at the conclusion that Helen is, in fact, delusional. Thus, the truth of witchery beings to come ever so slowly into view.

In a book entitled Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, edited by Julian Goodare, one finds a plausible, modern explanation for Helen’s tales of meeting the Devil. In an essay by Goodare and Dudley, they looked at first-hand accounts of alien abduction and witchcraft and the similarities between these ostensibly dissimilar topics. They explain how “People experienced entities that approached them from the Outside-in, but the psychological interpretation shows the experiences coming from the Inside-out” (Dudley and Goodare 121). The authors concluded that – “The most likely experience behind … these testimonies is sleep paralysis” (122). To draw a comparison with Helen’s accounts, she invariably encounters the character Nick at night, which is significant, and on at least one occasion after imbibing her mother’s drugged water. Dudley and Goodare explain that during sleep paralysis, sufferers often recount “sensing a presence in the room with them” and/or “A feeling of levitation or flying” (122). One may additionally refer to the Sleep Foundation website where the phenomenon is explained as follows – “sleep paralysis involves a mixed state of consciousness that blends both wakefulness and REM sleep. In effect, the atonia and mental imagery of REM sleep seems to persist even into a state of being aware and awake.” Is it plausible that Helen’s fantastical encounters with Nick aka the Devil, are episodes of sleep paralysis? Journeying to the moon certainly sounds like an experience more typical of REM sleep. As such, the far-fetched idea of witchery is uncloaked to be, or at least more likely to be, a sleep delusion.

Helen’s Devil visions cannot be dismissed as charlatanism because she sincerely believes her own story (unlike Mommie dearest). Helen’s experiences clearly emerge as a consequence of her environment rather than a wilful deception. As outlined by Dudley and Goodare, “Sleep paralysis does not directly cause people to see witches, demons or aliens … People have to interpret their terrifying experience retrospectively” (124). The interpretation is dependent on the person’s innermost thoughts and “false memories” are readily constructed, especially by people who are suggestible (Dudley and Goodare 124). Furthermore, “This ‘memory’ will contain the kind of beings that people think likely to have been assaulting them: aliens today, witches or demons in the early modern period” (124). Who has been assaulting Helen, only her mother, the reputed witch of Dornoch. Helen tells the Devil how her mother has ridden her like a pony up to the moon – “I can feel her, feel her heels in my sides…! Aw! Rot her!” (Munro 65). Helen’s metaphorical language communicates how she feels since her mother unashamedly works the girl to the bone on their farm. What is more, all the specific elements of Helen’s delusions are directly informed by Janet’s colourful folklore about the Devil and flying to the moon (Munro 64, 25). The teenage girl has merely imbibed the atmosphere and her (likely) episodes of sleep paralysis are consequently transformed into meetings with Satan, Lord of the Underworld.

As outlined by Dudley and Goodare, the phenomenon of evil visitations is explainable through reference to sleep paralysis. The problem is not an attack from a frightening, external force but rather the personal psychology of the sufferer which finds expression in a waking-dream state. In the play, Janet’s rumoured witchcraft acts as a weak decoy and one subsequently assumes that the sincere Helen is the true witch. However, when one appreciates that the conduit for the fantastical, satanic visitations is an abused girl whose mind is chock-full of folklore along with repressed hatred of her mother then the witchery dissolves to nothingness. For all that, one still cannot be sure and even Dudley and Goodare give an ever-cautious conclusion on the numerous, fantastical confessions of Scottish witches – “for some of these witches, sleep paralysis was probably at the core of the experiences they related” (134; emphasis added). Once the play’s occult façade has been even partially chipped away, one may look more piercingly at the quotidian issues beneath.

Bad Mother …

There are scant records of the real-life Janet Horne, so Munro had ample latitude to portray the woman quite sympathetically. In Witchcraft Historiography, Katharine Hodgkin explains that “Popular perceptions of witch hunting focus above all on the burning of women, often associated with specific hostile male groups – doctors jealous of midwives, clerics driven mad by celibacy, or religious authorities aiming to obliterate ancient female-centred religions” (182). Munro could easily have taken advantage of any one of a multitude of these popular narratives where the woman becomes a scapegoat for male frustration and hate, but the playwright did not. Instead, an audience meets a decidedly flawed woman in Janet Horne who matches the negative stereotype of an 18^th century witch. For instance, Janet is depicted as having quite base motives for her actions and she contributes nothing of benefit to her community. What lies behind Munro’s apparently perverse characterization of Janet? If not a true witch, then what descriptive title is left for Janet – widow/scold/bad mother? Katherine Hodgkin refers to Deborah Willis’ book, Malevolent Nurture, in the following, quite illuminating quote about bad mothers.

“The witch is a bad mother: instead of nourishing babies she suckles devils on her witch’s mark; instead of nurturing and supporting children, she kills them, often by poison, and eats them in cannibalistic rituals at the witches’ Sabbath. In the figure of the witch are fantasised the characteristics of the anti-mother, destructive and full of hate, and the violent fantasies of infancy, involving dismemberment and destruction of the body, underpin the desire to be revenged on the evil witch.”
(Hodgkin 191)

Munro refrains from depicting Janet as a grotesque creature like one of the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Since Janet displays no magical power in the story, the stereotype as outlined above by Hodgkin would be incongruous. Yet, Munro still depicts an unquestionably bad mother, namely a negligent, selfish one and this curiously aligns with a core feature of a true witch. The proofs of Janet’s deficient maternal skills are easy to list. Of prime importance is that Janet does no work to provide nourishment for her only child. Helen complains to Nick, saying “I’ve eaten nothing but oats and a crumb of cheese since Tuesday” (Munro 38). Janet also blights Helen’s future by declaring that William McKenzie, a potential suitor, is not for Helen. McKenzie is one of Helen’s few marriage prospects since he does not mind that her hands are deformed (14). The sordid truth is that Janet simply fears being left alone if Helen marries, in addition to the prospect of losing her property – “I’ll not have some fat farting fool of a Mackenzie lording it in my house and calling my earth his” (63). Janet also takes advantage of Elspeth Begg’s unfailing generosity, knowing that it is on account of Helen, yet then perversely punishes her child, saying – “Elspeth Begg only loves you because she lost her own daughter” (15). The summation of Janet’s flaws makes her an unlikeable character in crucial respects. This is no benevolent midwife nor white witch but a vain, exploitative woman. Above all other possible descriptors, Janet is a ‘bad mother’ since Helen is at the front of the line of injured parties.

Munro has conceivably drawn Janet as a deficient mother to court the stereotype of the witch. Yet, it is not the expected depiction of a woman who participates in demonic rituals or breast feeds an incubus. Janet’s core badness is her inability to place her daughter’s needs first, at least not until a life-or-death situation arises. It may seem counterintuitive, but the technique actually highlights the severity of the legal punishment since a deficiency of maternal instinct is Janet’s sole crime, not sorcery, and therefore why is death her reward? The play arguably resists character idealization in order to lay focus on the punishment, as opposed to the redeeming qualities of the defendant. No counterweight is needed on the scales of justice since Janet has committed no supernatural crime against God so the sentence is unjust regardless of the accused’s personal character. Munro appears to court the stereotype of the witch so that it may be turned on its head. Consequently, one begins to ponder what is the whole truth of Janet Horne?

A Witch’s Reputation.

Janet Horne wears the mantle of the witch with surprising, even conspicuous ease. Is it therefore a universal truth that no-good can come from an accusation of witchcraft? In Lizanne Henderson’s book, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment, one learns that “While most of those incriminated for witchcraft were clearly distressed, for good reason, by the accusation, some turned the situation to their advantage” (123). Even though Munro’s character of Janet Horne is self-evidently based on the historical figure, there is also a separate template upon whom the fictional character, Janet, may be partly based. This other historical figure is a woman who ingeniously turned adversity to advantage.

“An East Lothian woman, Catherine MacTargett, charged with witchcraft in 1688, not only readily confessed to her crimes, but encouraged her reputation as a witch for it brought her a certain degree of power and status.”
(Henderson 123)

An examination of MacTargett’s case sheds light on Janet’s notorious behaviour and ultimately on her true character and motivations. MacTargett was “formally charged with witchcraft” and was “additionally rebuked for being an unlawful beggar” (Henderson 197). The records of the time outline how MacTargett “encouraged her reputation as a witch and seemed to gloat in the power it gave her … ‘and terrified the people soe as you [MacTargett] became insolent and imperious in your way of begging’” (Henderson 197). Janet Horne is shown to employ the same despicable tactics as MacTargett. For example, when Douglas Begg comes to retrieve his peat, Janet threatens to curse him, saying “your own eyes will melt out your head and run down your face like stinking tallow!” (Munro 17). Elspeth brings up a previous episode when Janet stole their winter hay. Janet is unable to claim rightful ownership of the peat or hay, so she uses her reputation as leverage to frighten her neighbours into docile submission. The tactic is effective since Elspeth placates her husband, accept her neighbour’s bad behaviour, and even feeds Janet and Helen. However, Janet’s true power is not actually witchcraft but, instead, the threat of the witch.

Henderson explains that “The control and influence a reputation as a witch or a charmer could potentially bestow was, for some at least, a powerful force not easily ignored” (123). It is clear why Janet is enamoured with the witch’s reputation since it puts food on her table and fodder in her barn. Nevertheless, one should also scrutinize the dichotomy between a witch’s reputation and her deeds. In the community, Janet is known predominantly for malign threats rather than benevolent deeds. Even the minister, Niall, cannot muster more than a back handed compliment – “She [Janet] has healed beasts as well as cursed them” (Munro 30). Janet seems to favour threatening people rather than healing with magic. This prompts one to look at what personality type would be attracted solely to the power bestowed by a reputation for witchcraft. The apparent answer is a narcissistic personality. Janet’s ego overshadows the poverty-stricken reality of her desperate situation. As a result, she believes herself to be special, beautiful, and exceptionally powerful. Take for example the opening scene when Janet chides her humble, downtrodden daughter for constantly staring at the ground, in stark contrast to her proud mother.

“There was something in the air today. A warmer air. Reminding me of what I could be. I thought to raise a hot wind and fly upon it.”
(Munro 10)

The mirage of exceptionalism, the ‘could be’ of Janet’s future, is founded on a base of inextricable narcissism and witchery. At a later moment, when speaking to Ross, Janet revels in her sustained, youthful beauty – “I think I might never grow old. There’s not a line on my face” (72). However, the crescendo of egotistical delusion comes when she tells David Ross, the sheriff, – “I’m the law here, Davey. Know it. Swallow it. Surrender and keep your mouth shut” (73). There is assuredly a blurry line between an assertive woman and a hollow narcissist but to bring that line into sharp focus one simply need look at how Janet exploits her reputation. Since Janet’s reputation is based on a charade of possessing supernatural powers, then the loss of the reputation will instantaneously rob her of everything. This is exactly what occurs in The Last Witch when Janet is finally exposed. The witch’s reputation is shown to be a potent device that masks the true ordinariness and impotence of the individual. Janet predictably clings to the reputation, even abusing it to see how egregiously she may behave without repercussion.

Referencing Catherine MacTargett, Lizanne Henderson explains that “Power, even when negatively expressed or experienced, is an addiction that is hard to break” (200). To frame Janet as a power-addicted narcissist assists greatly in explaining her predicament. David Ross quickly identifies Janet’s hunger for power and eventually exploits her predictably defensive character to lock her into an impossible situation. Just like in the MacTargett case, the sheriff, Ross, fails to get Janet to deny her witchcraft (Munro 42) but nonetheless concludes that she is little more than “A dishonest beggar” (53). Humiliated by the insult, Janet is determined to reciprocate and belittle Ross which she succeeds in doing when he falls into pig excrement after she lunges at him. The tables are shown to have turned when Janet is later imprisoned for witchcraft, and Ross goads her – “you’ve no power, is that what you’re saying? … You’re a sad old woman with dirt under her fingernails from gripping on to a few withered sods of land” (90). Ross even promises to set her free if she will just admit to common thievery. Janet cannot relinquish her reputation since it the reservoir of all the power she possesses, thus without it she is merely – “Mad Janet Horne who was so dottled she fancied herself a witch” (91). Ross ups the ante by making Janet’s humiliation a prerequisite of her freedom. Just like when Janet read Ross’ palm like a gypsy fortune-teller, he now exhibits his ability to read her. In this light, Janet’s final admission of witchcraft, though ostensibly to save her daughter, is also a defiant/desperate move that shields her from the sad, disempowered life that otherwise awaited her.

The potency of a witch’s reputation comes from the fact that it instils pure, adrenalized fear in others. This motif occurs throughout the play, beginning when Janet tells Douglas – “You’ll fear me!” (Munro 18), to the burnt patch of ground in the town square that Janet cursed, and which has subsequently become a taboo spot. Janet finally comes to believe that she is untouchable, that her neighbours would never risk accusing her of sorcery – “I’d like to see them dare!” (47). As a result of Janet’s narcissistic personality, she eventually falls foul of both the law and of herself too. Ross gloats that when she read his palm then she should have foreseen this tragic end. The power balance of their relationship finally tilts, and he tells her – “you should’ve feared me. Shouldn’t you, Janet?” (115; emphasis added). The ability to deploy a sense of fear was chiefly reserved for church and state in the 18^th century, institutions that did not tolerate interlopers. The fall of Janet Horne reveals no witch, just a woman who became deliriously intoxicated with power.

When Henderson looked at the case of MacTargett, she came to a markedly more sympathetic conclusion as follows.

“The trial of Catherine MacTargett (1688) has shown how one woman tried to take advantage of a bad situation – whether consciously or subconsciously will never be known – by actually exploiting her reputation as a witch in order to make a living, gain power and acquire a modicum of respect.”
(Henderson 240)

In the case of Janet Horne, the surprise revelation is a power-hungry narcissist who will avail of any avenue to secure what she desires. For a woman living in the Early Modern era, a reputation for witchcraft was one of the few, albeit dangerous, routes to acquire fawning or fearful respect, equality with men, and power. However, the fear that witchcraft instilled also antagonised powerful enemies like local sheriffs and clerics. Horne’s gleeful enthusiasm to ride on the coat tails (or broom) of a witch’s reputation is a vital signal that she is less than she professes, less than a true devotee of Hecate, and more of an intelligent opportunist.

The Feminist Witch.

Is it possible to legitimately label Janet Horne as a feminist? Janet certainly resembles a modern, liberated woman far more than her female peers of the early 18^th century. Of course, to use the word feminist is, strictly speaking, anachronistic but one may certainly identify her as a proto feminist. The main support for this argument is that she asserts that she may act as an independent, free agent without male interference in her life. For instance, she does not fear to take various lovers (Archibald Ross, and the sheriff); she does not agree that her daughter should marry for solely practical reasons; and she does not consider herself inferior to men.

While Munro (born 1959) resisted the temptation to depict Janet as a white witch, leaving her instead as an unsavoury character, she did sympathetically portray her as the victim of arbitrary and cruel, male power. This aligns with how “The feminist movement of the early 1970s was keen to reclaim negative stereotypes …The witch was another figure ripe for reclamation, a type of the assertive woman crushed by patriarchy” (Hodgkin 184). The playwright homes in on the topic of the female body to highlight an archetypal example of male chauvinism.

Munro focuses specifically on Janet’s loss of youth and how a vibrant, sexual, powerful woman is seemingly transformed overnight into an unattractive, withered, old woman. The sheriff, who at first dismissed local gossip that Janet was a witch and subsequently engaged in a sexual relationship with her, now finds that she is worthy of imprisonment and his timing indicates a covert motive. The scenario suggests gender essentialism since Janet’s biological changes which are distinctly feminine, and likely menopausal, are now linked to a decline in her perceived value. Munro is participating in an age-old debate about how women are unfairly discarded by society after a certain age. Janet comprehends the change in Ross’ perception of her and assertively challenges him as follows.

Janet: “What do you see? A dribbling skull? Withered dugs and reeking holes? Aye, you run from me, you’ll not look on terror like this, will you? This is what the wombs that bear men come to, sucking dark and bony hips, death swallowing you whole even as it’s pushing against you and grabbing your arse and crying your name.”
(Munro 92)

It is inconsequential if Janet’s prematurely aged appearance is the result of the menopause or the extremely harsh prison conditions because the affecting scene has a broader relevance. Munro highlights how women are often prized by men only so long as they provide children, sexual allure, and pleasure. For Ross, Janet’s perceived value rapidly diminishes in tandem with the loss of her youthful looks which are inextricably linked with hormones and biological processes. Janet has no recourse to fight this societal prejudice and must therefore accept it though her anger is justified and palpable. The play rehearses an inequity that women have faced for millennia.

Hodgkin quotes Lyndal Roper when addressing this crucial point about female fertility and the interconnections with witchcraft.

“Witches strike not only at children and babies, but at fertility itself, and the possibility of reproduction … The withered and ageing body of the no longer reproductive witch stands as a symbol for all failures of the fertile world.”
(Hodgkin 192)

This stigma of barrenness, of failure, is noxious. Janet rebels against it but the aged witch is seen as a blight on all the community. In the play, Douglas Begg suspects Janet of cursing his small herd, resulting in “Two beasts dead! A quarter of all my wealth, food for flies!” (Munro 80). Ross discards his old lover, Janet, since she is no longer attractive and alluring. The curse is not witchcraft but womanhood and the inevitable, biological changes of mid-life.

Hodgkin explains how the superstitious and religious culture of the Early Modern era found a perfect scapegoat in women, writing that “To early modern demonologists in particular, it almost went without saying that femininity was correlated with evil, weakness, impurity and inconstancy” (Hodgkin 196). This links back to biblical teachings and the ‘curse of Eve’ administered by God after Eve took advice from Satan. Munro’s depiction of Janet Horne brings a doomed figure back to life for our modern scrutiny. Janet becomes the downtrodden, wronged woman whose crimes were her gender and her defiant flashes of freedom. Janet puts up a spirited fight against society’s prejudices but is a lone voice against a chorus of convention.

Interpreting witchcraft through a feminist lens certainly appears logical at first but is nonetheless rife with complications. Katharine Hodgkin explains as follows.

“Through feminism, the history of witchcraft was set in dialogue with a political movement, which reclaimed and appropriated the figure of the witch for political ends; and the politics of that movement, however much scholars of witchcraft may have been in sympathy with it, had a problematic impact on the historiography.”
(Hodgkin 183)

The witch reclaimed through feminist writings must still face the rigours of historical fact. Hodgkin explains that “the vast majority of those accused of witchcraft in most European countries were women” but she then adds the complicating proviso – “The persecution of witches is not about gender alone” (182). For instance, there is the niggling problem of historical records that communicate a far more complex social environment. Hodgkin writes of two key counterarguments against holding gender as a defining feature of witch trials.

“A proportion – variable, but almost never insignificant – of those accused of witchcraft were men; and the fact that women’s involvement in witch trials was often on the side of the courts, with women playing important parts as accusers and witnesses [is significant]”
(Hodgkin 185)

Munro counters and successfully undermines the above perspective regarding witnesses by portraying Elspeth as feeling obliged to heckle the witch at the public execution, making such an action interpretable as the result of peer pressure. Elspeth plaintively informs Helen – “I have to curse her [Janet] to stay alive” (Munro 109). However, such twists of perspective do not negate the other, opposing reading of history. Hodgkin references Larner when explaining that witches “were not hunted by the state because they were women; they were hunted because they were witches” (Hodgkin 186). Hodgkin uses a direct quote from Larner to explain the vehemence of the witch hunts – “The purpose of a witch-hunt was the prising out of dangerous persons who were enemies of God, the state and the people” (186).

In Munro’s dramatic depiction of Janet’s fate, the clergyman, Niall, and the neighbour, Douglas, become regretful of their respective actions. Niall tells Ross, “To burn her alive… It’s too cruel” (Munro 113), while Douglas tells Ross, “I can’t! I can’t strangle Janet!” (106), and he then asks an unconscious Janet for forgiveness. This is a playwright successfully prioritising pathos above historical accuracy. Hodgkin explains the historical truth of such scenarios, namely that “Violence in the form of torture was a central part of the judicial process in most of early modern Europe and New England, directed against men as well as women, and against those tried for other offences such as heresy or treason as much as against those tried for witchcraft” (188). In short, the judiciary handed out sentences which involved the application of severe violence, and such sentences were not exceptional. Hodgkin sums up the situation by saying it is problematic to “focus on witch persecution as a form of systematic male violence against women” (188). The dramatic depiction by Munro, therefore, does not hold up to sustained historical scrutiny.

Munro has an inalienable right, maybe even a duty to use poetic license. What is at question is solely the application of a feminist lens to understand Janet Horne. This modern lens fails not due to any dramatic missteps by Munro but because of the historical facts that belie such sympathetic plays. To identify Janet Horne as a proto feminist is to follow the same tendency of feminist writers to reclaim and historically reposition those who practiced witchcraft or were at least sentenced based on an accusation of witchcraft. The action of reclaiming brings with it the risk of historical scrutiny, so the action often ends up negating itself. Women like Horne were executed because they were seen primarily as a threat to society. To conflate the centuries long subjugation of women with the persecution of witches who happened to be women is to concoct a labyrinthine argument which is neither wholly provable nor disprovable.

Historical Inaccuracy – Inventing Janet Horne.

Janet Horne is accepted as an historical figure. Present day proof may be found at The Witch’s Stone in Littletown, Dornoch which is a memorial to Horne plus a marker of the site where she was executed. Therefore, Horne is unquestionably a figure from history upon whom any playwright, historian, or journalist may write an account. Yet, such certainty quickly falters when one peers back in time to see the true Janet Horne.

In the historical records, there is far more blank space than substance. Alexandra Hill points out that even the most rudimentary detail is untrustworthy, “The name ‘Janet Horne’ was assigned to the mother in the early twentieth century, though with dubious authenticity” (224). Lizanne Henderson expands upon this information, explaining that, “Jenny Horne seems to have been the generic name for a witch in the far north” (238). If the name is generic, then the strikingly unique witch portrayed by Munro quickly vanishes. Left behind is a generic tag, a marker of a type of woman rather than an individual, an easy byword for all females who dabbled in witchcraft. Thus, one has nothing reliable, only a stereotype neatly encapsulated in a moniker.

This Jane-Doe-Witch is further haunted by the fact that one cannot be sure when she died. Hill states that “Even the date is unclear, several references assigning it to 1722, but the date of 1727 was preferred by Cowan and Henderson, who studied the case in as much detail as the fragmentary records allowed” (225). Church records would normally have detailed such local events but “there is an inexplicable gap in the Dornoch presbytery records during the period in which the last execution allegedly took place” (Henderson 238). One last point on purported historical accuracy highlights the sheer paucity of information. Hill writes that “The mother was executed, while the daughter escaped” (224) but Henderson’s account says, “The younger was spared but the old woman “suffered that cruel death in a pitch barrel, at Dornoch”’ (234). Different records apparently give contrasting accounts, so the daughter (Helen) either escaped or was legally pardoned. The totality of the information is that a woman, a mother, whose true identity is uncertain was executed sometime within a specific five-year period in the late 18^th century for the crime of witchcraft.

What is left, if anything, when one strips away the dubious, fragmented details? Simply that Horne was the last, the final woman to be sent to her death for the crime of witchcraft. She was wholly insignificant until history retrospectively took her as a marker of supreme importance. Now, she alone highlights a shift in judicial sentencing and a change in social attitudes. One may validly fault the system that executed Horne and did not even care to accurately record the woman’s most basic, personal details. However, the absence of that information necessarily means that any later assessment of Horne, as anything more than a marker in history, is a fiction or a subjective projection of some kind.

Conversely, maybe recourse to dramatic fictionalizations is unavoidable. Take for instance an eerie clue that is found in Janet’s modernized story. Munro explains that in the aftermath of Janet’s execution and burning, “Nick is raking through the ashes, breaking bones to bits with a cudgel” (Munro 119). Nick then confirms the crude burial method with Ross – “All the bits of her in a sack and then that in the river. Is that how you’re wanting it, master?” (119). In “Executing Scottish Witches,” Laura Paterson confirms the grim reality of such ‘burial’ methods.

“While the body of a murderer or common thief would often be kept on public display, which would add to the infamy of the individual, the total eradication of the body was an even greater disgrace.”
(Paterson 208)

Witches were among the select few whose bodies were purposefully vanished. Paterson explains that the witch hunting craze “led to an estimated 2,500 executions being carried out between the imposition of the witchcraft act in 1563 and its repeal in 1736” (211). Despite the enormity of the injustice, historical records are riddled with information gaps just like those around Janet Horne. As a result, a one-time common criminal may be resurrected and moulded into something special, someone worthy. This is the epitome of postmodernist debate because rifling through Janet’s centuries old bones reveals nothing beyond a dubious date. One cannot even challenge official history as it is mostly silent regarding her case. The big historical reveal is an anticlimactic, blank space.

The title of Munro’s play sums up the foremost importance of Janet Horne, she was The Last. Horne presents a writer with a perfectly pristine blank page on which to summon a spirit of old. Janet Horne is nobody, not in the derogatory sense but simply in that we cannot know her, at least not like Catherine MacTargett or other well-documented women who stood trial for witchcraft. Horne is a temporal marker from the 18^th century, a dot on a page from which new stories commence.

‘Better the Devil you know!’

In The Last Witch, the execution of Janet Horne is the final manifestation of one man’s hate, Captain David Ross. Janet reveals Ross’ vulnerable masculinity but does not bargain on the unusually aggressive response that will ensue. Munro portrays a relationship where the cards are stacked against the suspected witch and the inequity of the situation predictably garners one’s sympathy. Toxic masculinity is a modern term but one which is an apt description of Ross’ behaviour. An examination of the course of events from Janet and Ross’ first meeting to her death reveal that masculine power is undoubtedly a core theme of the play. Yet, congress with the Devil, the premise of any play about witchcraft, is shown to have multiple interpretations.

Ross ensures that a woman, whom he believes to be no more than an insolent beggar, is burned to death. Munro’s depiction is intriguing since it conforms closely with historical facts. For example, when Ross prematurely sentences Janet to death, Niall objects, saying “we have to wait until the Privy Council reviews the case… for a capital sentence” (Munro 102). Laura Paterson explains that the Privy Council could give permission for witches to be tried in their local parishes (197). However, “For those witches who were tried locally, the granting of this commission may as well have been a death sentence” (Paterson 197). This was because the local community had, in most cases, already decided on the fate of a witch (197). In the play, Ross does not bother with any pretence of fairness, choosing instead to immediately sentence Janet to death which is a conspicuous show of exceptional power. Douglas Begg cannot bring himself to strangle his neighbour, a task expected of appointed executioners in witch cases, so Ross concludes – “Then she’ll burn alive” (Munro 106). Paterson explains that “around 12 per cent of Scottish witches were sentenced to burn alive” but such sentences were rarely carried out in the literal sense and only “if a witch had committed a particularly serious and wicked offence” (204). The purpose of all this detail is to underline that Janet faced an exceptionally cruel death even though no one, neighbour, cleric, nor sheriff earnestly believed her to be a witch. Unjust is writ large over Janet’s trial and Ross is identified as the villain. Janet becomes the target for a level of hatred that is almost incomprehensible and reflective of a darkness in society. Munro’s play does not posit that the darkness is supernatural in origin, so one must identify a more familiar Devil at work.

There are two figures who represent the Devil in Munro’s play. Most obviously, there is Nick (old Nick) but also Captain David Ross. Confirmation of the second demon comes when Douglas Begg scolds Janet, saying, “You brought the Devil down to rule us all” (Munro 81) when referring to Ross and the oppressive rule of law that they have experienced since she first upset the captain. The crucial equivalence between Nick and Ross is that both hold power. Helen and Janet approach these men seeking or expecting favours and these implicit negotiations utterly complicate Munro’s play. The simple narrative of women wronged, whilst remaining essentially true, takes on strange, unexpected nuances.

Helen and Janet summon their respective devils for unrelated ends. Helen calls out in the night saying – “Devil… Lord Devil… I will have no master but you” (35) chiefly on account of her long-empty stomach but also to reassure herself of his existence. Later, we learn from Nick that “The Devil can’t go where he’s not invited” (68). Much like the figure of the vampire, the Devil relies on an invitation, and this emphasizes that the person who extends the invite is using their free will. Helen eventually pledges herself to Nick and in return her mother’s awful suffering will be cut short. The devil whom Janet approaches is the sheriff newly posted to Dornoch, David Ross. At first, it is arguable that Janet seeks nothing but to be left in peace, but that is to misread Munro’s play. Janet seeks to subjugate Ross, having first identified him as the highest-ranking government official in the locality. Ross has the potential to offer her immunity from neighbourly threats and more importantly, safety from religious and legal zealots. Janet sets about controlling Ross by two separate methods. First, she attempts to manipulate his fear of witches by purporting to read his palm and taking a lucky guess that he saw “the hags on the battlefield” (54) aka witches. Thus, as a self-identified witch, Janet hopes to lord over Ross on account of his fear of her kind. Janet haphazardly strikes upon an old trauma that Ross experienced in battle, and she endeavours to exploit this secret weakness.

What does an impoverished, 18^th century Scottish woman have that the devil covets? The traditional answer is her soul but if the devil is human then the answer is more likely sex. This is the second lure by which Janet may control Ross. Dudley and Goodare explain that there was “a great deal of demonic sex reported in Scottish witchcraft trials. It was normal for women, at any rate, to be asked about sex with the Devil” (131). Janet playfully tells the gullible Elspeth – “Everything about the Devil is icy cold. His breath, his touch. His cock’s an icicle” (Munro 25). However, Janet woos her own devil in Ross. After humiliating Ross in an early scene, Janet makes a covert offer of sex, saying, “if you find a use for your anger, you know where I live” (56). Janet imagines that if she takes an officer of the law as her lover then the law will subsequently hold no threat for her. Additionally, Janet uses her sexual allure to hold Ross in submission to her (73). The irony of the power play becomes apparent when Ross later tells Niall – “She’s kissed the Devil. She’ll be burning till the end of time” (113).

Once again, Munro has taken a reader’s expectation and flipped it to reveal something quite surprising. Janet’s Faustian bargain is not with a denizen of Hell, but with a representative of patriarchal power and the results are no less gruesome. Sex and power were core issues in witchcraft trials. Witches were suspected of having intercourse with the Devil in exchange for supernatural powers. Janet disrupts the traditional tale of witchcraft when her devil is revealed to be human, and her desire is nothing short of utter control. Mary Daly explains how sex and devil worship first became so inextricably melded in the public’s consciousness.

“It is well known that the witches were accused of sexual impurity. ‘All witchcraft comes from carnal lust which is in women insatiable,’ intoned the dominican priests, Kramer and Sprenger, authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, which was brought out in 1486 and remained the most important catechism of demonology.”
(Daly 180).

The nuance on the traditional tale of witches’ victimhood is that Janet invited the Devil in, but then tried to dominate him. She toyed with a representative of a male-dominated system and realised her mistake too late.

Conclusion.

These mini discussions on assorted topics from The Last Witch have all been written with a self-consciously contrarian attitude. The intention has been to go against the grain and thereby avoid a facile reading of Munro’s play. As noted at the start, the play delivers more questions than answers after it has been thoroughly scrutinized. The two key topics that have not been covered in this essay, namely women’s (witches’) subjugation and the motif of flight in the play, have only been neglected since they do not crumble to reveal something else when critiqued. Additionally, Munro addresses these topics so well that they overshadow, a little too successfully, the other topics at hand. Covering these topics briefly here in the conclusion simply acknowledges the top, most easily accessible layer of meaning in the play.

First, the references to flight in The Last Witch are numerous. Janet and her daughter dream of, and sometimes even imagine that they have flown. The play opens with Janet imagining she can fly on the warm wind and then she says, “I’m going to become a bee” (Munro 12), and when Janet is executed and eventually burned on the town square, Helen looks on from the hills and says “See the smoke. Rising in the air like a swarm of bees” (118). This motif of flying has been investigated by various academics researching witchcraft. Julian Goodare poses the vital question – “how did early modern folk imagine flight? … They thought of birds, they thought (though more rarely) of bees and other insects, and they thought of being carried by the wind” (161). The symbolism of flight is explained by Goodare as follows.

“Witchcraft, to the ordinary folk of early modern Scotland, scratching a precarious existence in the face of falling living standards and the looming fear of starvation, was linked to magic, and magic offered the power to carry them away to a land of Cockaigne. There was feasting there, of course, and music and dancing. As Larner showed so well, there was freedom from ‘want’. Folk could readily imagine all this, so long as they could imagine having magical power. But what better way to imagine escapist magical power than by imagining the power to fly.”
(Goodare 171)

Janet Horne and her daughter led harsh, downtrodden lives so escapist fantasies offered relief and hope. As already discussed, one of the few possibilities to escape female subjugation in the Early Modern era was to wrestle power from those who traditionally held it, and witchcraft facilitated such a move. In the following quote, Mary Daly explains why specific groups of women were targeted for persecution by the authorities in the first place.

“The witchcraze focused predominantly upon women who had rejected marriage (Spinsters) and women who had survived it (widows). The witch-hunters sought to purify their society (The Mystical Body) of these “indigestible” elements – women whose physical, intellectual, economic, moral, and spiritual independence and activity profoundly threatened the male monopoly in every sphere.”
(Daly 184).

Janet Horne is presented as just such an ‘indigestible’ element in society. However, as outlined in the introduction, this reading comes too easily and fits the stereotype too readily. Part of the joy of reading an historical play is to find the answer that one didn’t expect as opposed to the answer one already had in mind when opening the first page. Munro succeeds in having produced just such a play since it makes one consider the intricacies and contradictions of otherwise worn out stories.

Works Cited.

Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology. Beacon Press, 1990.

Dudley, Margaret and Julian Goodare. “Outside In or Inside Out: Sleep Paralysis and Scottish Witchcraft.” Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, edited by Julian Goodare, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 121-139.

Goodare, Julian. “Flying Witches in Scotland.” Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, edited by Julian Goodare, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 159-176.

Henderson, Lizanne. Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Hill, Alexandra. “Decline and Survival in Scottish Witch-Hunting, 1701–1727.” Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, edited by Julian Goodare, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 215-233.

Hodgkin, Katharine. “Gender, mind and body: feminism and psychoanalysis.” Witchcraft Historiography, edited by Jonathan Barry and Owen Davies. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, pp. 182-202.

Munro, Rona. The Last Witch. Nick Hern Books Limited, 2009.

Paterson, Laura. “Executing Scottish Witches.” Scottish Witches and Witch-Hunters, edited by Julian Goodare, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 196-214.

Boys and Girls

Play title: Boys and Girls
Author: Dylan Coburn Gray
First performed: 2013
Page count: 43

Summary

Boys and Girls is a theatre piece in verse by Dublin playwright, Dylan Coburn Gray. There are just four characters who are economically named A, B, C, and D. They speak in separate monologues, but their stories are united by their quests for fun, alcohol, sex, and satisfaction during one singular night in the city. A and B are starkly opposite young men, one is dominant, brash, and lustful while the other is soft spoken, timid, and conscientious. D is a young woman already in a steady relationship with a boring, even if adoring boyfriend, while C is a loud-mouth ladette who endeavours to reclaim the controversial c-word. This work is a snapshot of youth culture in Ireland’s booze-drenched capital city circa 2013 with all the appropriate slang, curse words, and some cultural references to boot. Coburn Gray’s writing is clever, sexually explicit, engaging, crass, energetic, and it rhymes too. Themes addressed in the work include seduction, self-expression, misogyny, drink and drug culture, and young adulthood.

Ways to access the text: reading

It is possible to purchase this play and others by Coburn Gray on the Nick Hern Books website. Alternatively, one may access the playscript for free via Perlego or Scribd (both offer free trials).

Please note that while the text is reader-friendly, it is written in ‘Dublinese’ aka the dialect of Dubliners so some vocabulary may be unfamiliar, but it can often be guessed from the context.

Why read Boys and Girls?

A slice of night life.

The play encapsulates all the energy and madness of a young person’s night out. There is the quick witted, macho guy; the sensitive, naïve lad; the girl who’s already in a relationship; and the girl who is painting the town red just like one of the boys. Each character tells their own individual story about their pals, crushes, lovers, and how the night ends. The theme of the play may be summed up in Daft Punk’s 2013 hit, “Get Lucky.”

“She’s up all night ’til the sun

I’m up all night to get some

She’s up all night for good fun

I’m up all night to get lucky”

Post reading discussion/interpretation.

“Dublin by Strobe Light and Black Light!”

Dylan Coburn Gray took the unusual decision of writing Boys and Girls in verse. Maybe not so unusual when one takes into account that he is a spoken word artist as well as a writer. There is a YouTube video of D.C.G. (his initials) performing a piece named “If I Were a Dog” that ponders the concept of now, the current moment, in objective and subjective terms. One will find the same trademark, assured style of monologue in Boys and Girls. The attraction of the play is not pinpointable to one single thing but is the combination of tongue-in-cheek coolness, modernity, intellect, and a touch of crudeness. The message is cleverly packaged so that it will appeal to a young audience, a contemporary audience of the writer’s peer group. Spoken word artists have a particular skill with the presentation of narrative so that an audience may be easily hooked and thus engaged in the topic at hand. Boys and Girls is a testament to this skill, but it remains a play that one may nevertheless discard as frivolous or obscene. D.C.G. arguably just prettifies modern, youth culture through clever verse which only mirrors rather than seeks to critique the status quo. This does not mean that the work is without merit, far from it, because highlighting a historical moment, even one as recent as 2013, reveals a certain stubborn inflexibility in social attitudes when viewed retrospectively. This essay will delve into what D.C.G.’s play reveals by focusing on the effect of the work and the conundrums it raises. Nested within this modern play is something quite old and familiar.

D.C.G. studied music at Trinity College Dublin, and this may have been a key motivation for his choice of verse over prose for his play, combined with his experience of spoken word. It is worth acknowledging that reading Boys and Girls is a deprivation of sorts since, as Cecilia J. Allen writes, “if you have truly heard, even once, you know there has been a dimension lacking in the dramatic poetry which only your eye has perused” (556). This valid point raises an associated problem, namely that Boys and Girls is not the formal verse of Shakespearean plays which Allen has in mind. Instead, the play is presented in informal, modern verse. Yet, D.C.G. as a spoken word artist brings ‘positive baggage’ with him when he enters the realm of theatre since informality has value too. Scott Woods, writing about poetry slams, seems to sum up the transformational potential of modern poetry – “Poetry slams are a device, a trick to convince people that poetry is cooler than they have been led to believe by wearisome English classes and dusty anthologies” (18). Boys and Girls similarly sells verse to the masses precisely because it is made accessible and engaging. In 1980, William G. McCollom wrote that, “The declining visibility of verse drama in this century raises the question whether the verse medium can again attract large numbers of playgoers” (99). Modern plays show how this may be achieved through diversification and adaptation. Woods makes a point about poetry slams that is equally relevant to the theatre world, but which bears repeating – “art belongs to people and not institutions or fashion-makers” (19). Understanding how D.C.G. hooks his audience, via poetic sounds that are informal enough to avoid alienation yet formal enough to earn admiration, is inextricably linked to the work’s message. The play speaks in a familiar, common language that flatteringly mirrors modern society rather than negatively distorting it or puritanically correcting the scene.

As D.C.G. is a spoken word artist too, it is worth mining the links to theatre for significance. Susan Somers-Willett, explains that in slam poetry, being perceived as ‘authentic’ is evaluated as a mark of success. She writes that, “If a slam poet performs, for example, a poem about being a black male, those who judge that poem on the criterion of authenticity must compare that identity with other expressions of black masculinity” (Somers-Willett 56). D.C.G. achieves authenticity in Boys and Girls by credibly ventriloquizing the voices of a young generation, paying particular attention to their vocabulary, attitudes, and motivations. In the 2019 edition of the play published by Nick Hern books, D.C.G. wrote that he aimed for “stylish sincerity” (4) in Boys and Girls. He admits that he would not write the play in the same way now, given the sometimes-sexist voices of the male characters and the fact that specific cultural references were obsolete almost as soon as ink was committed to paper. Yet these ‘obstacles’ were intrinsic to the authenticity of the piece since the playwright aimed for a depiction as close to real life as was possible. Indeed, the comparisons between D.C.G.’s work and slam poetry go much further. D.C.G. wrote the four monologues in the very style of slam poetry, it is just that the performance takes place in a theatre instead of a competitive environment.

Take for example, the staging mechanics of D.C.G.’s play where each character faces the audience when divulging their inner thoughts so that there is consequently no interaction with the other players. Somers-Willett analyses the effect of this when used in slam poetry, as follows.

“Because most slam poems engage a first-person, narrative mode which encourages a live audience to perceive the performance as a confessional moment, one of the most defining characteristics of slam poetry is a poet’s performance of identity and identity politics.”
(Somers-Willett 52)

D.C.G.’s warts-and-all portrayal of four young people requires the monologues to be somewhat confessional. Since A, B, C, and D are apparently homogenous i.e., white, Irish, and heterosexual, then the identity politics is primarily about youth identity, and this is defined by drinking, drugs, and sexual exploration. In short, youth identity is about the exercise of freedom. For a young audience, these characters are immediately relatable.

Elements of slam poetry are brought to the stage by D.C.G., but does this wholly justify the verse form he utilizes? In an essay by William G. McCollom in which he analyses different examples of verse drama, he comments that, “slangy realism arranged iambically does not constitute poetry” (107). What then should one think of D.C.G.’s humorous line about a young man watching porn when he reads an online advert for a penis extension – “a pop-up offers a top-up on my penis” (10). The line has the distinctive iambic rhythm of stressed syllables followed by unstressed syllables but is it just a derivative art form? In a bygone era, McCollom argued that verse drama was superior to prose drama because, “Visions of human reality that are at once vivid, profound, and comprehensive are poetic visions or, what is more to the point, are poetry” (100). Beyond the possible goal of popularizing poetry (with a small p) for a contemporary audience, does D.C.G. actually need poetry in his play or would prose have been just as effective? Is verse a way to achieve a particular vision or merely stylistic excess?

In 1950, T. S. Eliot gave a lecture at Harvard University entitled, “Poetry and Drama.” It is illuminating to juxtapose someone like Eliot with Coburn Gray because one finds quite unexpected areas of common ground. One of Eliot’s key points in his lecture was that “Whether we use prose or verse on the stage, they are both but means to an end” (12). Eliot elaborated on this as follows.

“If poetry is merely a decoration, an added embellishment, if it merely gives people of literary tastes the pleasure of listening to poetry at the same time that they are witnessing a play, then it is superfluous. It must justify itself dramatically.”
(Eliot 12)

There are two easily identifiable motivations for D.C.G. to use verse which interlink with his dramatic goals. First, he seeks to find a perfect equilibrium where witty, rhyming, and generally ear-pleasing monologues will counteract/neutralize the harshness of some of the views and coarse language used. For instance, had the play been in prose then the curse words and characters’ motivations would lack the sheen of what he himself referred to as stylishness (“stylish sincerity”). In this way, the bluntness of real-world vocabulary has its tone moderated so that it is more palatable to an audience, maybe even deceptively so. The second point is more of a hypothesis and is simply that D.C.G. wishes to present us with modern life not from a different and interesting camera angle, but modern life with an arresting soundscape. In this way, one can absorb it anew, and more importantly, look at it critically. The scene remains a boisterous night in Dublin, but the scene is now given the gravitas of an artwork through verse.

In his day, Eliot grieved the fact that verse was deemed appropriate only for plays whose subjects were mythology or remote historical periods.

“What we have to do is to bring poetry into the world in which the audience lives and to which it returns when it leaves the theatre; not to transport the audience into some imaginary world totally unlike its own, an unreal world in which poetry is tolerated.”
(Eliot 27)

Eliot goes on to enthuse about the democratisation of poetry. He writes that if more plays were produced in verse, then “our own sordid, dreary daily world would be suddenly illuminated and transfigured” (27). Eliot’s ideas correspond to what has been achieved by spoken word artists like D.C.G. who have gone on to shape verse to reflect modern society. D.C.G. as playwright certainly engages with the sordidness of daily life and this represents a point of entry into the play’s significance.

Two key themes stand out in Boys and Girls, and these are sex and vocabulary. The four characters of the play, namely, A, B, C, and D, seek to sexually pleasure their respective partners, Laura, Niamh, Conor, and Jamie, while language, specifically word choice, is the most revealing indication of their motivations. Since this essay has focused on verse in modern theatre then it is logical to reference Shakespeare, the original crème de la crème of verse technicians. D.C.G. makes several allusions to Shakespeare in Boys and Girls, for example, a paraphrased quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These references prove enlightening. By focusing on sex and language, it is possible to reveal what D.C.G. purposefully or perhaps inadvertently communicates about modern life.

Eliot writes that “It is a function of all art to give us some perception of an order in life, by imposing an order upon it” (33-34). D.C.G. convincingly charts the order of events in one lust-fuelled night but there is also a deeper, primal order that is reflected in Boys and Girls. The energy that propels D.C.G.’s play to its conclusion is the animalistic, carnal drive that the characters unashamedly display. All is a quest to find sexual release and hopefully satisfaction too. The four characters’ quite separate nights are synchronised in the moments when they chime numbers that refer to increasing alcohol or drug consumption, and they chime again when they consummate their respective nights! D.C.G. thereby imposes an order in how the night is dramatically presented and this order emphasises the unified goals of the youths. Regarding language, the slang used is arguably ultra-modern but a few simple cross references, prompted by D.C.G.’s allusions to Shakespeare, show that not only has sexual drive remained unchanged through the generations (uncontroversial) but the related vocabulary is also surprisingly intact. One may quite productively analyse this covert depiction of the status quo in a play that initially appears quite of its time and even slightly taboo. If the play is cunningly showing us how all remains the same, then this insight must hold significance.

Besides Shakespeare, the other great literary names that D.C.G. references are Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charlotte Bronte. These women famously wrote of great loves in their literature. It is a reworked quote from Barrett Browning’s sonnet 43, “How do I love thee? / Let me count the ways” that unexpectedly ushers in the positively cynical tone regarding love that defines the play. D responds to her boyfriend’s premature declaration of love as follows – “Let me count the ways, fuck that like, that’s bollocks, simplest is best. Though it’s interesting that ‘I love you has come to mean less, right?” (Coburn Gray 18). The boyfriend’s love is not reciprocated and D’s musings on love render it a hollow word in the mouths of anyone under twenty years old. She breaks love down into a simple codeword that means “mutual reliance plus mutual lust” (19). Additionally, love is a permission slip to release your anger on your partner, “someone to go to town on” (19). Romance is truly dead and buried. When B is talking to Niamh, they also reference anger by an allusion to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Similar to D’s viewpoint, Niamh believes that anger is an excuse “to pull out all the stops and loose the mad wife in the attic” (27). This refers to the character of Bertha Mason in Bronte’s novel, Mr. Rochester’s first wife, who is now locked in his attic since her sexual allure has faded in light of her depraved, unhinged behaviour. Bertha becomes a legal obstacle to Mr. Rochester as he cannot marry his new love, Jane Eyre. The anger that Niamh describes is the anger of the wronged woman but also the pleasure of choleric release, “as anyone with a penis or a gun knows” (27). The literary allusions set the tone of the play, exposing the frequently insincere declarations of love by youths who prefer to scratch the surface and find the rot beneath. Relationships morph back into what they were in olden times: a game of conqueror and conquered, master and submissive, Rochester and Bertha.

Men have traditionally held the power in society and continue to do so in Boys and Girls. Modern audiences are familiar with the phallic symbolism of a gun, but few know that this links back directly to the more vulgar word for penis, namely cock. References to the penis in D.C.G.’s play using a panoply of terms expose the powerplay in multiple scenes. One of the more deceptively humorous lines is C’s joke about her tall friend, “What’s pink and three millionths of a Dave long? Dave’s cock” (23). By reference to Gordon Williams’ Shakespeare’s Sexual Language, one finds that penis and cock were synonymous, even hundreds of years ago. There is also a reference to roosters which is apt given that D.C.G.’s play ends at dawn. The examples that follow are respectively from Shakespeare’s Henry V and Two Noble Kinsmen.

“cock penis. The prevailing metaphor in Elizabethan use is that found in H5 II. i. 50, where the aptly named Pistol refers to the raising of the firearm’s cock, making it ready to discharge: ‘Pistol’s cock is up, And flashing fire will follow.’…

The ancient link between the dawn crowing of the cock and phallic assertiveness provides innuendo in … ‘I must lose my maidenhead by cocklight.’”
(Williams 72)

In Boys and Girls, the focus of both the male and female characters is on the male climax, and female satisfaction takes second place. Proof of this comes when even the sexually liberated C ends up reluctantly giving her partner, Conor, a high-five to celebrate his conquest as he poses “legs wide, tackle flopping” (Coburn Gray 37). Despite any protestations, the societal narrative is that she has acquiesced to his lust, has been conquered. The scene belies C’s earlier estimation of Conor when she said – “Hard to see he cares deeply but doesn’t care for right-on types and circle- jerk fawning” (25). She thought that behind his use of politically incorrect terms still hid a good guy. His post-coital bravado dashes her high hopes. C’s reference to jerk is most revealing as the word also goes back to Shakespeare’s day.

“jerkin vagina. Jerk (DSL) is a common term for coitus (thrust with a quick, sharp motion); hence jerkin is that which is jerked in.”
(Williams 173)

Conor is indeed just another jerk given that his goal is no different from the type of men C normally avoids. This brings us to the final term for penis used by C when she comments on Conor’s “absurdly good, wood pressing against me, fingers send me to happy places” (Coburn Gray 33). Williams explains the connotations of the word wood by reference to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Two Noble Kinsmen.

“wood As a place where the sexual hunt may take place, the literal wood provides a powerful metaphor for lust and disorder throughout Act II of Tit. In TNK III. iii. 39, ‘A pretty brown wench’ is recalled, and ‘a time When young men went a-hunting, and a wood, And a broad beech, and thereby hangs a tale’ (cf. brown, tail 2).”
(Williams 344)

The rude vocabulary of D.C.G.’s play is shown to have quite old roots in the plays of no less an esteemed author than Shakespeare. Even though the colourful references to the male penis in Boys and Girls are steeped in humour, they nonetheless expose the foundational and age-old scheme of things where men treat women as potential conquests. It is ironic that it’s the liberated, assertive woman, C, who unwittingly uses these terms that are steeped in a history of male dominance. On the other hand, one could readily counter this argument with the assertion that C uses the various terms for the penis in two quite modern ways. First, she is derogatory towards men, namely men with small penises and those she sees as jerks, and second, she is sexually assertive and unabashed when naming what she desires (wood). She wields various slang words for the male genitalia as terms of abuse. More importantly, she attempts to refashion old words to new uses, for example the notorious c-word. In this manner, C indeed tries to disrupt the status quo.

The character C makes a strident case for the reclamation of the c-word. It occupies an extended section of her monologue and is a standout moment in the play. The topic arises naturally since the c-word is bandied about during an informal conversation between girls. C lists some of the other derogatory terms for female genitalia but decisively concludes – “But then, I like cunt. Try to contain yourselves. I like that it’s unsellable in a world where sex sells” (Coburn Gray 15). She states that the word has an undeniable air of aggression, even the sound is harsh, and most importantly, it is not a sexy word. In fact, the c-word is an unfailing passion killer, a deflator of male tumescence. The negative power of the word comes from the hate with which it is imbued – “Cunt means his hate, and hate’s the hard drug that’s gatewayed by his fear” (16). C theorizes that men’s fear of women is conditioned in them from the time they are breast fed. Church teachings about sexual restraint and abstinence add to the problem. She posits that “Cunt is insecurity” (16), specifically the insecurity felt by men who do not measure up to the gender ideal of a fittingly, masculine male.

“cockito ergo cunt ergo hateful denigration of all undicked.”
(Coburn Gray 16)

D.C.G. employs clever wordplay in the above quoted line which mimics an aphorism by French philosopher, René Descartes, who wrote – “cogito, ergo sum,” which means ‘I think, therefore I am.’ The statement is the essence of human existence because thinking is proof that one exists. D.C.G. swaps cogito for cockito with the suffix ‘ito’ meaning small so the problem belongs to the small-cocked man who employs the word ‘cunt’ as revenge, a compensation for his own lack of power. Of course, the new quote also equates the male genitals with the organ of human thought – the brain!

The chief difficulty, as C admits, is the toxicity of the c-word. She comments that “Boys may use it, can’t own it, can’t make it less” (15). The paradox is that women own the word, but it is a hateful inheritance, something that needs to be detoxified. C considers the dilemma and says, “So take it! (Cunt.) For fuck’s sake, own it. Best fucking way to dethrone it!” (16). The argument is bold and almost convincing but like the other words already mentioned, the c-word has a long history which hinders any attempt to reclaim it.

Williams gives the example of Hamlet’s vitriolic attack on Ophelia in Hamlet where the young prince refers to ‘country matters’ which is a coded reference to the c-word (5). There is also an example in Twelfth Night which is refenced by Williams in his glossary of Shakespeare’s sexual language. The example appears like an Early Modern version of ‘see you next Tuesday.’

“cunt vagina (taboo evaded by disguise). In TAfII. v. 85, Olivia’s supposed letter provides scope for equivocal comment: These be her very c’s, her u’s, and her t’s, and thus makes she her great P’s’ (cf. P).”
(Williams 87)

How does one counter such a long history of directly using a word, or implying it, to refer either to sex or curse someone out? It seems unfortunate that D.C.G.’s linguistic crusader has the initial C, just as the character D seems a loaded name choice for a woman who discusses bra sizes – “apocalyptic double Ds” (Coburn Gray 18). Is the play just a play on words because what you think you are getting is constantly undercut by an older, unchanging agenda? The following example where a character playfully avoids the c-word is a confirmation that all roads inevitably lead to Rome regardless of the intention.

“Leah says recently her ma’s been using ‘ladygarden’ as a joke.”
(Coburn Gray 15)

The deliberate avoidance of the c-word by employing a seemingly innocuous term instead still manages to backfire. The explanation rests in Williams’ glossary with the entry – “garden used like park, [is] another Renaissance commonplace, to render woman as sexual landscape” (138). In Boys and Girls, character A gleefully engages with the same gardening terminology, “Haven’t seen her [Laura] in weeks and you could literally plough with the hard-on I’m harbouring” (Coburn Gray 12). Williams references Shakespeare’s Pericles to enlighten readers as to the age-old connotations of plough – “plough coit with. In Per xix. 169 (IV. vi. 144), a virgin is threatened: ‘An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall be ploughed’” (240). The thorny ground is indicative of danger. Representations of the female vagina as dangerous are nothing new as outlined in an essay by V. Braun and S. Wilkinson entitled, “Socio-Cultural Representations of the Vagina.” They write that “Lederer (1968) uses the `fairytale’ Sleeping beauty, with its impenetrable wall of dangerous and deadly thorns, as one Western illustration” (24). D.C.G. also alludes to this typical representation of the vagina as dangerous, especially if the man foolishly seeks love rather than just sex.

“True love’s path ever did run tortuous, hatcheted through briars or hazarded with liars or both. Quoth this maven: the fires of passion will swallow you whole. Safer to safeguard the ol’ ticker and just get yer – if you follow – hole.”
(Coburn Gray 10)

Once again, this is a reworking of a famous quote, this time from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which Lysander says, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” Keeping with the tone of Boys and Girls, love is constantly eschewed by the characters. Women become mere sexual landscapes to be ploughed and seeded. D.C.G.’s character, A, reduces the female to a mere orifice of pleasure. Braun and Wilkinson quote Shildrick & Price when discussing this idea of the vagina as an absence with the result that it is just an orifice – “Women are castrated men, their bodies marked by lack, and what is hidden is just a hole” (19).

This digression into an analysis of the term ‘ladygarden’ shows just how incredibly unwieldly language can be, especially words with sexual connotations. Even deliberately avoiding offensive words proves ineffectual since the meanings of associated words are still impossibly interlinked with the rude ones. A crusader like C is betrayed by the language she hopes to rein into submission. There is an undercurrent to the language used for sexual relations that simply privileges men over women, full stop. The battle to imbue words with new meanings or even to simply neutralize the aggressiveness of words such as the c-word, seems doomed to failure.

An analysis of the play at the level of characters is highly informative but the overarching concern remains the effect of Boys and Girls and the questions it raises. D.C.G. skilfully connects with an audience via ear-pleasing verse; the authenticity of real characters; colourful and sometimes confronting language; and a clear delineation of the structure of the night. But how does this translate when processed as an audience experience? As previously queried – is the writer simply mirroring society and thereby he is restricted from portraying an extraordinary character who sets an unprecedented, elevating example? C does not reach the threshold for extraordinariness. Is the play therefore a victim of successful verisimilitude with misogyny, excessive inebriation, and vulgarity as the required compromises needed to convince an audience that they can see themselves on stage, just in rhyme? Or, has all the talent and work that D.C.G. poured into Boys and Girls got a greater, meaningful purpose?

It is clear that D.C.G. breaks new ground within the theatre world. For one, he successfully brings a style of modern, expressive poetry which comes from slam poetry, and sets this on the formal stage. However, he also uses obscene language and even though it is basically the same vocabulary as the Bard utilised, it still raises eyebrows! Does D.C.G. deserve credit for daring to employ the language that ordinary people actually use on a daily basis? Maybe the playwright is deliberately avoiding the sort of pretentiousness linked with literature that attempts to teach or improve an audience. In an article entitled “On Obscenity and Literature,” Ed Simon refers to “the brave defenders of free speech pushing the boundaries of acceptable discourse.” Simon adds that, “In our current season of a supposed Jacobin “cancel culture,” words have been ironically re-enchanted with the spark of danger that was once associated with them.” D.C.G. certainly adds an incendiary element to the monologues by using the c-word. By focusing on this one word for just a little longer, it is possible to distil Boys and Girls down to a single, take-away message.

D.C.G. joins a long line of literary figures who daringly used the c-word in their works. For instance, this term was used by D. H. Lawrence in Lady Chatterley’s Lover and by Jack Kerouac in On the Road (Moriarty).Circa 2001, Braun and Wilkinson noted that “Promotional material for theatrical pieces whose titles contained the word vagina has been censored in various ways” and they provide the example of “Eve Ensler’s (1998) The Vagina Monologues” which caused a media furore (20). Ensler also used the c-word in the actual monologues. Each of these writers sought to find a word that would capture the sexual/expressive/political moods they wished to portray.

It is interesting to note that D.C.G. was not the first Dublin writer to cause consternation by using expletives in his text. There was James Joyce’s Ulysses which also includes the c-word but the tradition of swear words goes back much further, as far as 1663.

“In the OED, our good friend the dirty lexicographer Richard Head has the earliest example given in the entry for the word “fuck,” the profanity appearing as a noun in his play Hic et Ubique: or, The Humors of Dublin, wherein a character says, “I did creep in…and there I did see [him] putting the great fuck upon my wife.”
(Simon 5)

John Millington Synge, another controversial Irish writer, caused a riot in Dublin in 1907. This happened because Irish nationalists were unhappy with a reference to young women dressed only in undergarments in Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. One detects a theme here because not just words but even states of undress apparently prompt thoughts of women’s privates. T. S. Eliot made a helpful observation about Synge, writing that – “Synge wrote plays about characters whose originals in life talked poetically, so he could make them talk poetry and remain real people” (19-20). D.C.G. manages to use expletives so casually for the same reason – they are taken from the mouths of everyday Dubliners. The achievement is that the work is an example of literary naturalism and commendable as such.

Yet, the c-word remains a lightning rod for critics of Boys and Girls. Given the long history of the word’s use, Mina Moriarty ponders, “Why, then, is “cunt” still considered one of the most offensive words in the Western Hemisphere?” The answer surely lies in the intent behind using the word and the context of its usage too. Braun and Wilkinson explain how, “representations are not simply `ideas’, but have material impacts on people’s lives, with implications for women’s sexual and reproductive health” (18). They refer here to representations of the vagina and D.C.G.’s play is one such representation. The view of Braun and Wilkinson “is a social constructionist one, which assumes that the meaning of the body (at any time, in any given context) is constructed by socio-cultural representations and practices, and that these develop, and change, across time and context” (17). In Boys and Girls, the representation of the female genitalia, regardless of the word chosen, is derogatory and even when C feistily uses it, it is nonetheless counterproductive. The thrust of the play (excuse pun) is that men’s desires are only consumed and quenched by the female genitalia. This is not about procreation or fun, it is simply about powerplay and language is a treacherous conspirator.

The reclamation of the c-word that character C valiantly attempts echoes broader societal trends. For example, Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues contains a section named “Reclaiming Cunt” where a character says – “I call it cunt. I’ve reclaimed it, “cunt.” I really like it. “Cunt.” Listen to it. “Cunt.”’ (Moriarty). Germaine Greer approached the problem from a different angle and tried to change not the word but how the body part was understood – “in The Female Eunuch I attempted to provide a different version of female receptivity by speaking of the vagina as if it were active, as if it sucked on the penis and emptied it out rather than simply receiving the ejaculate’” (Braun and Wilkinson 26). Greer, a Shakespearean herself, probably well understood the difficulty of attempting to reclaim or neutralise words, especially those with such a long heritage. For context, one may refer to Braun and Wilkinson who give an overview of “seven persistent negative representations of the vagina: the vagina as inferior to the penis; the vagina as absence; the vagina as (passive) receptacle for the penis; the vagina as sexually inadequate; the vagina as disgusting; the vagina as vulnerable and abused; and the vagina as dangerous” (17). Despite giving C a feisty monologue, D.C.G. fails to show her triumphing at the play’s close – instead, she high fives her juvenile, one-night stand. Thus, the vagina continues to be “represented merely as a receptacle for the penis” (Braun and Wilkinson 20). Character A misses out on sex due to a vomiting, underage drinker whom A must babysit until he is safely brought home. Ironically, this makes A the hero of the piece. D.C.G.’s play is a modern incantation of absolution for wayward, inebriated youths but the girls take second place, as ever. Writers who use the c-word always risk perpetuating the violence of language because reforming it is a mammoth task.

What D.C.G. does excellently is paint a dramatic scene for an audience. It is the story of a night, opening in the evening and closing at the break of dawn. As Eliot wrote, “it is ultimately the function of art, in imposing a credible order upon ordinary reality” (35) and D.C.G. achieves this succinctly and daringly. As Simon writes – “Profanity is by definition profane, dealing with the bloody, pussy, jizzy reality of what it means to be alive (and thus the lowering of the sacred into that oozy realm is part of what blasphemously shocks).” Maybe it is best not to be prudish and appreciate the play as a thought-provoking piece that holds a mirror up to society so that people can laugh, or cringe, or think again about the too predictable order in which things usually play out.

Works Cited.

Allen, Cecilia J. “Finding the Drama in Dramatic Verse.” The English Journal, vol. 22, no. 7, 1933, pp. 556–62. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/804197. Accessed 14 Jan. 2023.

Barrett Browning, Elizabeth. “How do I love thee?” (Sonnet 43). Sonnets from the Portuguese. Caradoc Press, 1906.

Braun, V. and S. Wilkinson. “Socio-Cultural Representations of the Vagina.” Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, vol. 19, no. 1, 2001.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Wordsworth Editions, 1992.

Coburn Gray, Dylan. Boys and Girls. Nick Hern Books, 2019.

Coburn Gray, Dylan. “If I Were a Dog.” YouTube, uploaded by CultureNight, 28 November 2019, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BSw6mVdC-Q.

Daft Punk. “Get Lucky.” Random Access Memories, Columbia Records, 2013.

Eliot, T. S. “Poetry and Drama.” Faber and Faber Ltd., 1951.

McCollom, William G. “Verse Drama: A Reconsideration.” Comparative Drama, vol. 14, no. 2, 1980, pp. 99–116. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41152885. Accessed 16 Jan. 2023.

Moriarty, Mina. “A Brief History of the C-Word.” The Establishment, A Brief History Of The C-Word – The Establishment. Accessed 17 Jan. 2023.

Simon, Ed. “On Obscenity and Literature.” The Millions, On Obscenity and Literature – The Millions. Accessed 17 Jan. 2023.

Somers-Willett, Susan B. A. “Slam Poetry and the Cultural Politics of Performing Identity.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, vol. 38, no. 1, 2005, pp. 51–73. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30039299. Accessed 16 Jan. 2023.

Williams, Gordon. Shakespeare’s Sexual Language. The Athlone Press, 2006.

Woods, Scott. “Poetry Slams: The Ultimate Democracy of Art.” World Literature Today, vol. 82, no. 1, 2008, pp. 16–19. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40159592. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

Chatroom

Can words kill?

Play title: Chatroom
Author: Enda Walsh
First performed: 2005
Page count: 71

Summary

Chatroom explores the murky, often-unregulated world of cyberspace. The play was released in 2005 by Irish playwright Enda Walsh. The characters in this work communicate with one another through various online chatrooms. They are all aged between 15 and 16 years old and come from the affluent, middle-class area of Chiswick in west London. Jim is a depressed teen who seeks help online. He first chats with Laura who serves as a listener but she offers no advice. When Jim enters another chatroom, he meets William and Eva along with Jack and Emily. Due to Jim’s vulnerability, he is unable to recognise who is really on his side versus those who seek to ridicule and ultimately hurt him. Walsh explores how power may be exercised in the most depraved ways by anonymous, online teens. Jim is pushed towards a fatal decision which his depressed mindset comprehends as a logical solution.

Ways to access the text: reading/watching

Walsh is a prolific, contemporary playwright so one may prefer to purchase this work. As an alternative, Chatroom may be read for free via the Open Library, Scribd (free trial), or Perlego. The work is reader friendly.

The play was adapted into a film with Walsh as the screenwriter. Chatroom, the movie, was released in 2010 and was directed by Hideo Nakata. I have not viewed the movie, but further information is available on the IMDb website.

Why read Chatroom?

Cowboy country.

Chatroom was one of the early plays that focused on the sometimes-shady enclave of anonymous, online chat. Personal information provided in such chatrooms is normally not vouched for, and uncheckable in practical terms. The play trolls through scenarios where things go wrong because the participants have an agenda quite at odds with their stated purpose in the various chatrooms. The teenagers involved treat the scenarios as play rather than real life which leads to a toxic environment of bullying, shaming, and coercion. The domain becomes cowboy country because it is without rules or standards. Teens advise one another in often careless ways and without the qualifications or life experience appropriate to the advice demanded by the situations. Upon reading the play, one finds that there is also the ‘cowboy country’ of childhood, a benevolent place of play and healing.

Post reading discussion/interpretation.

“A Maelstrom of Suicidality in Cyberspace.”

Introduction.

In Enda Walsh’s play Chatroom, one witnesses the interconnectedness of suicide with traditional media as well as modern, mobile media. By reading the playscript one gains the unusual perspective of spying on the characters’ texts from various online chats. In contrast, an audience hears these lines spoken due to the nature of theatre, but it is important to note that what is portrayed is actually silent communication between the characters via their computer or smartphone keypads. None of the characters in the play have the advantage of seeing the others, nor hearing accents, nor noticing tones or intonations of voices. There are no facial gestures or body poses – just silent screens with rolling text. Since the online communication lacks the readable nuances of face-to-face contact, it constantly risks becoming arid and uninteresting. Keeping in mind that the characters in the play are all teenagers, it is unsurprising that the nature of the discussion perforce becomes more exaggerated and extreme at times. This is a compensation for the otherwise anaemic flow of words on digital screens. The playwright utilises this cyberspace environment to address the myriad negatives that anyone but especially teenagers may encounter. Walsh examines how such an environment can easily turn toxic and why it differs so drastically from ‘real life.’ In real life, few teenagers hope to drive a person to kill themselves in public. Media become an accommodating accomplice to this premeditated ‘murder.’ The key themes of the play are depression, bullying, and suicidal ideation. This essay will examine the motivations of bullies and the tools they use to dominate online discussions, and how victims sometimes get brainwashed and fall into the cyclical waves of imitation suicides.

The play highlights the ever-changing nature of 21^st century media. In the case of traditional media like national newspapers or TV channels, the dissemination of information is a one-way process. The public at large are fed particular news items, stories, and assorted forms of entertainment. Modern media include mobile media which is an umbrella term for all the smart devices used to communicate with others. Everything from one’s mobile phone to a laptop allows for the spread of information as well as live exchanges of information and opinions. In this respect, new media is quite distinct from traditional media. Chatroom takes account of both traditional and modern media in an effort to understand the pressures that may lead to teenage suicide.

The suspicion that media influence suicides, even encourage them, is far from new. David P. Phillips addresses one of the most famous examples.

“Two hundred years ago, Goethe wrote a novel called The Sorrows of the Young Werther, in which the hero committed suicide. Goethe’s novel was read widely in Europe, and it was said that people in many countries imitated Werther’s manner of death.”
(Phillips 340)

While few people nowadays would consider a novel to be potentially injurious, it was a powerful medium of ideas in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Goethe’s novel so effectively raised the spectre of suicide imitations that the book was banned in Italy, Leipzig and Copenhagen (Phillips 340). A brief look across history since then shows that the medium itself is not the core problem but rather what information is communicated and how. For instance, in August of 1962 the Hollywood movie star, Marilyn Monroe, died of an apparent suicide. Her death was reported widely in the US media and internationally. In the 1960’s, such stories did not come with the now familiar mental health warnings. The result was symptomatic of what Phillips terms “the Werther effect” (341) since “In the United States, suicides increased by 12% in the month after Marilyn Monroe’s death and by 10% in England and Wales” (350). In more recent times, Jeffrey A Bridge carried out a study with the objective of estimating “the association between the release of the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why and suicide rates in the United States” (236). He found that – “In absolute numbers, we estimated 195 (95% CI, 168–222) additional suicide deaths among 10- to 17-year-old youths occurred between April 1 and December 31, 2017, following the series’ release” (238). These examples show the potency of large-scale media formats like novels, newspapers, and modern TV shows streamed online. However, the problem also emerges in one-on-one digital communication. This is evidenced by the notorious case of Michelle Carter who stood trial in Massachusetts for homicide after the death of Conrad Roy by suicide in 2014. Carter was put on trial due to her suspected culpability for Roy’s death – “Prosecutors argued that her calls and texts fueled her boyfriend’s suicide” (Esquire). The judge ultimately found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced her to 15 months in prison. It is ironic that this court case spawned TV series like The Girl from Plainville, and the documentary, I Love You, Now Die (2019) because such shows keep the topic of male, teenage suicide in people’s consciousness which is the crux of the problem. Written in 2005, Walsh’s play predates the Michelle Carter case yet similarly exposes the inherent dangers of coercion and bullying when the victim is already depressed or even suicidal. Like any environment, cyberspace dictates the freedoms and restrictions imposed upon visitors, and the rules of the game need to be fully understood to remain safe.

The real and the surreal.

Many people view cyberspace as quite a distinct realm which is notably different from the real world of everyday life. Yet, deeming something as less than real, or a substitute for reality, does not alter the inherent power of the cyberspace realm. People of all ages actively choose to express themselves online and this is often in preference to doing so within their real-life, social circles. In Chatroom, there are specific and quite valid reasons for each character’s presence in the online forums. A further consideration is that the internet is a realm that facilitates escapism of all sorts, from creating an impressive but fake public profile to entertaining sexual fantasies through viewing pornographic material – the web offers an escape from the humdrum norms of life. From another perspective, cyberspace is the realm of the surreal. Originating in the 1920’s, the artistic movement known as surrealism had the aim of “revolt[ing] against all restraints on free creativity, including logical reason, standard morality, social and artistic conventions and norms …” (Abrams 310). Such rule breaking is apparent in Chatroom, especially regarding morality and social conventions. It is distasteful to consider suicide as an artistic statement, but this is precisely how William packages Jim’s imminent live-streamed death – as something to force the public to ponder and interpret like an art piece before coming to a new, enhanced view about teenagers’ problems. The web offers teenagers like William untold freedoms, and it is not surprising that people take advantage of such opportunities. What happens online is real but only in a liminal sense due to the ease with which people can disconnect from it. Simple as pushing a button, for some.

Walsh’s play addresses the ubiquitous nature of online communication; what attracts both bullies and potential victims to online chat forums; and the eventual maelstrom that sometimes leads to suicidal ideation. The internet is omnipresent in modern life so avoiding virtual communication is near impossible for most people. A hypothetical scenario where a person truly disconnects from the World Wide Web is fanciful given how enmeshed people’s lives are with intelligent technology. In practical terms, there is a discomfiting absence of choice, and this informs any discussion about Chatroom. Even in the 18^th century, Goethe’s book could be banned but not all books could be banned, and certainly not everywhere. The smartphone is the modern book! Juan Moisés de la Serna explains that “Currently almost 100% of schoolchildren over 10 or 11 years old regularly use some kind of technological tool” (9). Despite the application of extensive child protections, the internet proves ever more difficult to police and children are inevitably exposed to inappropriate material and inappropriate people. Controlling mobile media is next to impossible since children and teenagers access information when far from the eyes of wary adults. Children are not equipped to assimilate the level and variance of information available on the web and therefore ‘realness’ becomes uncomfortably subjective.

The bully

What precisely attracts bullies or potential bullies to online forums? Moisés de la Serna explains that “more and more young people are becoming involved in cases of harassment via digital media, mainly because of its extensive usage, but also due to the anonymity provided by the network” (7). The anonymous nature of much online communication allows free reign to those who have a propensity to insult or demean others. In Chatroom, William cleverly imposes rules for the chat, for instance, not sharing real names. His explanation is – “We know we’re from the same area and that’s enough. Just leave out the details. It gives us more freedom” (Walsh 22). William interprets freedom as a tool to facilitate his as-yet-undisclosed, underhand intentions. An early warning sign that William is not sincere is when he plays the provocateur with Jack, testing if he will be gullible enough to show interest in “an assassination attempt on J.K. Rowling” (11). William may always dismiss the proposal as swagger and thereby hide the fact that it was meant as a test of Jack’s suggestibility and docility. One may easily propose such maniacal ideas from the secure position of anonymous untouchability. Eva should similarly be classified as a potential bully based on her vitriolic tirade about Britney Spears followed by her provocative suggestion that she and Emily talk about murder. This odd conversation topic suggestion comes immediately after Emily’s confirmation that Eva’s identity is secret – “It’s been very nice talking to you, whoever you are” (15). An anonymous bully may simply turn off their computer and thereby negate their responsibility since no trace of the real them remains.

James S. Chisholm and Brandie Trent looked at how bullies are perceived by others in a paper entitled, “Everything… Affects Everything’: Promoting Critical Perspectives toward Bullying with ‘Thirteen Reasons Why.’” These researchers sought feedback from tenth-grade students (15/16 years old) about how bullies are experienced and got the following results.

“Many students responded to the prompt about “People who bully others . . .” by identifying reasons why persons might engage in such behavior: “[they] think that they are more superior than others,” “[they] are probably bullied themselves or are going through a hard time,” and “[they] are people that think it’s cool to hurt people emotionally and physically.”
(Chisholm and Trent 76)

The three examples garnered from their questionnaire correspond to the portrayal of bullies in Chatroom. William and Eva do act in a superior, high-handed manner and this is shown by their unrelenting need to control the various narratives. They also erupt in anger from time to time, revealing that their own lives are possibly troubled. It is plausible that such angry behaviour is the result of bullying or difficult home circumstances. Personal disclosures also add to the picture, like when Eva refers to her “bitch-mother” (Walsh 15) and William describes himself as an “angry cynic” (27). When Laura challenges William, he is unable to defend or justify his actions, so he snaps and calls her “Bitch” (61) before subjecting her to an extended, personalised attack. Hurting people emotionally is a go-to tactic of cowards. The bullies have no real power, so they rely on the advantages of the cyberspace environment where aggressive dominance often wins the day.

There are other bullying tricks too. Moisés de la Serna explains that “Cyberbullying is a type of abuse and harassment among school children that is characterized by the use of communication via cyberspace to achieve the total exclusion of the victim from their school groups” (8). Once a victim is disempowered through isolation then a bully may proceed to hurt them more effectively.

“With cyberbullying, there is a direct confrontation between the victim and the abuser, while maintaining the anonymity of the latter, that is, the abuser wants the victim to know that he is suffering from harassment, and that he cannot do anything to prevent it, as a form of punishment; a form of power, that must be demonstrated by these actions.”
(Moisés de la Serna 12)

The bullying in Chatroom is even more sophisticated because Jim is deceived into believing that the bullies are helping him. William and Eva gain delight from tricking Jim and they endeavour to enlist Jack and Emily in the game too. William’s callousness is revealed when he tells Jack, “It will be a laugh. Right now, we’re all he [Jim] has … Let’s let him talk. Mess him up a bit. See how far he’ll go” (Walsh 42). In this case, it is not their intention to make the victim aware of his helplessness but instead to share a joke among themselves about how wickedly they can treat the unwitting Jim. William and Eva can purge their personal feelings of anger and helplessness through the annihilation of an online stranger.

“Cyberbullying is about power, usually with the intent of humiliation, blackmail and even harassment of the other person. All this with the “impunity” of knowing that they will not be found out, and that they will not receive any punishment, since for the cyberbully it is enough to switch off the computer and not reconnect with that victim.”
(Moisés de la Serna 15)

Walsh’s characters are conspicuous in that they all come from an affluent borough of London. Therefore, one would not readily associate them with schoolyard brawls or open shows of bullying since these transgressions would damage their school records. Middle-class teenagers are usually bound for university are therefore under constant pressure to achieve academically and maintain social conventions. In such circumstances, online activity may be a release valve for pent-up aggression. Moisés de la Serna looked at the profiles of cyberbullies and noted that “in cyberbullying there is a percentage of aggressors that only offend in cyberspace, that is, they do not do so in the traditional environment. It may be because they see there are more factors that facilitate online aggression (anonymity, simple-to-use digital tools, rapid diffusion…)” (19). If William and Eva bully exclusively online, then their nefarious conduct is indeed expertly hidden. The larger-than-life schoolyard bully of old is now concealed online.

Cyberbullies may hurt others to alleviate their own feelings of anger or helplessness, however the bullies in Chatroom have an important, additional motivation. Eva talks about how teenagers sleepwalk through life so “It would be so great to accomplish something important. To have a cause” (Walsh 28). William likewise expresses this wish as – “I want to make a big statement. Who doesn’t?!” (30). Jim unwittingly becomes their cause: someone who they may manipulate to create a fantastic, public scene when he commits suicide. William and Eva will relish this show of power, yet they will incur no negative repercussions since they are invisible puppet masters. Their level of effort will be minimal for the disproportionately large and grotesque payoff.

The victim.

Jim wants to communicate his teenage angst and chooses an online forum for the same reasons William is online, namely freedom and anonymity. It is odd how the boys’ needs are shown to converge at first but then one witnesses the drastic divergence. Jim initially visits a depression chatroom in an effort to measure the gravity of his low moods. He confides in Laura, saying, “Maybe I shouldn’t be even in this place. I don’t know whether it’s that serious yet” (16). Whether Jim is clinically depressed or not may only be fully assessed by a professional such as a psychologist or psychiatrist. However, Jim’s status as a potential victim of bullying, a quite separate issue, seems indubitable. Moisés de la Serna explains that “those who suffer most [from bullying] are those who show low levels of self-esteem, with overprotective parents, an intermediate socio-economic level and a low sense of coherence” (17). Jim’s low self-esteem becomes evident immediately when he repeatedly asks Laura if she’s fine with listening to his story – “But you’d say if you did mind? If it was too draining, too annoying, too boring maybe…?” (Walsh 16). His overly apologetic nature signals someone who cannot easily set personal boundaries or assert himself. At home, Jim is already being bullied and beaten by his brothers; his domineering mother drinks and takes Valium; his friend, Timmy Timmons, has died; and his father abandoned him as a child. There is no coherence in Jim’s life so he hopes that an online chatroom may hold the elusive answers he seeks. The chatroom is like a trap ready to snap shut after he enters because his vulnerability is apparent and appealing to bullies. Jim unquestionably has the freedom to divulge highly personal information online but in a perverse twist, anonymity does not protect him. Being nameless and untraceable favours those who leave a trail of destruction behind them, not those who absorb the resulting emotional damage.

In Jim, one finds a character who is unusually open to suggestion, and this makes him susceptible to manipulation and abuse. David P. Phillips quotes, “Cantril, Toch and Krapp [who] have claimed that anomic individuals are unusually suggestible, and many students of suicide have claimed that anomic individuals are prone to suicide” (341). Jim lacks purpose in life, is alienated, and suffers from malaise, so he unquestionably qualifies as anomic. Jim’s decision to join a depression chatroom signals an effort to find answers but it is covertly a search for likeminded teenagers too. The latter poses a significant risk for suggestible individuals.

“Kreitman et al. (1969) noted that attempted suicides had an unusually large number of suicidal friends. This result might indicate that persons imitate their friends’ suicides, or that suicide-prone persons select each other as friends.”
(Phillips 341)

The danger is that Jim is susceptible enough to fall prey to “the Werther effect” (Phillips 341). The company of other melancholic teens could just as easily be detrimental as helpful. All that is required is a model to lead him astray. Walsh convincingly portrays how impressionable teenagers can be with the innocuous example of Eva’s belly button piercing (Walsh 13). This piercing is thanks to the influence of the pop goddess, Britney Spears, whom Eva ironically now hates. In short, teenagers are easily swayed and are equally fickle in their tastes. Jeffrey A. Bridge writes that, “Previous studies indicate that suicide contagion disproportionately affects those who strongly identify with the person who died by suicide (particularly celebrities)” (240). If Jim is convinced that he has no hope of changing or recovering, as William and Eva repeat, then a simple news story about a celebrity suicide or a TV show featuring suicide may convince him to act. Jim has already been primed to view suicide as a solution so a relatable example of death by suicide could decide his fate. Phillips writes of how “Studies of suggestion (reviewed in Lang and Lang, 1961:255-89) indicate that a model is more likely to be imitated if he is prestigious and if his circumstances are thought to be similar to those of the imitator” (352). Even though Jim confides that he is genuinely depressed, he evades an audience’s expectations when he dismisses the suggestion that he may be indulging his melancholy like a superficially depressed teen.

“JIM: I’m not one of these people who keeps an altar to Kurt Cobain or anything like that. I actually can’t stand Nirvana. I don’t need their music to feed my depression. I can happily do it all by myself…”
(Walsh 33)

This statement appears to disparage the notion that Jim will buckle to the influence of some media story by helplessly copying a suicide. Yet, this is to overlook what medium Jim is currently using to garner advice on what he should do – mobile media. It is true that he is not reading The Sorrows of the Young Werther or watching an emotive TV programme like 13 Reasons Why, or even listening to Nirvana while mulling over Kurt Cobain’s suicide. What Jim is doing is allowing information accessed through a new form of media to dominate his thinking about how to solve the problem of depression. Walsh ingeniously inserts modern media in the mix while simultaneously acknowledging the roles of more traditional media like pop songs and news stories about melancholic grunge stars, and depressing novels. The online chatroom is a dynamic new form of media which evades the normal safety nets that reliably flag issues with books and TV programmes. In short, the chatroom is no less potent a medium of influence when it comes to suicidal ideation, plus it has the added risk of falling below the radars of normal regulatory bodies. Jeffrey A. Bridge has written the following damning assessment concerning the shortfalls of the TV series 13 Reasons Why.

“Critics have argued that the series overlooked or ignored evidence and media guidelines suggesting that suicide contagion is fostered by stories that sensationalize or promote simplistic explanations of suicidal behavior, glorify or romanticize the decedent, present suicide as a means of accomplishing a goal such as community change or revenge, or offer potential prescriptions of “how to” die by suicide.”
(Bridge 236)

All the issues raised in relation to the recklessness of the TV portrayal of a suicide are equally applicable to Jim’s situation.

Descent into a depressive maelstrom.

When Jim first speaks to Laura, he is unsure of the severity of his problems. Laura has volunteered in the chatroom about depression so that other teenagers may have a safe space to express their feelings. Laura diligently eschews giving any advice. The environment must be safe because as Laura later explains – “In these rooms, words are power” (Walsh 61). The provision of ill-informed or malicious advice can prove deadly. The real-life case of Michelle Carter has shown the public how instrumental words alone can be in someone’s eventual suicide, even when those words appear only on a mobile phone or computer screen. What occurs in Chatroom is that Jim’s feelings of helplessness quickly calcify into an unchangeable state of doom as a direct result of William and Eva’s destructive, online narrative. The bullies’ influence threatens to set up the Werther effect and mobile media is simply a tool that facilitates an execution of the plan.

Jim is not holed up in his bedroom listening to Kurt Cobain songs. He’s listening instead to two sociopathic teenagers who are pretending to be his friends. As William exuberantly tells Jack – “We’re there for him [Jim] 24/7… it will be a blast!” (Walsh 42). The bullies’ advice is figuratively on tap and therefore always crafted to Jim’s real time moods and associated fears. One witnesses how detrimental this situation is when William and Eva dissect Jim’s life into a sequence of negative, derogatory statements until he is “(almost hyperventilating)” (44). Jack tries to break William and Eva’s hold over Jim when it becomes apparent that the online relationship has become unhealthy.

“JACK. Well, no offence, Jim… but we’re your age… shouldn’t you be taking advice

from a doctor maybe?

JIM. Well, I was actually thinking…

EVA. Christ, Jack, that’s so fucking cruel. Don’t you get it? He doesn’t have anyone. We’re it!”
(Walsh 39)

The territorial nature of Eva’s remarks signal that Jim is now seen as a possession rather than a person. Chisholm and Trent’s paper about bullying explains how, “Students’ responses to the prompt “People who are bullied by others . . .” could be characterized by the lack of agency that students ascribed to people who are bullied” (76). Bullies read the passivity apparent in some of their peers and subsequently grasp any opportunity to exert power over such individuals. Jack attempts to break this domination by telling Jim to focus on the positives in his life rather than the negatives. William instantly becomes highly defensive and formulates a lie to turn Jim against Jack. The bullies insist on isolating Jim from any potential source of help and their advice is nothing more than a diatribe of negativity.

Walsh’s portrayal of a confused, depressed teen is highly engaging since it highlights exactly why such teenagers are bad judges of character. The core issue is that a confused teen yearns for definitive advice. When Jim joins the depression chatroom, Laura tells him – “You just need to know that there’s someone listening to you. That’s enough, isn’t it” (Walsh 21). This would likely be sufficient if Jim had other supports in his life such as family or medical help. In contrast, Jim is lost and therefore instinctively gravitates towards people like William and Eva who are strongly opinionated and unafraid to push advice on him in an authoritative manner. The bullies wear devious facades of knowingness and pretend that Jim’s problems are blatantly obvious – just like the solution to such problems. Jim finally despairs of the whole situation when, after the barrage of negative advice he has received, he says – “You know I don’t think I can listen to any more talking” (63). The window of opportunity to help him seems ominously to have closed. The person who originally went online to unburden himself of inner turmoil has instead endured a character assassination. Jim’s meek voice is drowned out by the bullies until he regresses further into himself, and his situation seems even more insoluble.

Jim has become William and Eva’s cause, their project. They package Jim’s predicament in such a way that it appears to have a new and quite important significance. Jim is enticed into the narrative through various underhand techniques. First, Jim’s potential suicide is interpreted as an opportunity for revenge by William, who says, – “focus on your anger and channel it into something that will get all those people in your past back” (50). Jim volunteers the information that his mother could be the target of such revenge, so William adds – “She’d be crushed. The guilt would kill her” (51). After this, William provides two questions, both of which have a negative spin, which Jim should ask himself at night. Such questions have the goal of sending Jim into a downward spiral leading to a hopeless, depressive episode. The final challenge for William and Eva is to make Jim believe that he will achieve something quite special by committing suicide.

“WILLIAM – I was thinking that Jim’s depression allows him to see things clearer than us. He’s been neglected by his family and friends so that maybe his isolation represents perfectly the average teenager’s plight. It’s like he’s expressing important issues in a creative way. It’s poetry,”
(Walsh 58)

Instead of identifying with a dead celebrity like Monroe or Cobain, Jim is lured instead into identifying with the idea that his death will have a magnificent purpose. William has successfully formulated a plan that may entrap a depressed teenager, saying – “Imagine all those forgotten teenagers you’d be speaking for if you killed yourself publicly. You’d be a hero. A legend” (58). It is noteworthy that William additionally tries to put a political spin on the suicide as if it will strike a blow for teenagers against an older, callous generation. Regarding anomic persons like Jim, Phillips provides the insight that “A person who finds no meaning in life may kill himself; but, on the other hand, he may join a religious or political movement that provides him with meaning” (351). Since Jim’s death is now packaged as a political statement, it is not a choice between death or politics, but death as integral to politics. The potential lifeline for Jim of joining a cause becomes enmeshed with the death wish.

One may interpret William and Eva’s cruel plan as a piece of surrealist art. The twosome glamourize death for Jim but in truth, the plan is a script for a grotesque, public spectacle where a teenager will kill himself while live-streaming the event. Like the director of a snuff movie, William fashions a flimsy storyline around the death, feeds lines and ‘helpful’ motivations to the central actor, but cunningly never appears on screen himself. It is Laura who finally confronts William with the truth, saying – “The statement being made is yours. But what are you saying, William? That you’ve got power?” (Walsh 61). William is unmasked as a teenager frustrated by his impotence and irrelevance in the larger world and whose only goal is to manipulate Jim in order to create a grand gesture of power. Walsh inserts a twist at the end of the play so that the bullies do not win, at least not in the world fashioned by the playwright.

The denouement of Chatroom.

At the close of Chatroom, Jim appears to have reached a point of no return. He is tired of listening, tired of talking, and ominously says, “lets finish this” (63). Instead of a live broadcast on the internet, Jim invites the others to gather at the most public of places, a McDonald’s restaurant on the high street. For an audience watching the play, it appears as if the worst will happen. Jim’s arrival at this tragic point is the result of a snowball effect. At the outset, Jim was dealing with family problems but then William and Eva tilted his perspective towards death as a solution. If one had to pinpoint one misstep by Jim that inadvertently gave others an opportunity to hurt him then it was his naïve willingness to share information. It is a Catch-22 situation because without help he cannot resolve his depression, but desperate people often make bad friendship choices.

“Just as mothers used to say to their children “Don’t talk to strangers”, you must apply that to the Internet, it is not “bad” to talk to strangers, but it is dangerous to think that the “stranger” can be someone close to you with whom you can share intimacies.”
(Moisés de la Serna 36)

All the other characters maintain almost perfect anonymity and divulge mostly superficial personal information. When the play’s characters do reveal sensitive, personal information, for example, Emily’s anorexia or Laura’s suicide attempt, then they are mercilessly attacked and belittled by others.

For Jim, the problems all started when his father left. Phillips quotes suicide research regarding the death of a father – “Bunch and Barraclough (1971) found that suicides tend to kill themselves close to the anniversary of the death of their fathers” (347). Although Jim’s father has not died but has simply abandoned the family and then cut all contact, the pain Jim feels is similar to a bereavement. Jim surprises everyone when he takes ownership of this painful childhood memory and transforms this up-to-now weakness into an opportunity to recapture his carefree, happy, childhood nature. Instead of creating a horrific spectacle by publicly killing himself, Jim indulges a childhood love of cowboy costumes. The grand finale of the drama shows a teenage boy taking back his agency by simply playing. Play is the perfect antidote to depression since it is the shedding of self-conscious inhibitions and shame. From a psychological perspective, Jim is nurturing his inner child to heal a trauma that has too long affected his life. Additionally, Jim’s willingness to act in a silly and slightly immature manner for his age, but to do it without embarrassment, shows that he is less susceptible to bullies, less vulnerable to outside judgment and criticism. The tenseness of the close of the play is due to the fact that Jim’s decision could quite easily have gone the other way and he could have killed himself.

Conclusion.

Walsh constructs and then elegantly dismantles the complot of the cyberbullies in Chatroom. This 2005 play was prescient given the many online bullying scandals that later appeared in the media. Mobile media take centre stage in the work and aid an understanding of the interlinked mechanics of modern bullying with how depressed teens find ever-evolving sources of inspiration when considering suicide.

The Werther effect, as it has traditionally been understood, has a limited scope. An increase in suicides is directly correlated with the media attention given to the suicidal death of a famous person. As explored in this essay, mobile media may serve equally well as a conveyor of intoxicating, depressive ideas that eventually lead vulnerable individuals to the same result, namely suicide. In all cases, the depressed person must embrace the model so to speak, meaning that he/she must strongly identify with the person/idea. Phillips argues that the Werther effect “is not necessarily produced by those who would have committed suicide anyway, even in the absence of a publicized suicide to imitate” (341). This is a crucial point for understanding Chatroom since Jim would potentially be an extra suicide i.e., an insidious example would have convinced him to commit suicide but without that influence he would be safe.

Moisés de la Serna comments that the media only show interest in cyberbullying “when the police catch a cyberbully or one of their victims commits suicide; only then is a certain visibility given to a problem” (9). What William and Eva almost successfully achieve is a perpetuation of a cycle of suicides. The bullies endeavour to take full control of another teen’s life by encouraging him to kill himself and if he does this in public or via live stream then the media will inevitably report it, resulting in additional suicides among young people. If Jim had killed himself in a McDonald’s, an icon of pop culture, then he would be transformed into a new model for hopeless youths. The result of tragic, online influence would make the headlines in traditional media and reach a huge audience.

A disturbing aspect of Chatroom is the degenerative depths to which the bullies will stoop. Without excusing the behaviour, one should assess the fundamental problem of perception, namely that teenagers who are active online often treat it as a sphere detached from any real-life consequences. There is a distinct absence of empathy which has become typical of online chat exchanges. William and Eva’s behaviour makes one consider if they are genuinely sociopathic or just chronically misguided. Moisés de la Serna describes the difference between cyberbullying and bullying – “the aggressor does not perceive the severity of the aggression (because he does not see the victim’s reaction)” (24). Laura’s challenge to William focuses on this precise aspect of online bullying. She says, “Because you can’t see him, it’s easier. It’s easier when you don’t have to see a dead boy and just imagine it like you read it in a book or something” (Walsh 61). It is ironic that at the opening of the play, William eviscerates children’s stories like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Harry Potter because they are not realistic representations of how the world works. However, William treats Jim in a way that would appear monstrous if it occurred in any relationship other than a cyber one. Like in William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, one witnesses how teens let loose in a new terrain may quickly turn subhuman. The cyberspace terrain serves to highlight the very worst potentialities of what Sigmund Freud termed the id. William and Eva are the monsters that lurk within everyone and given the right environmental conditions, they suddenly appear.

Walsh shows how words alone may be the perfect hosts for malign behaviour. Messages and texts are shown to have the power to kill, a power confirmed by real-life cases. With the right words, things can go horribly wrong!

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed., Earl McPeek, 1999.

Barron, Jesse. “The Girl from Plainville.” Esquire, 23rd Aug. 2017.

Bridge, Jeffrey A., et al. “Association Between the Release of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and Suicide Rates in the United States: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis.” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, vol. 59, no. 2, 2020, pp. 236-243.

Chisholm, James S., and Brandie Trent. “‘Everything… Affects Everything’: Promoting Critical Perspectives toward Bullying with ‘Thirteen Reasons Why.’” The English Journal, vol. 101, no. 6, 2012, pp. 75–80. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23269414. Accessed 13 Feb. 2023.

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. Faber and Faber, 2011.

Moisés de la Serna, Juan. Cyberbullying. Translated by Conchi Fuentes. Babelcube Books, 2019.

Phillips, David P. “The Influence of Suggestion on Suicide: Substantive and Theoretical Implications of the Werther Effect.” American Sociological Review, vol. 39, no. 3, 1974, pp. 340–54. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2094294. Accessed 13 Feb. 2023. Walsh, Enda. Chatroom. Nick Hern Books, 2013.

Walsh, Enda. Chatroom. Nick Hern Books, 2013.

Closer to God

Title: Closer to God
Author: Anna Jordan
First performed: 2009
Page count: 24

Summary

A 79-year-old man and a young, single mother live in adjacent flats at the top of a UK tower block. This is the premise of Anna Jordan’s short play entitled Closer to God. Neither of the main characters is named, they are just opposing forces named “He” and “She.” They represent quite different conceptions of Britain: the old versus the new; the conservative pitted against the liberal; the nostalgic contrasting with the forward-looking. Jordan’s play appears to reference the backdrop of Brexit, but the play was actually written prior to the 2013 referendum announcement. Nonetheless, the play explores the changing face of modern life in the United Kingdom by addressing controversial topics such as foreigners and racism. Among the other themes highlighted in the work are social isolation, single parenting, memory, and interconnectedness.

Ways to access the text: reading.

Anna Jordan is a contemporary writer, and this short work is relatively new so you may well consider purchasing this play. However, there are some free online sources such as the website – Withoutapaddletheatre.co.uk or alternatively you may access the script via Scribd using the free trial period.

Closer to God is quite reader-friendly and consists of a single extended dialogue.

Why read Closer to God?

“Up where the air is clear” (Sherman and Sherman).

One cannot imagine Jordan’s characters being particularly interested in singing songs like “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” from Mary Poppins. In fact, even though they are quite literally up where the air is clear, they surprisingly complain that there is “no air up here” (Jordan 11). The play examines the intricacies of life at the top of a high-rise which include myriad overt and covert stressors. Examples of these are noises, smells, broken lifts, entrapment, loneliness, misunderstandings, and poverty. Kids of suburban families go fly kites in a park but up in the rarefied air of tower blocks, people are effectively cut off from the world and usually from each other too. This is a land of tinned foods and few opportunities for improvement. Jordan’s play is depressing and inspiring in equal parts.

Post reading discussion/interpretation.

“Man Against a Concrete Colossus.”

Introduction.

Anna Jordan’s play, Closer to God, has two main characters named He and She. However, the high-rise tower exerts such influence over its residents that one may view it as a third character. The influence is not good. In an essay by Robert Gifford entitled “The Consequences of living in High-Rise Buildings,” he explains that – “Early studies and reviews concluded that high-rises are, on balance, not beneficial for residents” (2). Needless to say, high rise buildings are still being constructed all over the world each year so they evidently benefit someone. Maybe since tall building have a smaller urban footprint, they appease the gods of nature and also our environmental conscientiousness. Jordan’s play delves into the topics concerning life in a modern, multicultural Britain and how human nature resists the conditioning of a negative dwelling place like an aging, high-rise of council flats. Such buildings have long been the reserve of the poor, disenfranchised and forgotten. At the close of the play, the character He refers to a documentary named “Life After People” (Jordan 19) which predicts “how nature will eventually reclaim all the towns and cities” (20). Jordan acknowledges the problems of high-rise housing but promotes the view that human nature battles against the insidious influence of the concrete giants that are high-rises. The play explores the battle between human nature and architecture while Mother Nature looms ominously in the background.

High-rise living.

First, one may ask what are the problems of high rise living? Gifford explains that “High-rise residences evoke at least six fears” (2), which are: people falling or jumping; getting trapped during a fire; an earthquake; a terrorist attack on the building; strangers and crime; and the risk of communicable diseases (2). This list includes everything from the plausible to the somewhat paranoid. Of equal, or possibly more interest, is the fact that “High-rise buildings can be associated with negative outcomes without causing those outcomes” (3). Gifford outlines how these “Moderators are factors or variables that are associated with differences in outcomes, but not in a causal sense” (3). It is by reference to moderators that one can most easily distinguish between potentially happy or discontented living conditions. Gifford writes that “Four such moderating factors are residents’ economic status, the amount of choice among residences a resident has, the building’s location within the urban fabric, and population density” (3). In the cases of He and She, these moderating factors are greatly enlightening. First, residents in social housing have a low economic status as this is a requirement of admission. They would have had minimal or no choice in the location of their new homes. Social housing buildings are often in less desirable parts of a town or city and overcrowding is a frequent problem. An example of the last point is given when He complains of neighbours in his building – “six of them, living on top of each other in that tiny flat!” (Jordan 11). In essence, what unites unhappy high-rise dwellers is a stark lack of choice. There are consequently two distinct faces to high-rise living as Gifford describes below.

“Among high-rise residents, for example, presumably most wealthy denizens of tall expensive apartment buildings in desirable locations are quite pleased with their high rises, and we know that many residents are miserably unhappy with their broken-down ghetto high-rise dwellings.”
(Gifford 4)

Another important moderating factor highlighted by Gifford is “life-cycle stage” (3). ‘He’ is elderly and in poor health while Jayden is still just a baby. In a high-rise building, the elderly may become fearful of new and foreign tenants and subsequently isolate themselves just like He does when he adopts a bunker mentality and stocks up on tinned foods. As for Jayden, his prospects are not enhanced by his living environment either since “Numerous studies suggest that children have problems in high-rises; none suggest benefits for them” (10). If one delves into the specifics then one finds that children – “who lived in high-rises were significantly more likely to have severe behavior problems than children in other forms of housing” (8). Jayden’s social housing environment will prime him to evolve into an anti-social youth thus perpetuating the problems of such communities.

There are both visible and invisible negatives to high rise living. Understanding the effects of the building is the starting point to assessing the residents’ behaviours. The play does not depict people crushed by their circumstances but instead shows a valiant, ongoing struggle to survive by people who are often unsure of their true enemies.

From godsend to godforsaken place.

The meaning of the title, Closer to God, works on several levels. ‘He’ explains that when the towers were first built, they were greeted with optimistic fanfare. He jokes of – “High-rise living, [being] that little bit closer to God” (Jordan 9). In a literal sense, the elevation above the rest of the city brings the man closer to the traditionally understood location of heaven in the sky. However, the title harbours more serious, negative connotations. First, the old man is reminiscing about when the towers were initially built but that is a past, now lost era of his younger days. Gone too are the lofty expectations of high-rise social housing. Neither the man’s life nor the buildings have been a remarkable success. Now, old and sick, He faces death after years of painful, social isolation. When once he may have considered himself blessed by God to attain a flat in a modern building – now, it is different, the flat (or a care home) will be his last grim residence before death. She wryly comments that his “leg [is] dead already. Waiting for the rest of him to join” (15). The feeling of being a little closer to God changes tone from a one-time gleefulness to an aching despondency because the slow-creeping necrosis that has already got his foot, will soon end him too.

Building higher and higher into the sky has been a millennia-long fascination of man. Robert Gifford writes that, “If the minimal definition of a high-rise is a building taller than three storeys, then the history of high rises may be traced back to the pyramids of Egypt” (2). In practical terms, high rise buildings are an economical use of scarce and expensive land space but, more than anything else, they will always be interpreted as daring feats of architectural excellence. Tall buildings are symbolic of a modern, thriving world where cities are bursting with people and the wheels of industry spin endlessly. Jordan quietly delineates the type of buildings of which society is proud, and contrastingly the type of buildings she describes in the play which are the yesterday of progress and the today of ghettoization and deprivation. Such building are no longer symbols of success but icons of the anonymised poor who often lead dead-end lives. The dream of a ‘high life’ is gone when tower blocks are plagued by anti-social behaviour, poor upkeep, and divisions between tenants.

Various problems emerge within the high-rise tower that serve to diminish the quality of life of old and new residents alike. One of the most unexpected wedges to come between tenants is the English language. In Gifford’s essay, there is a salient reference to towering buildings and the associated importance of a common language.

“The Christian Bible briefly tells the story of the Tower of Babel. According to the account, before the tower was complete God decided that if humans could complete such a tower, they could accomplish anything. That was not acceptable, so God caused confusion among the people by cursing them with multiple languages (everyone had spoken the same language until then, and their tower-building success was attributed to this).”
(Gifford 2).

The Tower of Babel was constructed thanks to cooperation supported by a common language whereas the tower block of the play becomes a failure due to a breakdown of cooperation associated with an ‘uncommon’ language. In the old man’s view, the new tenants do not speak the same language as him. It is still English but not as he knows it. The strangely undulating accents of foreigners’ grate on his ears so much that he experiences them as alien.

“Made English sound like a foreign language. Didn’t recognise the sounds, the vowels. They’d stolen it. They’d stolen English!”
(Jordan 17)

‘He’ makes these comments about Jayden’s dad and the accompanying male friend. These people are not of his tribe, not like the original tenants in the building who had “Good English names. Round white faces” (8). Now it is “a sea of brown faces, foreign tongues. Assads and Mohameds and Osamas” (10). If one looks beyond the apparent racism of the comments then there is fear at the core of the old man’s concerns. When Jayden’s dad visits, he is under the influence of alcohol and cocaine (17) and there is a second man in tow. The old man describes how he hears this ex-partner “Hitting her. Kicking her, I think” (17) and this is soon followed by sounds of sex. These new people scare him. Long gone are the residents with familiar names and accents whom he felt safe approaching and conversing with. Long gone also is the level of cooperation that meant “each flat would take it in turns to clean the landing” (10). Complaining about language is just the old man’s way of othering them. Additionally, he displays reverse ageism through his disapproval of his female neighbour’s modern slang, her misuse of his language. He regards her vocabulary as coarse, saying she has a “potty mouth” (7) because of her habit of saying things like “‘F this,’ ‘F that,’ ‘Little F-ing C’” (6). The rift between him and the new tenants is predominantly a cultural one rather than a linguistic one. In a figurative sense, they do not speak his language and therefore cooperation breaks down.

Behind the scenes, successive governments and local councils contribute to the problems by underfunding social housing and neglecting essential support for, and integration of foreign nationals. The results are not just tower blocks that end up as eyesores on the landscape but conditions within such blocks that lead to social unrest and burgeoning prejudices. Jordan’s play encapsulates many of the social ailments that were precursors to Brexit.

Suicide.

Closer to God broaches the emotive topic of suicides, or what He calls “jumpers” (11). He recalls one couple he knew from the building – “Paul died of cancer and Sandra threw herself off” (11). The unavoidably public nature of such deaths by suicide means that they are regularly reported by newspapers. Gifford poses a crucial question in his essay – “do high-rise building contribute to suicide?” (7). He explains that “One school of thought (the substitution hypothesis) holds that individuals who wish to dispose of themselves will find a way, regardless of the possible means” (7). In other words, if one method is not available then the person will simply substitute with another way of killing themselves. On the other hand, “A different view, the availability hypothesis, holds that tall buildings, to some extent, encourage or facilitate suicides that would not have otherwise occurred” (7). Neither He nor She speak directly of suicide, but the oppressive atmosphere of their living conditions suggests depressive thoughts. For instance, when the lift is out of order which regularly happens then the residents at the top of the building feel “Trapped … In a shoebox in the sky” (Jordan 12). This description suggests a feeling of claustrophobia but it also connotes death. Small pets are often buried in shoe boxes by little children. The shoe box doubles as a coffin and thereby a pet may be buried inexpensively and without much commotion in a suburban garden. Are He and She living in cheap, cardboard coffins on the 19^th floor? She articulates her dread as follows.

“If I sit around here for too long I start to get that feeling. That numb feeling? It’s like I’m sitting here and it starts at my feet, up to my knees then right through my body … I feel …dead. I feel that I’m dying slowly. Dying and rotting up here.”
(Jordan 12)

She reflexively contemplates the life led by the elderly man next door, and she fears that his forgotten existence presages her own future. The numb feeling starts at her feet and she may end up like him – “dragging that poor leg” (15). To ward off her fears, she puts on dance music at high volume, and as she says – “I dance and I sweat and then I know I’m alive” (12). In a dissimilar fashion but to the same end, the old man lets his TV on day and night. The “telly” (13) is his sole companion and it alleviates his feelings of loneliness and protects him against the same deathly silence and soul numbing that oppresses her. Given that these two individuals have almost nothing in common then the common denominator is the building and the influence it exerts over its inhabitants. Neither of the two may ever actively contemplate suicide but their existence in that atmosphere constitutes a slow, passive suicide.

Rhythm of life.

Despite the antisocial behaviour, the turds in the elevator, and the puke in the hallway – Jordan’s play is not a diary of the crestfallen. The playwright reveals an almost imperceptible force that endures and even combats the cold environment of the tower block, namely human nature.

In a building with “walls paper thin” (11), the separate, contrasting rhythms of his and her lives result in a tremendous, interconnected effect. To return to the earlier topic of choice – neither of them asked for the neighbour they ended up with, so they are effectively launched into a symbiotic relationship. Their eventual connection is all the stranger given that they never even meet anymore.

“SHE. We don’t meet now, face to face.

HE. Just the noises and sounds”
(Jordan 15)

She knows what TV programmes he watches, how often he bathes, that he lives on pies (evidence in rubbish), and even when he breaks wind! He knows her lack of routine, her singing, Jayden’s play noises, the “boom boom boom” (13) music, and the sound of her ex-boyfriend’s voice. It is ironic that they do not even know each other’s names, yet they exist in a strange union with one another daily. It is this semi-anonymous interconnectedness that Jordan mines for meaning in her play.

The prickly relationship between the neighbours is a by-product of the building’s power. For example, even though he was “pleased at first” (7) about getting a new neighbour, his sustained experience of isolated living inadvertently led to a spoiled first impression. He had not had a visitor for years and therefore unthinkingly slammed the door in her face (14). She was insulted as her only intention had been to offer to do his shopping for him. Since all his former neighbours have left or died and he is now surrounded by unfamiliar, often foreign faces and strange accents, he has become withdrawn and fearful. The environment has brought out the worst in him, like his xenophobia. For her as a newbie, the monstrosity of concrete that is the high rise is complemented by the old man’s “flabby, grey face” (14). The building’s cold impression has successfully rubbed off on the old resident of some thirty years.

But the connection between these two people still has value. She is annoyed by him and yet she feels sad knowing that he awakes from his dreams calling out the name “Evie” (16). She wonders if it’s his wife’s name. He considers her a small, spiky, “in-your-face” (14) type, yet when she is being beaten by her ex-partner, he grabs a baseball bat and very nearly confronts the man. Jordan depicts the thorny relationship between He and She which despite the aggravations, has a golden seam of goodness hidden within. What is shown is that they are acting against expectations since “Research is unanimous in finding that rates of helping others are lower in high-rise buildings” (Gifford 12). In the end, the force of human nature is stronger than the environmental ills.

Another compelling aspect of the relationship between him and her is how each perceives the other. For her, he represents the awful prospect of a lonely, valueless, old age. She bristles when he bluntly asks what she has done so far in her life. She responds with – “I’m young. I’ve got time!” (13). He is an omen of things to come for her, should she never escape her current predicament. For him, it is quite different since he looks to the past for comfort, whereas her youth obliges her to look only forward. He finds in her a spark to fully ignite his memory of his daughter, Evie. It is not clear if he is estranged from his daughter or if she died. ‘She’ acts as a substitute for a missing loved one and her laugh is reminiscent of his daughter’s so the connection feels less false, less contrived. Without this lifeline, he has only his TV for a friend.

Jordan does not depict any grand gestures or unprecedented character transformations. Instead, she shows how people may be driven quite crazy by their neighbours and nonetheless still grudgingly look out for them, empathise with them, keep them in mind. The play is a tale of a little triumph in a world that is unyielding and hard. However, to expose this little glimmer of hope, the play must also honestly expose the loneliness of urban living, the fears of old age, and the damaged prospects of a new generation.

Conclusion.

It is fitting that the world inhabited by the residents of the top floor may only truthfully be reflected back to them by “stand[ing] at the window and look[ing] at the other tower” (19). These people are detached from the lives of the millions down at ground level. The sight of the lights going out in the adjacent building represents the child’s idea of stars blinking in the night’s sky. It never happens that all the lights go out. In the old man’s apartment, the lights also never go out, at least not the flickering, blue glow of the television screen in the living room. For him, the buzz of background noise is proof of persistent life, not yet re-consumed and devoured by Mother Nature like in the TV documentary he watched. Like in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, “Ozymandias,” which speaks of an ancient statue now in ruins in the sand, the tower block’s “sneer of cold command” (line 5) will one day crumble too. However, left behind will be the world we still recognise where goodness grows in the most inhospitable of soil.

Works Cited.

Gifford, Robert. “The Consequences of living in High-Rise Buildings.” Architectural Science Review, vol. 50, no.1, University of Sydney, 2007, pp. 1-16.

Jordan, Anna. Closer to God. Nick Hern Books, 2018.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.” Poetry Foundation, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias. Accessed 18 November 2022.

Sherman, Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman. “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” Mary Poppins: Original Cast Soundtrack, Walt Disney, 1964.

Plasticine

Play title: Plasticine
Author: Vassily Sigarev
First performed: 2002
Page count: 87

Summary

Plasticine is a work by Siberian born playwright, screenwriter, and director, Vassily Sigarev. The setting for the play is an unnamed, provincial, Russian city and the historical period is just after the fall of communism. The central character is a teenage boy named Maksim. He lives with his grandmother because his mother has “flown away” (Vassily 76) and he has just one friend, a school buddy named Lyokha. Young Maksim must face a series of challenging episodes beginning with the death of a friend from childhood to an ambush set up by a girl that leads to male rape. An audience is presented with a bleak view of provincial, Russian life in the Ural region that is dominated by alcohol abuse, violence, poverty, and hopelessness. Maksim’s only psychological escape is when he models little plasticine figures in his bedroom at night. The play is part of Russian New Drama which evolved in the 1990’s. Important themes in the work include misogyny, sex, violence, creativity, adolescence, and death.

Ways to access the text: reading.

The playscript is available for free via services such as Perlego and Scribd (free trial). Even though the play had success in Russia and the UK, it is still a relatively unknown work and therefore not widely available for free.

Please note that Plasticine is not a particularly reader-friendly work since it contains 33 separate scenes which, even though arranged in chronological order, have a disorientating effect due to the constant, quick changes of scene and mood.

Why read Plasticine?

Russia after the fall of communism.

The play offers a rare, theatrical representation of life in Russia just after 1991. The social environment that Sigarev depicts is reflective of the economic crisis of that era brought about by the unsteady transition of Russia to a market based economy. The grim, old, Soviet-era apartment buildings are crumbling, and the fabric of society is also in danger of disintegrating due to poverty, alcohol abuse, and wanton violence. Maksim is barely a teenager, yet he must make his way in a city of constant threats and treacherous characters. This world is alien to most western audiences and therefore a compelling theatrical experience.

Plasticine man.

In the play, one encounters a raw, unflinching realism which is only fleetingly counterbalanced by ephemeral moments of poetic beauty. Maksim is an artistic boy who moulds plasticine in his room at night as a way of processing the harshness of his daily experiences. Among other things, he moulds a quite literal representation of manhood in the form of a giant penis; he moulds masculinity as a fist; and he moulds little girl and boy figures too. Each shape speaks on behalf of an almost mute teenager whom life batters daily with insults and rejections. While Sigarev’s play is narrated in often foul language, the play still expresses a rare, hope-tinged beauty as experienced by Maksim in sporadic dream-like moments.

Post reading discussion/interpretation.

“The Plasticine Boy Speaks”

Introduction.

In a Russian language interview, Vassily Sigarev explained to Yury Dud that the originally proposed title of Plasticine was “Fall from Innocence Two …[or] The Body.” This unused title more comprehensively reflects that the work is a tale of adolescent struggle and the associated loss of childhood innocence. Sigarev’s protagonist, Maksim, is much like the biblical Eve in the Garden of Eden because the loss of innocence simultaneously marks the awakening of body consciousness. The playwright wrote Plasticine when aged just 23 so his own teenage experiences were fresh in his mind and the result is a play genuinely reflective of a teenager’s perspective on Russian society at that time.

Sigarev originally trained as a “chemistry and biology teacher” (vdud), but soon turned his back on the prospect of teaching to become a writer instead. In regard to education in Russia and education in general, Sigarev said that “they debase people everywhere – individuality means nothing there – you’re cattle – they turn you into cattle” (Vdud). He has stated that “degradation is the foundation of public life in Russia … [and that] People degraded each other in the 90’s” (vdud). In Plasticine, Maksim is a victim of an uncompromising educational system and the society into which the boy is cast, is even more merciless. The central theme of the play is degradation in so far as the work is about the annihilation of character and the slow metamorphosis of Maksim into someone less idealistic and cruel. For Maksim, victory is impossible, success is unlikely, and survival requires total submission to a crushing conformity. The only escape is death. However, the play is never nihilistic due to Maksim’s unwavering attempts to abide by his own moral compass, and he is aided by his love of art which becomes a vital means of self-expression that sustains him. Nevertheless, in the end, Sigarev’s protagonist is destroyed by his own society. This essay will address some of the academic responses to Plasticine in order to highlight how the work has been read and interpreted to date.

Three broad headings under which one may productively analyse Plasticine are adolescence, stage props, and violence. Of these, stage props is the only heading that requires a cursory explanation but it simply refers to how Maksim’s use of plasticine informs an audience. Susanna Weygandt explains that “The plastic material in Plasticine expresses the emotions that Maksim’s words cannot” (125). Weygandt explores the significance of moulding clay as a means of expression in a play where the protagonist is neither an adult nor particularly verbally expressive. Regarding adolescence, Jenny Kaminer explores how creative imagination is central to an understanding of Maksim. She makes the observation that “Adolescent heroes have dotted the fictional landscape of Russian literature since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991” (190), and she explores why adolescence as a transitional stage is so important. Thirdly, in regard to violence, Birgit Beumers and Mark Lipovetsky propose that “the play is a metaphor for cynical violence as a universal language of social communication, or rather for everyday social terror, for the post-Soviet civil war where everybody fights each other” (246). Plasticine has not received adequate academic attention despite its prominence within the “In-Yer-Face” school of drama of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. For this reason, the essay will also briefly address some gaps in the literature, for example the themes of teenage sexuality and misogyny in Plasticine.

Stage Props.

Plasticine opens on an eerily silent scene. A young boy moulds plasticine “into a strange shape” (Vassily 8) and then casts this unspecified shape by using lead sourced from old, car batteries. The fumes from the work make his eyes water at first, but then he sobs with true emotion. The scene ends with the cracking of the bowl used to make the cast. This introductory scene highlights how a simple stage prop, namely plasticine, will be essential to an understanding of the lead character, Maksim.

Susanna Weygandt addresses the role of stage props in her essay entitled, “The Structure of Plasticity: Resistance and Accommodation in Russian New Drama.” Weygandt makes the following argument which decidedly removes the spotlight from Plasticine’s central character.

“In most conventional plays, and in most Soviet plays, the hero is propelled through the play by the deeds that he or she performs; but in the New Drama, on the other hand, there is no deed that can define the protagonist – as a hero, a plot-bearing entity, or nearly as anything at all” (118).

If one accepts such an interpretation then Maksim becomes a passive entity through which a message is delivered, rather than an active, autonomous agent of change. Such a proposal is jarring as it depletes Maksim’s significance and turns him into a shadow character. However, Weygandt’s essay is nuanced in its assertions and highly informative regarding how an audience may view the role of the stage props in Plasticine. For instance, the challenges of Maksim’s childhood are largely determined by his social environment, lending credence to Weygandt’s assertion that “In the postdramatic plays of New Drama, without the protagonist to drive them forward, the plays revert to the action propelled by the lived-in sites and objects” (119). In Plasticine, the site is a provincial city tainted by alcohol fuelled violence and as for the object, it is simply plasticine, the common play material of children.

Maksim moulds plasticine into various shapes: an extra-large, limp penis; the figures of a girl and a boy; and a knuckle duster. Maksim’s grandmother tells the school that he “does lovely plasticine models” (Vassily 36), so one may deduce that he is quite prolific. Plasticine modelling replaces the boy’s infrequent words and thus one must look to the models for insights into his character. Weygandt makes the following point about how one may interpret stage props.

“Jiří Veltruský of the Prague School identified the contribution of props to performance in his 1940 essay “Man and Object in the Theatre.” Veltruský found that props can “act” because props, once placed onstage, carry with them a force “which provokes in us the expectation of a certain action” (1955:103).”
(Weygandt 117)

One may cynically test this theory in regard to Plasticine. Particular attention needs to be paid to the timelines involved. For instance, Maksim fashions a knuckle duster in advance of his attempted revenge on the men who raped both him and Lyokha. Thus, the prop indeed sets up an expectation of future, vengeful action. On the other hand, Maksim moulds a girl out of clay before he unexpectedly receives an invite from Lyokha for a double date with Natasha and her mystery, female friend. In this case, the plasticine figure seems to materialize magically into life when Lyokha promises Maksim a date with a real girl. As for the oversized, plasticine penis, Maksim makes his plan known to Lyokha before moulding the appendage and later has reason to implement his revenge on Ludmila, the Russian teacher, when she once again insists on entering the boy’s toilets. In summation, the moulded figures either foreshadow an action, or alternatively, they imaginatively come to life. The latter is problematic as it affords the character great imaginative powers and therefore, covert agency.

It seems paradoxical to state that an inanimate object acts independently of the actor on stage (ref Veltruský) because surely the main character is always the sole communicator and agent of change. Additionally, how can one credibly look to Maksim’s environment as a primary, agential power? In truth, the central character, his environment, and the stage props that surround him simultaneously communicate information and influence action. Even though Weygandt credits the central character with an imagination that finds expression in the surrounding objects, she still maintains that heroes of Russian New Drama are essentially “hollow” (118). For instance, she writes the following about props and environment.

“With smaller, handheld objects the imagination of the actor is read by the way the objects on the stage appear. Agency exists in the environment and the dispossessed body of the actor becomes an active receiver of it. The actor receives and even becomes the shape that he takes hold of …” (123).

This represents a solid argument when applied to Maksim’s use of the knuckle duster and the fake penis. These objects represent a teenage boy’s idealized view of masculinity. The knuckle duster substitutes for weak, young hands thus creating an imaginative, macho ideal that the boy cannot credibly realise. The oversized penis is likewise a boy’s threat of being a man. Maksim exposes the plasticine penis in the toilets so for verisimilitude, it is limp. However, the exaggerated size of the flaccid penis crucially communicates the potential of an even bigger, erect, sexual organ. Ludmila and Lyokha turn pale when they see the boy’s disproportionately sized appendage. Maksim did not purchase these props from a shop, but hand crafted them, so they are imbued with his imagination. The moulded objects are clear symbols of power yet they are false projections of a power which Maksim cannot rightfully wield due to his youth and weakness.

Undoubtedly, there is hidden agency in Maksim’s environment which also influences him. For instance, he only moulds and casts a knuckle duster after two adult men rape him and his friend. There is a societal narrative of violence and Maksim’s ill-fated response to the attack he suffered is an attempt to join this toxic narrative. Therefore, he is not an empowered agent of change but only a misguided, reactive child. The fake penis prank is likewise determined by Maksim’s humiliation by an adult, female teacher who expected him to turn around in the boy’s toilets thereby exposing his prepubescent penis. His response is preordained since he must appropriately counter Ludmila’s expectations. A protagonist’s reactions which are wholly predictable have no true mark of individuality. Maksim is restricted to the playbook of reactions deemed appropriate by his environment and unfortunately, these are violence and counter-humiliation.

Yet, to view Maksim as a puppet of society’s ills renders the character uninteresting to most audiences. One cannot readily empathise with or invest in such a portrayal. Weygandt expresses her own opinion on such characterizations as follows – “I term Russian New Drama heroes “hollow” subjects because they fail as literary figures to express information about themselves – through their speech or through their gestures. The empty hero emerges out of the disintegration of the Soviet Union” (118). One may agree with this on a dramaturgical level, but the question remains if Maksim may convincingly be labelled a ‘hollow’ subject? Is he just an after-effect of the failure of communism? Also of note is that Maksim is restricted by the limited agency typically available to children especially those who comes from broken homes. His demeanour is that of a typical teenager – sullen and uncommunicative. To brand a child character as hollow is to overestimate his potential for agency in the first place. Even if one concedes that Russian society of the early 90’s exerted a disproportionate force over this character, he still retains enough originality to deserve attention. Therefore, one needs to look at deeds that could be classified as heroic when enacted by a child.

Sigarev based much of Maksim’s story on first-hand experiences from his hometown. For instance, in the interview with Yury Dud, Sigarev said that he had cast a pair of brass knuckles for himself aged just 13 years old. He was already getting into serious fights and needed to protect himself. Additionally, Sigarev’s teenage brother was jailed after murdering the man who raped his disabled, male friend. Such emotive background information discredits an interpretation of Maksim as a hollow subject. Weygandt also addresses this problem, if only obliquely, when writing of Plasticine that “The plastic objects act as protheses for the speaking, feeling, vulnerable, inner “I,” providing a screen on which the adolescent projects his anxieties” (125). The use of the term “hollow subject” is unhelpful outside of a dramaturgical discussion since an audience craves to understand a character’s inner personality. Either one may label the protagonist as reactive and empty, or alternatively, he is simply inhibited in his expressiveness and unable to act adequately but is nonetheless a full character – but he cannot be both ‘hollow’ and ‘full’ simultaneously.

Weygandt convincingly bolsters her argument by referring to “plastika … a form of theatrical storytelling that wholly supports a narrative despite the central hollow hero” (119). She goes on to elaborate that “Plastika is a language of the body used in the place of words to narrate. Like physical theatre, plastika relies on the physical motion of the performers’ bodies to convey a story” (119). Accompanying this distinctive physical performance, “the silent subject in plastika is supplemented by empowered objects that speak without voice” (119). Therefore, along with an emphasis on the role of plasticine models in Sigarev’s play, one may also analyse Maksim’s physical performance.

Even without the benefit of seeing a live performance of Plasticine, the playscript informs one of physical ailments such as headaches and blood noses that Maksim suffers and his resulting physical gestures. For instance, “It is night again. Once more it is dark and Maksim is lying in bed. He is holding his head as before and whimpering with his teeth clenched” (Vassily 41). The boy acts out his pain as a visceral experience while simultaneously expressing his fear in words – “Don’t . . . don’t . . . it hurts . . . it hurts, Jesus, it hurts. Don’t . . . don’t . . . I can’t take any more” (30). On these occasions, Maksim also experiences a series of disturbing visions and sensations, for example, visitations by the ghost of his old friend Spira (41) who committed suicide, and the claustrophobic sensation that his bedroom is transforming into a coffin (49). Each time that Maksim endures these nightmarish episodes, he resorts to moulding plasticine as a therapeutic escape. The boy achieves a sufficient level of emotional regulation through his rudimentary artistic endeavours. At the same time, an audience witnesses his trauma via his stylized bodily performance which includes the visible moulding of plasticine. As Weygandt explains, “In plastika and in the writing of the New Russian Drama, the props double as agents of the narrative” (119). One significant prop is the little, human-boy figure that Maksim shapes after his own rape. The plasticine figure takes on the role of an ominous symbol when “a drop of blood falls from his [Maksim’s] nose and lands on the figure’s forehead” (Vassily 71). Since Maksim is soon killed, we may infer that the plasticine man is indeed an agent of the narrative since it foretells the boy’s death.

Weygandt’s overarching argument is that “In New Drama, the agency required to perform an epic deed is not present” (129). One need not agree with such a proposal, especially in the case of Maksim. He is restricted by his youth and family circumstances, and after all, what epic deeds can any child perform? The logic of this observation does not mean he is consequently rendered ‘hollow.’ One small but vitally important proof of Maksim’s inner character and resistance to the degradation around him is how he treats his elderly grandmother. She defends Maksim against the Russian teacher’s slanders by saying, – “Oh he’s not a de, er, linquent. He’s a good boy. Brings me bed pans and all such when I’m bedridden and takes them away again” (Vassily 36). Life batters Maksim and still, he remains caring and humane at home. An acknowledgement of this primary truth must precede an appreciation of the vital role of stage props in the play. Weygandt concedes that her argument is ambitious, as follows.

“The notion that a prop can narrate for the speaking subject is new. Most props typically have a single function as a symbol, such as the gun in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler or the shot seagull in Chekov’s The Seagull. But in the New Drama, the situation is quite the reverse. Instead of the subject reflecting herself upon the object, the object adjacent to her is telling the entire story. We only know the hero’s story and fate indirectly by studying the things that surround her” (124).

This insight grants one permission to view stage props differently and thus appreciate their true expressive potential. Weygandt’s ambitious argument is partially a response to one’s reflex to look only to the central character and thereby miss all the other voices on the stage like props, physical performance, and the setting of the events. A challenge to stubborn, preconceived notions of how a stage play’s message is actually communicated can best be seen as a productive exercise.

Adolescence.

Adolescence is a second major theme in Plasticine. Maksim is jolted from his childlike innocence by frequent exposure to explicit sexual acts and physical violence. Jenny Kaminer addresses such issues in her essay entitled, “Imagining Adolescence in Selected Works of New Russian Drama.” For Kaminer, the cracked bowl of the opening scene holds great significance, She writes that “In Western art, a broken pitcher – usually in paintings featuring young girls – has often symbolized sexual violation, ‘becoming an icon for the loss of virginity’” (199). Kaminer unveils a link between the symbolism of the opening scene and Maksim’s tragic fate. As depicted in the play, Maksim dies soon after his sexual violation. The nature of the sexuality portrayed in Plasticine is obscene and Maksim excuses himself, unsurprisingly, from at least two proposals to engage in sexual acts by drunken, adult women. Nonetheless, he is relentlessly buffeted by the intense hormonal changes of adolescence which facilitate the change from a child’s to a man’s body. The way Maksim is introduced to the world of sex helps to degrade his expectations of human nature and foster misogyny.

Kaminer explains that “The events that occur throughout Plasticine reinforce the connection between sexuality and menace conjured up in the opening scene” (199). Sigarev’s play is populated by sexual predators of both sexes, but they are predominantly female. The menace materializes in physical threats; in taboo knowledge; and in lewd propositions. Maksim’s youthful imagination is fired by these encounters. An early example is the old woman at Spira’s wake who tells an indecent story of a teenage boy who rubbed his erection against her on the bus (Vassily 10). The second old woman then whispers some obscenity in Maksim’s ear, causing him to turn pale “and run off down the stairs” (11). The formerly naïve boy now understands the power of sexuality and subsequently uses it to make Ludmila turn pale by exposing a giant penis to her. However, this exercise in revenge does not protect him from the other grotesque females he will encounter. These include the two actresses in the movie, Caligula, who urinate on a dead man (25); the blushing bride who tries to seduce Maksim and then gets her husband to punch the boy under false pretences (28); and the drunken woman at the stadium who pushes Maksim’s face down onto her exposed, semen-soiled crotch (49). Sex is indeed menacing and vulgar and the women are volatile and usually highly inebriated. As Kaminer observes – “Sexuality is severed, most obviously, from any intimacy, but also from any individuality” (200). It is to be expected that Maksim would eventually adopt a misogynistic stance.

The dilemma for Maksim is that his childish ideal of women is still that of the maternal caregiver and homemaker. The new experiences with Medusa-like females catapult the boy into a world of explicit porn, promiscuity, and emotional booby-traps! Maksim is comfortable with his grandmother since her post-menopausal stage of life marks her as desexualised. On the other hand, the boy is greatly discomfited by normal shows of motherly affection by younger women like when a kindly woman offers him a biscuit at the town hall (Vassily 74). This woman later cares for him after he faints but he soon rejects her help, shouting – “You’re all getting to me, you bitches” (77). It is pertinent that she had just made reference to Maksim’s mother which probably sparked his fury. This rage against women is a consequence of the depraved female figures who constantly encroach on the boy’s physical and imaginative spaces. The link between such women and motherhood is best showcased by Spira’s mother who attends her child’s wake primarily for free liquor and who later enters the apartment of an unknown, bare-chested man with the goal of acquiring more alcohol (probably in exchange for sex). Maksim’s biological mother is most likely a drunkard too. Maksim’s imagination consequently struggles to process a single image of a woman who is both maternal and sexual in a healthy equilibrium. An expression of this comes when, through Maksim’s eyes, Spira’s drunken mother transforms into an angelic figure who “floats – all light, ethereal and otherworldly” (15). The same, or a similar, female figure appears again to Maksim just before his death and she is – “smiling and laughing noiselessly” (84). This feminine phantom is alternately monster and mother.

A child’s behaviour is typically reflective of adult influences and Maksim’s sexuality is warped by the examples surrounding him. This affects and defines the complex friendship between Maksim and Lyokha. It is exploitative, one-sided, and sometimes sexual. Maksim abandons his self-respect in a desperate attempt to maintain the friendship. Since Maksim has witnessed sex being used as currency in exchange for attention, he adopts this tactic and acquiesces to masturbating Lyokha in the cinema (25). Lyokha then betrays Maksim, possibly due to internalized homophobia, and the result is that Maksim is labelled a “queer” (39) and viciously beaten up by the other schoolboys. Later, Lyokha blames Maksim for the rape too, even though Lyokha was the one tricked by Natasha and Maksim was merely an accommodating hanger-on. There is never a girl of Maksim’s own age and inexperience with whom he can form a healthy, romantic bond. Instead, Maksim undergoes distressing experiences and then utilizes the artistic side of his imagination to redeem himself.

Kaminer focuses on the importance of adolescents’ imaginative expression. She analyses three plays from Russian New Drama which “feature adolescent characters who experience the process of maturation according to a notably similar pattern” (191). In contrast to Susanna Weygandt, Kaminer views the protagonists as actively endeavouring to constructively express their flourishing, inner identities. She outlines the process as follows:

“As delineated by Klavdiev, Sigarev, and Pulinovich, this process entails, first, the adolescent’s immersion in the realm of fantasy, followed by an attempt to inscribe that fantasy into his or her everyday life. This process culminates in the adolescent protagonist definitively assuming either the role of victim or victimizer” (191).

Maksim’s various fantasies of phantoms like Spira and “SHE” (Vassily 83) may be interpreted as imaginative daydreams although they appear in moments of angst, and not reverie. When the boy’s hands subsequently work the soft plasticine into various shapes then there is a cathartic effect. To explain this phenomenon, Kaminer refers to the famous Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotskii, who explained that teenage daydreaming is not whimsical, but complex and a means to a specific end.

“Vygotskii distinguished between ‘dreaminess’ – characterized by isolation, withdrawal, and an ‘impotence of the will’ – and ‘creative imagination,’ which seeks embodiment in reality. According to Vygotskii, it is this ‘creative imagination,’ striving for concrete representation outside the realm of fantasy – namely, in activities such as writing – that facilitates the process of maturation” (197).

For Maksim, it is not specifically writing but physical art that results from his creative imagination. In the scene where Maksim goes to the apartment rooftop, possibly contemplating suicide, he notes how the hordes of people mill around in the street below, but – “none of them look up into the air” (Vassily 77). He is disdainful of the revolting hollowness of everyday life and people’s evident lack of imagination. He purges himself of his anger by shouting, “Fuck the lot of you” (78) because he, unlike them, looks to the sky which is symbolic of imaginative freedom. Unfortunately, Maksim comes to realise just moments later that his grandmother has died. The intensity of his pain can only find expression in the crafting of a knuckle duster. Art metamorphoses into a tool of violence. There is no longer a catharsis or commendable sublimation of his internal turmoil, but rather, a materialization of unprocessed hatred. Kaminer reads the tragic end of Plasticine in the following manner.

“Maksim had wanted to overcome his victimization by enacting his ‘creative imagination,’ but his environment allowed him no role but that of unequivocal victim. Sigarev thus portrays the futility of fantasy, the impotence of the imagination to catalyse positive change in the life of an adolescent” (202).

One may add that the boy’s imagination is rendered impotent and, as Weygandt argues, the central character’s story is ultimately defined by elements outside of himself, such as environment. Despite that, Kaminer highlights the boy’s heroic struggle and the prospect that had things been slightly different, Maksim may have succeeded.

Violence.

The violence in Plasticine is rarely just physical aggression. It is frequently accompanied by deliberate humiliation and sadism. Birgit Beumers and Mark Lipovetsky address these topics and others in their book, Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama. They explain that “The teenager in Plasticine constantly and everywhere faces threats of violence. The play underscores that the habitus into which he tries to integrate does not leave him the choice of non-participation in this every-minute war” (246). The result is that Maksim must adopt the role of aggressor or victim, but bystander status is never an option. Keeping in mind that he is still a child in many respects, his fate is practically assured as a victim from the outset.

In a typical conflict situation where one adult faces another then resorting to violence may be decisive in securing victory. However, the odds are stacked against a child who additionally lacks the normal protections offered by a father and mother. Therefore, Maksim paradoxically courts victimhood whether he responds passively or aggressively to the violence inflicted upon him. One may outline Maksim’s gradual degeneration by citing instances where he at first reacts passively or at most threatens violence until he finally adopts violence as the solution. The interaction at his school prior to his expulsion is a prime example of Maksim’s growing potential for violence.

Maksim to Ludmila – “Shut your mouth, you bitch! (He grabs a vase from the table). Or I’ll knock your brains out” (Vassily 38).

Later, after Maksim has been raped by the men, he returns to their apartment in a quest for retribution. The knuckle duster – which was meant to bridge the gap between weakling teenager and adult man – gets stuck in Maksim’s pocket and he simply “lashes out with his bare hand” (81). The thug, Cadet, gravely injures the boy’s hand during a doorway struggle and when Maksim awakes after fainting, he is suddenly facing his death. The men conclude that they have injured Maksim to a degree that would cause him to go to the police so he must be murdered. It is the first time that Maksim engaged in violence and the situation suddenly spirals out of control, ironically because the men have injured a minor. Beumers and Lipovetsky explain that “The teenage hero becomes the ‘scapegoat’, and this structure is reminiscent of the basic principles of tragedy, but in no way does his death expiate the sins of society; on the contrary, it testifies to the incurable criminality of the social norm” (247). Maksim’s conscious decision to finally resort to outright violence brands him as a sacrificial lamb. He is killed, not for the common good, but instead for the maintenance of the common bad.

The rape scene highlights the depraved underbelly of Russian society and is the most affecting scene of the play. The set-up begins with Natasha’s cynical ploy. She exploits Lyokha’s blind lust and he predictably fails to question why a 20 year old woman would seek sex with a barely pubescent boy. Lyokha only asks Maksim to join as a last resort since he needs a second person and other friends were unavailable. By this point, Maksim has already witnessed the depraved, drunken behaviour of several women where sex was on offer so he also fails to detect the imminent trap. Natasha is neither drunk nor desperate but acts as a honeytrap. The boys are lured to a derelict building and when they enter the apartment, two adult men meet them, both of whom are tattooed and therefore likely ex-prisoners. The sadistic game played by Natasha and the two men is a hideous display of power. Natasha taunts Lyokha who now shakes with fear, saying “Scared? Shitting yourself, eh?” (Vassily 57). Lyokha is humiliated by the men who ask him if he is still a “virgin” (63) and Maksim is referred to as a “tease” (59). The transformation of Lyokha from a confident teenager full of sexual bravado to a whimpering child is a confirmation of the horror of the situation. The men propose a game of cards which prolongs the torture since the boys already know what to expect. When the two boys are eventually raped by the men, Natasha watches while she “laughs hysterically and beats the windowsill with the palm of her hand” (69). The scene is dystopian which underlines Sigarev’s previously quoted view that degradation defined interpersonal relations in Russia in the 90’s.

There is an informative connection between a dystopian scene and a carnival scene. Beumers and Lipovetsky propose that one consider Maksim’s “grotesquely huge phallus” (249) as a symbol of carnival – “But this carnival never promises ‘a new life’ – as in the semantics of traditional carnival, according to Bakhtin; on the contrary, it persistently and purposefully destroys and devastates everything alive” (250). Maksim unknowingly joins the carnival atmosphere by publicly brandishing the otherwise harmless prosthetic penis but eventually he descends into a hell full of devils where all normal, societal rules and restrictions evaporate during the ensuing violent, drunken melee.

“Plasticine, maybe more clearly than any other play of New Drama, captures the moment when the carnival disorder – in many respects characteristic for the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet system with its symbolical and social order – turns into the norm of existence, when liminality becomes permanent, when all mechanisms of the social protection of identity disappear completely” (Beumers and Lipovetsky 252).

If one considers the giant plasticine penis as symbolic of carnival then the corresponding prop would be a vagina dentata. Just before Maksim dies, he sees the phantom SHE who “sticks out her tongue at him and then lifts her skirt and strokes her legs. SHE runs her hand between her legs and over her breasts” (Vassily 84). The allure of the female genitalia is deadly in the context of the play. For instance, Spira commits suicide over a girl and Maksim has his own premonition of death when he imagines that his bedroom is transforming into a coffin immediately after the woman at the stadium “pushes his face in her torn knickers” (48). Like SHE, Natasha is another false woman and one who lures the boys to the most humiliating and emasculating experience of their lives. The boys expected to receive sexual favours but instead they become unwilling sexual favours for two adult men. Beumers and Lipovetsky conclude that “The erotic motifs and images in the play either transform into images of death and violence or are associated with it” (252). It is no surprise that the teenage boys who understandably struggle with testosterone surges and associated sexual fantasies, fall foul of their treacherous environment.

Conclusion.

Each of the essays and book discussed presents distinctive and compelling arguments about how one may interpret Plasticine. The reward for entertaining multiple views of the same play is that the overlaps and divergences of opinion become apparent and thereby enlighten a reader to otherwise hidden meanings. Weygandt and Kaminer take contrasting approaches to the topic of the protagonist’s level of agency and his adolescent imagination, but the ill-fitting amalgamation of these approaches offers a reader a more in depth insight into Maksim. Beumers and Lipovetsky highlight fascinating links between sexuality and violence in the play as well as the relevance of the backdrop of Russia in the 90’s. As a consequence of delving into the various aforementioned academic works, this essay has made forays into describing teenage sexuality and misogyny as depicted in the play.

Whilst Plasticine confronts an audience with abrasive language and disturbing scenes, the humanity of the young protagonist shines through. Sigarev’s own childhood experiences are refracted through the character of Maksim which creates a central figure who is at once tragic and contradictorily hopeful. It is only the preponderance of negative experiences that overwhelms Maksim so one may not attribute the failure to any inherent weakness or failure of artistic endeavour on his behalf. It is true that the plasticine boy speaks volubly in this play but the shy, damaged teenager does too.

Works Cited.

Beumers, Birgit and Mark Lipovetsky. Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama. Intellect ltd., 2009.

Dud, Yury. “Сигарев – очень дерзкий режиссер – Sigarev – very daring director.” YouTube, uploaded by vdud, 4 February 2021, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9Qmzl17Cxg.  

Jenny Kaminer. “Imagining Adolescence in Selected Works of New Russian Drama.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 113, no. 1, 2018, pp. 190–216. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5699/modelangrevi.113.1.0190. Accessed 20 October 2022.

Sigarev, Vassily. Plasticine. Translated by Sasha Dugdale. Nick Hern Books, 2002.

Weygandt, Susanna. “The Structure of Plasticity: Resistance and Accommodation in Russian New Drama.” TDR (1988-), vol. 60, no. 1, 2016, pp. 116–31. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43832630. Accessed 12 October 2022.

Bug

Play title: Bug.
Author: Tracy Letts
First performed: 1996
Page count: 77

Summary

Tracy Letts’ play, Bug, explores the topic of paranoid delusions. To be specific, Letts gives a theatrical representation of an infectious, psychological disorder traditionally known as folie à deux which accounts for the spread of a delusion. There is the delusion, the manner by which it spreads, but always at the core of the story is the itch caused by a persistent bug!

The central characters in the play are Agnes White and Peter Evans. She is a lonely, middle-aged woman who lost her son and whose abusive ex-husband has just been released from prison. Evans is a mentally disturbed war veteran who appears to have no links with family or friends, he’s just a drifter who makes most people feel “uncomfortable” (Letts 20). Agnes and Peter meet by chance and then begins the progressive unravelling of both their states of sanity. Fuelled on alcohol and crack cocaine, the lovers begin to entertain the delusion that they are infected with government implanted, biological bugs. Their descent into utter madness and depravity is compelling and disturbing. Lett’s explores various themes like isolation, poverty, gullibility, mental illness, conspiracy theory, and murder.

Ways to access the text: reading/watching.

The text of Bug is free to read online via the Internet Archive. Existing members of Scribd will also be able to access the text. The playscript is reader-friendly but on account of the visual and auditory nature of many of the key scenes, a theatrical or cinematic viewing would be recommended.

There is a movie version of the play which is also entitled Bug and for which Tracy Letts wrote the screenplay. The movie was released in 2006 and was directed by William Friedkin. It stars Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon. Please note that the theatrical play and the film versions are not identical.

Why read/watch Bug?

Folie à deux.

In quite rare cases, it is possible for a deluded person to ‘infect’ someone close to them with a fixed delusion. This psychological phenomenon was first labelled as folie à deux in 1873 by Lasegue and Falret but is now more commonly known as induced delusional disorder or shared psychotic disorder. The common factors in such cases are that the individuals are usually biologically related or in a romantic relationship, are isolated from society, and the delusion in question relates to persecution or hypochondriacal issues. The ‘inducer’ is one of several terms used for the person, normally of higher intelligence, who infects the second person or ‘acceptor.’ In Bug, the aforementioned terms describe Peter and Agnes, respectively. The play is an imaginative space for an audience to explore this fascinating disease of the mind that spreads like a virus!

A love story.

It is with some trepidation that one would describe Bug as a love story, however the playwright himself described it as such. The obstacles to seeing the tale as romantic are obvious and numerous, such as drug abuse, paranoia, bereavement, manipulation, murder, and madness. Despite the fact that Agnes and Peter’s relationship is tainted by all of the aforementioned negatives, they still sustain a love that lasts until the end. Agnes is the more relatable of the two characters due to her everywoman status. She is initially sceptical of Peter’s stories but she ends up worshiping him and his ideas. Agnes has an undeniable, underlying loneliness which makes her vulnerable to con men and ‘nut cases’ but she can’t see the warning signs when Peter, an attractive younger man, shows an interest in her. Letts portrays a bereaved woman whose missing child is most likely dead and whose abusive ex-husband threatens to return, and then Agnes sees an opportunity for a new start.

Post reading discussion/interpretation.

“The Bugged-Out Folly of Two.”

Introduction.

Sometimes, just sometimes, naming something makes it easier to understand. Take for example, Peter’s attempts in Bug to accurately name the particular you-know-what that bit him. The bug is subjected to an exhaustive list of potential names during the discussion between Peter and Agnes. It’s a … bug/aphid/bedbug/louse/lice/termite/thrip/tick/flea! (Letts 35-36). Peter sticks with aphid and he’s almost sure too. Luckily for an audience, naming things is somewhat easier when you’re not smoking a rock of freebase from a pipe in a dingy motel room. The things that one needs to name in Bug are quite simple. First, there is the delusion, and then there is the manner by which it spreads. The particular delusion that affects Peter and then Agnes is called delusional parasitosis or Ekbom syndrome (you choose). Then there is the method by which the delusion is spread from Peter to Agnes and this has the name of folie à deux, or a long list of more modern, alternative names! Polyonymy is the word used to describe something that has many names – like Peter’s bug. What surprises one about Lett’s play is that the seemingly insane characters are not wholly adrift in an incomprehensible mind-space but, surprisingly, are relatively understandable through the use of just a few simple terms. What’s more – their madness is not without causation – the bugs only emerge when a series of key criteria are met and sustained. In this essay, the aim is to dissect the brand of ‘crazy’ depicted in Lett’s famous play. The play was written in the 1990’s but remains relevant in the context of contemporary society which grows increasingly concerned about spyware and the bugging of devices, the reliability of online information, and the motives of those at the top.

“It’s a fucking bug” (Letts 35).

The simple, one work name of the play encapsulates the entire problem. In Bug, Tracy Letts very effectively exploits one of the commonest human fears, the fear of creepy-crawlies. In a review of Bug for The New York Times, Ben Brantley asks – “have you ever been to a play that made you itch all over?” because this is how most audiences predictably reacted to the theatrical experience. From a more scientific perspective, Nancy Hinkle writes that “Humans have an atavistic fear of infestation and parasites, which signify uncleanness and shame; perhaps this deep-seated repugnance explains the uniformity of ES experience” (179). ES refers to Ekbom syndrome, a condition where an individual suffers from an infestation by an invisible bug! Invisible does not refer to some ingenious, bug camouflage but denotes that the insect is not real. Another name for the same condition is delusional parasitosis. Peter Evans suffers from this delusion and Agnes White soon shares it.

The play’s effectiveness in unsettling an audience relies upon an audience’s misplaced, sympathetic bond with the onstage characters. In truth, “ES is not a phobia, as the individual is not afraid of insects but rather convinced that they are infesting his or her body” (Hinkle 178). Bewley et all. explain that the condition “is a true delusion, i.e., a fixed false belief, rather than a phobia (a persistent irrational fear)” (161). An audience member viewing a theatrical performance of Bug will be equally engrossed and grossed-out by the onstage spectacle. One will come to notice the slightest itch, maybe innocently caused by clothing but now attributed to a disgusting, hidden bug. All the while, the play is really representing madness and that little itch that anyone can experience is sometimes the first sign of one’s descent into a delusion. In short, one is hooked by the ingenious premise of the play and one is held in its grip until the tragic end arrives.

Ekbom syndrome/delusional parasitosis.

The only thing more engaging than watching someone scratch at an invisible bug is the prospect that you will soon catch it too. Hinkle writes that “One of the most unusual features of ES is folie à deux, in which another person … develops ES as well. This ‘psychological contagiousness’ develops in about one third of cases, with the second patient echoing the inducer’s behavior and conviction of infestation” (181). Bewley et al. make the observation that “In many cases the aetiology [of delusional parasitosis] is unknown. It may follow a real infestation, be associated with recreational drug use (especially alcohol, amphetamines, cannabis and cocaine), be a dementia-related psychosis in the elderly, and be associated with other organic disease” (161). Letts depicts Agnes and Peter as heavy drinkers and both of them regularly freebase cocaine in the motel room.

In addition to a high level of substance abuse which in itself will make individuals more susceptible to delusions, Hinkle notes three important commonalities of patients presenting with Ekbom syndrome, namely social isolation, paranoia, and a major life event. Patients have the instinct to self-isolate because they fear infecting others. It is ironic that Agnes lives in a motel room as she inadvertently mimics the actions of ES sufferers who often abandon their family homes and end up moving from hotel to hotel, but the bugs always follow them. In regard to the problem of paranoia – “patients’ explanations for their conditions are outlandish conspiracy theories, including that the government has released genetically modified organisms that are infecting them” (Hinkle 182). Peter earnestly believes that the US government has carried out experiments on its own citizens and that he is just one of many victims (Letts 58). The inclusion by Hinkle of major life events as a contributory factor to the onset of ES is quite enlightening – “Many patients recount a significant emotional experience just prior to development of their symptoms” (182). Peter was posted in Syria as part of the US army’s campaign against Iraq in the early 1990’s and he ended up in a mental hospital due to some form of breakdown. Agnes lost her six year old boy, Lloyd, and her ex-husband (Lloyd’s father) has just been released from prison and wishes to reunite with her thus stirring up old memories. Both Peter and Agnes have gone through major life events and are both experiencing emotional turmoil in the present moment and thereby are more susceptible to delusions. Nevertheless, what is confusing for an onlooker is how Agnes actually catches Peter’s madness.

Folie à deux

Through watching Bug, an audience encounters a rare psychological disorder known as folie à deux. David Enoch and Hadrian Ball are the authors of Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes, in which they give the following definition of the disorder.

“The term folie à deux includes several syndromes in which mental symptoms, particularly paranoid delusions, are transmitted from one person to one or more others with whom the apparent instigator is in some way intimately associated, so that he, she or they also come to share the same delusional ideas” (179).

Among the many alternative terms for folie à deux are some catchier ones (excuse pun) like “contagious insanity” (180) or “communicated insanity” (180). Folie à deux is the traditional term which is widely known and to which Letts himself refers when describing the play. The psychological disorder is not contagious in the way one encounters a contagious disease, so it requires some explanation. For example, one may have numerous psychotic patients in a mental hospital who hold various delusions but their madnesses do not, in the main, spread to any other patients (195). No, it takes a very specific set of circumstances to facilitate the transfer of madness from one individual to another. In numerous case studies of the disorder listed by Enoch and Ball, the common factors are issues like social isolation, paranoid schizophrenia, and the sufferers’ delusions of being persecuted in some manner. Letts’ depiction of folie à deux is flawless in that he represents a set of circumstances and characters for whom this disorder would indeed quite likely affect.

Social isolation is a clinical feature of folie à deux that is well represented by Agnes and Peter. For instance, they predictably exhibit the “shared delusions … [of] two or more persons who live in close proximity and who are usually relatively isolated from the outside world and its influences” (192). Agnes lives in a motel room on the edge of Oklahoma city and she has been so isolated of late that Ronnie accuses her of having “hermitized” (Letts 16) herself. Although Peter moves into Agnes’s abode, the room remains a strange, apart space which eventually doubles as a protective bunker. Goss highlights the couple’s odd detachment from the outside world by drawing attention to the absence of a TV in the room. He says, “How’re you supposed to know what’s goin’ on in the world? Jesus, we might get invaded by Martians or something. They could be evacuatin’ the whole dang city right now, ’n you and me’s sittin’ here with our thumbs up our butts” (44). For Peter, the scary, external threat is not aliens but an imagined complot led by government and army officials. Peter fears a ‘they’ who are not Martians but unethical people in power who will stop at nothing to maintain the “status quo” (67). Ironically, the maintenance of the status quo is itself a factor in the emergence of folie à deux in isolated communities and specifically in isolated families (Enoch and Ball, 191). Peter unwittingly reveals his own desire for dominance and control when he psychologically projects his motivations onto an external adversary. Only when Agnes is cut off from her former support network will she begin to adopt Peter’s paranoid philosophy without resistance. Isolation is of prime importance in cases of folie à deux since one person is always shown to have ultimate control of the environment.

To comprehend the dynamic of the relationship between Peter and Agnes, one also needs to address the theme of power as explored in Bug. Folie à deux is often classified into subgroups, one of which is folie imposée which is characterized by a dominant, more intelligent partner who is gripped by a delusion and then imposes this upon the more submissive, suggestible partner (Enoch and Ball, 193). This power play is subtle since the delusion cannot be forced upon the submissive partner but instead, they must be won over. In general, the delusions are “of a persecutory or hypochondriacal content” (192). Peter is doubly afflicted because he fears the ultimate persecutor – the man in control, plus the method of persecution is a bodily invader, a crawling bug that lives beneath the skin. This illness of the mind for which Peter is a carrier, must be successfully transmitted to Agnes so that he is not alone in his madness, but secure in a couple. One may assert that he is a paranoid schizophrenic on account of his symptoms and this is the third factor already mentioned as a keystone for the development of folie à deux.

Agnes’s mental infection.

A salient question is how Agnes gets enveloped in, and then intoxicated by, Peter’s delusions. If one accepts that the play’s female lead – a divorced woman who does bar work and lives in a hotel room – is representative of a large element of society, namely the working poor, then why does she succumb so easily to Peter’s crazy conspiracy theories? She represents the average Jane (or Joe) and because she works in a honky-tonk, one would expect her to be reasonably savvy. Understanding Agnes’s path from smart-mouthed sceptic to fawning devotee relies on an understanding of her broader life circumstances. The factors which are most pertinent are the loss of a child, the return of an abusive ex-husband, poverty, and loneliness. The clinical feature of folie a deux that correspond to these circumstances are depression, poverty and isolation.

Letts charts the degeneration of Agnes chiefly through her weakening will power. Peter, who has the air of an authority figure, bombards his partner with his strange narrative until she finally breaks, but this is a process rather than a single episode. Additionally, the timing of Peter’s arrival coincides with the most opportune stage of his delusion – the early stage. Enoch and Ball quote Coleman and Last (1939) who “laid down the fundamental aetiological pre-requisites for a case of folie à deux” (194). The first prerequisite is that “the inducer must be in the early stages of illness, that is, before he becomes completely withdrawn from reality, in order to be able to positively influence the induced” (194). Although Peter is in the early stages of his delusion, his manner and conversation are still odd enough to alert the average person to a problem.

At first, Agnes is understandably suspicious of the stranger who Ronnie has brought along to the motel room. Agnes protests that she doesn’t know him and that he could be some “maniac DEA ax murderer, Jehovah’s Witness֨” (Letts 14). She later accuses Peter of being a “con” (22,41) on several occasions. This happens first when he says he just wants a friend rather than sex, and again when he strenuously objects to her asking the hotel manager to spray the room for bugs. However, her suspicions quickly abate. A pivotal interaction between Agnes and Peter happens on the first night when he professes to have been bitten by a bug which he then shows her. Her successive responses regarding the visibility of the bug slide all too quickly towards appeasing her new lover – “I don’t see it … I’m not sure … I guess” (34-35). At a later stage, when Peter’s delusions have become more entrenched and worrying, he can no longer accept a sceptical response and therefore when the dermatologist’s damning assessment of Agnes’s skin problem is revealed, Peter forces her to either confirm or deny the existence of the bugs. She acquiesces to his demand and confirms the bugs exist, prompting Peter to affirm – “then your doctor is lying to you” (52). When Ronnie threatens to take Agnes away, thus removing her from Peter’s crazy influence then his reaction is to go into a sudden frenzy as if the bugs are devouring him. Peter’s extravagant scene, resembling an epileptic fit, forces Agnes to choose between her friend and her lover, and Peter wins. Peter’s tactics are doubtless unconscious and a result of his paranoid delusions yet they still represent highly manipulative steps to force his lover to choose him.

On the other hand, one gradually discerns what motivations Agnes has to accept Peter’s tall tales as the play progresses. For instance, there is the sexual allure of Peter who is younger than her and quite handsome. Ronnie teasingly tells Agnes – “Play your cards right, maybe you’ll get bred” (15) and she later describes Peter as “Johnny Depp” (19). Intimacy could act as an antidote to Agnes’s loneliness. She may also consider a relationship with Peter as a means of escaping her newly returned ex-husband, Jerry, who is both violent and dangerous. As highlighted by Enoch and Ball, isolation is a strong contributory factor to the emergence of folie à deux and Agnes is certainly isolated and lonely. Peter picks up on her loneliness (20) which Agnes may have mistakenly read as the mark of a sensitive man and she later confides in him that she gets scared at night-time (33). Agnes’s history with Jerry who was controlling and physically violent has groomed her to accept another controlling partner. Yet, despite these factors, it is still not readily understandable why she would tolerate Peter’s delusions and begin to share such delusions too.

The bond that Agnes establishes with Peter must contain a significant benefit for her that outweighs his apparent illness. However, such a proposition may induce one to conclude that Agnes is mentally deficient or insane. Interestingly, Peter tells Agnes – “I don’t think you’re just some simpleton I can take advantage of” (42) but the mere articulation of this thought exposes the possibility that he views her as inferior to him, at least intellectually. Peter secures his bond with Agnes by guiding her through two crucial tests. The first is the ultimatum previously discussed where Agnes chooses Peter’s version of events over the dermatologist’s and as a result she loses her only true friend, Ronnie. Enoch and Ball quote Pulver and Blunt (1961) to provide an example of how the relationship bond in folie à deux is typically cemented.

“The dominant partner provokes the submissive one into accepting his delusions rather than risk the deterioration of a close and gratifying relationship. Folie à deux thus keeps the pair united but increases their detachment from the world of reality” (197).

The dynamics of a folie à deux relationship as described above reflects the nature of the bond between Agnes and Peter. Even though Agnes may not be fully aware of her dilemma, she describes it perfectly when she tells Peter – “I don’t know why I love you so much … Seems like all we ever talk about is bugs. I guess I’d rather talk about bugs with you than talk about nothin’ with nobody” (57). Her existence has become so stripped of meaning that anything is better than her solitary existence and her “lousy life” (57).

Despite the fact that Agnes chooses Peter, she still retains some scepticism especially as his story becomes more indulgent in regard to the touted military conspiracy to infect him with bugs. With some trepidation, Agnes tells Peter – “maybe you’re just lookin’ for a connection to the army … so you’re more liable to see one” (59). Peter then lures Agnes to join him in his tumble down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories when he invites her to find meaning where no meaning actually exists. This is the second crucial test for Agnes, the first being the rejection of the dermatologist’s opinion. Peter simply poses the question – “What don’t you know?” (68) which is an invite for Agnes to construct a link between Peter’s delusion and the mayhem that is her own life. The link will allow Agnes to explain her misfortune. Persecutory delusions are at the core of folie à deux and Agnes begins with enthusiasm to implicate everyone of importance in her life as participants in a conspiracy to steal her child, Lloyd. In addition, she imagines that the same group of people allowed her to be unknowingly used as part of a medical experiment by the military.

Returning briefly to the aetiological pre-requisites for a case of folie à deux, one finds that – “sharing the induced delusion must be of some advantage to the induced person” (Enoch And Ball, 195). Agnes comes to willingly participate in Peter’s delusion when she realises that it serves as an amelioration of her own responsibility in her child’s disappearance. She left her child unattended in a public place (Letts 69) and she is later weighed down with guilt over his disappearance. Agnes now holds the delusion that she is the “super-mother” (Letts 71). She is transformed from someone whose life is in turmoil to the elevated status of god-like mother, even if only as parent to a parasite who refuses to abandon her. She is no longer one of life’s losers but a central character in a war of good versus evil.

This train of thought leads her and Peter to conclude that they need to kill the bugs so that mankind can be saved. While they never openly describe it as a suicide pact, their mutual self-destruction is necessary to exterminate the bugs. Even though suicide pacts are rare, “antisocial behaviour including theft, violence, murder and suicide pacts associated with folie à deux have been reported” (Enoch and Ball, 206). Peter escalates the situation by murdering Dr. Sweet, believing that the doctor is a machine created by the military. Peter and Agnes are also afraid of Goss who tries to force entry into their hotel room. They now feel trapped and in a moment of panic, Peter says – “We’ll fight them. To the end … To the death” (Letts 74). The scene concludes with Peter striking a match in the gasoline soaked room.

The shock effect of the final tragic scene depicted by Letts is intensified when one considers that the truth is always available to Agnes. Maybe it is for this reason that the playwright toys with tautology, for example Peter’s exhaustive list of names for the bug when he will just resort to calling it a bug anyway. Or the many names that a knowledgeable audience member will be able to sort through when identifying the type of paranoia Peter suffers (infectious parasitosis/Ekbom syndrome) or the means of infecting others (folie à deux/etc). Which word, if any, will serve as a key to unlock the madness?

The sceptical voice.

In Bug, one witnesses the sharply delineated lines between scepticism about, and emersion in, an idea. Letts lends credence to the belief that sanity and madness are as dichotomous as black and white and then he painstakingly dismantles that security of belief. The play depicts a scene of horror not simply because of what happens at the conclusion but more importantly, how easily someone can get drawn into the madness.

There are three obviously sceptical characters in Bug, namely R.C. (Ronnie), Jerry Goss, and Dr Sweet. Each of these characters quickly and effectively challenge Peter and thereby expose his madness. For example, Ronnie takes Agnes to a dermatologist whose professional opinion is that “her [Agnes’s] sores were ‘self-inflicted” (53) and R.C. then confronts Peter with the apparent truth of the situation – “She’s done this to herself, just like you” (53). Jerry, though a despicable character, nonetheless also sees right through Peter when he observers the young man doing bug experiments using “a kiddie chemistry set” (43) and subsequently remarks – “you’re pretty much just jackin’ off here, aint’cha?” (45). Jerry sarcastically says that he’s glad Peter is taking good care of Agnes and isn’t just some “weirdo freeloadin’ cokehead” (48). The description is wounding yet wholly accurate. The third individual, Dr. Sweet, is the most threatening to Peter since the doctor knows that Peter was in a mental hospital. If Peter’s illness is convincingly exposed by the doctor, then the entire story of military experiments will be exposed as the chaotic ramblings of a mentally ill man.

The sceptical voices expose the truth of the situation but Agnes is unable to hear the warnings due to her own investment in Peter, and by extension, her investment in his story. In short, the sceptical voices fail to protect Agnes, instead they force her into a series of consecutive flawed decisions. Only Dr. Sweet knows to appeal to Agnes’s unresolved trauma over losing Lloyd as a means of extracting her from the grip of a madman but the doctor is sacrificed before she can escape. Agnes get locked into a delusion like a prisoner behind a metal door and to understand why, one must look at the source of the delusion – Peter.

Peter’s delusions.

Peter Evans appears to be a fairly harmless guy, even if he is somewhat withdrawn and odd at first. However, he soon shows evidence of paranoia when he warns Agnes about the radioactive element called “americium-241” (Letts 24) used in smoke alarms. Peter is factually correct but only his paranoia can transform a household smoke alarm into a threatening object. One experiences an irritation because of the half-truths of Peter’s many otherwise outrageous claims. An audience is unsettled when a statement needs to be assessed rather than joyfully dismissed as madness. In other words, the seed of doubt is successfully sown. It is only much later that an audience learns from Dr Sweet that Peter has previously “been diagnosed as a delusional paranoid with schizophrenic tendencies” (61). The complication of Peter’s madness is that not everything he says is illogical or paranoid. Peter warns Agnes that “people can do things to you, things you don’t even know about” (31) and he blames this state of affairs on the nature of the modern world where personal safety is no longer possible due to “the technology, and the chemicals and the information” (31). Letts wrote the play in the 1990’s but Peter’s fears are more relevant than ever considering online media articles with titles like – “Smart Devices Are Spying on You Everywhere, And That’s a Problem” (Science Alert).

The difficulty with Peter’s crazy talk is that he refers to real cases where the military and government attempted to control and also harm people. To support his own claim that the army has used him as a guinea pig for an experiment, Peter refers to two well-documented examples of official misconduct by arms of the state – “feeding LSD to enlisted men at Edgewood Arsenal … [and] watching those poor fuckers in Tuskegee die from syphilis” (58). Regarding Edgewood, it is on the public record that “For two decades during the Cold War, the United States Army tested chemical weapons on American soldiers at Edgewood Arsenal … they [the soldiers] were exposed to chemicals ranging from mustard gas and sarin to LSD and PCP” (The New Yorker). The second case that Peter references is “the ‘Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,’ a secret experiment conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the progression of the deadly venereal disease — without treatment” (Brown). This study ran for forty years until 1973 and even though penicillin became the standard treatment for syphilis from the mid 1940’s, this antibiotic was deliberately withheld from the men participating in the experiment thereby guaranteeing that they would eventually die from/with syphilis. When one mixes such real life travesties with Peter’s own conspiracy theories then the truth becomes less black and white, less tangible for an audience.

All of Peter’s theories stem from his steadfast belief that the army has implanted a bug within his body, specifically beneath the filling of a tooth! Peter has already seen the bugs on his skin and he feels them too. One finds truth in Peter’s story but not in the expected way since, “Heavy repeated doses of cocaine have also been known to cause paranoia and organic psychosis; and habitual coke users, like speed freaks, have experienced the frightening hallucinations and sensations of bugs crawling beneath the skin” (Crittenden and Ruby). The play, Bug, opens on a scene where Agnes is “smoking a rock of freebase out of a pipe” (Letts 14) and she and Peter are subsequently shown to be habitual users. Kyle Ruggeri explains that “Powerful uppers such as cocaine and meth have many dangerous side effects, but one is just plain creepy. It’s called coke bugs. Other names are Meth Mites, Crack Bugs, and Amphetmites”. Ruggeri goes on to detail how addicts, “will cut themselves and itch themselves until they’re bleeding to get the bugs off”. For Peter, the bugs are frighteningly real and the perverse truth is that many drug users experience the same bugs. One cannot negate Peter’s visceral experience simply by asserting that the bugs are a manifestation of a drug-addled mind.

Peter manages to convince Agnes because he acts as an informed authority figure who manages to mix truth and falsehoods without recognising the differences himself. He alleviates Agnes’s loneliness, he convinces her that the bugs are real, and most importantly – he let her buy into the story in a way that takes away her pain over Lloyd.

Conclusion.

The magnetic pull of Bug is thanks to a compelling mix of creepy-crawlies and madness. Letts creates a strange environment in the little motel room outside Oklahoma city where a seemingly normal woman is drawn into an amazing delusion which she later adopts as her own. If one identifies at any level with Agnes who initially sees Peter as an oddball character then the implication is that anyone could find themselves in this position of voluntarily submerging themselves in craziness to escape the hardships of an unhappy life. The potential lifelines of sceptical friends and even medical professionals are shown to be totally impotent in the face of a rabid delusion. The horror of the scene is the logical expectation that it will inevitably spiral out of control. There is no indication that anyone or anything can help and there is no magic word to unlock the spell. Letts presents his audience with a maleficent bug lodged in the mind and it’s the scariest thing of all.

Works Cited.

Bewley, A.P. et al. “Delusional Parasitosis: Time to Call It Delusional Infestation.” British Journal of Dermatology, vol. 163, no. 4, 2010, pp. 899-899

Brown, DeNeen L. “You’ve got bad blood’: The horror of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.” Washington Post, May 16, 2017.

Crittenden, Ann and Michael Ruby. “Highs, horns and bugs crawling.” The New York Times, September 1, 1974.

Enoch, M. David and Hadrian N. Ball. Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes. 4^th ed., Oxford University Press, 2001.

Hinkle, N.C. “Ekbom Syndrome: A Delusional Condition of ‘Bugs in the Skin’”. Current Psychiatry Reports, vol 13, 2011, pp. 178-186.

Letts, Tracy. Bug. Dramatists Play Service, Inc, 2005.

Ruggeri, Kyle. “What Are Cocaine (Coke) Bugs or Crack Bugs?” Sober Dogs Recovery, https://soberdogs.com/what-are-cocaine-coke-bugs-or-crack-bugs/. Accessed 21 September 2022.

“Secrets of Edgewood.” The New Yorker, December 21, 2012.

Rope

Marriage chest (cassone). ca. 1480-95, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Play title: Rope
Author: Patrick Hamilton
First performed: 1929
Page count: 82

Summary.

Patrick Hamilton’s play, Rope, begins with a murder. A young man named Ronald has been killed by two of his fellow Oxford university students, Brandon and Granillo, and they have hidden his body in a chest. The murderers who share a house in Mayfair, have invited a selection of people for drinks and snacks the same evening. The guests include Ronald’s unsuspecting father, and a young poet named Rupert Cadell. Using the excuse that the room is cluttered with books, the killers have the buffet dinner served on top of the chest that contains the corpse. The purpose of Brandon and Granillo’s actions is to enhance the thrill of having committed the perfect murder! They plan to leave for Oxford once their guests have departed. The major themes of the play are murder, homosexuality, punishment, and the English class system.

Alfred Hitchcock famously brought the play to the big screen in the 1948 classic, Rope, which starred James Stewart. Hamilton’s other famous works include the play, Gaslight, and the novel, Hangover Square.

Ways to access the text: reading/listening/watching

The play is available via the Open Library, Internet Archive, and is also on Scribd for members. The text of Rope is quite reader friendly and may be enjoyed like a thriller.

Multiple audiobook versions of the play are available on YouTube.

One may watch the movie version of Rope directed by Hitchcock but please note that the text has been adapted for the screen.

Why read/watch/listen to Rope?

_{The perfect murder.}

Brandon and Granillo believe that they have committed the perfect crime. Its perfection is explained by the clinically uncomplicated nature of the murder: passionless, motive-less, faultless, clueless, bloodless, and noiseless (Hamilton 10). The trail is apparently cold, even for the most persistent sleuth. Ronald Kentley has been killed only so his killers may experience the immense thrill of taking another’s life. The plan is that the body will never be found, guaranteeing the killers’ immunity from the British justice system. However, the killers’ plan is enormously ambitious to the point of hubris. Despite their best efforts, some faults have been made and Hamilton brings one on a familiar journey of clue detection in his elegantly constructed plot.

_{The relevance of real-life inspiration.}

Patrick Hamilton is often credited with basing Rope on the famous, American case of Leopold and Loeb. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were students at the University of Chicago when they kidnapped and killed a twelve-year-old boy in 1924. However, Hamilton dismissed speculation that his drama was based on the notorious, criminal couple. The denial, though probably sincere, makes the similarities between the two crimes no less fascinating. Leopold and Loeb, like Brandon and Granillo, had a penchant for the philosophy of Nietzsche, and believed that their intellectual superiority to the common man gave them a degree of natural immunity from society’s prosaic rules. Most interestingly, neither of the real-life killers was sentenced to death, but instead to life imprisonment. The ending of Rope presents the destiny of Brandon and Granillo (freedom/death) as a fait accompli, but the real-life example raises an important question mark over one’s confidence that things will play out as expected!

Post reading discussion/interpretation.

_{The Hidden Marriage Ritual in Hamilton’s Tale of Murder.}

_{Introduction.}

In the introduction to the first publication of Rope (1929), Patrick Hamilton wrote, “I have gone out to write a horror play and make your flesh creep” (viii-ix). Not only did the author succeed in creating a gripping, suspenseful work due to a finely crafted plot, but the subject matter is indeed so horrifically perverse as to be utterly unsettling. The central allure, as with many such works, is with the character of the murderer(s). Numerous writers before Hamilton had been fascinated by murderers and their handiwork. For example, in Intentions, Oscar Wilde wrote an essay entitled, “Pen, Pencil and Poison,” about Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, a suspected, English serial-killer who had “an extremely artistic temperament … being not merely a poet and a painter, an art-critic, an antiquarian, and a writer of prose, an amateur of beautiful things … but also a forger of no mean or ordinary capabilities, and as a subtle and secret poisoner almost without rival in this or any age” (32). Of even more renown in literary terms is Thomas De Quincey’s famous satirical essay, “Murder, Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” De Quincey comically positions himself as one who seeks to expose “The Society of Connoisseurs in Murder” (188) which is a group of “Murder-Fanciers [for whom] Every fresh atrocity of that class, which the police annals of Europe bring up, they meet and criticise as they would a picture, statue, or other work of art” (188). Wilde and De Quincey focus on murderers, both historical and imagined, whose crimes are considered to have great, artistic merit. Hamilton’s famous play is perfectly positioned amid such works because he creates fictional, dandyish murderers in the London of the late 1920’s, yet they bear an astonishing resemblance to the infamous, real-life Leopold and Loeb who were a couple of handsome, Chicago killers whose own exploits had dominated news headlines just a few years earlier in 1924. Since Rope straddles the realms of fiction and reality, one may assess the work without moralistic dourness, and enjoy it as Hamilton evidently intended.

In Rope, the protagonist, Wyndham Brandon, professes to have committed, “An immaculate murder. … I have killed for the sake of danger and for the sake of killing” (10-11). However, under some scrutiny, the murder of Ronald Kentley appears to hold a tangible motive after all, even if it is expertly secreted within the text. Much like the missing evidence in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Purloined Letter,” which was concealed, paradoxically, by being left in plain sight, Hamilton similarly hides a motive in the chest that is positioned centre stage in his play. An audience knows from the outset that the chest contains a corpse, so what else is there? In an essay about Ira Levin’s play, Deathtrap, Jordan Schildcrout gives a synopsis of that particular play which may enlighten one about Rope. He describes a “thriller about two men who must remain in the closet with two secrets: they are lovers – and murderers” (Schildcrout 44). Brandon and Granillo are self-confessed killers but are they lovers too? Or is this to overread Hamilton’s gay subtext and erroneously conflate the play with Leopold and Loeb’s story? The first major clue lies, quite literally, in the chest. In an essay by Brucia Witthoft, named “Marriage Rituals and Marriage Chests in Quattrocento Florence,” she explains that “The chests, or forzieri, were used to transport the material part of a bride’s dowry from her father’s house to her husband’s. Subsequently they became part of the bedroom furniture, serving as storage and seating” (43). The chest in which Ronald’s body is hidden is identified as a “cassone” (26) by Sir Johnstone Kentley. To clear up any possible confusion over different terms for the chest, one may refer to DuBon and Diskant who explain, “The Italian word “cassone” – from the Latin capsa – now accepted into the English language, is the name by which the Italian Renaissance chest is generally known … Other terms, known from contemporary inventories and documents, are forziere and cofano, sometimes used interchangeably with “cassone”’ (19). Therefore, the chest in Hamilton’s play is a marriage chest. In light of this information, can one assert that the body of Ronald now hidden in the cassone represents a marriage dowry? Just like Wilde and De Quincey, one must delve into the artistry of murder to discover the full significance of the chest. The thesis of this essay is that Hamilton indeed presents us with a marriage ritual at the centre of his horror play.

Since Rope is now nearing its centenary, it has been subjected to rigorous literary analysis many times. The current reading requires some considerable groundwork before the thesis may be proven. The killers must be established as queer (read homosexual), the significance of the chest must be outlined, the idea of a motiveless murder must be challenged, the dinner party (feast) must be scrutinised, Rupert as the sleuth must be critiqued, and finally, one may look at the denouement of the play.

_{Queer characters.}

It is not possible to have a marriage ritual if the central characters are not first in love. If Brandon and Granillo are gay men and also in a relationship, then what evidence of this appears in the text? The gay subtext of Hamilton’s play has long been noted but what substantiates this observation?

One may begin rather superficially with Brandon’s and Granillo’s attire and manners – but by viewing these as marks of deception. In “Pen, Pencil and Poison,” Wilde explains that “A mask tells us more than a face” (34) and he then proceeds to describe the killer, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who “determined to startle the town as a dandy, … [with] his beautiful rings, his antique cameo breast-pin, and his pale lemon-coloured kid gloves” (34). One may compare this description with Hamilton’s stage directions which describe Granillo as “expensively and rather ornately dressed in a dark blue suit. He wears a diamond ring. He is enormously courteous” (15) and Brandon, who “is quietly and expensively dressed, with a double-breasted waistcoat … and perfectly creased trousers … [he has] and air of vague priggishness and self-approbation” (15). The men’s sophistication of dress and refined, even moralistic manners expertly hide the fact that they have just committed a gruesome crime by strangling a young man. The masks they wear hint at homosexuality while simultaneously hiding so much. Schildcrout points out that, “The exploitation of queer duplicity has a long and well-documented history in the theatrical thriller” (45). Hamilton presents his audience with two privileged, Oxford students who are hiding a horrible secret and their masks alert us to this potentiality. Schildcrout explains that “The sinister threat of the traditional thriller is based on the duplicity of the killer who deceptively tries to conceal her/his identity thereby creating a crisis of identity” (45). Establishing Brandon and Granillo as duplicitous characters because their polished, refined facades hide their true characters is the first step in labelling them as queer, if only in the sense that they are oddities due to the stark disjunction between impression and reality. Of course, Hamilton goes on to depict his characters in a way that allows one more assuredly to link this queerness directly to sexual practice which interconnects with the ‘queer duplicity’ to which Schildcrout refers.

The word queer is used by various characters, commencing with uses in the traditional sense of something being odd or strange, but progressing to uses that imply sexual identity and practice. For example, Leila politely challenges Brandon by observing that “this is a most mysterious and weird meal … Such a queer time, to begin with” (24). The not-quite-right feeling that the evening induces will lead Leila to suggest later, “I think they’ve committed murder, and it’s [the chest’s] simply chock-full of rotting bones” (33-34). Rupert is also attuned to the strange atmosphere of the evening and unexpectedly tells Brandon, “I have just thought of something rather queer” (43) and he reminds Brandon of his childhood obsession with telling stories which always ended with “a bloody chest containing corpses” (45). Rupert describes the coincidental overlap of Leila’s amusing hypothesis and Brandon’s childhood mania as “Oh, nothing. Just queer, that’s all. You were a morbid child” (45). However, the queerness of the stories threatens to taint Brandon’s very identity. The final step occurs when Rupert walks in on Brandon and Granillo arguing (over the Coliseum ticket). Brandon says, “You didn’t know that Granno and I behaved like that, did you, Rupert? But we often have outbursts, like this – and always about trifles … We do quarrel about queer things nowadays, don’t we, Granno?” (52; emphasis added). Brandon’s obfuscation of the real reason for the quarrel immediately and inadvertently reveals to Rupert the truth of the domestic situation of the two men. After all, Brandon and Granillo live together and have jointly hosted a dinner party, and here they are, in a moment of privacy from their guests, engaged in a blazing row, so it should not be shocking that they are indeed a romantic couple. The odd behaviour, the dramatic outburst over trifles, the queer things they fight over, are all coded references to the men’s homosexuality.

There are other incidental clues that emphasize the gay subtext of the play. For example, Sabot, who is the waiter occasionally hired by Brandon and Granillo is described as “not, perhaps, completely impersonal – his employers being in the habit of making occasional advances to him” (17). This may suggest sexual advances aka offers of work of a different nature, an argument bolstered by the fact that Rupert asks Sabot if he “had been getting into any trouble” (41) with his employers. Rupert asks due to the “hysterical noises” (41) he heard over the telephone, which incidentally are repeated later by Granillo when he “Gives a terrible, piercing, falsetto scream” (77). Even though the play is in the genre of horror/thriller, there are these elements of high camp as well as broad, sexual innuendo. Take for example, Brandon’s opening question to a distraught Granillo – “Feeling yourself, Granno? Feeling yourself again, Granno?” (10). In the context, the wording denotes the hoped for return of Granillo to a relaxed composure, but the phrase is also highly suggestive of masturbation. After all, the murder is committed for the ephemeral thrill it will induce and one should not discount a sexual element to this feeling. Also, of note here, Kenneth Raglan is later introduced as the boy who fagged for Brandon at school, and fagging refers to an English public schools’ tradition where younger boys acted as personal servants to older boys, which often led to sexual abuse. Therefore, when Rupert tells Granillo, “You look rather fagged out … What have you been doing with yourself?” (37), then the question echoes the initial question and holds the same sexual connotations, as if Granillo, as Brandon’s current servant, has been up to something that he ought not, like feeling himself! One only becomes alert to such double meanings when one is already alert to the presence of queer duplicity.

Of great importance to a reading of the play is the fact that Rupert is also a coded, gay character. There are quite subtle hints at first, for instance the fact that Brandon describes him as “fastidious” (14). In Hamilton’s stage directions one finds the following description of Rupert – “He is enormously affected in speech and carriage…His affectation almost verges on effeminacy, and can be very irritating” (27). Such a description is an old-style stereotype of the homosexual male. Confirmation of Rupert’s sexuality may be seen in his response to Brandon’s question, if he had broken the 7^th commandment (You shall not commit adultery). Rupert responds, “Committed. Since infancy” (62). All forms of sexual activity done outside of marriage, including homosexuality, are seen as breaking the 7^th commandment. Since homosexuality is not a choice but a sexual orientation from birth then Rupert’s response seems to confirm his homosexuality. However, the 7^th commandment for Catholics is – Thou shalt not steal – and Rupert goes on, after an interesting pause, to refer to stealing property, yet it is far more likely the true reference is to the 7^th commandment as observed by the Church of England, namely adultery. Hamilton’s sleight of hand here may be interpreted as further obfuscation. Rupert’s sexuality becomes a crucial factor in how he eventually deals with Brandon and Granillo.

The fact that Hamilton depicts three of his characters as homosexual does not of course automatically make them killers. On the other hand, as Schildcrout has outlined, queer duplicity is a popular motif in dramas, even if it is derogatory and prejudicial. The apparent link between the characters’ sexuality and the crime may be inferred from the case of Leopold and Loeb. One may compare the fictional Brandon to the real-life Leopold who Edward J. Larson describes – “Leopold was bookish, scholarly, easily offended and attracted to virile young men” (127). Ronald Kentley was an athlete and thereby matches the victim profile. Larson goes on to describe how the real-life killers were “Psychopathically dependent on each other, they had entered into a secret pact in which Leopold assisted Loeb to commit crimes in return for sexual favours” (141). While Brandon and Granillo are clearly not identical to Leopold and Loeb, the comparison allows one to begin to contemplate what motive, sexual or otherwise, may have been behind the murder of Ronald Kentley.

_{The marriage chest (cassone).}

The chest that holds the corpse, situated at the centre of Hamilton’s play, is normally seen as a mere receptacle rather than a vital clue. This peculiar item of furniture is the focal point of the stage play and yet has received so little attention in critical terms. By choosing a marriage chest, surely Hamilton wanted to arouse our interest and impart some clever, hidden message. The chest is first identified by Sir Johnstone Kentley as follows:

“Sir Johnstone (peering at chest). That’s not a Cassone, is it?

Brandon. No, sir. It’s not genuine, it’s a reproduction. But it’s rather a nice piece. I got it in Italy.”
(Hamilton 26)

Brandon explains that it is not an original cassone, but an imitation. An imitation can be read as a sign that this is part of a mock marriage ritual or in other words, a gay marriage since homosexual practices were still illegal in Britain in 1929. Therefore, the fake nature of the item does not rob it of relevance but rather adds to its meaning. Since Brandon purchased the chest in Italy then it is far more likely he is aware of how the item was used traditionally.

Extracting meaning from the chest require some insights into how they were used in the marriage ritual. Witthoft explains that “Florentine Renaissance wedding chests were usually bought by the groom’s family” (43). As previously outlined, the chest would have held the new bride’s dowry. The macabre dowry now concealed in the chest is Ronald’s dead body and one may still interpret it as an offering from bride to groom, or in this case, groom to groom. Furthermore, there is a tantalizing hint that Brandon as the purchaser of the chest (groom’s side) receives the dead body as Granillo’s dowry which makes Granillo the true murder! This helps to explain Brandon’s almost perfect composure versus Granillo’s flustered, defensive state and subsequent over-reliance on alcohol to calm his nerves. Additionally, it shows that Granillo needs to bring an offering to secure the mock marriage, a proof of his merit.

The chests were usually quite elaborate, “Their shape (large, narrow, coffin-like boxes) was appropriate for keeping linens; their flat tops made them easy to sit on; but the iconography of their painted side panels was determined by the nature of the marriage procession” (43). The eerie, coffin-like shape of the chest makes Brandon’s words more arresting – “And here is a chest, from which we’re going to feed” (26), especially if one interprets the dinner buffet as a wedding feast. There is no indication that Brandon or Granillo held any prior grudge against Ronald Kentley so the feasting at his symbolic grave indicates a grievance by the couple against society in general. This hidden hatred, possibly the hatred of men whose lives are constantly restricted due to their sexuality, explains the drive required to commit such a heinous act.

There is also a link between the chest and Brandon and Granillo’s Nietzschean leanings. Witthoft writes that, “Marriage chests became classical in inspiration because they were chosen by men whose humanist education stressed ancient writings as moral guides” (54). Despite the fact that we receive no information on the chest’s decoration, the denigration of Ronald’s body as a party-piece reflects Brandon’s reading of Nietzsche because some gifted individuals are understood to be above the general masses and therefore not subject to the same laws. A modern text becomes the moral guide for killers to seal their mock marriage.

The planning of a perfect murder, as Brandon labels it, takes expert planning. The logistics of a marriage and murder are quite similar in this regard. When cassone were in use in Italy, “Examples drawn from ricordi and from published sources show that three to six months commonly elapse between the giuramento [legal agreement to marry] and the consummation of the marriage” (Witthoft 44). Leopold and Loeb put meticulous planning into their infamous murder and Brandon and Granillo evidently planned Ronald’s death well in advance given that they sent prior dinner invitations and have arranged to leave for Oxford on the night of the murder. There is nothing haphazard about the scene.

_{Dismantling a motiveless murder.}

Brandon recounts the day’s events to Granillo, saying, “That is the complete story, and the perfection of criminality – the complete story of the perfect crime” (13). On the surface, Brandon and Granillo’s crime quite strangely lacks a motive. However, murder is generally motivated by some gnawing need or uncontrollable passion; it is rarely carried out in a dispassionate manner. Oscar Wilde once wrote that, “Crime in England is rarely the result of sin. It is nearly always the result of starvation” (47). Of these two options, Hamilton’s killers are clearly sinful rather than needy, and sin implies free will and therefore a conscious choice to do a certain thing. Due to their claim of perfection, the sin is not simply that of murder but of pride too (the seven deadly sins). The concept of perfection is equally suggestive of artistry, and De Quincey explains how, “People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed—a knife—a purse—and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to attempts of this nature” (191). Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who considered himself an artist and certainly no common criminal, murdered his wife’s mother, a Mrs. Abercrombie, but “Why he murdered Mrs. Abercrombie is not ascertained. It may have been for a caprice, or to quicken some hideous sense of power that was in him, or because she suspected something, or for no reason” (Wilde 44). The motivation for Brandon and Granillo’s killing of Ronald Kentley is similarly undetermined, explainable only as the pursuit of a thrilling sense of power and the result of excessive pride. However, is this answer sufficient for an audience? Pride usually comes before a fall. For example, is this a very human murder i.e., a flawed one? The real motive may become clear after the mirage of perfection has been removed.

The perfect crime does not exist. Brandon realises the couple’s weakness when he exclaims to Granillo – “Look at this! The boy’s Coliseum ticket. It was on the floor. We could hang on that!” (16). Similar to the Leopold and Loeb case, a simple error threatens to disqualify the murder from the claim that it is perfect. Larson recounts that, “The first major lead in the investigation came from the eyeglasses found near Franks’ [the victim’s] body” (126). These glasses belonged to Leopold and soon led the investigators directly to the murderous pair. In Rope, Rupert’s suspicion is aroused by the Coliseum ticket and Granillo’s generally defensive responses. While both couples were first time murderers and therefore mistakes would likely occur, their crimes still tentatively claim the title of perfection due to the disinterested manner in which the victims were chosen. We know from the trial of Leopold and Loeb that, “They had decided to murder someone, it did not matter who” (Larson 128). During their trial, a psychiatrist testified that, “It was a desire on the part of Richard Loeb to commit a perfect crime, a desire on [Leopold’s] part to do whatever Richard Loeb wanted him to do” (143). If one superimposes this scenario onto Brandon and Granillo’s case, then the murder is indeed a strengthening of the relationship bond between the men. The “motiveless murder” (63) is chiefly an “engrossing adventure” (63) that the men enter into to impress one another. Does this mean the motive is love?

The dark and macabre gift that lies inside the wedding chest is Ronald’s dead body. How can love be interpreted as a motivation for such an act? Rather than a random victim, Ronald was chosen as the victim for a specific reason. Brandon’s boastful claim that the murder is motiveless is a sham. In fact, the murder of Ronald is motivated by the marriage ritual. The first clue rests in Kenneth Raglan’s uncanny resemblance to Ronald Kentley. Brandon tells Kenneth, “he is the living image of yourself … Same age. Same height. Same colour. Same sweet and refreshing innocence” (21). At a later point in the evening, Sir Johnstone confirms the likeness, prompting Kenneth to say, “I’ve a double apparently” (31). The only significant difference is that Brandon tells Kenneth that he is “getting positively fat … Nothing like the little boy who used to fag for me at school” (21). This history between Brandon and Kenneth is important since fagging in school often led to sexual exploitation of a younger boy under the command of an older boy. There are definite hints of Kenneth’s old adoration and possible infatuation with Brandon when he remembers how he thought Brandon an “absolute hero in those days” (22). When Kenneth tremulously tries to get the key to the chest from Brandon on Leila’s request (59), one witnesses the sort of homoerotic, rough and tumble of boys’ games, but Brandon is still by far the stronger of the two men. The crux of the matter is that Kenneth Raglan is a classic doppelgänger of Ronald Kentley with even their initials reversing like in a mirror image (K.R – R.K). The killing of Ronald is symbolic because he is a substitute for the now chubby Kenneth, who was likely Brandon’s first sexual experience. The murder represents the sacrifice of a former love who is now stashed in a marriage chest, signalling the consecration of a new, homosexual relationship. The corpse becomes the dowry that Granillo presents to Brandon to prove his love, or vice versa.

Rupert also asserts that a motiveless murder does not exist. He says, “Vanity. it would be a murder of vanity … the criminal would be quite unable to keep from talking about it, or showing it off – in some fantastic way or another” (63). Rupert only partially recognises the killers’ motivation since he does not appreciate the true significance of the chest and the dinner.

_{The wedding feast.}

Is the dinner party truly the wedding feast of a duplicitous, queer couple? One is tempted to accept Rupert’s claim that a murderer would wish to expose his horrible deed due to vanity. The truth is quite the contrary, because when Brandon explains that “the entire beauty and piquancy of the evening will reside in the party itself” (12-13), he is referring to the thrilling experience only he and Granillo will share. Yes, his guests will come “for regalement” (12) but the joke will be on them. For instance, Sir Johnstone Kentley who is a kindly, harmless old man is viewed quite differently by Brandon, who says – “It is he, as the father, who gives the entire macabre quality of the evening” (13). One understands why Kenneth has been invited since he is a doppelgänger. Additionally, on account of his awkward flirtations with Leila, Kenneth represents the silly, unintellectual world of heterosexuals! Rupert sarcastically refers to the pair as “Love’s Young Dream.” (68). The assorted guests are merely puppets in a twisted game created chiefly by Brandon.

The chest is both a coffin and a banquet table. Prompted by Leila’s fanciful suggestion that it is a murder chest, the following exchange occurs which is rich in dramatic irony.

“Sir Johnstone: But surely your murderer, having chopped up and concealed his victim in a chest – wouldn’t ask all his friends round to come and eat off it.

Rupert (slowly): Not unless he was a very stupid, and very conceited murderer.”
(Hamilton 34)

It is correct to assume that Brandon and Granillo wish to keep the murder a secret, otherwise they will face the law. As intelligent men, they wish for a thrill but not to the point of risking their safety. What is more, the privilege of viewing the contents of the chest is solely the preserve of Brandon and Granillo. The chest holds many secrets because, as Witthoft explains, “About half of those chests surviving whole are decorated on the inside of the lid with a more intimate kind of marital symbolism” (52). This included male and female nudes and “The nuptial significance is meant to be concealed, and to show itself only to the betrothed pair. This contrasts with the public nature of the outside of the chests” (Witthoft 52). The corpse corresponds with the idea of intimate material for several reasons. First, Ronald is Kenneth’s double and therefore his body constitutes a taboo offering from one lover to another. Second, since Ronald died by strangulation, the corpse may display priapism and may also be naked, much like a traditional painting on the inside of a cassone. The eventual reopening of the chest will be done by the couple on their own and signifies the commencement of their marriage.

The couple plan to take the chest with them when they drive to Oxford that same night. Their beds have already been dismantled in the Mayfair house so there is nowhere to sleep (53). As the last act in their marriage ritual, they will leave to begin their mock honeymoon with a very symbolic and important piece of furniture that will likely adorn a new bedroom. The utter thrill of the evening was constituted by the fear of being exposed as murderers. Like a newly married couple on their wedding day, the men felt like the centre of attention except that the reason was quite secret. Granillo says of Rupert, “I thought he got on to it” (69) and Brandon responds, – “But that’s what gave piquancy to the evening” (69) followed by an assurance that they were safe. Rupert turns out to be a more competent investigator than Brandon expects.

_{The sleuth.}

Rupert is the sleuth who will finally expose the killers’ secrets. Brandon describes his dinner guests in advance of their arrival, saying that Rupert is “intellect’s representative” (14) at the party and “is about the one man alive who might have seen this thing from our angle, that is, the artistic one” (14). The killers perceive an alliance with Rupert because they are socially bonded through their elite, educational backgrounds but also their homosexuality. The amateur detective will be forced to take a side when he challenges his friends. Hamilton constructs the plot so that one fully comprehends what dirty secrets Rupert is potentially going to expose. As per one’s expectations of a character with a superior intellect, Rupert says, “I’m coming to the conclusion that there’s some ulterior motive about this chest picnic” (33). However, Brandon’s meticulous planning means that the killers never perceive Rupert as a major threat. Brandon knows Rupert and having assessed his character, has decided not to include him in the murder because, “He could have invented and admired, but he could not have acted” (14). Rupert is evidently brilliant but impotent too. This calculation of Brandon’s comes fully to light at the close of the drama when he tells Rupert, “You can’t give us up. Two lives can’t recall one. It’d just be triple murder … You’re not a murderer, Rupert” (84). Hamilton exposes Brandon’s grievous miscalculation by making Rupert the hero who indeed acts against the two men and decisively so too.

There is a quite significant message of homophobia embedded in the justice achieved at the close of the play. As a gay man, Rupert is alert to the minefield of living a double life, the complications of living differently in public and private realms, façade versus truth. Therefore, when Brandon is threatened by Rupert’s persistent questioning, he cunningly attempts to side-line Rupert’s suspicions about murder by offering a proxy confession of homosexuality which was a crime in 1920’s England. Brandon is relying on the expectation that Rupert is unlikely to pursue the issue due to his own compromised position. Brandon appears to expose a major vulnerability to his friend, but it is little more than a Trojan horse to disarm Rupert. Brandon is playing on the stark reality that, “Marginalized minorities are more easily intimidated as long as they are stigmatized, ashamed, and afraid of public exposure – in short, in the closet” (Schildcrout 43). It is as though Brandon is letting a trusted friend in on a secret. Surprisingly, Rupert is not dissuaded by, nor sympathetic to Brandon’s pleas of a domestic issue, a “certain trouble” (77) between him and Granillo, which does not concern others.

“Rupert: No, Brandon, it may not be anything to do with me. But it may possibly be something to do with – with the public in general – and I’m its only representative in this room. Won’t you tell me?”
(Hamilton 78)

The confrontation is cleverly structured by the playwright so that the crimes of murder and homosexuality are totally conflated. It is true that Rupert suspects murder, but he has only a gut feeling and Brandon’s defensive tactics mean the secret could just be a homosexual relationship. Rupert is shown to reject either reason as a private matter. Rupert is suddenly depicted as a representative of proper masculinity with his swordstick (78) and a representative of moralistic society with the whistle he got from a police officer (79). Brandon persists in hinting that he and Granillo are a couple, telling Rupert, “I imagined you’d got on to the real truth – which’d have been devilish awkward” (80). When Rupert nonetheless insists on seeing inside the chest then it represents a revelation of the couple’s bedroom secrets, the piquant scene. The contents of the marriage chest are for the newlyweds alone, but Hamilton exposes it to a third party and Rupert is “contemptuous and horror-struck” (82). It may be viewed as poetic justice from conventional society’s point of view that the queer couple are betrayed by a fellow gay man. However, there is an unmistakable cost to Rupert too.

As a fictional tale, one may appreciate the art of the scene with the red curtains and upholstery of the room (9), and an ornate marriage chest at the centre. The dead body is just one aspect of a much more complex, perfectly arranged plan which constitutes the killers’/lovers’ dark art. De Quincey writes about how, “Everything in this world has two handles. Murder, for instance, may be laid hold of by its moral handle, (as it generally is in the pulpit, and at the Old Bailey;) and that, I confess, is its weak side; or it may also be treated æsthetically, as the Germans call it, that is, in relation to good taste” (192). Rupert grasps murder exclusively by the moral handle and even makes a distinction between “being brought to the Old Bailey … [and] being brought to justice” (60). The main reason that Brandon and Granillo are exposed, their Achilles heel, is the contrived ritual of the entire evening which is solely and secretly a means of solidifying their homosexual relationship. The marriage chest, the victim who resembles an old love, the feast; these make up the artistry of the murder. Rupert is the homosexual insider who rejects all this to cleanse himself of any possible association. The cost of his heroism is sexual repression. He becomes the somewhat soured, closet homosexual who sneers at heterosexual couples like Kenneth and Leila and holds equal condemnation for those like him.

_Conclusion.

Hamilton’s horror play is literally about murder, but implicitly a tale of gay marriage sealed with an elaborate, ritualistic killing. Just like in Levin’s Deathtrap, an audience is presented with a male couple with two key secrets. The action of the play, most notably Rupert’s moralistic stance against Brandon and Granillo, shows how conventional society will win out in the end. The gay subtext of the play then becomes an afterthought, even though it is central to one’s understanding of what motivated the murder. In the Chicago case of Leopold and Loeb, Larson explains that “Although the Hulbert-Bowman report detailed the sexual practices and preferences of both defendants, including their mutual masturbation and Leopold being exclusively attracted to men, at the time even writers with access to it did not mention these matters in their published articles and books” (147). Reminiscent of such censorship, Hamilton relies on an audience’s covert understanding that the men who commit the murder are also morally corrupt aka homosexual without ever saying it outright. It is now an outdated, dramatic tactic but had long been effective in associating crime with so-called sexual deviance.

The ending of Rope foresees a tragic, albeit just fate for Brandon and Granillo, yet, it remains unwritten, unconfirmed, a blank last page. The couple who sought the ultimate, depraved thrill now receive their just desserts since their fears mount anew on account of their undetermined punishment. Rupert states, “It is not what I am doing Brandon. It is what society is going to do. And what will happen to you at the hands of society” (85). De Quincey explains that in a case of murder, “old women, and the mob of newspaper readers … are pleased with anything, provided it is bloody enough” (222). The obscener the crime then the more draconian the court’s likely response. Rupert, as the voice of the masses, tells the two men – “You are going to hang, you swine! Hang! – both of you! – hang!” (86). The immense threat is that the two privileged, upper-class, secretly queer men will be exposed to mob justice, the crowd baying for blood. However, we never see the men hang. If one looks to Leopold and Loeb, the prosecutor trying their case, Mr. Crowe, boasted – “I have a hanging case and would be willing to submit it to a jury tomorrow” (128). Yet, neither man was hanged! As per Hamilton’s own protestations, this is not a biographical play, but a work of pure fiction and one may therefore admire the art of murderers just like Wilde and De Quincey. The revelation of a marriage ritual at the spotlighted centre of Hamilton’s play is as unexpected and thrilling addition to the traditional murder plot. One’s flesh creeps just a little to think that it may all have happened on account of love.

Works Cited.

De Quincey, Thomas. The Collected Works of Thomas De Quincey. Pergamon Media, 2015.

DuBon, David, and Eda Diskant. “A Medici Cassone.” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 73, No. 317, 1977, pp. 18–24.

Hamilton, Patrick. Rope. Constable and Company Ltd., 1957.

Larson, Edward J. “An American Tragedy: Retelling the Leopold-Loeb Story in Popular Culture.” The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 50, No. 2, 2008, pp. 119–56.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Purloined Letter and Other Works. Halcyon Press, 2013.

Schildcrout, Jordan. “The Closet Is a Deathtrap: Bisexuality, Duplicity, and the Dangers of the Closet in the Postmodern Thriller.” Theatre Journal, Vol. 63, No. 1, 2011, pp. 43–59.

Wilde, Oscar. Intentions. Rowland Classics, 2009

Witthoft, Brucia. “Marriage Rituals and Marriage Chests in Quattrocento Florence.” Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 3, No. 5, 1982, pp. 43–59.

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