A Mix of Traditional and Digital: How the Raw Shark Texts Blends the Old and the New to Create a Contemporary Novel

December 2021

Contemporary literature has entered a new realm: it is now forced to reckon with the digital age. Yet, this is not the first time that a drastic shift in literature has occurred. The book itself was revolutionary. In Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age by Jessica Pressman, Pressman notes that “we forget that the book was once the new media raising concern about its potential power[1]. The book, too, was once unknown, perhaps frightening. This same mindset, the fear of the unknown, is reflected in today’s digital world. Now the concept of “the book” is under threat. Katherine Hayles cites Pressman in her article “Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts as a Slipstream Novel”: “Fear rather than necessity is the mother of invention; [Pressman] proposes writers turn to experimental fiction to fight for their lives, or at least the life of their novel”[2]. Thus, the digital challenge to our society’s definition of a book calls on contemporary writers and creators to experiment and dabble with the unknown.

Steven Hall experiments with this unknown in The Raw Shark Texts, carefully balancing the traditional book with the new digital world. Hall evokes literary tradition by exploring lost written mediums and breaking descriptive imagery down to its most basic form. He challenges this literary tradition by exploring the digital realm, appropriating code as its own language and publishing 36 “Un-Chapters” in hidden online locations. This combination of old and new makes The Raw Shark Texts a look into the contemporary genre, challenging what is expected of tradition but embracing it too.

Steven Hall breaks imagery down to its most basic form. He does so by creating images out of descriptive language. In doing so, he metaphorically brings writing and description back centuries. The construction of the Orpheus is a prime example; Steven Hall draws a key diagram of the boat with a list of 14 different descriptions of objects varying from planks to computers to a desk fan. These objects carry individual significance yet are not described as a cohesive unit. In other words, it is up to the reader to imagine how the boat will come to life. Eric Sanderson poses this problem to Dr. Fidorous: “it’s just stuff […] if the shark comes, are we, what, going to climb up on those boxes and play Ahab or something?”, to which Dr. Fidorous responds: “You’re quite correct. It’s just stuff […] But the idea these things embody, the meaning we’ve assigned to them in putting them together […] that’s what’s important”[3]. The boat comes to life through the words (the individual objects) that compose it. This is how description works, the words spark an image in a reader’s head and they themselves connect the dots. This becomes even more literal with the flipbook series of the Ludovician Shark. Over the course of thirty pages, an image of the shark composed of words emerges from the depths of the pages. The shark, which preys on memories, is composed of the words: “I feel like I’ve forgotten something important”[4]. This is the ultimate literalistic representation of imagery. The shark’s purpose as a memory stealer is molded into its image on the page. It is composed of its meaning, just as imagination is drawn from description on the page. This text-based imagery is an exploration into the basics of writing, examining how we interpret words, imbue meaning, and create – in the act of reading – a story in participation with the text.

Hall employs lost printed mediums throughout The Raw Shark Texts as a way of embracing written tradition. Letters from Eric Sanderson #1 are scattered throughout the book, always addressing Eric Sanderson #2. In Letter #2, Eric Sanderson #1 writes: “Dear Eric, I used to know so many things. The things I learned, the ways I learned to see and the things I believed possible”[5]. There is great emphasis on the passing of time in this letter; the past tense and the destruction of “what used to be” are the basis of this letter. It is notable that letters too are a medium that “used to be”, now replaced with email and text in its myriad digital forms. Thus, this letter not only encompasses content from the past, but is made up of written communication of the past. The letters continue: In letter #205, Eric Sanderson #1 writes: “Dear Eric, Six months. Are you still with me?”[6]. The continuation of these letters emphasizes the passing of time. Thus, although the world may continue to modernize (and although so much of the novel is based on futuristic technologies), these letters remain. These letters, accompanied by postcards and newspaper clippings, are a look into the past. Letters and post cards replaced with email and text, printed newspaper articles replaced with online media, diary entries replaced with social media rants, the world’s printed forms are quickly evolving (or disappearing). Thus, Hall’s decision to embrace these lost texts signifies a deeper connection to literature and makes his novel traditionally “bookish.”

Hall has included tradition in his novel by exploring description’s connection to image and meaning. He has also embraced tradition by utilizing lost written practices. These methods enable his novel to be a novel in our customary use of the word. Yet, Hall also experiments with the unknown, employing tactics from the digital age to create a hybrid traditional and contemporary (trademporary) story.

Just as old written mediums are scattered throughout the text, so are codes. In the Light Bulb Text encryption detailed in Letter #111, there is morse code transcribed using letter charts. The second part of the code uses the layout of a typewriter or computer keyboard[7]. There are other types of code used throughout The Raw Shark Texts as well, including what is described as a QWERTY code that is encoded on a standard QWERTY keyboard. Thus, there are various codes used throughout the text that are needed to establish meaning. Just as the alphabet is used to create language and meaning throughout a novel, Hall utilizes code to create clues and understanding throughout his novel. This is a clear dive into the technological sphere; the blend of computer science and literature is an incredibly modern approach to writing. It is on the opposite side of writing physical letters or printing physical newspapers, but it comes as a combined experience in this contemporary novel. The QWERTY code is key because when Dr. Fidorous and Eric Sanderson decode this, they create diagonal arrows that resemble the letter “e”[8]. This letter “e” is an indicator that “There’s more to The Light Bulb Fragment”, or rather, that there is a second piece of related writing lost from the physical text[9].

These lost pieces of writing are known as the “un-chapters”, a group of texts that are hidden online in a type of un-space. This is a play on real lost texts throughout history, ranging from the lost Greek tragedies to the lost Biblical texts. Hall tells his readers that “for every chapter bound into this book, there is an un-chapter, a negative, existing somewhere beyond its covers. Some are several pages in length, some just a couple of lines. […] Some are online, hiding. […] By now, some are lost forever”[10]. These 36 un-chapters have ignited a cult following online; groups of people communicate in online forums, such as Reddit, aiding one another in their quest to locate each chapter. One Reddit forum I discovered was titled: “Let’s go on a negative-chapter search, because we’re not scared”[11]. The dialogue in this forum discusses lost fragments including the “Aquarium Fragments” with fans providing links to these lost chapters. Most of these links have been destroyed or lost, primarily leading to “server not found.” Hall has truly experimented with what is bookish; half his novel is not in The Raw Shark Text’s printed form. He has utilized the technological world to publish his work. At the same time, Hall has a physical copy (though unfinished) of his novel. This fusion of tangible and intangible is what makes Hall’s novel so contemporary. The texts are not lost in the physical sense (thrown to the wind of time, lost in the dirt), but they are missing in the digital, negative-space of the world.

There is a fundamental mix of what is bookish and what is contemporary in the Raw Shark Texts. This unique mix is exactly what makes this novel so contemporary. It does exactly what Pressman proposes writers do: “turn to experimental fiction to fight for their lives, or at least the life of their novel”[12]. This experimental combination of “old and new” cultivates in the title of the novel, a play on the “Rorschach Test.” The Rorschach Test is simply a blot of ink on paper, just like writing once was. Yet, the test goes further than this: it explores the science behind our human intuition (imbuing meaning where it may not exist) through psychological analysis, algorithms, and other tools. Thus, it is the perfect combination of tradition and future, it combines what is comfortable with what is unknown. The title of the novel is reflective of a greater trend throughout the story, one that combines literary custom with the futuristic digital age: a notable contemporary experiment.

Bibliography

Hall, Steven. The Raw Shark Texts. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2007.

"Let's Go on a Negative-Chapter Search, Because We're Not Scared." Reddit (blog). Entry posted 2012. Accessed October 11, 2021. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRawSharkTexts/comments/11ghww/lets_go_on_a_negativechapter_search_because_were/.

N. Katherine Hayles. "Material Entanglements: Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts as Slipstream Novel." Science Fiction Studies 38, no. 1 (2011): 115-33. https://doi.org/10.5621/sciefictstud.38.1.0115.

Pressman, Jessica. Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020.

[1] Jessica Pressman, Bookishness: Loving Books in a Digital Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020), 26.

[2] N. Katherine Hayles, "Material Entanglements: Steven Hall’s <em>The Raw Shark Texts</em> as Slipstream Novel," Science Fiction Studies 38, no. 1 (2011): 120, https://doi.org/10.5621/sciefictstud.38.1.0115.

[3] Steven Hall, The Raw Shark Texts (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2007), 302.

[4] Hall, The Raw Shark, 361.

[5] Hall, The Raw Shark, 63.

[6] Hall, The Raw Shark, 77.

[7] Hall, The Raw Shark, 73-76.

[8] Hall, The Raw Shark, 293-295.

[9] Hall, The Raw Shark, 296.

[10] Hall, The Raw Shark

[11] "Let's Go on a Negative-Chapter Search, Because We're Not Scared.," Reddit (blog), entry posted 2012, accessed October 11, 2021, https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRawSharkTexts/comments/11ghww/lets_go_on_a_negativechapter_search_because_were/.

[12] N. Katherine Hayles, "Material Entanglements," 120.

Authorship and Readership: How the Digital World Has Changed the Linearity of Narratives

December 2021

Society now consumes much of its literature on the internet. Whether through online newspapers, microblogs, social media, e-books, fanfictions, or advertisements “Westerns who are active on the Internet arguably read more in their daily lives than they ever have before”[1]. This prospect is frightening to many who fear that reading online is a threat to paperback book culture and printed resources. But this is not entirely founded: out of the adult population who read resources online, 77 percent of them also read printed books[2]. Thus, there is a notable population of people who have consumed traditional literature and are now transferring their reading-comprehension skills into the online world. In Wendy Sutherland-Smith's article “Weaving the Literacy Web: Changes in Reading from Page to Screen”, she argues that “Web-based text permits nonlinear strategies of thinking […] is interactive, with the reader able to add, change, or move text; and enables a blurring of the relationship between reader and writer”[3]. What is nonlinear in the Internet realm, then? Nonlinear encompasses authorship, graphics, hyperlinks, interactivity, commentary, community, and every other way that technology interferes with our traditional, straightforward approach to reading.

In this paper I will examine two sides of nonlinearity: authorship and content. Authorship is no longer linear; the communal aspect of commenting and interactive engagement with resources has shifted who the author is and how an individual becomes one. Similarly, content has undergone a shift; one that relies on hyperlinks. I will explore how hyperlinks also manipulate authorship and enable the reader to distort linearity and “play with” the narrative.

Authorship is changing, it is becoming a communal process. In Julie Coiro’s article “Exploring Literacy on the Internet: Reading Comprehension on the Internet: Expanding Our Understanding of Reading Comprehension to Encompass New Literacies”, Coiro argues that “web-based text environments are, by their very nature, interactive. Readers are invited to coauthor online texts”[4]. A prime example of a digital platform that cultivates communal writing and reading are media outlets and their comment sections. These comment sections are a new approach to participating in literary culture, compounding the knowledge available on these sites. They open the floor to dialogue, reflection, and debate. “Readers [now] expect to be able to comment on what they read”, reflecting on our newfound entitlement to authorship[5]. The New York Times is a media outlet that offers a comment section, and within the comment section, a “Reader’s Picks” and “Editor’s Picks”, highlighting noteworthy feedback and commentary. In Sherry Turkle’s Opinion Piece “The Flight from Conversation”, Turkle discusses society’s online presence and public authorship, claiming our new motto is “I share, therefore I am”[6]. Her piece ignited 307 comments, one of which (named Nothin2hide) argues: “Those brief virtual connections are true conversation, even if abbreviated and incomplete”[7]. Nothin2hide is just as much an author here as Sherry Turkle; yes, Turkle is the credited and cited author, yet a reader absorbs content from both contributors. Nothin2hide’s comment, which was highlighted in the Reader’s Picks section, was recommended nine times. These nine people (though small) represent a group of people who exited the page having considered both Turkle and Nothin2hide’s point of view. Thus, authorship is nontraditional in our online world. Commentors, observers, and reflectors carry similar power to that of professional authors. As a result, a reader can flip back and forth between the article and the comment section to further understand the piece. A reader can leave their own feedback and engage with writing. The lack of direction and narrative in authorship and readability is what makes this online source nonlinear.

Engagement with authors can contribute to and manipulate the original narrative. Rather than a media source which is compounded by feedback (leaving it up to the reader to combine text and comment), there are also live narratives which adapt to the likes and dislikes of the audience participating. Social media is an example of this conversation between audience and author; Twitter, a platform for writing “a maximum of 140 characters”, “was employed to improve writing, to develop reflection, and to [expand] the class community"[8]. The 2021, A24 movie “Zola” is based on a 148-tweet twitter thread by Detroit-based stripper, Zola. On October 27, 2015, Zola tweeted: “Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense” (A24 Films)[9]. In the subsequent 147 tweets, Zola tells the story of a road trip to Florida with Jessica, “Jessica’s maudlin boyfriend, Jarrett; and Jessica’s violent Nigerian pimp, ‘Z’. Tricks get turned, a hustler gets murdered, Jarrett leaps from a four-story window”[10]. This live narrative received a remarkable amount of online attention, with tweets showing 700 or more shares on average. As a result of these live reactions “Zola [admitted] to embellishing some of the more sensational details – Jarrett's suicide attempt, Z shooting the pimp – for entertainment value […] When she posted on Twitter, she was caught up in the moment, she explains, riffling on the reactions of her followers who were responding in real time”[11]. Who is the author in this case? Is it the person who typed the tweets, Zola, or is it the fans who influenced Zola’s story? Authorship is not straightforward in this case study, and neither is readership. Zola’s story is not only an accumulation of her influenced tweets, but a combination of the comments and live reactions she received online. Thus, the story is both a narrative and a reaction. Readership is nonlinear too; to scroll through Zola’s story means combining the bits and pieces in the 148 tweets. It also means reading the comments, thriving off of the engagement and perhaps adding your own thoughts.

Authorship in the digital world is a collaborative process. Whether through a comment section that extends the information on the page or through a live process that shapes the way an author speaks, authorship is more complicated now. While this shapes content, content is changing structurally as well. We are now interacting with hyperlinks, “a form of electronic text in which documents are linked together using an associative system”[12]. Hyperlinks, used in both fiction and non-fiction, have changed the structure and approach to how we read.

Hyperlinks have adjusted the structure of our reading, forcing a nonlinear consumption of knowledge. In the context of hyperlinks, nonlinear refers to the clicking, interacting, and reading of every “hyperlinked” tab. Our reading is never quite finished when utilizing articles with hyperlinks, we can keep consuming and consuming, clicking and clicking, moving from one topic to the next. It is an infinite process. In Alice Bell’s “Schema Theory, Hypertext Fiction and Links”, she explains that “hypertext can be traced to Vannevar Bush’s article ‘As We May Think’ in which he outlined a plan for the ‘memex’ machine, an information storage system […] the user of the memex would instruct the machine to create links between documents so as to ‘build a trail’”[13]. This “trail” is what Vannevar Bush believed to represent the way the human mind works, “[operating] by association”[14]. The famous online encyclopedia, Wikipedia (which is co-authored by volunteers), even has a non-fiction-based game dedicated towards its hyperlinked content. The game, called “Wiki-Link Game” is described as an activity “designed to waste time and life – to fill those idle moments when you can’t think of another article that needs writing”[15]. You play by arriving at the “random link page” and choosing a number between one and ten. This Nth number is the Nth hyperlink one chooses in each hyperlinked article. I played in my own experiment; the random link page brought me to a Wikipedia article about Francisco Moreira[16]. I decided that four would be my Nth number and read until I arrived at the fourth hyperlink in the article. That hyperlink directed me to a page about A Coruña[17]. I then read about A Coruña, a municipality of Galicia, until I arrived at the fourth hyperlink: seventeenth, which directed me to a page about all the municipalities in Spain[18]. I did not finish one of these articles, each interrupted by my interest in the fourth hyperlink. Thus, my reading was disrupted, nonlinear in nature. My accumulation of knowledge was also nonlinear. It was directed by an association rather than a single, straightforward narrative.

Yet, hyperlinking is not just about association, it can be about decision and narrative making on behalf of the reader. Hyperlinking, as a concept, is not a newfound phenomenon. It has existed in printed fiction for a long time, under the guise of a “create your own path” narrative. Science fiction novels, children's books, and more, offer the reader the opportunity to make a decision, and then directs them to a section of the novel that carries on with the storyline impacted by said decision. Now, these novels can also be found online, with a simple click on a hyperlinked text bringing the reader to different paths. Lance Olsen and Tim Guthrie are two authors who experimented with having a novel printed and hypertext-digitalized: “Published in the Iowa Review Web in 2005 […] [the] web-based hypertext fiction 10:01 remediates Lance Olsen’s print novel, 10:01 which was published in the same year”[19]. Thus, in 10:01’s printed version, it is “structured linearly with chapters progressing chronologically”, while in its digitized version, “the internal links […] allow readers to navigate the text in three ways”[20]. To read 10:01 online, then, is nonlinear. It requires the author to be a participant and engage with the decision making within the plot. The voice of the reader is just as important (playing pretend author), as the reader is allowed to disrupt the narrative path and navigate back and forth in the text, present and future. One character in 10:01, Trudi, remarks at 00:02:58:27: “The more you look, the more you see. The more you see, the more you want. The more you want, the more you look”[21]. This is exactly how hyperlinked content works. And notably, while hyperlinked content inherently disrupts the structure of a narrative -- whether non-fiction or fiction – it also brings authorship into question, as the traditional scholar who once held the spotlight now shares that platform with readers who choose when and where to look.

The consumption of information and literature online is nonlinear in nature. Authorship is made more complicated by readership’s newfound participation in it. Content is manipulated as a result. Additionally, content is now hyper dependent on hypertext, reshaping how we digest information and in what direction it leads us. The common thread: readers are engaging in literature in a way they never have before. They can influence authors, create commentaries, and shape the path they want to read. Perhaps the subsequent question is whether it is a positive change? That is, to have everyone given the platform of a scholar. My reader identity would argue yes: everyone in society should be given the opportunity to share their thoughts and influence others. My academic and politically conscious self would hesitate: what happens when everybody is an author? And, what happens, when we do not all have the background to become one?

Bibliography

Bell, Alice. "Schema Theory, Hypertext Fiction and Links." Style 48, no. 2 (2014): 140-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.48.2.140.

Chute, Hillary. "Comics as Literature? Reading Graphic Narrative." PMLA 123, no. 2 (2008): 452-65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25501865.

Coiro, Julie. "Exploring Literacy on the Internet: Reading Comprehension on the Internet: Expanding Our Understanding of Reading Comprehension to Encompass New Literacies." The Reading Teacher 56, no. 5 (2003): 458-64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205224.

"A Coruña." Wikipedia. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Coru%C3%B1a.

Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. "Reading (and Writing) Online, Rather than on the Decline." Profession, 2012, 41-52. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41714136.

"Francisco Moreira." Wikipedia. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Moreira.

Griswold, Wendy, Terry Mcdonnell, and Nathan Wright. "Reading and the Reading Class in the Twenty-First Century." Annual Review of Sociology 31 (2005): 127-41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29737714.

Henry, Laurie A. "Searching for an Answer: The Critical Role of New Literacies While Reading on the Internet." The Reading Teacher 59, no. 7 (2006): 614-27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20204398.

Kushner, David. "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted." Rolling Stone. Last modified November 17, 2015. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/zola-tells-all-the-real-story-behind-the-greatest-stripper-saga-ever-tweeted-73048/.

"List of Municipalities of Spain." Wikipedia. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_of_Spain.

María-Carmen Ricoy, and Tiberio Feliz. "Twitter as a Learning Community in Higher Education." Journal of Educational Technology and Society 19, no. 1 (2016): 237-48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/jeductechsoci.19.1.237.

Olsen, Lance, and Tim Guthrie. "10:01." Collection eLiterature. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/olsen_guthrie__10_01.html.

Reyman, Jessica. "User Data on the Social Web: Authorship, Agency, and Appropriation." College English 75, no. 5 (2013): 513-33. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24238250.

Sutherland-smith, Wendy. "Weaving the Literacy Web: Changes in Reading from Page to Screen." The Reading Teacher 55, no. 7 (2002): 662-69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205116.

Turkle, Sherry. "The Flight from Conversation." The New York Times. Last modified April 21, 2021. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html.

"Wikipedia: Wiki-Link Game." Wikipedia. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki-Link_Game.

"Zola." A24 Films. Accessed October 18, 2021. https://a24films.com/films/zola.

[1] Kathleen Fitzpatrick, "Reading (and Writing) Online, Rather than on the Decline," Profession, 2012, 42, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41714136.

[2] Fitzpatrick, "Reading (and," 44.

[3] Wendy Sutherland-smith, "Weaving the Literacy Web: Changes in Reading from Page to Screen," The Reading Teacher 55, no. 7 (2002): 665, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205116.

[4] Julie Coiro, "Exploring Literacy on the Internet: Reading Comprehension on the Internet: Expanding Our Understanding of Reading Comprehension to Encompass New Literacies," The Reading Teacher 56, no. 5 (2003): 460, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205224.

[5] Fitzpatrick, "Reading (and," 45.

[6] Sherry Turkle, "The Flight from Conversation," The New York Times, last modified April 21, 2021, accessed October 18, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html.

[7] Turkle, "The Flight," The New York Times.

[8] María-Carmen Ricoy and Tiberio Feliz, "Twitter as a Learning Community in Higher Education," Journal of Educational Technology and Society 19, no. 1 (2016): 238, http://www.jstor.org/stable/jeductechsoci.19.1.237.

[9] "Zola," A24 Films, accessed October 18, 2021, https://a24films.com/films/zola.

[10] David Kushner, "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted," Rolling Stone, last modified November 17, 2015, accessed October 18, 2021, https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/zola-tells-all-the-real-story-behind-the-greatest-stripper-saga-ever-tweeted-73048/.

[11] Kushner, "Zola Tells," Rolling Stone.

[12] Alice Bell, "Schema Theory, Hypertext Fiction and Links," Style 48, no. 2 (2014): 140, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.48.2.140.

[13] Bell, "Schema Theory," 141.

[14] Bell, "Schema Theory," 141.

[15] "Wikipedia: Wiki-Link Game," Wikipedia, accessed October 18, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki-Link_Game.

[16] "Francisco Moreira," Wikipedia, accessed October 18, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Moreira.

[17]"A Coruña," Wikipedia, accessed October 18, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Coru%C3%B1a.

[18] "List of Municipalities of Spain," Wikipedia, accessed October 18, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_of_Spain

[19] Bell, "Schema Theory," 148.

[20] Bell, "Schema Theory," 149.

[21] Bell, "Schema Theory," 153.

Western Contemporary Theater: How an Audience Can “Return the Favor” Through Political Debate

December 2021

It is difficult to define Western contemporary theater; some may argue that it has to do with hybrid art forms, aesthetics, or representations of our current conditions as a Western society. In April 2011, a group of curators and artists joined to discuss contemporary performance. Travis Chamberlain, executive director of Queer|Art, claimed that “contemporary performance [is] more ideal-based"[1]. Chamberlain is not wrong. Our ideals, and more so, our politics, have always been a part of performance. It is the integration of current political movements and moments that makes art so contemporary. In George Hunter’s article “Political Theater in Shakespeare – and Later”, he writes that “of all the institutions to which this enlarged sense of politics as the expression of an inescapable power relationship can be applied, none might seem to be more obvious than the public theater, an institution designed to express and convey particular attitudes”[2]. Thus, politics have always been intertwined with theater. That, as a concept, is not contemporary. Our role, as an audience, however, is. In this paper I will examine our Western audience’s relationship with theater and performance. This paper will explore the shift in how we have treated politics in theater, beginning with Shakespearean drama as an example of performing politics on stage, to contemporary performances as an example of a tool to bring politics off stage.

Shakespearean theater was cautiously political, aiming to please the audience. Its goal was not to cause controversy. Like much of theater today, Shakespeare was inspired by the environment in which he was writing. Yet, much of his drama was structured to cater to the political system rather than oppose it. When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth and King Lear (both 1606), James I was King. This undoubtedly pushed a political agenda on Shakespeare. Shakespeare presented “politicians in the plays […] [as] always strongly dramatized, and therefore, to that extent, strongly neutralized. We hear opinions for and against the citizenry, for and against a patriotic war, but always expressed by people who might be expected to hold such views”[3]. In other words, Shakespeare did not necessarily have “free reign” when writing his plays. His audience was the King and other members of the royal family. Shakespeare may have had his histories, his tragedies, his comedies, and more, all of which included the current politics, yet “it is probably true that the Elizabethan actor spoke directly to the audience […] [and] he did so without any explicitly ideological aim of the kind of: ‘Look, I am talking to you directly, because I believe in X and Y and I want you to recognize how important these are”[4]. This brings into question how political Shakespearean drama really was. Was the context he portrayed fully representative of the time? Were the questions and discussions he raised reflective of what the majority of England deserved in the 1600s?

There has been a shift in the political nature of theater. In Gabrielle Cody and Meiling Cheng’s "Reading Performance- A Physiognomy", they explain that, today, we care more about “what [contemporary performance] does for us and how we can return the favor”[5]. In a political context, this means that theater can be a tool for igniting a dialogue. Our current Western society is, for the most part, a democracy. Criticism, accurate portrayals of politics, and controversy, are thus all acceptable.  We return the favor by extending these political performances off stage and into our everyday lives.

Neither Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem (2009) nor Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men (2014) are focused on a plot. Rather, dialogue rules their plays, evoking a reaction from the audience. Both plays are straightforward, there are no riddles to be solved, they speak truthfully and directly (though perhaps sometimes too bluntly). Like Shakespeare, the performances derive from truth. In an interview with Jez Butterworth and Mark Rylance, the actor who plays the main character Johnny, they reveal that Johnny is based on a man named Mickey. It is rooted in reality[6]. The play details the tension between Johnny and the city trying to evict him from his home for an urban development plan. The play ultimately reflects how “England further urbanizes in the twenty-first century […] [with the] threat from the commercialism and control of the town”[7]. The play does exactly what it sets out to do: speak about a contemporary issue (in this case, a modern gentrification), while creating sympathetic and meaningful characters. In an interview with Butterworth, he claims that there are “no allegorical puzzles to be solved […] [and to] make of [the play] what you want to make of it”[8]. The lack of puzzles in the play, combined with the singular setting and uneventful nature of the story (driven primarily by discussion), forces the audience to take what is given to them: a contemporary moment. The expectation is that when the curtain closes, the play is not over. Discussion about town, land, class, and more, will extend into the community.

Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men operates with this same purpose, though she strategically manipulates her audience to create this off-stage conversation. Early in the play, an actor tells the audience: “Have you ever noticed how most Asian-Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with Asian parents? It’s like being raised by monkeys”[9]. A New York Times article describes a “ruffle of laughter [which] follows the speech – the audience sounding nervous but reassured”[10]. Here, the audience is forced to grapple with their own role in this performance. Who do they represent in the racial dynamic Lee is putting forth? Lee’s play is controversial, just as it was intended. More importantly, the play's political resonance does not end with Broadway. As it is reflective of a current climate of identity politics, people have found themselves debating her play – even without watching it. A comment’s section in response to a profile on Young Jean Lee, has a large discussion. ScottC reflected: “With all due respect to the playwright, not every white male lives a life of privilege. Yet Ms. Lee is quite anxious to stereotype”[11]. But, as a more informed viewer (W. Loman) responded, “So many commentors who haven’t seen this play making unimaginative assumptions about it […] This artist has managed, against the odds, to get to Broadway, and all you want to do is tear the work down because it’s not like every other play, or might make you uncomfortable?”[12] This dialogue is fascinating, in part because it does exactly what Lee wants. Her play is politically controversial with the intention of creating dialogue. Conversations, whether behind closed doors, or on a media site, need to happen, and contemporary performance is a tool to ignite them.

What can contemporary performance do for us then? It endows us with new conversations and new ways of thinking. It strikes a conversation beyond the environment of the theater. How do we return the favor to these artists? We engage in this dialogue by debating (even disagreeing) and bringing art into our everyday lives.

Politics have always been part of performance. Yet, our autonomy as artists, is a contemporary, Western privilege. While contemporary performance can influence our conversations and spark debate, their meaning also changes over time. The Book of Mormon (2014) is a prime example of this, playing with political incorrectness and poking fun at extreme religious ideologies. While stemming from reality, the meaning of the play shifted when Donald Trump was elected U.S. president. A journalist commented on this shift: “In 2014, the New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote, ‘The Book of Mormon is about the triumph of faith in fantasy.’ Faith in fantasy—be it the liberal fantasy of the first woman president or the Trump-peddled notion that his ‘great’ response to Hurricane Maria was twisted by the media—does not feel like something to sing about; it’s been weaponized”[13]. Although the Book of Mormon was first produced in 2014, its meaning carried into 2016. This contemporary performance, like many others, maneuvered its way into contemporary culture and the political scene. It is up to its viewers (and all adjacent communities), to decide how to include the performance in our navigation of current events.

Bibliography

Abrams, Joshua. "STATE of THE NATION: New British Theatre." PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 32, no. 2 (2010): 8-16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40856536.

Cheng, Meiling, and Gabrielle H. Cody. Reading Contemporary Performance: Theatricality across Genres. London [etc.]: Routledge, 2016.

Hunter, George K. "Political Theater in Shakespeare —and Later." Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 16, no. 4 (1983): 1-14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24777710.

Jeary, Lois. "Theater on Video: Not Live but Kicking." The Guardian. Last modified April 2, 2012. Accessed October 25, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2012/apr/02/taped-theatre-live-recorded-jerusalem.

Jones, Morgan. "How the LDS Church's Response to 'The Book of Mormon' Musical is actually working." Deseret News. Last modified November 16, 2016. Accessed October 25, 2021. https://www.deseret.com/2016/11/16/20600593/how-the-lds-church-s-response-to-the-book-of-mormon-musical-is-actually-working#the-eugene-oneill-theatre-and-the-marquee-for-the-book-of-mormon-are-seen-in-new-york-thursday-jan-19-2012-ap-photo-charles-sykes.

"Playwright Jez Butterworth on Jerusalem, England and Englishness." Video. Youtube. Posted by The Guardian, November 4, 2011. Accessed October 25, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efbHIyk4Nx0&ab_channel=TheGuardian.

Pujante, Belén Tortosa. "Performative Contexts in Contemporary Theatre:." In Context in Literary and Cultural Studies, by Jakob Ladegaard and Jakob Gaardbo Nielsen, 156-71. N.p.: UCL Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvfrxrhb.15.

Sehgal, Parul. "Young Jean Lee's Unsafe Spaces." The New York Times. Last modified July 18, 2018. Accessed October 25, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/magazine/young-jean-lees-unsafe-spaces.html.

"Theater Talk: 'Jerusalem' Playwright Jez Butterworth and Tony-winning Best Actor, Mark Rylance." Video. Youtube. Posted by CUNY TV, May 18, 2011. Accessed October 25, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENEoRHLuZ1I&ab_channel=CUNYTV.

Thulin, Lila. "The Trump Era Has Taken Some of the Fun out of The Book of Mormon." Slate. Last modified December 14, 2017. Accessed October 25, 2021. https://slate.com/culture/2017/12/how-does-the-book-of-mormon-play-in-the-age-of-trump.html.

[1] Morgan Von prelle pecelli et al., "CURATING CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE," PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 34, no. 1 (2012): 185, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26206384.

[2] George K. Hunter, "Political Theater in Shakespeare —and Later," Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 16, no. 4 (1983): 1, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24777710.

[3] Hunter, "Political Theater," 2.

[4] Hunter, "Political Theater," 10.

[5] Meiling Cheng and Gabrielle H. Cody, Reading Contemporary Performance: Theatricality across Genres (London [etc.]: Routledge, 2016), 1.

[6] "Theater Talk: 'Jerusalem' Playwright Jez Butterworth and Tony-winning Best Actor, Mark Rylance," video, Youtube, posted by CUNY TV, May 18, 2011, accessed October 25, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENEoRHLuZ1I&ab_channel=CUNYTV.

[7] Joshua Abrams, "STATE of THE NATION: New British Theatre," PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 32, no. 2 (2010): 11, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40856536.

[8] "Theater Talk," video.

[9] Parul Sehgal, "Young Jean Lee's Unsafe Spaces," The New York Times, last modified July 18, 2018, accessed October 25, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/magazine/young-jean-lees-unsafe-spaces.html.

[10] Sehgal, "Young Jean," The New York Times.

[11] Sehgal, "Young Jean," The New York Times.

[12] Sehgal, "Young Jean," The New York Times.

[13] Lila Thulin, "The Trump Era Has Taken Some of the Fun out of The Book of Mormon," Slate, last modified December 14, 2017, accessed October 25, 2021, https://slate.com/culture/2017/12/how-does-the-book-of-mormon-play-in-the-age-of-trump.html.

Murakami and Censorship: How Killing Commendatore Cautiously Teases Japan’s Bill 156

December 2021

Haruki Murakami (b. 1949) is a Japanese author, well known for his novels IQ84, the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Norwegian Wood, among others. Murakami spent much of the late 1980s and early 1990s abroad, beginning in Europe and later visiting as a student in the United States[1]. Perhaps as a result of living internationally, Murakami’s novels often carefully balance both American and Japanese culture. His novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985) explores Japan’s violent past, including atrocities in Manchuria[2]. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Killing Commendatore (2017), a novel that many consider an ode to the Great Gatsby by American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The influence in this novel is substantial; Killing Commendatore’s Menshiki, is a mysterious wealthy man who lives in a mansion across the water, much like Jay Gatsby[3]. Thus, while Murakami sticks to his Japanese roots, upholding Japanese culture, names, and landscapes, he also uses his novels as a platform for American literary history. This is not a welcome trait;[AH1]  many Japanese critics have accused Murakami of a “self-imposed exile” from the country[4].

Murakami’s Killing Commendatore, though inspired by the Great Gatsby, may be his latest venture into Japanese culture (perhaps pushing against this notion of “self-exile”), but with a more controversial take: censorship. Laced with sexually explicit descriptions and dialogue, Killing Commendatore has already been banned as “Class II – Indecent Materials” in China by review of Hong Kong’s Obscene Articles Tribunal[5]. Killing Commendatore is not banned in Japan, nor will it likely ever be, but it does touch upon contemporary censorship battles in the country. This paper will examine Haruki Murakami’s decision to include sexually graphic scenes throughout the novel as a manifestation of his pursuit into Japanese society and culture.

Historically, Japan has not afraid of sexually graphic, controversial images. In fact, in a 1997 article on Japanese manga by the Chicago Tribune, they claim that “Japan [is] unique for condoning public displays of raw sexual imagery and for blurring the lines between adult and child pornography”[6]. According to 7 News Australia, manga comics that depict hardcore pornography (with or without children), are seen being read everywhere, from train cars to cafes[7]. Although it is prevalent in society, this type of pornography, particularly manga, does not come without contestation. Manga has been under heat for depicting “purely fictional or imaginary characters who could be ‘recognized’ as looking like or sounding like they were under the age of 18 and who were ‘recklessly’ depicted in ‘anti-social’ sexual scenarios”[8]. In February 2010, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Office for Youth Affairs and Public Safety proposed amendments that would censor the production of these types of materials. Known as Bill 156, the amendment also suggested a filtering of youth’s devices[9]. The bill was originally rejected, demonstrating a societal hesitancy to such change. It was not until the bill removed the term “non-existent youth” (among others), that it was resubmitted and accepted in November 2010. New laws in Bill 156 included the prohibition of depiction of “sexual or pseudo sexual acts that would be illegal in real life […] in a manner that ‘glorifies or exaggerates’ [for example], [relations] between close relatives”[10]. This bill received plenty of attention in both Western and Japanese press outlets[11]. As an author, it is likely Murakami is familiar with these censorship laws. And, although Murakami has not explicitly stated knowledge of these censorship laws, manga and other sexually explicit mediums in Japan are engrained in the culture, shaping the authors whether with intention or not.

Thus, Murakami’s decision to include sexually graphic images is relevant in Japanese culture. Consider Bill 156; it specifies that any “pseudo sexual act that would be illegal [including] between close relatives”[12]. With this mind, Killing Commendatore appears to approach this censorship line carefully. The protagonist, a recently divorced portrait painter, often describes his sexual encounters (mostly affairs) with unnamed women. He pays particular attention to their breasts, which he admits is connected to a memory of his now dead sister. In a memory of his sister, he recalls: “Her breasts were beginning to noticeably develop. Her heart might have had problems, but her flesh continued growing nonetheless. It felt strange to see my little sister’s breasts grow by day”[13]. This does not cross Bill 156’s censorship criteria, yet five pages later, Murakami continues to write: “I’ve always been attracted to women with more modest breasts, and every time I see them, every time I touch them, I remember my sister…Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t sexually interested in my sister. I think I was just looking for a certain type of scene. A finite scene, lost and never to return”[14]. The internal dialogue is fascinating; Murakami poses the potential issue of an incestual relationship with a child, but immediately revokes any misunderstanding of his language. To say “every time I see [a breast] […] I remember my sister” and to follow it with “don’t get me wrong” appears purposeful, almost as though he’s teasing his Japanese audience. Notably, more than one million copies of Killing Commendatore were sold in Japan[15]. This audience, like Murakami, has grown up with manga, with graphic sexual imagery. Murakami’s decision to touch this new line of censorship does not go unnoticed.

Murakami appreciates context and culture when it comes to storytelling. One of his inspirations is novelist, Kazuo Ishiguro. Ishiguro is known for balancing his Japanese identity with his British home. Murakami admits in an interview: “When he writes about British things, like a butler or an aristocrat, it’s like he’s looking at British society through the eyes of Japanese people. The British characters he writes about look like Japanese people. […] That is what I'm interested in, those contradictions”[16]. Societal shifts and cultural differences are important to Murakami. Commenting on them is inherent to this belief, reflecting a greater interconnectedness of authorship and content. Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, has published a great deal on how authorship intertwines with culture and context. According to Foucault, “authorship and the different values and meanings associated with it are cultural products that vary widely from time to time and place to place”[17]. How does this fit into Murakami’s decision to include sexually graphic (and almost illegal) images in his texts? Perhaps, the discourse surrounding censorship and the cultural shifts that ignite this controversial dialogue are just as responsible for Killing Commendatore as the man who held the pen.

Murakami’s Killing Commendatore is more than a test of sexuality’s censorship in the Eastern World. It is an intriguing story about art, history, and a magical underworld. But, nonetheless, it is impossible to appreciate the novel without confronting its sexual nature. This critique has argued that the inclusion of these graphic acts is more than a literary technique on behalf of Murakami. It is a purposeful navigation of Japan’s censorship laws, a prominent political conversation in Japan over the last decade. Although unbanned in Japan, Killing Commendatore was censored in China, reflecting a larger controversy over what is too sexual and too graphic to include in a novel. One could argue that authors include controversial material (whether political or interpersonal) with the knowledge that it may be banned. When Madeline L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time was banned; she remarked: “First I felt horror, then anger, and finally I said, ‘Ah the hell with it.’ It’s great publicity really”[18]. Thus, to what extent do authors knowingly engage in dangerous material? Is there a part of them drawn by the publicity? Or, is there a political statement waiting to be made on why the novel should not be banned? More so, the culture of censoring provides authors with an opportunity to tease the rule makers and the fearful. It seems Murakami was doing just that.

Bibliography

Chozick, Matthew Richard. "DE-EXOTICIZING HARUKI MURAKAMI'S RECEPTION." Comparative Literature Studies 45, no. 1 (2008): 62-73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25659633.

Ellis, Jonathan, Mitoko Hirabayashi, and Haruki Murakami. "'In Dreams Begins Responsibility': An Interview with Haruki Murakami." The Georgia Review 59, no. 3 (2005): 548-67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41402632.

Flood, Alison. "Haruki Murakami's New Novel Declared 'Indecent' by Hong Kong Censors." The Guardian. Last modified July 25, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/25/haruki-murakami-novel-indecent-hong-kong-censors-killing-commendatore.

"1.4 Foucault's Author Function." OpenLearn. Accessed November 1, 2021. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/artists-and-authorship-the-case-raphael/content-section-1.4.

Jones, Jonathan. "Review." The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review 17, no. 1 (2019): 278-80. https://doi.org/10.5325/fscotfitzrevi.17.1.0278.

Lai, Ming Chu. "Translating Cunshang Chunshu: Murakami Haruki in Chinese." Japanese Language and Literature 49, no. 1 (2015): 143-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24615097.

Mankeshwar, Ranjit. "Haruki Murakami's New Novel Lies between Alternate Worlds, with no Clear Answers, as Usual." Scroll.in. Last modified October 6, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2021. https://scroll.in/article/897149/haruki-murakamis-new-novel-lies-between-alternate-worlds-with-no-clear-answers-as-usual.

McLelland, Mark J., Thought policing or the protection of youth? Debate in Japan over the "Non-existent youth bill", International Journal of Comic Art, 13(1) 2011, 348-367. https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/260

McLelland, Mark, "Sex, censorship and media regulation in Japan: a historical overview" (2015). Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers. 1714. https://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/1714

Murakami, Haruki, Philip Gabriel, and Ted Goossen. Killing Commendatore. London: Vintage Digital, 2018.

Shea. "15 Author Responses to Their Books Being Banned." Cracked. Last modified March 24, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2021. https://www.cracked.com/image-pictofact-6358-15-author-responses-to-their-books-being-banned.

[1] Jonathan Ellis, Mitoko Hirabayashi, and Haruki Murakami, "'In Dreams Begins Responsibility': An Interview with Haruki Murakami," The Georgia Review 59, no. 3 (2005): 554, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41402632.

[2] Patricia Welch, "Haruki Murakami's Storytelling World," World Literature Today 79, no. 1 (2005): 58, https://doi.org/10.2307/40158783.

[3] World Literature Today 92, no. 6 (2018): 68, https://doi.org/10.7588/worllitetoda.92.6.0068.

[4] Matthew Richard Chozick, "DE-EXOTICIZING HARUKI MURAKAMI'S RECEPTION," Comparative Literature Studies 45, no. 1 (2008): 62, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25659633.

[5] Alison Flood, "Haruki Murakami's New Novel Declared 'Indecent' by Hong Kong Censors," The Guardian, last modified July 25, 2018, accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/25/haruki-murakami-novel-indecent-hong-kong-censors-killing-commendatore.

[6] McLellend, Mark. J., “Thought policing or the protection of youth? Debate in Japan over the ‘Non-existent youth bill’, International Journal of Comic Art, 13(1) (2011): 1, https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/260

[7] McLellend, “Thought policing,” 1.

[8] McLellend, “Thought policing,” 6.

[9] McLellend, “Thought policing,” 6.

[10] McLellend, Mark. J., “Sex, censorship and media regulation in Japan: a historical overview”, Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts (2015): 14, https://ro.uow.edu.au/lhapapers/1714

[11] McLellend, “Thought policing,” 6

[12] McLellend, “Sex, censorship”, 14.

[13] Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel, and Ted Goossen, Killing Commendatore (London: Vintage Digital, 2018), 112.

[14] Murakami, Gabriel, and Goossen, Killing Commendatore, 117.

[15] Ranjit Mankeshwar, "Haruki Murakami's New Novel Lies between Alternate Worlds, with no Clear Answers, as Usual," Scroll.in, last modified October 6, 2018, accessed November 1, 2021, https://scroll.in/article/897149/haruki-murakamis-new-novel-lies-between-alternate-worlds-with-no-clear-answers-as-usual.

[16] Ellis, Hirabayashi, and Murakami, "'In Dreams," 553.

[17] "1.4 Foucault's Author Function," OpenLearn, accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/artists-and-authorship-the-case-raphael/content-section-1.4.

[18] Shea, "15 Author Responses to Their Books Being Banned," Cracked, last modified March 24, 2021, accessed November 1, 2021, https://www.cracked.com/image-pictofact-6358-15-author-responses-to-their-books-being-banned.

mention how many readers of his are in japan [AH1] [AH1]

The Conspiracy Theory Versus the Novel: Why Dan Brown’s the Da Vinci Code will be Remembered as a Conspiracy, not a Story

December 2021

Conspiracy theories “are attempts to explain the ultimate causes of significant social and political events with claims of secret plots by two or more actors.”[1] Conspiracists and their theories tend to gain popularity during political events, leaning into people’s discomfort with and distrust of political organizations. JFK’s assassination in 1963, a catalyst for historic and contemporary conspiracy theories, was a source of popular interest in 1990s America. The 1991 film, “JFK”, played on this interest and profited from American’s fascination with the dead President’s murder. A national survey conducted by the New York Times in 1992, showed that “only 10% of Americans believed the official account that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy, while 77% believed that others were involved, and 12% didn't know or declined to answer.”[2] In this case, the unanswered question (who killed JFK), is answered through conspiracy. The American people, already distrustful of the government, have been more inclined to believe such conspiracies because they reaffirm their own superstitions. Dan Brown’s 2003 novel the Da Vinci Code, like the film “JFK”, took advantage of a popular, controversial topic: the Catholic Church. In Terry Beck’s article “Riddling ‘The Da Vinci Code’”, Beck recounts the “furor over its plot, background, or premise. The book seemed to offend many, garnering criticism from theologians, church groups, fraternal organizations, and scholars. Yet readers were hooked.”[3] Perhaps its controversial nature is what led it to sell more than 80 million copies and be translated into forty-four languages by 2009.[4] Yet, something is missing from the Da Vinci Code. Without a doubt, it is a fun-filled thriller, capturing the attention of any young adult or theologian, but it lacks a timeless quality. In 2017, a sign buried amongst piles of Dan Brown’s novel in an Oxfam charity shop, stated: “You could give us another Da Vinci Code …. But we would rather have your vinyl!”[5] How does such a popular novel find itself trashed into the donation bin? In this paper, I will explore how Dan Brown’s prioritization of the conspiracy theory undermines its storytelling, novel quality. Brown’s non-diegetic approach, lack of historical knowledge, and timely cultural controversy prove the novel to be popular, but ultimately short lived – an example in which readers will remember the conspiracy theory, but not the novel itself.

A paragraph on Dan Brown’s personal website begins: “In 2005, Brown was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME Magazine.”[6] Brown is not necessarily wrong to cite this credential; in fact, a Google search on May 17, 2004, for “The Da Vinci Code” provided 525,000 results.[7] Today, November 9, 2021, a Google search for “The Da Vinci Code” yielded 27,200,000 results. Yet, notably, when one researches the question: “Is the Da Vinci Code true?”, 9,400,000 results appear. Thus, more than a third of results relating to the Da Vinci Code revolve around conspiracy rather than the novel itself. Now, what exactly is the conspiracy that has garnered such controversy? Brown tells his readers that Leonardo da Vinci’s the Last Supper, is proof that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were not only married but had at least one child. Brown claims that in 1099 an organization called the Priory of Sion, a European secret society, that “possesses the truth about the ‘bloodline’ Grail” was founded, and that participants include historical figures ranging from Isaac Newton to Victor Hugo.[8] Ultimately the theory suggests that descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene still exist and that the Catholic Church is part of a large coverup, slightly misogynistic, operation. While fascinating (and wrong), Brown puts an enormous amount of effort into convincing his readers of this theory. So much so, it occasionally appears that this is his primary goal.

Dan Brown goes beyond the diegesis of the text to create a page titled “Fact.”[9] Removing the readers from the smooth narrative of his story, Brown forces his readers to acknowledge some inaccurate truths: “The Priory of Sion […] is a real organization”, “[Members include] Sir Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and Leonardo da Vinci” and, “the Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic sect […] [and has] National Headquarters […] [in New York City].”[10] Though somewhat rooted in reality (both the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei are historically intertwined with the Catholic Church), most of Brown’s claims are wrong. Opus Dei’s headquarters, for example, are in Rome. Not in New York City. Brown’s choice to end his “Fact” page with the claim “all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate” reads redundantly. Brown has already removed the reader from the narrative, has he not? Moreover, he has identified all information in his novel as fact, by extension of titling this section “fact.” Brown’s decision to reassert multiple times, the truth of his lies, reads as overcompensation. Perhaps a weakness on his part, Brown is so concerned with convincing the reader of the Da Vinci Code’s conspiracy, that he neglects the flow of a storytelling narrative. Norris Lacy’s article “‘The Da Vinci Code’: Dan Brown and The Grail That Never Was”, speaks to how Brown “has done everything possible to persuade readers that he does believe just what the book says. He has insisted on the accuracy, the factual nature, of his information and theories.”[11] Indeed, he has done everything.

Dan Brown sacrifices the structure of his novel in order to endow the reader with a false sense of problem solving. Brown randomly interjects short, unresolved chapters from the point of view of Silas, a monk from Opus Dei. Silas, unbeknownst to the rest of the characters in the novel, provides the reader with the opportunity to understand and resonate with the puzzle of the Da Vinci Code alongside Langdon and Sophie. Yet, these chapters detract from the overall structure of the novel; moreover, Brown is almost too transparent in his efforts to inform the reader of what is “important”. In Chapter 15, Brown italicizes the following: “The winds of change are in the air”, “Hago la obra de Dios”, and “the keystone. It will lead us to our final goal.”[12] “Hago la obra de Dios”, translated as “I do the work of God”, is explicit in nature. Although Brown seems to want the reader to solve the riddle of his conspiracy, he spells it out for us word by word, font by font. Silas’ interjections disrupt the narrative and do not inherently challenge the reader to solve the conspiracy, but they do tell the reader what to think. Perhaps this is another example of Brown’s inclination to affirm the reality and truth of his novel, wary of any nonbelievers. Similarly, the way in which the characters of the novel go about solving puzzles, particularly anagrams, is obvious. When Langdon solves the dead curator's riddle, Brown tells his readers: “O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! Was a perfect anagram of... Leonardo da Vinci! The Mona Lisa!”[13] Taken step by step, the reader is given no room for disagreement with or rejection of Brown’s ideas. Brown’s eagerness to include his readers in his labyrinth of conspiracy ultimately inhibits his storytelling narrative. The characters are given less opportunity to explore the puzzle themselves (disrupting their growth) and the plot is structurally determined by unveiling the conspiracy. As a result, Brown’s novel is easily remembered as a conspiracy theory – perhaps one that the reader feels they themselves have figured out – but not as a story.

Furthermore, Dan Brown rejects a substantial amount of basic historical knowledge, counting on an uninformed body of readers to play his game. It would be arrogant to suggest that Brown has no historical nor theological knowledge. It would also be inaccurate to claim that the Da Vinci Code is a completely fabricated piece of literature. Yet, Brown’s rejection of generally accepted history, reads as purposefully conspiracist rather than accidentally or coincidentally. In Bart D. Ehrman’s novel, Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine, Ehrman lays out a few key errors in Brown’s work. First and foremost, Jesus’ life was not, as Brown claims, recorded by thousands of followers. Perhaps because his followers were not literate to begin with. Secondly, despite it being the premise of Brown’s conspiracy, Constantine did not commission the production of a new bible at all. Especially not a bible that omitted recollections of Jesus’ human traits. Thirdly, Brown claims that Jewish decorum forbade Jewish men from remaining unmarried – he uses this claim to explain Jesus’ partnership with Mary Magdalene. But, according to Ehrman, a New Testament scholar, this is completely inaccurate. Moreover, Dan Brown consistently refers to a Q document as a surviving source throughout his conspiracy theory, yet there is no proof of its existence as it is a hypothetical document.[14] This is just the beginning of the historical inaccuracies laced throughout Brown’s work. Thus, it’s intriguing that he is so eager to establish his novel as a factual source. This is a purposeful effort, on Brown’s behalf, to create a conspiracy theory. His lack of historical research and consequent deviation from truth, is not a symptom of being naive. Rather, the novel is not the primary creation, the conspiracy theory is. Brown has successfully created a conspiracy theory, but at the cost of a sound and historically memorable novel.

Brown’s choice of a culturally significant and controversial topic has served him well temporarily, but will lose value over time. It is no secret that authors and storytellers are inspired by the environments they inhabit. The Royston Caves, rediscovered in the 1700s and now the source of a host of conspiracy theories, falls into this same pattern. The current custodian of the cave, a man named Peter Houldcroft, “claims […] connections with the Templars, the Holy Grail, the Illuminati and any other fringe belief that the journalist interviewing him happens to express.”[15] In other words, the way in which the caves are portrayed, shapes itself to fit the audience listening. Dan Brown is a victim of this mindset; his choice to critique the Catholic Church is oddly well timed with the church’s sexual abuse scandal in 2002. Michael Paulson, the Boston Globe’s former religious affairs correspondent, told an interviewer that before they published the scandal, they “had a sense [...] that this was an explosive subject with huge potential impact.”[16] In the following two years, the Boston Globe published 800 articles on the scandal, creating waves of impact across the church. The Cardinal Law resigned, 150 priests in Boston, MA had been accused of abuse, 500 or more victims had filed claims of abuse, and most notably, donations to the church fell by 50 percent.[17] The world was listening, watching, and reacting. Dan Brown was writing. Perhaps the reason the Da Vinci Code sold tens of millions of copies has to do with the world’s preexisting antagonism towards the church. From this lens, Brown’s novel is provocative, not suggestive. The Catholic Church was the enemy before Brown said so. And thus, his decision to neglect historical inaccuracies, is so much clearer. Brown’s novel, when looked at more closely, is a publicity stunt drenched in popular conspiracy. That is why it sold so many copies, but it is also why it will be a conspiracy theory, not a classic, in fifty years' time.

Dan Brown’s the Da Vinci Code is a fun read. The thriller has you turning its pages, eager to solve the conspiracy. Its issue, however, is that once you do realize the conspiracy, the novel itself is overshadowed. Perhaps Brown’s goal was not, however, to write a long-lasting, memorable novel. Its “problem-solving” structure, historical inaccuracy, and cultural relevancy, are all literary and authorial techniques. The impact of these techniques is a less memorable narrative. Dan Brown, despite this, can be credited with creating this Da Vinci Code Conspiracy, however false it may be. And in this way, he is an author of something.

Bibliography

Beck, Terry. "Riddling 'The Da Vinci Code.'" Reference and User Services Quarterly 46, no. 4 (2007): 18-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20864741.

Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. London: Corgi, 2010.

Dan Brown. Accessed November 9, 2021. https://danbrown.com/#author-section.

Douglas, Karen M., Joseph E. Uscinski, Robbie M. Sutton, Aleksandra Cichocka, Turkay Nefes, Chee Siang Ang, and Farzin Deravi. "Understanding Conspiracy Theories." Political Psychology 40, no. S1 (February 2019): 3-35. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12568.

Ehrman, Bart D. Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Fitzpatrick-Matthews, Keith. "Royston Cave: A Secret Templar Shrine?" Bad Archaeology. Last modified July 5, 2010. Accessed November 9, 2021. http://www.badarchaeology.com/conspiracy-theories/455-2/.

Goertzel, Ted. "Belief in Conspiracy Theories." Political Psychology 15, no. 4 (1994): 731-42. https://doi.org/10.2307/3791630.

Henley, Jon. "How the Boston Globe Exposed the Abuse Scandal That Rocked the Catholic Church." The Guardian. Last modified April 21, 2010. Accessed November 9, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/21/boston-globe-abuse-scandal-catholic.

Kelly, Aoife. "Charity Shops Crammed with Copies of the Da Vinci Code Begs People to Stop Donating." Independent.ie. Last modified May 15, 2017. Accessed November 9, 2021. https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-news/charity-shops-crammed-with-copies-of-the-da-vinci-code-begs-people-to-stop-donating-35715665.html.

Kennedy, Tammie M. "Mary Magdalene and the Politics of Public Memory: Interrogating 'The Da Vinci Code.'" Feminist Formations 24, no. 2 (2012): 120-39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23275107.

Lacy, Norris J. "'The Da Vinci Code': Dan Brown and the Grail That Never Was." Arthuriana 14, no. 3 (2004): 81-93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27870632.

[1] Karen M. Douglas et al., "Understanding Conspiracy Theories," Political Psychology 40, no. S1 (February 2019): 3, https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12568.

[2] Ted Goertzel, "Belief in Conspiracy Theories," Political Psychology 15, no. 4 (1994): 731, https://doi.org/10.2307/3791630.

[3] Terry Beck, "Riddling 'The Da Vinci Code,'" Reference and User Services Quarterly 46, no. 4 (2007): 18, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20864741.

[4] Tammie M. Kennedy, "Mary Magdalene and the Politics of Public Memory: Interrogating 'The Da Vinci Code,'" Feminist Formations 24, no. 2 (2012): 126, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23275107.

[5] Aoife Kelly, "Charity Shops Crammed with Copies of the Da Vinci Code Begs People to Stop Donating," Independent.ie, last modified May 15, 2017, accessed November 9, 2021, https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-news/charity-shops-crammed-with-copies-of-the-da-vinci-code-begs-people-to-stop-donating-35715665.html.

[6] Dan Brown, accessed November 9, 2021, https://danbrown.com/#author-section.

[7] Norris J. Lacy, "'The Da Vinci Code': Dan Brown and the Grail That Never Was," Arthuriana 14, no. 3 (2004): 81, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27870632.

[8] Lacy, "'The Da Vinci," 86.

[9] Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (London: Corgi, 2010), 11.

[10] Brown, The Da Vinci, 11.

[11] Lacy, "'The Da Vinci," 82.

[12] Brown, The Da Vinci, 104, 105.

[13] Brown, The Da Vinci, 135

[14] Bart D. Ehrman, Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), xv.

[15] Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, "Royston Cave: A Secret Templar Shrine?," Bad Archaeology, last modified July 5, 2010, accessed November 9, 2021, http://www.badarchaeology.com/conspiracy-theories/455-2/.

[16] Jon Henley, "How the Boston Globe Exposed the Abuse Scandal That Rocked the Catholic Church," The Guardian, last modified April 21, 2010, accessed November 9, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/21/boston-globe-abuse-scandal-catholic.

[17] Henley, "How the Boston," The Guardian.

Hilary Mantel’s Revisionist Histories: What Historians Need to Learn from a Fictional Author

December 2021

In John Hatcher’s article “Fiction as History: The Black Death and Beyond”, Hatcher reminds us that “history and fiction are distinct disciplines with disparate objectives, and when they come into contact, they are usually at odds with each other”.[1] Hatcher is correct; the two disciplines combat one another. Despite their contradicting nature, history and fiction are “ceaselessly combined” in creative writing.[2] British revisionist history novelist, Hilary Mantel, has fearlessly experimented with how to combine the two subjects – in fact, it is her authorial purpose. In an interview, Mantel claimed that she “can only envisage things embedded in a society.”[3] Her 1992 novel, A Place of Greater Safety, tells the story of the French Revolution and three of its revolutionaries (all of whom are real): Robespierre, Danton, and Desmoulins. It has been described as a historical novel, bringing “to light when happened to [the French] people.”[4] Mantel, however, is most known for her novels that center around the life of Thomas Cromwell, the chief minister of King Henry VIII of England. The novels in the trilogy, Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and the Mirror and the Light, detail Cromwell’s involvement with Henry’s first four wives (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived).

While historical fiction is nothing new, Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies (2012) has many readers wondering what is real and what is not. An “Anne Boleyn Fan Page” of sorts, titled the Anne Boleyn Files, has a whole section of its website dedicated to identifying “the facts behind the fiction.” The author of the site tells us: “I have been inundated with emails asking me […] whether certain things are true.”[5]Where does all this conflation between history and fiction come from? It is more than the fact that the readership’s grasp of history might need some fine tuning, and rather that Mantel speaks with such a confident historical voice that it is difficult to distinguish between truth and fiction. Alongside the production of Mantel’s historical novels, there has been a call for experimentation in the history discipline. John Hatcher’s 2012 article criticized historians: “The nearest historians have come to considering the past at first hand is the genre of ‘What if?’ or ‘virtual history.’”[6] Thus, there is a fascinating dichotomy between historical fiction writers who carefully tamper with what is too historical or too real, and historians who dare not tamper with new or challenging historical discourses.

This paper will explore Mantel’s 2012 novel, Bring Up the Bodies, through the lens of historical literature. Mantel’s third person and second person narrative as well as her inclusion of historically renowned moments make her novel read more truthful than it really is. Mantel’s novel is not necessarily the most fascinating nor the most literary, but it offers many lessons for contemporary historians. In addition, this paper will explore a contemporary researcher, Ian Mortimer, as a case study of what is gained when historians learn from fictional authors.

Contemporary historians are being called on to experiment outside of traditional historical discourses. A traditional discourse may include a textbook, a formal article, a biography, or anything in between. There is no doubt that Western society is naturally interested in historical events – three of the ten films nominated for the 2011 Oscar’s award “Best Picture” were rooted in real events. And five of the six novels nominated for the 2009 Booker Prize were also rooted in real events.[7] Thus, the call for experimentation in historical discourse is not a call to make history more interesting, but rather a call to change how history is taught and reach a larger audience. Other “historical” disciplines are already attempting such changes; “Museum curators […] have reconstructed old houses and their interiors, filling them with the furniture of a past age. […] Re-enactment societies, attempting to discover what it was like to live in a different time through the bold, practical experiment of donning period clothing and cooking with a cauldron on an open fire”.[8] We see historian’s lag when we compare Hilary Mantel’s “biography” of Thomas Cromwell (Bring Up the Bodies) to Diarmaid MacCulloch’s very accurate biography of Thomas Cromwell (Thomas Cromwell: A Life).[9] Mantel’s novel has 92,098 ratings on Goodreads whereas MacCulloch’s biography has 716.[10] MacCulloch’s material is the same as Mantel’s, but perhaps one author leans into the art of storytelling more than the other. Mantel, thus, has a lot to offer.

Mantel includes events that are commonly understood as factual throughout Bring Up the Bodies. Perhaps the most notable: Anne Boleyn’s final words. Anne Boleyn's final speech is renowned. From English Tudor history websites to Anne Boleyn pages, online historians tell their readers that Anne ended her life saying: “Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die […] I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never”.[11] This quote, from an “English History” website, is not the only one to cite this material. “On the Tudor Trail”, “History of Yesterday”, and “The Anne Boleyn Files”, (among others), claim that Anne Boleyn did in fact say these words. It seems to be common knowledge amongst Boleyn fanatics, even though it is not true.[12] Mantel includes this speech, though gently corrupted, in Bring Up the Bodies. Before her execution, Anne states: “... pray for the king, for he is a good, gentle, amiable and virtuous prince”.[13] To an extent, Mantel’s version follows what is popularly known: “pray for the king” mimics “I pray God save the King” and “virtuous prince” resembles “merciful prince.” Perhaps furthering her audience to conflate truth and fiction, Mantel corrects any error in her author’s note; she writes: “Eloquent and lengthy speeches, put into Anne’s mouth at her trial and on the scaffold, should be read with skepticism, and so should the document often called her ‘last letter’, which is almost certainly a forgery or (to put it more kindly) a fiction.”[14] Why should Mantel include a version of this speech then, if she herself questions its historical basis? Mantel is tuning in to her audience; she has placed a widely accepted speech in the text, relying on its legitimacy to imbue a certain license to the rest of the story she tells -- that lonely “truth” resonates and gives credence to the whole of the tale. Thus, Mantel’s use of historical events is deceptive. She leverages accepted facts into fiction, blurring the distinctions between the disciplines. Mantel has demonstrated a tool worth learning from: storytelling and history are easily conflated and do not necessarily have to contradict. A commonly known truth (not including Anne Boleyn’s final speech) can be utilized to tell a story and establish its authority as a factual source.

Mantel oscillates between the second person and third person engaging her readers within the story but maintaining Bring Up the Bodies’ historical accuracy. Though the third person perspective does not always work, confusing at times and difficult to decipher who exactly Mantel is writing about, it does endow the novel with a historical quality. Its lack of a first-person narrative leaves the novel less victim to emotion, impulsivity, and rambling thoughts, aspects not associated with a historical piece of literature. Mantel interjects a second person perspective, referring to her readers as “you” throughout; she writes: “Do not expect consistency from him. Henry prides himself on understanding his councilors […] he is resolved that none of his councilors shall understand him. He is suspicious of any plan that doesn’t originate with himself or seem to. You can argue with him but you must be careful”.[15] A mix of historical observation and an instruction manual, this quote represents Mantel’s larger approach to her revisionist histories. Mantel presents her story as matter of fact through this third person narrative – by keeping a “safe distance” the novel remains fact, not fiction. Yet, if the whole novel were to remain in the third person, it is safe to say it would be less interesting. The “you” narrative traps the reader in, forcing them to reckon with their own presence in history (and the novel). Thus, while the third person can be choppy at times, Mantel does master the balance between third and second person, teaching us how to use historical material in a reader friendly manner.

There is a historian dabbling with fictional tools in historical writing: Ian Mortimer. Mortimer and Mantel are on two sides of the same coin – Mortimer applies fiction’s storytelling manual to historical discourses and Mantel applies historical discourses to her fictional writing. Mortimer’s 2012 history the Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England is “written in the present tense and takes readers back to the fourteenth century to experience first-hand what they would encounter, see, hear, taste and smell […] it is not a fiction; for the most part it is consummately factual.”[16] Mortimer begins his novel with: “Imagine you could travel in time; what would you find if you went back to the fourteenth century?”[17] Reading more as a story than as a textbook, Mortimer’s experimentation is intriguing. He continues: “It is the cathedral which you will see first. As you journey along the road you come to a break in the trees and there it is, massive and magnificent, cresting the hilltop in the morning sun”.[18] Just as Mantel places the reader in her revisionist history, Mortimer places the reader in his research of Medieval England. Both do it using the second person narrative. Mortimer invites us to participate in his story, not to memorize it nor to study it, but to experience it. This is undoubtedly inspired by fictional authors who are tasked with the challenge of inviting their readers into a less realistic world. Thus, when Mantel tells her readers in her author’s note: “This book is of course not about Anne Boleyn or about Henry VIII, but about the career of Thomas Cromwell, who is still in need of attention from biographers” her voice reaches historians such as Mortimer who are willing to challenge traditional historical discourses.[19]

Hilary Mantel’s revisionist novel about Thomas Cromwell gives historians much to think about: how can we educate an audience about history through storytelling? Mantel’s tactful use of second and third person as well as her use of deceptive truths leave a lot to consider. Ian Mortimer provides an insight into how contemporary histories are changing – a Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England is a fascinating mix of fictional structures and historical events. Alas, while Mantel’s novel has not necessarily rocked the literary world, it may rock many historian’s world, giving them a lesson or two in how to tell a story.

Bibliography

Arias, Rosario, and Hilary Mantel. "AN INTERVIEW with HILARY MANTEL." Atlantis 20, no. 2 (1998): 277-89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41055527.

"Bring Up the Bodies." Good Reads. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13507212-bring-up-the-bodies.

Claire. "Bring up the Bodies – The Facts Behind the Fiction." The Anne Boleyn Files. Last modified June 26, 2012. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/bring-up-bodies-fact-versus-fiction/.

Hanson, Marilee. "Anne Boleyn's Speech at Her Execution." English History. Last modified February 8, 2015. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://englishhistory.net/tudor/anne-boleyn-speech-at-her-execution/.

Hatcher, John. "Fiction as History: The Black Death and beyond." History 97, nos. 1 (325) (2012): 3-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24429362.

Jernigan, Jessica. "What Does Henry Want?" The Women's Review of Books 30, no. 3 (2013): 11-13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24430451.

Mantel, Hilary. Bring up the Bodies. London: Fourth Estate, 2015.

Mortimer, Ian. A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. London: Vintage, 2009.

Moseley, Merritt. "MARGINS of FACT AND FICTION: THE BOOKER PRIZE 2009." The Sewanee Review 118, no. 3 (2010): 429-35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40801307.

"Thomas Cromwell: A Life." AbeBooks. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781846144295/Thomas-Cromwell-Life-MacCulloch-Diarmaid-1846144299/plp.

[1] John Hatcher, "Fiction as History: The Black Death and beyond," History 97, nos. 1 (325) (2012): 3, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24429362.

[2] Hatcher, "Fiction as History," 3.

[3] Rosario Arias and Hilary Mantel, "AN INTERVIEW with HILARY MANTEL," Atlantis 20, no. 2 (1998): 281, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41055527.

[4] Arias and Mantel, "AN INTERVIEW," 277.

[5] Claire, "Bring up the Bodies – The Facts Behind the Fiction," The Anne Boleyn Files, last modified June 26, 2012, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/bring-up-bodies-fact-versus-fiction/.

[6] Hatcher, "Fiction as History," 2.

[7] Hatcher, "Fiction as History," 4.

[8] Ian Mortimer, A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century (London: Vintage, 2009), 2.

[9] "Thomas Cromwell: A Life," AbeBooks, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781846144295/Thomas-Cromwell-Life-MacCulloch-Diarmaid-1846144299/plp.

[10] "Bring Up the Bodies," Good Reads, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13507212-bring-up-the-bodies.

[11] Marilee Hanson, "Anne Boleyn's Speech at Her Execution," English History, last modified February 8, 2015, accessed November 15, 2021, https://englishhistory.net/tudor/anne-boleyn-speech-at-her-execution/.

[12] Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (London: Fourth Estate, 2015)

[13] Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, 470.

[14] Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, 483.

[15] Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, 248.

[16] Hatcher, "Fiction as History," 10.

[17] Mortimer, A Handbook, 1.

[18] Mortimer, A Handbook, 6.

[19] Mantel, Bring up the Bodies, 484.

Screenplays as Literary Works: How Inglorious Basterds Succeeds and Spencer Fails

December 2021

We all know the common trope of the struggling screenwriter praying their screenplay will make it big. They shove their screenplay in anyone, and everyone’s faces because the screenplay alone is nothing memorable until it is interpreted by a cast and crew. Of course, any work of art in cinema has derived from a screenplay – yet the debate comes down to whether the screenplay can act alone as a piece of writing or if it is simply a conduit to something greater. Much of this criticism stems from the concept that a screenplay has distinct goals from a novel or a play – in Dore Schary’s “Literature and the Screen”, Schary claims that “a book written as a novel is to be enjoyed and understood and respected for its writing as a book. For the screen, it has to be enjoyed, understood, and respected on different terms”.[1]  Yet, while a screenplay can fall into this stereotype and serve very little as a solo work, I believe this is a gross misconception. Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds breaks this stereotype, and perhaps if anyone takes the time to read the screenplay, rather than only watching the movie, they will agree with me.

In this paper, I will explore the current debate surrounding screenplays as a work of art. I will highlight Steven Knight’s Spencer (2021) as an example of how screenplays fall into this trap of being simply screen intentioned. Yet, comparatively, this paper will discuss Tarantino’s introductory scene in Inglorious Basterds (2009) as a case study as to how and why screenplays have the potential to be pieces of literature, not simply tools to the screen. 

In a 2011 article titled “Why Can’t Screenplays Be Artworks?”, Ted Nannicelli presents a current controversy: screenplays are not comparable to a novel or even a play. Nannicelli takes the time to explore Noël Carroll, a philosopher concerned with the philosophy of art, and his belief that “there is a substantive ontological difference between the theatrical script and the screenplay […] and […] that the screenplay’s ontological status precludes it from being a work of art”.[2] This “ontological status” implies that a screenplay is part of a greater process and relationship between the writer and the screen -- not of any value on its own. Howard Rodman dabbles with this issue; his article, “What a Screenplay Isn’t”, asks the important question: “Is there any way, then, of reclaiming the screenplay? Of recuperating its energies for something more playful, more intrinsic? Of untethering the screenplay from the dead lead weight of the movie it so desperately wants to become?”[3] In response, yes there is. But I would not dare to say it is an easy task. For a screenplay to operate on its own, it cannot rely on an actor’s interpretation nor a cinematic background – it must be literary from the words and dialogue in the script. Thus, the script must deal with two intentions: existing as a literary work and being adaptable to a screen.

Not all screenplays can meet this expectation. Steven Knight’s Spencer is almost painful to read with one-liners jammed across the text. Without Kristen Stewart’s beautiful costume and the strong organ playing in the background, the script offers strikingly little. The script is not much of a dialogue, but rather a compilation of faux metaphors and deep moments meant to instill Princess Diana with a victim complex. At one point in the script, Princess Diana proclaims: “Their lenses are more like microscopes, really. And I’m the insect in the dish. See, they’re pulling my wings and my legs off one by one – making notes on how I react”.[4] It is difficult to sympathize with Princess Diana, the torn apart insect, when the screenplay repeatedly jams in such broken down and obvious metaphors throughout. In any type of classic literary work, there is an aspect left to the audience (or the reader). Yet, in this case, everything is spelled out. There is no room for interpretation. If one were to read the screenplay for Spencer, they would find themselves reading these heart wrenching moments repeatedly with no room for development nor interpretation. That is why Spencer cannot operate as a piece of writing – it is dependent on Stewart’s constant gaze into the abyss, her twirling to classical music, her bending over the toilet bowl. Her one liner, such as “I’m prepared for my future as a face on a coin to be passed from hand to hand” is monotonous and simple as a piece of writing, but perhaps a bit more intriguing when said with guile and regret on screen.[5]

Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds offers something different, however. Its introductory scene, a contentious interaction between Colonel Landa and a French farmer, Monsieur Perrier LaPadite, draws the reader in and serves almost as a play. Taking place in a singular room between these two individuals, the script becomes more important as the viewer cannot rely on director tricks and cinematic images. In a high intensity moment between Colonel Landa and Perrier, Tarantino writes:

Col Landa: Monsieur LaPadite, are you aware of the nickname the people of France have given me?

Perrier: I have no interest in such things.

Col Landa: But you are aware of what they call me?

Perrier: I’m aware.

Col Landa: What are you aware of?

Perrier: That they call you “the Jew Hunter.”[6]

This, unlike Spencer, has a certain literary “build up.” You must keep reading (or watching), to get to the punchline. A reader can sense Perrier’s hesitancy and Colonel Landa’s confidence. Their dynamic goes beyond the screen and onto the page, much like a play. Many playwrights choose to write their work in a similar manner; Athold Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys (1982), is also a play about a systemic injustice (though in this case, racism, not the holocaust). Like Inglorious Basterds’s introductory scene, Master Harold and the Boys mainly takes place in one room, with a conversation between two (sometimes three) main characters. An interaction between the white boy, Hally, and his mother’s black employee, Sam, reads as:

Hally: Don’t argue with me, Sam!

Sam: Then don’t say he’s my boss.

Hally: He’s a white man and that’s good enough for you.

Sam: I’ll try to forget you said that.[7]

There’s a similarity between Tarantino’s introductory scene and Fugard’s play. The back-and-forth dialogue, grounded in tension, enables the play or screenplay to be digested as a literary work. There are no blatant, aggressive lines that are dependent on an actor to bring them to life – though that will always provide greater entertainment – but rather continuous dialogue that mimics that of a play. Tarantino’s introductory scene is undoubtedly made more fascinating by the smoking of the pipe and the gulping of milk on set, but its magic lies in the dialogue. It is not phonily seeking meaning, but rather telling a compelling story.

The introductory scene goes one step further: it engages with literary techniques such as metaphor and analogy in a genuine and purposeful manner. It does not throw them into the text so that an actor can have their “Oscar moment”, but as a conduit to conveying a message. Almost half of the introductory scene is Colonel Landa’s monologue in which he attempts to explain why he is such a successful “Jew Hunter.” He uses the analogy of the rat (the Jew) and the hawk (the German) to explain this dynamic that he feels has so strongly benefited him. He tells Monsieur LaPadite:

Col Landa: Rats were the cause of the bubonic plague, but that was some time ago. In all your born days, has a rat ever caused you to be sick a day in your life? I propose to you,      any disease a rat could spread a squirrel would equally carry. Yet I assume you don’t        share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you? […] What a            tremendously hostile world a rat must endure. […] And that, Monsieur, is what a Jew   shares with a rat. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected             of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in  the barn, he looks in the attic, he    looks in the cellar—he looks everywhere he would hide. But there are many places it             would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the Führer brought me off my Alps in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to       me. Because I’m aware of what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.[8]

This elongated bit of storytelling is an analogy. Tarantino has Colonel Landa break down a historical injustice into animal dynamics, perhaps reminiscent of Animal Farm. There is not only one line worth noting here – it is not written to have Cristoph Waltz powerfully stare into the camera as he longingly tells the audience about his psychopathic tendencies. Rather, he is written to tell a story, whether to Monsieur LaPadite, the audience, or the reader. In all contexts it translates successfully. I admit that much of this writing is hard hitting and obvious at moments, yet the difference lies in the pace, the literary technique, and the images evoked through dialogue. In other words, Colonel Landa’s lines are not dependent on an actor to bring them to life, they tell a story on their own.

Noël Carroll’s claims that screenplays are not forms of arts for many reasons, one of them being: “our appreciative practices indicate, prima facie, that screenplays are not artworks on the order of theatrical scripts.”[9] In other words, we, as a culture, do not read screenplays in the way we read novels or plays, and this serves as a measurement of their quality as a form of art. I disagree – simply because we do not treat screenplays as art does not mean they are not art. Van Gogh’s art was discredited, unappreciated much past his death. And yet, we claim his art to be some of the most famous works in the world. In this sense, it is uncommon to hear that someone reads a screenplay for pleasure, but perhaps we should do more of it. Screenplays can mimic classic literary works, whether through literary or storytelling techniques, or through engaging and beautiful dialogue. Inglorious Basterds succeeds in this way. It is an incredibly fun revenge film, but one can have just as much fun reading it off the page. This is a special skill, however, because it requires the writer to write with the intention of a film and a literary work, and some (like Spencer) cannot do it all.

Bibliography

Fugard, Athol. 'Master Harold'-- and the Boys. New York: Vintage Books, 2009.

Matus, Kyra. "Spencer: Diana's 9 Best Quotes." Screen Rant. Last modified November 14, 2021. Accessed November 23, 2021. https://screenrant.com/spencer-princess-diana-best-quotes-lines/.

Mota, Miguel. "Derek Jarman's Caravaggio: 'The Screenplay as Book.'" Criticism 47, no. 2 (2005): 215-31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23127237.

Nannicelli, Ted. "Why Can't Screenplays Be Artworks?" The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 4 (2011): 405-14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23883688.

Rodman, Howard. "What a Screenplay Isn't." Cinema Journal 45, no. 2 (2006): 86-89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3877765.

Schary, Dore. "Literature and the Screen." The English Journal 43, no. 3 (1954): 135-41. https://doi.org/10.2307/808301.

Tarantino, Quentin. "Inglorious Basterds." CineFile. Last modified 2009. Accessed November 23, 2021. http://www.cinefile.biz/script/basterds.pdf.

[1] Dore Schary, "Literature and the Screen," The English Journal 43, no. 3 (1954): 138, https://doi.org/10.2307/808301.

[2] Ted Nannicelli, "Why Can't Screenplays Be Artworks?," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 4 (2011): 405, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23883688.

[3] Howard Rodman, "What a Screenplay Isn't," Cinema Journal 45, no. 2 (2006): 87, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3877765.

[4] Kyra Matus, "Spencer: Diana's 9 Best Quotes," Screen Rant, last modified November 14, 2021, accessed November 23, 2021, https://screenrant.com/spencer-princess-diana-best-quotes-lines/.

[5] Matus, "Spencer: Diana's," Screen Rant.

[6] Quentin Tarantino, "Inglorious Basterds," CineFile, last modified 2009, accessed November 23, 2021, http://www.cinefile.biz/script/basterds.pdf. P. 11.

[7] Athol Fugard, 'Master Harold'-- and the Boys (New York: Vintage Books, 2009), 33.

[8] Tarantino, "Inglorious Basterds," CineFile. P. 12-13.

[9] Nannicelli, "Why Can't," 406.

Hippolytus and Othello: How Desdemona and Phaedra’s Treatment of Shame Serves as the Catalyst for Each Drama’s Tragedy

Shakespeare was not a Greek tragedy fanatic. Earl Showerman, an author of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, claims that although a “bleak truth”, “Shakespeare almost certainly never read Sophocles or Euripides (let alone the much more difficult Aeschylus) in Greek”[1]. Scholars feel confident that Shakespeare’s lack of “characters or episodes of Greek drama […] [nor] conception of mythology” is strong enough evidence that Shakespeare was not directly inspired by Greek tragedy. Despite this, many of Shakespeare’s tragedies feel reminiscent of the Greek dramas; some Shakespearean scholars, including Jan Kott and Louise Schleiner, have noted similarities between Aeschylus’ Agammemnon and Shakespeare’s Macbeth and even Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Shakespeare’s Hamlet[2]. Additionally, similar themes can be traced between these 6th century BC and 17th century CE plays, whether it be fate, betrayal, suicide, or shame. Shakespeare’s Othello and Euripides’ Hippolytus are both guided by shame. In fact, the main women in each play die as a result of how shame is treated (and even avoided). The two women, Phaedra (Hippolytus) and Desdemona (Othello), can be used to further understand and highlight one another.

This paper will explore how both Desdemona and Phaedra commit or frame their deaths as suicide. Their “suicides” reflect a commitment to the spousal role of avoiding shame and betrayal. Ultimately, however, this paper will examine how their attempts to evade shame are the primary causality of each drama’s tragedy. These two women’s parallel actions further our ability to understand how shame has manipulated tragedy over the last two millennia.

Phaedra’s suicide is her ultimate declaration of loyalty. In her family, the most conceivably shameful act is betrayal and lust. In fact, in Christopher Gill’s article “The Articulation of the Self in Euripides’ Hippolytus”, Gill quotes Hippolytus: “Let someone teach women to be sophron or allow me to go on trampling them down forever”, Gill then explains: “By sophronein, Hippolytus seems to mean ‘to be chaste’, or perhaps better ‘virtuous’”[3]. After further examination, soprhonein not only means chaste and virtuous, but also of “sane mind.” To act out of lust and impulsivity is unsound and against familial expectation. Thus, for an individual such as Phaedra, to remain sophronein is not only a personal objective, but one she must maintain for her family, and in particular, her spouse Theseus. To act upon her lust for Hippolytus, not only destroys Phaedra, but Theseus too. Phaedra references this obligation as a spouse to the nurse; she yells: “I’ll not, to preserve one life, bring shame to my Cretan home nor face Theseus under the cloud of my disgraceful acts”[4]. The bottom line: Phaedra has determined that her life is worth the evasion of shame. It is true, part of Phaedra’s speech reflects a fear of the repercussions that come with betrayal; yet care and loyalty are laced in her words. In a separate interaction with the nurse, the nurse asks Phaedra: “What could be worse than failing to reach you?”, to which Phaedra replies: “Your ruin.” The nurse then reflects: “That’s why you hide it”[5]. This encounter illustrates a larger trend: Phaedra fears other’s ruin. More importantly, she cannot bear the idea of causing others’ (specifically, Theseus’) ruin through a shameful act. As Phaedra tells the audience: “Damnation take the woman who first began to besmirch her marriage bed with other men!”[6] Or in this context, “I refuse to submit to my lust and publicly shame my spouse.” Thus, Phaedra’s suicide is more than just an act of self-preservation. Yes, she is unwilling to betray her values, but more notably, she is unwilling to betray her spouse. Her suicide is the peak of her spousal hood, ultimately determining that her life is not worth the fated shame.

Othello’s Desdemona does not commit suicide, yet she frames her death as one. Desdemona, like Phaedra, is a dedicated spouse. She is obedient and dedicates her life to Othello. Multiple times throughout the drama, she iterates offhandedly: “Whate’er you be, I am obedient”[7]. Desdemona’s obedience is part of her role as a spouse. Silence and obedience are almost synonymous for her; in Eamon Grennan’s article “The Women’s Voices in ‘Othello’: Speech, Song, Silence”, Grennan describes a moment in which Othello “brusquely silences [Desdemona] […] with a perfunctory ‘Go, leave me’ (1. 320).” Grennan characterizes Desdemona’s silent departure as “a sign of her servitude”[8]. Thus, Desdemona's identity as a wife is wrapped up in serving Othello. Shakespeare goes to great lengths to show that Desdemona’s devotion is not only something she pursues publicly, but also privately. In a private bedroom conversation between Emilia and Desdemona, Desdemona asks Emilia about extramarital affairs: “Tell me, Emilia – That there be women do abuse their husbands in such gross kind?”[9]. Emilia then asks: “Wouldst thou [commit adultery] for all the world?”, to which Desdemona responds: “No, by this heavenly light!”[10]. Desdemona is portrayed as being naïve -- she cannot fathom the idea of being less devoted to Othello (or any other woman, for that matter). To bring shame upon him would be the ultimate betrayal of spousal hood. Thus, Desdemona would never betray Othello let alone allow him to live a life of shame because of her murder. This devotion culminates at Desdemona’s death. Othello smothers Desdemona, and despite this, under her dying breath, she tells a witness that nobody killed her: “Nobody; I myself [have done this deed]”[11]. Her claim to suicide, shielding Othello from wrath and societal ostracization, is her final spousal act. This is much like Phaedra’s suicide; both women decide that their livelihoods can be destroyed and shaped for their husband’s benefit. For Phaedra, that means protecting Theseus from her lustful desires. For Desdemona, that means protecting Othello from himself.

            Despite acting selflessly on behalf of their partners, both women’s actions lead to each tragedy’s fundamental shame: wrongful death. Phaedra’ suicide is not without error; to provide an explanation for her suicide, she falsely accuses Hippolytus of raping her. In doing so, she avoids shame for herself and Theseus but not Hippolytus. Theseus reacts impulsively, exiling his son using torturous methods that lead to his death. It is thus poorly timed when Artemis comes on stage and tells the audience (and Theseus): “I came, to make plain that your son’s heart is guiltless so that he may die with a good name, make plain, too, the maddened frenzy of your wife, or if I may call it so, her nobility”[12]. This was not part of Phaedra’s plan, but it is a direct consequence of it. Phaedra and Hippolytus are now both dead, and Theseus is left to contemplate their absences. What does this mean for Theseus? It means his entire existence now revolves around regret and shame. Shame is a “consciousness of personal inadequacy or unworthiness, a sense of falling short of standards imposed by the self or others”[13]. And, in this context, Theseus is forced to reckon with the standards of being a father, of being a leader, of being a rational decision maker. He has not met any of these expectations and tells the audience: “I wish I were the one dying, not you […] The gods deluded me; my judgement failed”[14]. Phaedra has unintentionally caused a life of shame and sorrow for Theseus. Despite her ultimate sacrifice, Theseus is fated to live a life of shame and doom. It was destined, whether through extramarital affairs and lust, or through impulsive murder and revenge.

Desdemona’s proclamation of suicide sends Othello down a drain of shame. Othello already feels despair as a result of murdering his wife; in fact, in Ewan Fernie’s article “Shame in ‘Othello’”, Fernie characterizes how and why Othello smothers Desdemona: “He kills her by covering her up, and talks of putting out the light, partly because he sees her as the exposed part of himself”[15]. This pre-existing shame alongside Desdemona’s never-ending obedience cuts deep. Desdemona never broke character: she remained the ever-loving spouse determined to protect Othello from shame. This realization, along with her innocence, catalyzes into Othello’s shame and consequent suicide. Regretful of his actions, Othello yells to the audience: “Whip me, ye devils […] Blow me about in winds! Roast me in sulphur! Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire! O Desdemona! Desdemona! Dead! Oh! Oh! Oh!”[16]. He continues: “O fool! Fool! Fool!”[17]. O fool, which sounds and reads linguistically like “O thello", illustrates Othello’s deep grief and shame over his actions. His own fear of shame, of being humiliated by betrayal, caused him to act in a shameful manner. That is the irony and the tragedy here. “He has disgraced himself far more absolutely than if Desdemona had really betrayed him” as Ewan Fernie puts it[18]. Perhaps the most painful part of Desdemona’s death is her decision to protect Othello through it. Though Othello confesses, her obedience and strife to protect Othello, only worsens the pain of shame. His wife never disobeyed him, not even when he murdered her. Thus, we see both Phaedra and Desdemona’s deaths as catalysts for greater shame throughout the dramas. Though unintended, the fear of shame is exactly what exacerbates its presence.

            The tragedy of both Othello and Hippolytus lie in each family’s treatment and silence of shame. The deaths in both tragedies, whether Desdemona, Emilia, and Othello, or Hippolytus and Phaedra, result from communicable issues. These issues are so ingrained as shameful, that they are hidden. It is the act of hiding that stimulates further shame throughout the dramas. Perhaps this is a comment on fate in each play; the tragedy itself is so easily avoided yet is ultimately inevitable. Or, more culturally, these tragedies may be aimed at humiliating these aristocrats. Their convoluted understanding of right and wrong, obedience and disobedience, wreak death and chaos. Alas, Othello and Hippolytus might make the commoner snicker as they witness the avoidable occur because of the aristocrat’s twisted view of shame.

Bibliography

Euripides., and David Kovacs. Children of Heracles: Hippolytus ; Andromache ; Hecuba. Reprinted with revisions and corrections. ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Euripides, Women and Sexuality. Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor and Francis, 2003.

Fernie, Ewan. "Shame in 'Othello.'" The Cambridge Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1999): 19-45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42967948.

Grennan, Eamon. "The Women's Voices in 'Othello': Speech, Song, Silence." Shakespeare Quarterly 38, no. 3 (1987): 275-92. https://doi.org/10.2307/2870503.

Lefkowitz, Mary R., James S. Romm, Aeschylus., Sophocles., and Euripides. The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. New York: Modern Library, 2017.

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Works. The Savoy ed. London, Great Britain: Eyre and Spottiswoode, n.d.

Showerman, Earl. "The Rediscovery of Shakespeare's Greater Greek." Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship. Last modified 2015. Accessed November 4, 2021. https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/rediscovery-shakespeares-greater-greek/.

[1] Earl Showerman, "The Rediscovery of Shakespeare's Greater Greek," Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, last modified 2015, accessed November 4, 2021, https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/rediscovery-shakespeares-greater-greek/.

[2] Showerman, "The Rediscovery," Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship.

[3] Euripides, Women and Sexuality (Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor and Francis, 2003), 81.

[4] Mary R. Lefkowitz et al., The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (New York: Modern Library, 2017), 561.

[5] Lefkowitz et al., The Greek, 549.

[6] Euripides. and David Kovacs, Children of Heracles: Hippolytus ; Andromache ; Hecuba, reprinted with revisions and corrections. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 165.

[7] William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Works, the savoy ed. (London, Great Britain: Eyre and Spottiswoode, n.d.), 907.

[8] Eamon Grennan, "The Women's Voices in 'Othello': Speech, Song, Silence," Shakespeare Quarterly 38, no. 3 (1987): 284, https://doi.org/10.2307/2870503.

[9] Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Works, 918.

[10] Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Works, 918.

[11] Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Works, 921.

[12] Euripides. and Kovacs, Children of Heracles, 245.

[13] Ewan Fernie, "Shame in 'Othello,'" The Cambridge Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1999): 19, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42967948.

[14] Lefkowitz et al., The Greek, 581.

[15] Ewan Fernie, "Shame in 'Othello,'" The Cambridge Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1999): 40, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42967948.

[16] Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Works, 922.

[17] Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Works, 923.

[18] Fernie, "Shame in 'Othello,'" 40.

Shakespeare and Brecht: Comparing Kent and Grusha’s Transition from Servant to Family

Shakespeare’s King Lear (1606) and Bertolt Brecht’s the Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948) both tell a story about loyalty. In King Lear, the devoted servant is a man named Kent. Kent’s loyalty knows no bounds when it comes to his master, King Lear. In the Caucasian Chalk Circle, the maid is a woman named Grusha. Grusha’s loyalty knows no bounds when it comes to her Governess’ son, Michael. Devotion and allegiance are twisted concepts in both dramas; King Lear is faced with the betrayal of two of his daughters, while Michael is faced with the betrayal of his biological mother. Amidst this chaos, Kent and Grusha continue their service to those who need it the most (whether to the King, or to the little boy). Service, according to Jonas Barish, “may be thought of as the formalization of relationships between individuals of different social or political rank […] [it] implies rights as well as duties”[1]. In Discourses of Service in Shakespeare’s England, David Evett explains that “Aristotle long ago not only prescribed servants’ need of work and correction, but also food and shelter […] In exchange, servants had one primary obligation: to obey”[2]. Yet, there were circumstances under which the line between obeying and disobeying blurred: “conflicts between the commandments of men and those of God or the moral code”[3]. Thus, Barish’s definition of service is informative but incomplete. His use of the word “duties” does not do justice to Kent and Grusha’s actions; both defy their duties to uphold loyalty and their conscience.

This paper will examine Kent and Grusha as parallels of one another’s allegiance to a greater, more just cause. It will explore how both servants engage in disobedience and mimic the actions of blood relatives to prove themselves of a greater familial value, whether in life or death.[AH1] 

Kent’s disobedience is part of his loyalty. Self-interest and commonsense are sacrificed in the name of servitude. In Jonas Barish’s article “Service in King Lear”, Barish notes that “Kent’s good service […] starts (in the play) with an act of disobedience, the only alternative being an act of servility”[4]. We see Kent’s first act of disobedience when he challenges King Lear’s decision to divide up his kingdom; Kent pleads: “My life I never held but as a pawn / To wage against thine enemies, ne’er fear to lose it, thy safety being the motive […] See better, Lear, and let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye”[5]. To challenge the king is not part of Kent’s typical job description, but he determines that by disobeying, he will be acting in the king’s favor. King Lear has not placed himself on the winning side; he has sacrificed land, men, and power. Even worse, he has attempted to rid himself of his most loyal patriots: his daughter Cordelia and his servant Kent. He “attempts” but is not successful. In a greater act of disobedience, Kent disguises himself as a man named “Caius”, sacrificing his identity (and life) to support the deteriorating King Lear. Even as Caius, he is obedient and loyal, making heavy weighted remarks such as “I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter”[6]. Kent has nothing to gain from this relationship, but he is a prime example of how “loyalty will override […] commonsense […] true service has little to do with prudence or calculation”[7]. Thus, Kent goes to great lengths to prove his loyalty, even though it may be unrecognizable. This reflects loyalty beyond servitude. As Evett points out in Discourses of Service in Shakespeare’s England: “the law of God supersedes the laws of nature and of men, servants were not only allowed to but were indeed obliged to disobey when ordered to do evil”[8]. Taken in the context of King Lear, a servant like Kent may have felt obligated to disobey the King, whose decision to divide up his kingdom would lead to greater evil, but it was not in his role, nor his Godly conscience, to disguise and risk himself on behalf of the king. Thus, his loyalty goes one step further, reflecting familial obligation.

Grusha displays a similar disobedience in the Caucasian Chalk Circle. Bertolt Brecht, a Germany author, wrote this drama in the 1940s. At this time, servants and maids did not have the same undying loyalty that servants paid to kings in the seventeenth century, but there were strict expectations. In Dorothee Wierling’s article “Women Domestic Servants in Germany at the Turn of the Century”, she explains that “the German domestic servant was subjected to a special law which has survived the end of feudalism: the ‘Gesindeordnung.’[…] The Gesindeordnung included no limits to working hours but instructed immediate obedience to employers orders”[9]. Though little context is given for the life of Grusha before the play, one can imagine that to disobey her employers was unacceptable. Grusha makes a choice, much like Kent, about who she is going to respect and care for. Kent chooses the king, the most vulnerable in the play, and Grusha chooses the Governor’s Wife’s baby, also the most vulnerable. Thus, Grusha is like Kent in her decision to obey her moral conscience and fulfil a familial role for baby Michael. In this obedience comes disobedience. She is characterized, perhaps rightfully so, by the Ironshirts as the woman “who’s supposed to have stolen the Abshvili child”[10].  She, deceptively passes “[Michael] off as her own child” committing a crime in the process[11]. When Grusha is caught red handed, having taken Michael as her own, she is given the opportunity (though with punishment) to obey her Governess and return the child. Yet she remarks that she had “saved the child from them”[12]. This is the ultimate disobedience. In doing so, Grusha marks herself as Michael’s family, acting on his behalf rather than her own. She faces the possibility of punishment (even death), to protect her new purpose, just as Kent does in defense of King Lear.

Kent exhibits a childlike quality. This quality further establishes him as a member of the Lear dynasty, beyond his participation in familial obligations. In Act 1, Scene 1 of King Lear, Kent refers to King Lear as his father; he states: “Royal Lear, […] Loved as my father”[13]. This represents a greater dynamic; one in which Kent looks up to and obeys King Lear like a father. This resonates in his behavior. In Martha Rozett’s article “Tragedies within Tragedies: Kent’s Unmasking in ‘King Lear’”, Rozett notes that “[Kent has] passionate outbursts […] [that] have a curiously childlike quality, as will much of his later behavior”[14]. As Kent fulfills this childish role, he bickers with King Lear. In Act 2, Scene 4, Lear and Kent argue back and forth:

LEAR. No.

KENT. Yes.

LEAR. No, I say.

KENT. I say yea.

LEAR. By Jupiter, I swear no.

KENT. By Juno, I swear ay.[15]

This pointless back and forth conversation between King Lear and Kent is like that of a father and child. It is notable that in the context of this conversation, King Lear has banished Cordelia, and is in the midst of losing Goneril and Regan. Thus, there is a void to be filled in the king’s life. Kent, is therefore, not only a most loyal companion who goes beyond what is asked of servitude. He is part of the Lear family, engaging with respect, power dynamics, and comfort.

Grusha also engages in a familial role, transitioning from maid to mother. Grusha’s transition from servant to family is much more literal (as it is the plot) than Kent’s transition, yet her transition reflects a greater societal obligation. In becoming a mother, she proves herself to be better than Michael’s blood related mother. Michael is thus more bound to his better, real mother (Grusha), than his abandoning, neglectful mother. Grusha’s identity is characterized by how she cares for Michael; she goes out of her way to find him milk and food: “Drink, Michael. This is half a week’s pay […] I certainly took on a nice burden with you”[16]. She wraps him in blankets to keep him warm: “I’ll throw your fine little shirt away / and wrap you in rags”[17]. She marries a dying man to provide a roof over Michael’s head. She refuses to pull his arm at the trial, afraid “to tear him to pieces”[18]. Ultimately, she proves herself to be the better mother and is endowed with legal rights to the child. It is fascinating that Brecht chooses to end his story this way. In Michael Freeman’s article “Truth and Justice in Bertolt Brecht”, he reveals that “there is no way that in the United States (or for that matter in Britain or Germany) a court would have cemented a fostering relationship over one based on a blood tie”[19]. This is where the lesson lies in the Caucasian Chalk Circle; even though the real world would not reward loyalty and dedication the way this parable does, the morality and conscience that drive the story should be rewarded. We finish this drama having concluded that a family is defined through effort and loyalty, not blood, a similar sentiment at the end of King Lear.

Both Kent and Grusha are the ones left behind. Grusha is left with Governor dead and his wife fainted and exiled. Kent is left alone, Cordelia and Lear dead. Kent and Grusha make similar decisions: they choose to (and want to) be with their makeshift families. Grusha takes on the role of a mother, while Kent walks off the stage, telling the audience: “My master calls me”[20]. It is implied that he leaves to kill himself, and join his master (or father), in another life. The bonds remain unbroken. A contemporary novel, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, dabbles with a similar dilemma; a biological mother (Bebe Chow), who originally felt unfit to care for her daughter, gives her to an adoptive family. Ng explores who earns the right to be the baby’s family and whether it is determined by blood or by dedication and resources. This idea of family versus servant is a more traditional and older phenomenon, but the issue of how we, as a Western society, define family is still complex and undefined. The Caucasian Chalk Circle and King Lear are progressive in how they approach these conversations, teaching us the importance of loyalty in a society governed by greed and self-interest.

Bibliography

Alter, Maria P. "THE TECHNIQUE of ALIENATION in BERTOLT BRECHT'S 'THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE.'" CLA Journal 8, no. 1 (1964): 60-65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44328403.

Barish, Jonas A., and Marshall Waingrow. "'Service' in King Lear." Shakespeare Quarterly 9, no. 3 (1958): 347-55. https://doi.org/10.2307/2867337.

Brecht, Bertolt, W. H. Auden, James Stern, Tania Stern, and Kristopher Imbrigotta. The Caucasian Chalk Circle. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021.

Cooley, Ronald W. "Kent and Primogeniture in 'King Lear.'" Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 48, no. 2 (2008): 327-48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40071337.

Evett, David. Discourses of Service in Shakespeare's England. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Freeman, Michael. "Truth and Justice in Bertolt Brecht." Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 11, no. 2 (1999): 197-214. https://doi.org/10.2307/743444.

Rozett, Martha Tuck. "Tragedies within Tragedies: Kent's Unmasking in 'King Lear.'" Renaissance Drama 18 (1987): 237-58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41917230.

Shakespeare, William, and R. A. Foakes. King Lear. Repr. ed. London: Thomson Learning, 2001.

Wierling, Dorothee. "Women Domestic Servants in Germany at the Turn of the Century." Oral History 10, no. 2 (1982): 47-57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40178718.

[1] Jonas A. Barish and Marshall Waingrow, "'Service' in King Lear," Shakespeare Quarterly 9, no. 3 (1958): 348, https://doi.org/10.2307/2867337.

[2] David Evett, Discourses of Service in Shakespeare's England (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 112.

[3] Evett, Discourses of Service, 109.

[4] Barish and Waingrow, "'Service' in King," 349.

[5] William Shakespeare and R. A. Foakes, King Lear, repr. ed. (London: Thomson Learning, 2001), 1.1.156-160.

[6] Shakespeare and Foakes, King Lear, 1.5.6-7.

[7] Barish and Waingrow, "'Service' in King," 351.

[8] Evett, Discourses of Service, 116.

[9] Dorothee Wierling, "Women Domestic Servants in Germany at the Turn of the Century," Oral History 10, no. 2 (1982): 48, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40178718.

[10] Bertolt Brecht et al., The Caucasian Chalk Circle, 2nd ed. (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021), 116.

[11] Brecht et al., The Caucasian, 113.

[12] Brecht et al., The Caucasian, 116.

[13] Shakespeare and Foakes, King Lear, 1.1.140-142.

[14] Martha Tuck Rozett, "Tragedies within Tragedies: Kent's Unmasking in 'King Lear,'" Renaissance Drama 18 (1987): 239, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41917230.

[15] Shakespeare and Foakes, King Lear, 2.4.19-24.

[16] Brecht et al., The Caucasian, 55.

[17] Brecht et al., The Caucasian, 68.

[18] Brecht et al., The Caucasian, 127.

[19] Michael Freeman, "Truth and Justice in Bertolt Brecht," Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 11, no. 2 (1999): 208, https://doi.org/10.2307/743444.

[20] Shakespeare and Foakes, King Lear, 5.3.321.

add something about defying historical norms for servants [AH1]

Fairytales: How Hans Christian Andersen’s Children’s Stories Highlight the Modern “Tragedy of the Commons”

Hans Christian Andersen did not intend to be remembered for his fairytales. In fact, he “saw his novel as his main achievement and the fairy tales just as what they were intended to be: entertainment, written only for financial reasons”[1]. There is a reason, however, that Andersen is so remembered for his fairytales. They are entertaining, yes, but they also resonate with “broadly human fears, wishes, and nightmares”[2]. Over one hundred years later in 1968, Garrett Hardin put forth his theory: the Tragedy of the Commons. His theory claimed that human beings, when given unlimited access to free resources, will take more than their fair share and thus deplete the resource for everyone involved. The “the commons” can represent any body of people. Beryl Crowe’s “The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited” presents a strong explanation of who “the commons” is: “The commons is a fundamental social institution that has a history […] which antidates the Roman conquest. […] in societies there are some environmental objects which have never been, and should never be, exclusively appropriated to any group or group of individuals”[3]. In other words, the commons (the common body of the people) have a right to public goods. The tragedy here is the inevitable overconsumption that comes with ungoverned access. Andersen (1805-1870) was not alive when the theory was published, but poverty and greed were.

In this paper I will explore how Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales, in particular the Tinder Box and the Little Match Girl, shed light on the Tragedy of the Commons. Andersen’s examination of greed, depletion, sacrifice, and poverty (among other things), provides a literary lens through which we can understand our current day Eco tragedy.

The Tragedy of the Commons’ tragedy lies in its inevitability. When Garrett Hardin published his theory, he quoted an English mathematician and philosopher: Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead claimed that “the essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the remorseless working of things”[4]. What is the “remorseless working of things”? It is the idea that, perhaps, things work a little too well. In the midst of the gears of our society working, producing, industrializing, people get left behind, it is inevitable. Whitehead adds: “This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama”[5]. Thus, tragedy can lie in its casualty, its inevitability, and its normalcy. These aspects establish the “futility of escape”, as ultimately, one cannot escape a properly functioning, normal society. The Tragedy of the Commons comments on this inevitability, that our capitalistic tendencies will push us to create and witness tragedy.

Andersen’s the Tinder Box explores our capitalistic urge to take and take. The story begins with a soldier who comes upon an old woman. The old woman asks him to do her a favor: go into the tree and fetch her the matchbox. She promises that in the tree there are three chests, each filled with bronze, silver, or gold. The soldier follows her request and finds that she was truthful. He gathers up as many coins as possible and leaves the tree a rich man. There is a change in the soldier when he lives with his pockets full. He tells the old lady: “if you don’t tell me what you are going to do with [the tinder box], I will draw my sword and cut off your head”[6]. The soldier begins to feel entitled to all goods, even those that belong to others. The soldier (having not received an answer from the old lady), cuts off her head and takes the tinder box for himself. This pattern does not end; soon, the soldier learns that with the strike of the tinder box, he can earn more and more money. He has endless access to wealth. He begins to feel as though he has access to other human beings, including the princess. At the end of the story, the soldier is not punished for his deeds. Rather, he uses his tinder box to win the princess and kill anybody and everybody in his way. There is no moral in this tale; the bad are not penalized. Yet, perhaps, the lack of punishment is a commentary on its own. In the Tragedy of the Commons, the analogy commonly used is that of individual cattle farmers. In unclaimed land, cattle farmers will act selfishly by releasing their cows onto the “common parcel”, despite knowing that their cows “will eventually deplete the land of all grass and inevitably drive everyone out of business”[7]. The point being: the cattle farmers want the immediate benefits of having more cows and are willing to push the damage and consequences to others. The soldier represents this cattle farmer; he has unlimited access to the money of the tinder box, and rather than redistribute or use it to others benefit, he acts selfishly. It is not a character flaw, but rather a symptom of a western, capitalist society, in which only the most selfish survive. It reflects a greater prisoner’s dilemma, where one fears if they do not act in their own best interest, others in the game will deceive them. Thus, the soldier can be used to understand what ignites the Tragedy of the Commons; we act in our own best interest, not because we are evil, but because if we did not, someone else would. As Garrett Hardin put it, “freedom in a commons brings ruin to all”[8].

The Little Match Girl provides a perspective on how the other half lives. Part of the tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons is that the poor and vulnerable are forced to deplete their resources for lack of a better alternative. In the Bay of Bengal, the community makes their living by fishing. Despite it being one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world, “many fishers defy warnings and continue fishing, which results in many fatalities every year”[9]. As a result of these fatalities, many of the families suffer economically, forcing them (in a twisted, cyclical process), to “cope in the only way they are capable of, that is by putting more pressure on common pool marine resources”[10]. Thus, the fishers in the Bay of Bengal consistently put themselves at risk, depleting the resources and threatening their climate because their community has been pushed into a singular line of work. There is no other way, it is inevitable. The little match girl faces a similar predicament; out in the cold on Christmas Eve, having failed to sell her matches for the day, she begins to light her matches. One by one, she hopes that the light from the flame will warm her: “Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! Perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers”[11]. The little match girl is found the next morning, frozen to death, her match box empty. The tragedy, and perhaps the irony, is that the little girl died using the very resource that could have kept her alive. She was forced to deplete it, there was no better option. It was the running out of this resource (and its potential for warmth) that led to her death. Similarly, the fishers in the Bay of Bengal continue to fish, despite its fatal potential. The result of overfishing in their common pool is that the resources are depleted, less fish is widely available, and income declines. This leads to “food insecurity along the coast” that can be, just like fishing, fatal[12]. Thus, Andersen’s the Little Match Girl is a prime literary example for understanding how and why the poor and vulnerable engage in a short-lived, fatal cycle. The ability to act in one’s long-term best interest is a privilege, one that neither the match girl nor the most vulnerable in the Tragedy of the Commons can afford.

The Little Match Girl ultimately comments on who benefits from the common’s self-sacrifice. In Andersen’s tale, he writes: “She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas tree […] Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches […] The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out”[13]. The irony here is painful; the little girl is freezing to death, match by match, as she watches a family light dozens of candles to decorate their home. She has, as part of the tragic lesson of the tale, given away her warmth for the rich families that surround her. She has sold her matches at such a cheap, unprofitable price, that she cannot ultimately warm herself. The fishers in the Bay of Bengal face the same problem: “Fishers and their families remain inadequately nourished and are not protected from avoidable diseases […] It is also a paradox that the price of fish the fishers earn is only 1 USD/kg of fish when the reported wealth that fisheries generate for the riparian countries is so immense”[14]. Thus, just as the match girl’s commodity is warmth, and she dies of the cold, the fishers’ commodity is fish, and they often die of malnutrition. The little match girl’s story is a literary analogy of the Tragedy of the Commons; the depletion of resources (her matches) is a consequence of others taking too much and giving too little in return. Andersen calls people’s attention to how we treat the most vulnerable; is society responsible for the little girl’s death? Is her death, in our capitalist society, inevitable and a symptom of the “remorseless working of things?”

Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales are harsh commentaries on western society. They call out our most greedy and profitable members of society and they provide a voice for our most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Though the Tragedy of the Commons is a contemporary theory, driven by a focus on the climate, Andersen’s tales provide a more accessible path towards understanding the concept. Made for children, the fairytales are clear: our greed has consequences. Notably, Andersen was writing most of his fairytales during and after many of the Industrial Revolutions across the world. The English Industrialization, for example, took place in the late 18th century. Thus, there is a hint of conflict between nature and humanity in his tales, particularly the Fir Tree. His personification of the cut down tree engages his audience with the disasters of the industrializing, Western world. The Tragedy of the Commons, then, is not only hinted at through the social dynamics in Andersen’s tales, but also as a forewarning of how we should treat the earth.

Bibliography

Andersen, Hans Christian. "The Little Match Seller." Translated by H. P. Paull. Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories. Last modified 1846. Accessed October 21, 2021. http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_match.html.

———. "The Tinder Box." Translated by H. P. Paull. Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories. Last modified 1835. Accessed October 21, 2021. http://hca.gilead.org.il/tinderbx.html.

Crowe, Beryl L. "The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited." Science 166, no. 3909 (1969): 1103-07. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1727455.

De mylius, Johan. "'Our Time Is the Time of the Fairy Tale': Hans Christian Andersen between Traditional Craft and Literary Modernism." Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 166-78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388793.

Hardin, Garrett. "THE TRAGEDY of THE COMMONS." Ekistics 27, no. 160 (1969): 168-70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43614737.

Jentoft, Svein, Paul Onyango, and Mohammad Mahmudul Islam. "Freedom and Poverty in the Fishery Commons." International Journal of the Commons 4, no. 1 (2010): 345-66. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26523026.

Laoutaris, Nikolaos. "Cows, Privacy, and Tragedy of the Commons on the Web." Nikolaos Laoutaris. Last modified April 28, 2016. Accessed October 21, 2021. http://laoutaris.info/index.php/2016/04/28/cows-privacy-and-tragedy-of-the-commons-on-the-web/.

Wood, Naomi. "The Ugly Duckling's Legacy: Adulteration, Contemporary Fantasy, and the Dark." Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 193-207. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388795.

Yolen, Jane. "From Andersen On: Fairy Tales Tell Our Lives." Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 238-48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388798.

[1] Johan De mylius, "'Our Time Is the Time of the Fairy Tale': Hans Christian Andersen between Traditional Craft and Literary Modernism," Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 168, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388793.

[2] Naomi Wood, "The Ugly Duckling's Legacy: Adulteration, Contemporary Fantasy, and the Dark," Marvels and Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 194, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41388795.

[3] Beryl L. Crowe, "The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited," Science 166, no. 3909 (1969): 1103, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1727455.

[4] Garrett Hardin, "THE TRAGEDY of THE COMMONS," Ekistics 27, no. 160 (1969): 168, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43614737.

[5] Hardin, "THE TRAGEDY," 168.

[6] Hans Christian Andersen, "The Tinder Box," trans. H. P. Paull, Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories, last modified 1835, accessed October 21, 2021, http://hca.gilead.org.il/tinderbx.html.

[7] Nikolaos Laoutaris, "Cows, Privacy, and Tragedy of the Commons on the Web," Nikolaos Laoutaris, last modified April 28, 2016, accessed October 21, 2021, http://laoutaris.info/index.php/2016/04/28/cows-privacy-and-tragedy-of-the-commons-on-the-web/.

[8] Hardin, "THE TRAGEDY," 169.

[9] Svein Jentoft, Paul Onyango, and Mohammad Mahmudul Islam, "Freedom and Poverty in the Fishery Commons," International Journal of the Commons 4, no. 1 (2010): 347, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26523026.

[10] Jentoft, Onyango, and Islam, "Freedom and Poverty," 348.

[11] Hans Christian Andersen, "The Little Match Seller," trans. H. P. Paull, Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories, last modified 1846, accessed October 21, 2021, http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_match.html.

[12] Jentoft, Onyango, and Islam, "Freedom and Poverty," 348.

[13] Andersen, "The Little," Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and Stories.

[14] Jentoft, Onyango, and Islam, "Freedom and Poverty," 353.

Greek Tragedy and Du Maurier: Ancient and Modern Explorations of the Man-Made Tragedy

Tragedy and horror are not too different from one another. Though most Greek tragedians wrote the violence and grotesqueness of their plays off stage, vile and cruel imagery has always existed. Euripides did not shy away from speaking about disgusting events. In his Hippolytus, the Messenger describes the ripping of limbs, the tearing of innocence. Latin tragedy further explored horror; Seneca’s Thyestes details the feuding of brothers and the subsequent murder and cannibalism (where blood serves as wine). Daphne Du Maurier’s the Birds (1952) is also a horror story; it illustrates a hoard of apocalyptic birds that ravage a family and its town. Du Maurier, though preying on humanity’s fear of birds, uses the animals as a larger metaphor for human warfare and machine violence. Through this lens, the Birds and Greek Tragedy are similar: they both explore manmade tragedy, and more specifically, the human-directed tragedy of war. Du Maurier and the Greek Tragedians critique manmade tragedy by establishing an autonomy of choice and utilizing this choice to symbolically turn human beings into weapons.

The Greek Tragedies, though primarily considered to be caused by fate, also come down to personal choice. It is a unique contradiction of no autonomy and full responsibility throughout the tragedies. Yet, perhaps, there is more autonomy in these characters’ lives than what they are typically credited with. Walter Agard’s journal article “Fate and Freedom in Greek Tragedy” discusses multiple instances of “freedom” throughout the tragedies including dramas by both Aeschylus and Sophocles. In Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, Orestes murders his mother purposefully; he tells the audience: “Apollo bids me kill my mother. But even if I didn’t trust his oracle, I’d do it anyway”[1]. In Sophocles’ Philoctetes, the Chorus speaks of autonomy, telling Philoctetes: “It is you, you who chose this […] This fortune comes from no other outside source nor from one stranger than you are”[2]. The ideas of “doing”, “action”, and “choice” permeate these quotes. Thus, despite the gods holding a higher power, the tragedies make a point: mankind is free to decide how (and how willingly) they submit to their destiny. Orestes may not have had the power to avoid murdering his mother, yet his loss of humanity, and his willingness to become a killer, undermine his dignity. “Men are warned what to avoid but are free to choose as they will. Those who give way to their own weakness are at least accomplices of the gods in the resulting calamity”[3]. Therefore, the Greek tragedies dabble with the concept of responsibility, avoiding the greater debate by placing fault with the gods, but forcing the characters to be “accomplices” of the gods. This paints them as culpable, decisive beings. In doing so, tragedy becomes man-made rather than unavoidable.

Daphne Du Maurier’s birds are given a human quality, endowing them with the power of autonomy and choice. Metaphorically, the birds represent a larger, more human scale of violence. In Mary Ellen Bellanca’s article “The Monstrosity of Predation in Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘The Birds’”, Bellanca states that the “bloodthirsty birds figuratively encode the voracity of human’s historical predations on each other”[4]. Thus, the bird’s existence, beyond how they act and why they do so, is emblematic of a violent human history. The birds are almost human and therefore have the power of determination. We see this autonomy when “the birds, in vast numbers, […] [attack] anyone on sight […] [and begin] an assault upon buildings”[5]. Du Maurier’s language is notable; the use of “attack” and “assault” imply a decision-making process. This process endows the birds with responsibility for their actions. Du Maurier further explores the autonomy of this tragedy by providing the birds with intellect: “[The birds’] got reasoning powers […] they know it’s hard to break in here. They’ll try elsewhere. They won’t waste their time with us”[6]. This personification of the birds paints them as the masters of their own destruction. They choose their suicide, they choose to instill fear, just as Orestes chooses to kill his mother, or Phaedra chooses to kill herself. Du Maurier endows a human power to the birds and then chooses to have them wreak tragedy.

The Greek Tragedians and Du Maurier both explore what a man-made tragedy means. They do so by making their characters and victims responsible for their own pain. The tragedy that ensues is a result of their actions rather than a result of fate. Du Maurier and the tragedians then take man-made tragedy one step further: they depict war as a man-made disaster, turning their characters into mechanical pawns of tragedy.

Although Greek Tragedy is littered with war (just as Greek history was), Aeschylus made sure to demonstrate its inhuman effects on society. Seven Against Thebes, which is a “play about war, a play ‘full of Ares’ as one ancient critic put it” is a prime example of this approach to tragedy[7]. The tragedy, which tells the tale of two armies, reduces the soldiers to their decisions. Thomas Rosenmeyer points out an important choral ode in “Seven against Thebes. The Tragedy of War”; the chorus sings: “Listen to the clang of the shields, do you hear it, my eyes are on it, the clash of many spears”[8]. Aeschylus’ emphasis on the sounds of weaponry reduces human beings to their decisions and detaches them from humanity. Their choice to engage in war directly causes the machinery of tragedy. Rosenmeyer summarizes this idea, he writes: “Behind the imposing front of armor and equipment the men themselves are barely noticed. The concentration on the war machine, on the gear and the artillery, is deliberate”[9]. Thus, when the chorus describes “the clash of many spears” and the “clang of the shields”, Aeschylus is turning the individuals in the army into weapons of war. The tragedy they have created (war itself), creates a further, cyclical tragedy: dehumanization. “For war, when seen whole, detaches itself from the feelings and motivates of individual souls and turns into a distant machine”[10]; the distant machine, in this case, are the human beings guided by their inclination towards pain and suffering. Seven Against Thebes serves as a lesson, one that warns against the tragedy of war and its destructive societal impacts.

By Du Maurier’s 1952 short story The Birds, society has not learned from tragedy. And thus, similarly, Du Maurier reduces her living beings to machines of destruction. The Birds can be contextualized as a post-World War II dystopia, representing an air attack that destroys civilization[11]. While Du Maurier has bestowed the birds with the human power of decision, she also punishes them for their apocalyptic tendencies. They ultimately come to represent “destruction [that] rained from the sky with powerful human-made weaponry”[12]. We see this in the shift from the birds as beings that can reason (“They know”, “They’ve got reasoning powers”), to objects with “wings brushing the surface, sliding, scaping, seeking a way of entry. The sound of man bodies, pressed together, shuffling on the sills”[13]. They are endowed with the “instinct to destroy mankind with all the deft precision of machines”[14]. Thus, we see the birds transition from creatures that can replicate human intelligence to beings that suffer as a result of their actions. The birds have created tragedy, particularly for the family who suffer as a result, but they also lose all autonomy and selfhood due to the war they ensue and endure. Just as Aeschylus reduces the soldiers to the sounds of the shields, De Maurier reduces the birds to the identity of bullets and bombs. The tragedy lies in the decision to create war and the loss of humanity that follows.

The Greeks and contemporary writers can agree on one thing: tragedy is often manmade, and war is a historic, relevant example of self-destructive behavior. Du Maurier and the Greeks explore manmade tragedy in two specific ways. First, they establish autonomy, proving that tragedy is self-determined. Second, they use the tragedy to dehumanize their characters, reducing them to the warfare of the very tragedy they began. War is still a modern day, manmade tragedy. And now, we struggle with a new, additional manmade tragedy: climate disaster. The tragedy here is not the decision to create climate change, but the lack of decision in avoiding it. In Nileen Putatunda’s article “Floods: Avoidable Tragedy”, Putatunda writes of the floods that have caused havoc amongst Malda’s residents: “It is not as though devastation and catastrophe are indelible constants […] The misfortune that they have faced so far has been manmade”[15]. Thus, while decision and action are inherent in creating tragedy, so are indecision and inaction.

Bibliography

Aeschylus, and Alan H. Sommerstein. Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers.
     Eumenides. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Aeschylus,, and Alan H. Sommerstein. Aeschylus: Persians: Seven against Thebes: Suppliants: Prometheus Bound. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.

Agard, Walter R. "Fate and Freedom in Greek Tragedy." The Classical Journal 29, no. 2 (1933): 117-26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3290417.

Bellanca, Mary Ellen. "The Monstrosity of Predation in Daphne Du Maurier's 'The Birds.'" Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 18, no. 1 (2011): 26-46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44086927.

Du Maurier, Daphne. The Birds and Other Stories. New edition ed. London: Virago, 2004.

Grene, David, and Richmond Alexander Lattimore. The Complete Greek Tragedies.
     Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.

Nileen Putatunda. "Floods: Avoidable Tragedy." Economic and Political Weekly 36, no. 2 (2001): 101-03. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4410161.

Rosenmeyer, Thomas. "Seven against Thebes. the Tragedy of War." Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 1, no. 1 (1962): 48-78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20162766.

[1] Walter R. Agard, "Fate and Freedom in Greek Tragedy," The Classical Journal 29, no. 2 (1933): 125, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3290417.

[2] Agard, "Fate and Freedom," 125.

[3] Agard, "Fate and Freedom," 123.

[4] Mary Ellen Bellanca, "The Monstrosity of Predation in Daphne Du Maurier's 'The Birds,'" Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 18, no. 1 (2011): 30, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44086927.

[5] Daphne Du Maurier, The Birds and Other Stories, new edition ed. (London: Virago, 2004), 23.

[6] Du Maurier, The Birds, 24.

[7] Thomas Rosenmeyer, "Seven against Thebes. the Tragedy of War," Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 1, no. 1 (1962): 48, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20162766.

[8] Rosenmeyer, "Seven against," 57.

[9] Rosenmeyer, "Seven against," 58.

[10] Rosenmeyer, "Seven against," 57.

[11] Bellanca, "The Monstrosity," 27.

[12] ellanca, "The Monstrosity," 27.

[13] Du Maurier, The Birds, 21.

[14] Du Maurier, The Birds, 38.

[15] Nileen Putatunda, "Floods: Avoidable Tragedy," Economic and Political Weekly 36, no. 2 (2001): 102, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4410161.

Seneca Versus Euripides: How Perspective and Imagery Dictate Whether a Tragedy Should be Watched or Read

Hippolytus, also known as Phaedra, has been approached by multiple tragedians from the Greek to the French. Euripides, Seneca, and Racine have all written their own version, each poet twisting the story slightly from the last. This paper will examine Euripides’ Hippolytus (428 BCE) and Seneca’s Phaedra (290 CE), with a focus on the Messenger’s speech. Through an inspection of the perspective, language, and imagery of the two Messenger’s speeches, this paper will argue that Euripides’ Hippolytus is better received as a performance, whereas Seneca’s Phaedra is better received as a piece of read literature.

Euripides purposefully grounds his images in reality, making the events in the play tangible and accessible to a live audience. When the Messenger arrives to tell Theseus of Hippolytus’ terrible accident, the rationally intelligent world remains. The Messenger tells Theseus: “The wheels’ naves and the axle pins were leaping into the air, and the poor man himself, entangled in the reins, bound in a bond he could not untie […] his head being smashed against the rocks and flesh being torn”[1]. Although violent and grotesque to imagine, this is an image that an audience can digest auditorily and then imagine. To process and appreciate an act that takes place off stage, it is key that it be reminiscent of reality. Shirley Barlow describes Euripides’ balance of reality and powerful imagery in The Imagery of Euripides: “Euripides’ narrative has, throughout, visual appeal, but he does not judge it expedient to describe the bull at such length that it will either slow down the action or appear to distort the fact”[2]. Barlow is spot on; Euripides is careful in his description of the death of Hippolytus (emphasizing the violence and adding a drama to the stage), drawing the audience into the scene without disrupting the flow of what is processable. Euripides’ Hippolytus is meant for the stage: “If the sun is just coming up, that is to tell us what time of day [...] If the cattle are mentioned early in the speech, this is to prepare for their reappearance”[3]. Reality is key to Hippolytus, despite its ventures into violence. The Messenger’s descriptions of Hippolytus’ death are painful but real, dramatic but possible. Thus, an audience can both appreciate and resonate with the story on stage: it is not too far off from their own lives.

Seneca approaches the Messenger’s speech differently, grounding his images in the supernatural. In doing so, Seneca establishes his Phaedra as a tragedy better appreciated when read. We see this impact when the Messenger tells Theseus: “How the thing looked! How huge! A bull it was, towering high with a dark blue neck, and he reared a high mane upon his verdant crest; his shaggy ears stood up; his eyes flashed with changing colour”[4]. “Shaggy ears”, “towering high” and “eyes flashing with changing colour”, distort reality. These descriptions require a working imagination, they are not inherently self-explanatory. Rather, they verge on the supernatural, far from reality. Seneca fearlessly speaks of “horned monster[s] of the deep”, bringing his audience to an alternate world[5]. This is starkly different from other accounts of Hippolytus; as Barlow puts it: “Seneca is neither so economic [from Euripides], nor so restrained in his description of the same event”[6]. Seneca’s decision to distort the Messenger’s speech complicates the visual aspect of performance. Monsters, shifting shapes, and changing colors, resonate strongly when read, but lack the same power when heard. An audience witnessing this Messenger’s speech would be required to imagine a reality separate from what is on stage, while Euripides’ audience would imagine a scene much closer to reality. Thus, Euripides’ Hippolytus may have less adventure but is better adapted to a stage, while Seneca’s Phaedra, is more supernatural, distorting imagery for an audience member, but enhancing it for a reader who can appreciate the fine, mystical details.

Euripides and Seneca’s approach to imagery is essential in dictating why Euripides’ Hippolytus is stronger performed and why Seneca’s Phaedra is stronger read. The two tragedians also utilize opposing types of perspective, further confirming why the tragedies benefit from being consumed in different mediums.

Euripides’ Messenger speaks in the first person, forcing the audience to experience Hippolytus’ accident from the Messenger’s perspective. The first perspective captures the audience, personalizing it and allowing them to hear the tale as though they were there: essential for an audience listening to the story in real time. The Messenger clings to the perspective “we” and “our”; describing the event he tells Theseus: “We servants, on the ground beside the chariot, accompanied our master”[7]. Only a few lines later he adds: “We struck deserted country”[8]. Who is we? The “we” is the Messenger, Hippolytus, other Greeks, and the audience. By using this perspective, the Messenger takes the audience on a journey alongside him. There is power when this perspective is used on stage as the audience begins to hear the story and experience it with the actors. Euripides’ curates these perspectives purposefully, having the Messenger end his story with: “I am, I know, a slave of your house, my lord but I shall never be able to believe that your son is guilty”[9]. The transition from “we” to “I”, enables the audience to not only experience Hippolytus’ accident alongside the Messenger, but then to resonate with his perspective. Thus, his use of “I”, forces the audience to agree with the Messenger, feeling just as passionate that Hippolytus is innocent. We, the audience, are then forced to reckon (from our own perspectives) with the death of Hippolytus, who comes upon stage, his limbs destroyed, and dies in front of the audience. Unlike in Seneca’s Phaedra, where Hippolytus is dead by the time of the Messenger’s speech, Hippolytus dies in front of the audience in Euripides’ version. Hence, the perspective of the messenger manifests on stage, in which the audience transitions from experiencing the accident alongside the Messenger, to witnessing the aftermath with their very own eyes. As Barlow states, “The full impact of pity and fear at […] Hippolytus’ accident […] cannot be felt until these characters appear and speak themselves”[10].

Seneca’s Messenger, on the other hand, speaks primarily in the third person, distancing the audience from the story. The Messenger tells Theseus of “Hippolytus, alone, quite unafraid, with tight reins holds fast his horses and, terror stricken though they are, urges them on with the encouragement of his familiar voice”[11]. This third person perspective invites the reader to picture the events that have taken place, but it does not invite them to experience the events on stage with the actors. It distances an audience member from feeling it firsthand yet enables a reader to visualize it. In Charles Segal’s journal article “Senecan Baroque: The Death of Hippolytus in Seneca, Ovid, and Euripides”, Segal articulates this idea well: “The narrative voice in these lines is less that of a messenger who has really seen such a thing than that of the poet himself who wants us to ‘see’ this object of terror with our inner vision of emotional participation”[12]. Thus, in Seneca’s Phaedra, the primary goal is not for the audience to hear and resonate with the events described, but rather to imagine, separate from what is explicitly stated on the page. Whereas in Euripides’ Hippolytus, the narrative voice is the Messenger’s, personalizing the speech and grounding it for members of the audience.

Although Euripides’ Hippolytus and Seneca’s Phaedra are both written to be performed, this paper argues that through the lens of the Messenger speech, Hippolytus is better appreciated on stage while Phaedra is better appreciated as a text. Seneca’s drama is designed to instill terror through its imaginative and psychological images. Euripides’ drama is designed for watching, grabbing the attention of the audience through real, tangible images. Euripides and Seneca manipulate the perspective of the Messenger, one through the first person and the other through the third person, as a means of either attaching or detaching the audience from the events detailed in the tragedy. The result is that Euripides’ Hippolytus metaphorically brings the audience members on stage, while Seneca’s Phaedra enables the reader to visualize the scene rather than experience it.

In a look into on screen adaptions of Phaedra, I watched the 1962 American-Greek film Phaedra. The purpose of the film was much less a look into Greek Tragedy than it was a look into forbidden love and lust. I observed one notable thing though; the film’s writers chose to have Hippolytus fall in love with Phaedra, making their love for one another a mutual experience. I found this interesting because it completely undermines the premise of both Euripides’ and Seneca’s version of the story. I wondered if perhaps they added this to make their love less taboo and more appealing to a larger audience? In other words, maybe it is too indigestible to have an older woman fall in love with her young stepson, but if he loves her too, then it is less disturbing. On a separate note, I also felt as though the actress who portrayed Phaedra had a snake like quality to her – how she spoke, how she moved, what she said. However, I could not determine whether or not this was a choice to demonize her and make her the antognist of the story, or if it was bad acting. Either way, I found it interesting as my inclination was to dislike her and disapprove, which has not been my reaction when reading Euripides and Seneca.

Bibliography

Barlow, Shirley A. The Imagery of Euripides: A Study in the Dramatic Use of Pictorial Language. 3rd ed. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2008.

Euripides., and David Kovacs. Euripides: Children of Heracles ; Hippolytus ; Andromache ; Hecuba. London: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Segal, Charles. "Senecan Baroque: The Death of Hippolytus in Seneca, Ovid, and Euripides." Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 114 (1984): 311-25. https://doi.org/10.2307/284154.

Seneca. Tragedies I. Seneca VIII. Translated by Frank Justus Miller, Ph.D. N.p.: Harvard University Press / Heinemann, USA & London, 1968.

[1] Euripides. and David Kovacs, Euripides: Children of Heracles ; Hippolytus ; Andromache ; Hecuba (London: Harvard University Press, 1995), 241.

[2] Shirley A. Barlow, The Imagery of Euripides: A Study in the Dramatic Use of Pictorial Language, 3rd ed. (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2008), 71.

[3] Barlow, The Imagery, 73.

[4] Seneca, Tragedies I. Seneca VIII, trans. Frank Justus Miller, Ph.D (n.p.: Harvard University Press / Heinemann, USA & London, 1968), 403.

[5] Seneca, Tragedies I. Seneca, 407.

[6] Barlow, The Imagery, 72.

[7] Euripides. and Kovacs, Euripides: Children, 237.

[8] Euripides. and Kovacs, Euripides: Children, 239.

[9] Euripides. and Kovacs, Euripides: Children, 241.

[10] Barlow, The Imagery, 77.

[11] Seneca, Tragedies I. Seneca, 405.

[12] Charles Segal, "Senecan Baroque: The Death of Hippolytus in Seneca, Ovid, and Euripides," Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 114 (1984): 318, https://doi.org/10.2307/284154.

Public v. Private: How Euripides Uses Medea and Phaedra as Case Studies of Women’s Exploration into the Oikos and the Polis

It is said that during a performance of Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae, Euripides turned to a male relative and told him: “I fear […] that this day will be my last. The women have been plotting against me […] They say I slander them in my tragedies”[1]. On the surface, Euripides is the ultimate slanderer of women; Medea, Hippolytus, and the Bacchae, portray desire-ridden, vengeful, uncontrollable women. In this paper, however, I will explore how Euripides has given power to the female characters in his play through two political spheres: the oikos and the polis. The oikos is the private sphere left to women – it encompasses all household and family activity. On a stage, the oikos is “behind the orchestra […] a more remote space which the audience normally cannot see”[2]. The polis, on the other hand, is the public sphere and it is typically left in the hands of men. Governance and monetary exchanges, for example, were the concerns of men. And, in opposition to the oikos, the polis’ place on stage is the orchestra, open to the audience[3].

Euripides chooses to do something special in exploring the gender politics of his dramas; he creates a perfect woman in the private political sphere (oikos) and creates an untouchable, almost godly woman in the public political sphere (polis). The two case studies for this, respectively, are Hippolytus and Medea. In Euripides depiction of Phaedra, she becomes the ultimate family woman; she maintains her chastity and resultantly protects and honors the family name. On the other end of the spectrum is Medea, a woman who successfully inserts her way into the polis. She becomes untouchable and hardened, by mastering the art of being a man. Trade, conversation, and warfare-like violence are all tools Euripides uses to explore a woman’s place in the polis. Thus, this paper will explore how Euripides creates two powerful women: the victim and the perpetrator.

Phaedra’s self-sacrifice is the ultimate preservation of her chastity. In Ancient Greece, a woman’s purity is key to the conservation of the household. It maintains the structure and integrity of the family. In Christopher Gill’s article “The Articulation of the Self in Euripides’ Hippolytus”, Gill quotes Hippolytus: “Let someone teach women to be sophron or allow me to go on trampling them down forever”, Gill then explains: “By sophronein, Hippolytus seems to mean ‘to be chaste’, or perhaps better ‘virtuous’”[4]. To be sophron is an expectation held of the women in Hippolytus. Their virtuousness, ultimately a matter of the oikos, is essential in preserving the sanctity of the home. Notably, sophrosune is a term typically used for the “sexual modesty [of] men”[5]. Thus, its application to the women of the play is an expectation of a higher standard (a crossover between the oikos and the polis). Phaedra meets this standard. After being cursed to fall in love with Hippolytus, she does everything in her power to remain chaste. Thus, even though it is her “heart that is stained”, her “hands […] [remain] clean”[6]. Phaedra understands that it is her duty, as a member of the oikos, to remain pure and not fall to desire. Frustrated with her longing, Phaedra yells to the audience: “Damnation take the woman who first began to besmirch her marriage bed with other men!”[7]. Out of shame and self-preservation, Phaedra commits suicide, ending any likelihood of her “besmirching her marriage bed.” She sacrifices herself in the name of her family. And, consequently, the private realm of her life, the oikos, remains protected by her sacrificial act.

Phaedra’s self-sacrifice preserves the honor and sanctity of her family. But her suicide created a host of issues for the characters around her: her false accusation of Hippolytus is a direct cause of his death. Yet, one must examine how her sacrifice is crucial to maintaining the dignity of her family. After Theseus has taken revenge against his son, Artemis comes on stage and tells the audience (and Theseus): “I came, to make plain that your son’s heart is guiltless so that he may die with a good name, make plain, too, the maddened frenzy of your wife, or if I may call it so, her nobility”[8]. Here, Phaedra’s actions in the oikos (her suicide off stage, her preservation of individual purity), make their way to the polis. The audience and Theseus now know that both Hippolytus and Phaedra were virtuous characters. And, Phaedra, who initiated this series of events, is credited with the preservation of the family’s honor. She was virtuous in her decision to kill herself, choosing to protect the private realm before giving way to her cursed desires. Hippolytus is a tragedy, Phaedra and Hippolytus die and Theseus is left to contemplate their absences. Yet, Euripides has been purposeful in his depiction of Phaedra – he has made her the ultimate family woman, the perfector of the oikos. Without her self-sacrifice, the family would have been doomed.

Phaedra is a prime case study of a female character mastering the private realm. Phaedra understood what was important for the maintenance of a family: purity and dignity. Euripides, however, did not only explore women in their traditional space. Medea is a strong exploration into women’s role in the polis.

Medea successfully inserts herself into the polis of Ancient Greek life. Euripides endows her with the power of exchange, a traditionally male role. We see Medea master exchange more than once in Medea; she first demonstrates this within her own marriage. Women were typically married off by their fathers – it was an exchange they did not participate in. Yet, this does not apply to Medea. Early in the tragedy she tells the audience: “We [women] must buy a husband and take a master for our bodies”[9]. Here, Medea implies that she has the power and ability to purchase a husband in exchange for rights to her body. This is true for Medea’s union to Jason as her marriage is one guaranteed by oaths rather than contracts. Due to the nature of her marriage, Medea has essentially contracted her own marriage. In Margaret Williamson’s essay “A Woman’s Place in Euripides’ Medea” Williamson explains that by “contracting a marriage […] [Medea] has already translated herself into the role of a male citizen”[10]. Medea’s ability to take on a traditionally male role reflects her transition into the polis. She carries this out further, making transactions with Aegeus. Medea and Aegeus, both having something to offer one another, form a contract. Medea is right when she tells Aegeus: “You do not know what a lucky find you have made in me”[11]. In other words, not only has Medea successfully transitioned into the polis, but she is aware of her newfound political power. She has learned how to master it to her own benefit, becoming a politician of the polis. Euripides has enabled Medea to fulfill a man’s role, pushing her into the public sphere, and allowing her to maneuver it to her benefit.

Euripides also endows Medea with the resources to compose and speak like a man. The result? She has a profound ability to shapeshift to the people around her. On the inside, Medea operates like a woman. Euripides purposefully writes all of Medea’s “womanly” moments off stage, in the oikos. We see this when Medea learns Jason has betrayed her; she cries behind the scenes: “(sung) May a flash of lightning pierce my head! What profit any longer for me in life? Ah, ah! May I find my rest in death and leave behind my hateful life!”[12]. The rage and emotion of Medea’s language is unrestrained -- it is womanly. For Medea to participate in the outside world, the polis, she cannot express herself in that sphere like a woman. Thus, there is an inherent switch in how she composes herself in the outside world, particularly with other men. When faced with the possibility of being exiled by Creon, Medea knows she must adjust her composure. To convince Creon of her decency, she tells him: “Have no fear, Creon: I am not the kind of person to commit crimes against my rulers. […] For although I have been wronged, I will hold my peace”[13]. Though her tactic does not ultimately work, there’s a notable shift in Medea’s speech. Williamson observes this change, explaining that “from within the house we hear her expressing extremes of rage, misery, and hatred […] as soon as she steps outside it her language becomes controlled, abstract”[14]. Medea can shapeshift her language and composure to resemble that of men. Here, she can operate successfully in the polis, while internally remaining a member of the oikos. This duality is a powerful character development.

Medea’s ability to function in the polis is also represented physically. This is the final step in her transition from oikos to polis, and it paints her as untouchable and godly. A woman’s method of killing is traditionally poison, whereas a man traditionally uses a knife. When a woman breaks this expectation, the consequences tend to be great. For Clytemnestra, the stabbing of Agamemnon brought upon her own death. And, in Greek Mythology, Medea is turned into a monster by the gods for her actions. Yet, in Euripides’ Medea, Medea’s decision to stab her own children has a different effect: it hardens her, making her less vulnerable. She leaves more powerful than she started. Forcing pain upon Jason, Medea taunts him: “[I killed the children] to cause you grief […] Now you speak to them, now you greet them, when before you thrust them from you”[15]. The act of stabbing her children, a manly, almost war-like act, has fully transformed Medea. By engaging in the polis, she has taken on the role of a man, penetrating her children with a knife. She leaves the stage, “with the corpses of her children” as she “is born aloft away from Corinth”[16]. This is a fascinating ending to the drama; Euripides has given Medea the power of a man, in the public political sphere, yet he has not punished he for it. Rather, she leaves untouchable, floating into the sky like a god. He purposefully does not turn her into a monster because his intention has been to have Medea succeed in the realm of men.

Euripides’ dramas, Medea and Hippolytus, are two drastically different tragedies. Phaedra is the prime example of a woman operating within the private sphere; her life is dedicated to the preservation of the household. Medea, on the other hand, is the prime example of a woman operating in the public sphere; her journey depicts her transition into a man’s role. Euripides’ has chosen to make both women untouchables. Phaedra is turned into a pure, chaste figure whose self-sacrifice has protected the family name. Medea is turned into an invulnerable, powerful figure who goes unpunished for her deeds. We have the perfect victim and the perfect aggressor. To have women succeed in the oikos and polis is a political decision. It demonstrates that there is potential in both realms, and more importantly, that they can overlap.

Bibliography

Euripides., and David Kovacs. Children of Heracles: Hippolytus ; Andromache ; Hecuba. Reprinted with revisions and corrections. ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.

———. Euripides. New ed], reprinted with changes and corrections. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Euripides, Women and Sexuality. Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor and Francis, 2003.

Kokkini, Dimitra. "THE REJECTION of EROTIC PASSION by EURIPIDES' HIPPOLYTOS." Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, no. 119 (2013): 67-83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44215177.

[1] Euripides, Women and Sexuality (Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor and Francis, 2003), 32.

[2] Euripides, Women, 17.

[3] Euripides, Women, 17.

[4] Euripides, Women, 81.

[5] Dimitra Kokkini, "THE REJECTION of EROTIC PASSION by EURIPIDES' HIPPOLYTOS," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, no. 119 (2013): 72, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44215177.

[6] Euripides. and David Kovacs, Children of Heracles: Hippolytus ; Andromache ; Hecuba, reprinted with revisions and corrections. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 155.

[7] Euripides. and Kovacs, Children of Heracles, 165.

[8] Euripides. and Kovacs, Children of Heracles, 245.

[9] Euripides. and David Kovacs, Euripides, new ed], reprinted with changes and corrections. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), 317.

[10] Euripides, Women, 18.

[11] Euripides. and Kovacs, Euripides, 363.

[12] Euripides. and Kovacs, Euripides, 309.

[13] Euripides. and Kovacs, Euripides, 323.

[14] Euripides, Women, 17.

[15] Euripides. and Kovacs, Euripides, 427.

[16] Euripides. and Kovacs, Euripides, 427.

Aeschylus and Sophocles: How the Two Playwrights Chose to Approach Plot and Character

Aeschylus (525 – 455 BC) and Sophocles (497 BC – 405 BC) are two of the three Greek playwrights whose tragedies have survived. Though the two playwrights have gone about writing their tragedies differently, they remain tragedies, nonetheless. In Aristotle’s Poetics, Aristotle claims that tragedy has six components: “plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and lyric poetry”[1]. Aristotle categorizes plot as the most important of the six components, defining it as the “construction of events”[2]. Character, second to plot, is defined as the “virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to the agents”[3]. In other words, one cannot have a tragedy without a plot. And, although a tragedy can be without character development, it may lend itself to a monotonous story.

Though both focused on plot, Sophocles and Aeschylus approach the challenge of the plot in different ways; Aeschylus approaches his plot politically while Sophocles approaches his plot emotively. The result: both playwrights develop a sophisticated and event-packed plot. Aeschylus and Sophocles further differ from one another in their approach to character; Aeschylus reduces his characters to their decisions, painting emotion as black and white, while Sophocles dares to create a conscience that adds dimension to his characters. Hence, while Sophocles and Aeschylus choose different ways to plot their tragedies, Sophocles is more successful in characterizing the victims of his play.

Aeschylus strategically structures his tragedies’ plot around politics. The Oresteia concludes with Eumenides, a tragedy that takes place in the setting of a court. This political structure enables the events of the play to be concrete and tangible. We see this when Athena enters the stage; Aeschylus describes her as “accompanied by a herald, a trumpeter, and eleven judges. The essential paraphernalia of a lawcourt have been set in place: a chair for Athena as presiding officer, benches for the judges, and a table with two voting-urns”[4]. The outcome of such a strict political setting is a series of cascading events. Athena “[instructs the] men to cast a vote”, Orestes is found not guilty, and an entire timeline of justice takes place[5]. This event-packed tragedy is dictated by culture, political disputes, court room arguments, and godly disagreements. Notably, the plot is almost blunt in nature – there is no ambiguity when it comes to the sequence of events. Aeschylus adds more intention by extending the plot to his audience. At the end of Eumenides, the Processional Escort cries out to the audience: “Raise a cry of triumph to crown our song” to which it is expected that they do[6]. The outcome here is a clear-cut plotline in which the conclusion of events is signified by the audience’s participation in the political culture of the tragedy. While political motivation is not necessary for a plotline, Aeschylus has used it to his advantage in creating a defined, well-paced tragedy. In other words, their reactions are not guided by choice, but rather mechanical forces of fate and circumstance.

Sophocles, on the other hand, structures his tragedies’ plots around emotion. This has a different impact on the structure of the plot, making it action-packed, but less decisive and blunt than Aeschylus’ tragedies. As most of the decisions in Sophocles’ plays are made emotively, the consequences of the decisions lack the permanency of political decisions. Antigone is a prime example of this approach to plot. Out of familial love and honor, Antigone decides to break Creon’s law and give her brother, Polyneices, a proper burial; she tells her sister: “It is not for him [Creon] to keep me from my own”[7]. Antigone then properly buries a brother Her decision, driven by emotion, represents a tension between law and human nature. Antigone’s choice, much like the judges in Eumenides who dictate the role of justice, leads to a series of tragic plot lines. Creon discovers the burial and decides to bury Antigone alive, much to the dismay of his son, Haemon. Before her murder, Creon begins to question his decision. Yet this questioning is too late: Antigone commits suicide, leading to the suicide of Haemon, and then the suicide of Eurydice (mother of Haemon, wife to Creon). The tragedy: Creon regrets his decision and wishes for the plot to be undone. The back and forth of decision making in Antigone is a completely different approach to plot than what Aeschylus has mastered. For Sophocles, the plot line is more blurred, but it is also dictated by a different force: the force of emotion, love, and humanity. Decisions are made impulsively, and the plot is thus reactive.

The ways in which Aeschylus and Sophocles approach plot are different, not better than one another. Their approaches, whether political or emotional, both successfully create a plot filled with tragic events and moments. The impact of their plots, however, differ. Aeschylus’ plot, resulting from an imitation of political decisions, is concrete and substantial, whereas Sophocles’ plot is inherently irresolute as a result of why the events take place. After establishing Aeschylus and Sophocles’ divergences in plot structure, it is important to note that their approach to character is what ultimately sets them apart.

Aeschylus characterizes the victims of his tragedies as either good or evil. By categorizing them as one or the other, he reduces them to their actions and inhibits personal growth. In Aristotle’s Poetics, Aristotle argues that “character is that which reveals moral choice”[8]. Through this understanding of character, Aeschylus has not emphasized “moral choice” as a key to what makes his characters tragic. In the Oresteia, characters such as Orestes, Electra, and Clytemnestra act out of a “blood for blood” mentality. Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon (and Cassandra) after her daughter Iphigeneia’s sacrifice. As a result, Orestes and Electra plot and murder their mother Clytemnestra. As the Chorus puts it in Libation-Bearers: “return your enemy evil for evil”[9]. These decisions are not portrayed as a matter of conscience, but rather a necessary evil that neutralizes good and bad. This is further portrayed when Orestes explains why he must kill Clytemnestra: “It is not I that will kill you: you will have killed yourself […] For my father’s blood determines this doom for you”[10]. This painful decision is not presented as morally challenging. Orestes demonstrates no difficulty in choosing to kill Clytemnestra; rather, like the plot, it is clear cut and blunt. Thus, while Aeschylus’ tragedy most certainly maintains a tragic plotline, the characters themselves do not develop beyond the decisions that enable these events.

Sophocles, on the other hand, subjects his characters to a dynamic moral consciousness: they struggle to decide between good and evil (perhaps because this distinction is not so binary), and are thus tortured by their own decisions. Antigone demonstrates this tension by choosing to bury her brother who is not entitled to a proper burial. Here, her moral compass directs her towards family and honor rather than her own livelihood. Her character, although ultimately the victim of suicide, is full of depth: she is torn between family, honor, self-sacrifice, and law, not much unlike every man. Philoctetes is a tragedy that fully embraces the tension of what it means to be human. Neoptolemus, completing a mission to trick Philoctetes out of his bow, is hesitant to be so cruel. Caught between the importance of his mission and the importance of humanity, Neoptolemus ultimately regrets his decision to manipulate Philoctetes, and tells Odysseus: “I go to undo the wrong I have done”[11]. He adds that he “did wrong” and “practiced craft and treachery”[12]. In Sophocles’ plays, there is a place for “repentance”[13]. Characters, strained by their own moral compasses, are given the ability to find a middle ground between right and wrong. Neoptolemus’ character is deepened by his ability to see the grey in the world (it is not black and white). As a result, he is a complete and multidimensional character. And, more so, he is human like the rest of the audience watching the tragedy.

Aeschylus and Sophocles, though both writers of similar tragic stories, have chosen to approach their plays differently. For Aeschylus, the plot is the most important. He chooses to develop it politically, making it blunt and tangible. The events, easily distinguished from one another, result from a “cause and effect” approach to storytelling. For Sophocles, plot is also important, yet he approaches it emotively, causing it to be less driven by events than by characters. The two playwrights further divert from one another when approaching the development of character. Aeschylus almost inhibits his characters, forcing black and white actions upon them for the plot. Meanwhile, Sophocles forces dilemma upon his characters, making their own internal dialogue part of the tragedy. What is the most fundamental characteristic of a tragedy, then? In a drama, does character take precedence over plot, or is it the opposite? According to Aristotle, a tragedy’s most important component is the plot: “The events and the plot are the goal of the tragedy, and the goal is the most important thing of all”[14]. In this sense, one could argue that Aeschylus’ straightforward structure is the prime example of what tragedy looks like. On the other hand, is it not more important to craft a performance that resonates with the pain and misery of the characters upon stage? My modern, 21st century self, would argue it is the most important and the tragic quality after all.

Bibliography

Aeschylus, and Alan H. Sommerstein. Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides.       Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Aristotle., Stephen Halliwell, Longinus., W. H. Fyfe, Donald Russell, Doreen Innes, W. Rhys      Roberts, and Demetrius. Aristotle Poetics. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University    Press, 1995

Grene, David, and Richmond Alexander Lattimore. The Complete Greek Tragedies. Chicago:      University of Chicago Press, 1960.

[1] Aristotle. et al., Aristotle Poetics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 49.

[2] Aristotle. et al., Aristotle Poetics, 49

[3] Aristotle. et al., Aristotle Poetics, 49

[4] Aeschylus and Alan H. Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 425.

[5] Aeschylus and Alan H. Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 440.

[6] Aeschylus and Alan H. Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 485.

[7] David Grene and Richmond Alexander Lattimore, The Complete Greek Tragedies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960),161, L. 48.

[8] Aristotle. et al., Aristotle Poetics, 53.

[9] Aeschylus and Alan H. Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 227.

[10] Aeschylus and Alan H. Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 331.

[11] Grene and Lattimore, The Complete, 448, L. 1224.

[12] Grene and Lattimore, The Complete, Page 449, L. 1226, 1228.

[13] Grene and Lattimore, The Complete, Page 451, L. 1270.

[14] Aristotle. et al., Aristotle Poetics, 51.

Symbolism in Aeschylus: How Tools for Murder and Revenge Represent the Sexual Undertones of the Oresteia

The Oresteia is a tragedy about murder, revenge, and familial strife – Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, has just returned victorious after a campaign of pillage, rape, and murder in Troy. He returns with a prize: Cassandra, his soon-to-be sex slave. He does not, however, return with his daughter who fell victim to human sacrifice. Over the course of Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, and Eumenides, Cassandra and Agamemnon are murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra. And, soon after, Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus are murdered by her son Orestes as revenge. This series of events is murderous, revengeful, and familial, but it is also about the act of sex, and more specifically, rape. The use of sexual symbols throughout Oresteia paints Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, and Eumenides as a graphic trilogy: one in which the major events and dynamics, including familial relations, war, and revenge, relate to sexual desire and dominion.

The setting of the Oresteia is based on the pillage of the Trojan War. Returning as a conqueror, Agamemnon has undoubtedly stolen land, killed his enemies, and raped their women. This inextricability among violence, sex and death, victor and victim set the tone and carries homeward as a stain on Agamemnon. Agamemnon’s decision to force himself and his army upon his enemies and to take what belongs to others, is not only penetrative but inherently reflective of a rape. The violence that comes with war is also phallic-like. When Clytemnestra discusses the wounds Agamemnon faced in battle, she claimed that he had “more holes in him to count than a net”[1]. The act of stabbing is sexual. The phallic sword knifes into the body. Thus, in the tragedy’s setting, the act of penetration, has 'set the stage’ that the protagonists walk on.

When Agamemnon brings home his sex-slave, Cassandra, the concept of rape is examined both literally and metaphorically. Cassandra exemplifies sex, even before her arrival at Agamemnon’s home. The chosen victim of Apollo’s sexual desires, Cassandra was bestowed the gift of prophecy in exchange for sex. When she accepted this gift then later denied his advances, he changed its conditions, allowing that  no one would believe her prophecies. Thus, Cassandra is already a sex object in Greek mythology; her purpose has been to entice the men around her. As Agamemnon described her: “This woman has come with me as a gift from the army, the choice flower”[2]. But Cassandra’s sexual existence is metaphorical as well. When Cassandra steps out with Agamemnon, the chorus says: “[Cassandra has] been captured, caught in a deadly net”[3]. This symbolism of the net is notable, only a few lines earlier Clytemnestra refers to Agamemnon as a net after war. Hence, Cassandra is caught in the net of Agamemnon. To be caught (or to be kidnapped), further pushes the sentiment of rape throughout the play. Cassandra is the sex object of the tragedy.

Flowing from Cassandra’s presence, a waterfall of sexual catastrophe cascades downward. Clytemnestra immediately plans to murder her husband Agamemnon and Cassandra. Whether this is revenge for her daughter’s sacrifice, or his betrayal of her with Cassandra, Clytemnestra stabs Agamemnon, and he cries out: “Ah me, I am struck down, a deep and deadly blow!”[4]. The way in which Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon is significant: she “[staked] around him an endless net” before stabbing him[5]. This is perhaps the most important “rape” in the Oresteia. Here, the net, already established as a tool of power and dominance in Cassandra’s capture, is wrapped around Agamemnon’s head. This is justice: Agamenon, who once wrapped his net around Cassandra as a way of capturing and penetrating her, now faces this same entrapment. Clytemnestra’s final act of stabbing him (the ultimate penetration), robs Agamemnon of his dignity. Additionally, his description as “slumped in a silver bathtub […] enveloped from head to foot in a richly embroidered (but now blood-stained) robe” further emphasizes the degradation of identity and dignity[6]. Stripped naked, exposed in his most vulnerable condition, Agamemnon dies with no power over the women in his life – from victimizer to victim.

The waterfall continues: Orestes stabs his mother in a fit of rage over his father’s death. Moments before Clytemnestra is knifed by her son, she yells out: “This is the snake I bore and nourished”[7]. A snake, like a blade, is phallic is nature. Clytemnestra’s choice of diction here is notable; she endows her son with a phallic identity, reflecting her own murder as a sexual act. When Orestes tries to justify the murder of Clytemnestra, he claims it as a way of “pay[ing] for degrading [his] father”[8]. By saying this, Orestes reveals a sentiment: he feels his father has been robbed of his dignity. To degrade is to humiliate, to steal, and in this context, to take advantage of. Agamemnon was penetrated with a knife while naked. Thus, Orestes has taken it upon himself to (almost incestuously) reduce his mother as she did his father: in the symbolic form of a snake, he stabs her with a knife.

Oresteia is a trilogy of plays describing lust, revenge, and myth. But, on a different level, it is about the role of sex in the cycle of life and death. Much of the play can be reduced to the more graphic side of sex (penetration and rape) and its relation to murder. Aeschylus has included sexual symbolism and imagery throughout his plays as a way of reflecting the circle of life. Ultimately, sex, life, and death are all interconnected. Oresteia is a work that both illustrates and distorts this circle, providing a commentary on the interconnectedness and simplicity of human nature.

Bibliography

Aeschylus, and Alan H. Sommerstein. Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers.Eumenides. Cambridge,   MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

[1] Aeschylus and Alan H. Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), [Page 100]

[2] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 111]

[3] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 123]

[4] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 165]

[5] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 169]

[6] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 167]

[7] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 333]

[8] Aeschylus and Sommerstein, Oresteia: Agamemnon., [Page 269]