[21] VIOLENCE IN JOHN GUARE’S A DAY FOR SURPRISES, SOMETHING I’LL TELL YOU TUESDAY AND THE LOVELIEST AFTERNOON OF THE YEAR. Dr. Mona F. Hashish. Department of Languages and Translation. College of Arts and Science. The Northern Borders University. Rafhaa City, Saudi Arabia. Email: [email protected]Abstract The study deals with three plays of the American playwright John Guare (1938- ): A Day for Surprises (1971), Something I’ll Tell You Tuesday (1967) and The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year(1966). Guare wrote them in an early phase of his dramatic career. Violence is a common theme in the three plays. Guare believes that his drama belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd. He presents violence without justification or logical context. He means to display disorder that suggests certain meanings since absurd plays are chaotic and suggestive. He is a social satirist as well. He ridicules the modern way of living of the American citizens. He shows characters that live under pressures and do not enjoy their lives. Such characters become psychotic and helpless. They exorcise their negative feelings of anger, frustration and suppression by practicing or imagining violent actions. Violence in some of Guare’s drama ends in murder. The research attempts to determine how Guare displays violence in his three plays and searches for the motives beyond violence to come up with an interpretation. The protagonists of these plays are abstract and bizarre. They are not individualized as normal human beings, and their speech and action mostly sound strange. Guare deliberately uses the technical device of grotesquery in his drama to prove that life is not as systematic as one might think. Guare, like other dramatists of the Theatre of the Absurd, believes that the world has its irregularities and weirdness. The research mainly follows a psychological approach depending on Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis to analyze the protagonists’ violent attitudes or their stories about violence in society. The research tackles three of John Guare (1938- )’s plays: A Day for Surprises (1971), Something I’ll Tell You Tuesday (1967) and The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year(1966). They belong to the Theater of the Absurd, and they present various bizarre characters and violent incidents. The research tries to analyze violence as a phenomenon by searching for the reasons of violence and studying the motives of the violent characters. The paper also shows how John Guare manipulates violence to satirize the American society and depends on the Theory of Grotesquery to do so. These three plays in specific are chosen to be the focus of the research because they best represent John Guare’s drama in an early phase of the dramatist’s career. Moreover, Phillis Hartnoll and Peter Found remark that Guare “first attracted attention when The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year and A Day for Surprises were produced at the Café Cino in 1966” (201). Besides, Don Wilmeth and Tice Miller note that “some critics have found his [Guare’s] plays too cerebral or abstract,[and] lacking focus” (212). Significantly, the difficulty of understanding Guare’s plays make them challenging to researchers. Arnold Hinchliffe notes, “It [absurd drama] challenges the audience to make sense of non-sense” (12). Therefore, the researcher tries to find order beyond violence that is not justified in Guare’s plays. Needless to say, violence is not a new theme. It is reflected upon in drama throughout ages. It is dominant in Greek and Roman tragedies where
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[21]
VIOLENCE IN JOHN GUARE’S A DAY FOR SURPRISES, SOMETHING I’LL TELL YOU TUESDAY AND THE
LOVELIEST AFTERNOON OF THE YEAR.
Dr. Mona F. Hashish.
Department of Languages and Translation.
College of Arts and Science.
The Northern Borders University. Rafhaa City, Saudi Arabia.
murder is a major event. Similarly, sixteenth-century
tragedies highlight violence because Renaissance
dramatists like William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson
were generally influenced by the classical models.
Some modern dramatists throw light on violence as a
phenomenon in the modern societies. However, they
are mostly against employing the classical rules like
the division of a play into five acts, using classical
allusion and preserving the unities of action, time and
place. They experiment with modern techniques like
the Theatre of the Absurd, surrealism, impressionism
and the like.
John Fletcher observes,
[L]iterature… cannot help but
mirror the cruelty and violence of
the times,…the hysterical cruelties
inflicted by white suburbanites on
colored people protesting that race
should cease to influence real estate
sales, or the increasingly disturbing
phenomena of mass killings, or of
the collective rape of young women
by bands of youths, are horrors that
few artists could bring themselves
to deal with, at least at the present
time, but we should not be
surprised if writers or film-makers
do eventually examine them (164).
John Guare is one of the few contemporary
dramatists who choose to highlight violence in
drama. Guare deals with the theme of violence in his
three plays A Day for Surprises (1971), Something
I’ll Tell You Tuesday (1967) and The Loveliest
Afternoon of the Year(1966). The characters which he
portrays in these plays are often psychotic patients.
They live and work under social pressures; and so
they are unhappy.
Gene Plunka proposes,
The resulting sense of alienation and agoisse often leads Guare’s protagonists into violence as a means of expressing their frustrations. Life in Guare’s world, much of it expressed in New York City as a microcosm for the craziness of contemporary urban life, is synonymous with violence and teeming hostilities. When Guare’s characters ultimately realize their unfulfilled
dreams, the consequences are often
brutal. Guare reminds us through
the violence that our wounds never
disappear and that this modern
neurosis is never pleasant (16).
Suzanne Dieckman also points out, “Several critics
have been shocked by the cruelty in Guare’s work,
but the majority have praised his wit and theatrical
inventiveness, particularly his ability to blend two
genres: outrageous farce and tragedy into a pointed
critique of modern culture” (246).
It may be contended that John Guare is an absurdist American playwright who is talented in presenting the tragic event in a humorous manner. This is obvious in the three plays under study in this paper. The violent characters look strange and funny. In A Day for Surprises, the stone lion leaves its perch in the street and enters the library to eat Miss Pringle (17-18). In Something I’ll Tell
You Tuesday, Hildegarde is too talkative to stop
talking about problems (8).
Last but not least, in The Loveliest Afternoon
of the Year, Maud, the young man’s disagreeable
wife is fat, ugly and aggressive(27). Jean Stine et al.
suggest, “Linking Guare with this [Theater of the
Absurd] movement is his use of exaggeration, shock,
ludicrousness, and black humor….Placed in
unpleasant situations or environments, Guare’s
characters… display negative aspects of human
nature” (203). Guare himself admits to the
interviewer John DiGaetani that his plays are not
postmodern but absurd (108);
Guare says,
It is impossible not to be influenced
by the absurd….That’s just a handy
label for that which has existed for
all time from Aeschylus on
down…. I think Theater of the
Absurd is just a critical label for
something that has existed since
ancient Greece. Euripides’ The
Bacchae is one of the greatest
examples I know of the Theater of
the Absurd (108).
Anne Cirella-Urrutia states that symbolism is a
dominant feature in the Theater of the Absurd (7-8).
The fierce lion in A Day for Surprises stands for the
capitalist American society. The librarians work for
long hours and consequently feel isolated and
dehumanized. For example, Mr. Falanzano is unable
to express his emotion naturally like other human
beings—he talks about his affair with Miss Pringle in
terms of books, data and information. He does not
[23]
use love words. His speech takes the form of a long
monologue. He tells Miss Jepson,
She said I’ve never loved anybody
so I want this to be good. I said oh,
I had never loved anybody before
either. So I took a copy of Love
Without Fear and she took a
Modern Manual on How To Do It,
and we wrapped—like Christmas
packages for people you love—
wrapped our bodies, our
phosphorescent, glowing, about-to-
become-human bodies around each
other. And began reading (20).
At the end of the monologue, Falanzano laments his
fate as a librarian: “My life has been lived in books. I
had become a book…Library paste…we all would’ve
been better off if we’d never opened a book” (22).
This absurd play opens with violence and ends
in violence. Arnold Hinchliffe proposes, “absurd
literary means out of harmony” (1). Miss Jepson tells
Mr. Falanzano at the beginning of the play, “It’s
sitting in the Ladies’ Room with Miss Pringle’s feet
sticking out of its mouth—out of the lion’s mouth. I
know it’s Miss Pringle as I’d been admiring her blue
beaded shoes only this morning” (18). Mr. Falanzano
ran to the ladies’ room and returned sadly with a pair
of blue beaded shoes (18). At the end of the play,
Miss Jepson tells Mr. Falanzano, “The lion’s on its
perch now. You’d never know he moved. Except for
that little piece of pink garter on its tooth dangling
like a salmon” (22).
This love story is sad because Mr. Falanzano could
not marry Miss Pringle as he had planned. Jack Kroll
points out, “The glory of Guare is his unabashed (or
perhaps abashed) romanticism, his bifocal vision of
the tragic and the absurd” (206). However, Kroll
adds that Guare’s characters often search for certain
‘utopias’ (206). Mr. Falanzano indeed searches for
remedy after he has lost his beloved. Miss Jepson
consoles him. She touches him seductively and sings
for him to show him her love. Both Mr. Falanzano
and Miss Jepson dream of establishing a humanized
love relationship away from book and library. Gene
Plunka notes,
Guare is interested in exploring how we can remain true to the ideals on which American Society was originally established …. The fragmented life of modern urban society may corrupt us and channel us into disingenuous behavior, but the utopian spirit and our personal dreams can still exist…. We must gain the self-understanding and spiritual self-awareness that once
defined our greatness and created
high culture. Guare thus often
allows his protagonists to dream,
even if their utopian desires are
ultimately dashed by the brutalities
of the real world (17).
Hildegarde’s frequent fights with her husband
George is the source of violence in Something I’ll
Tell You Tuesday. Hildegarde always complains to
her parents Agnes and Andrew of George and
expresses her dissatisfaction with his deeds. She
enrages and provokes George to reply back. This also
leads her parents to get bored. The parents do not
want to drive with Hildegarde or George to the
hospital where Agnes will receive treatment. Andrew
tells Agnes, “Ah, it hurts me the way they fight” (6).
Though Agnes is bothered by the fights, she thinks
fighting is healthy because it indicates love, youth
and vivacity and it releases tension (16). She reminds
Andrew of one of their old fights:
That streak on the wall.
Remember? …
The painters had just finished
painting this room and the walls
were still wet and we were fighting
about something and I got mad at
you and threw the grapefruit I was
eating at you and you ducked and
the grapefruit stuck to the wet wall
and slid all the way down to the
floor (6).
Hildegarde’s harsh speech is obvious when she
furiously blames George for knocking over yellow
markers on the bridge while driving and insists to
drive her parents to the hospital instead of him (7).
George cannot control his manners and say in front of
Hildegarde’s parentst, “I do not know where she gets
her voice from. She screams and it does something to
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your ears” (8). Hildegarde resumes the fight saying,
“He called me the worst names once we got off that
bridge. Names you wouldn’t call the lowest scum on
earth he called me” (8-9).
Violence in this play is incarnated not only in
words but also in gesture and action:
Hildegarde: Okay, George, drive
me insane. If that’s what’s going to
make you happy, you go right
ahead and drive me insane.
(George stands up disgustedly.
Hildegarde covers her head with
her arms.) Don’t you dare hit me!
(Andrew starts for her. Agnes pulls
him back.) Papa, help! (8)….
(Whispering.) He’d hit me. He has.
He will. (9).
Then Hildegarde complains that George bought
an expensive fancy dress to their daughter Monica
and he knows that her underclothes are torn with
holes. George accuses her of being jealous (11).
Agnes and Andrew use the chance of the departure of
Hildegarde and George to fetch the car and walk to
the hospital. They want to go to the hospital in peace.
Agnes enjoys walking by Andrew because she misses
intimacy. She tells him, “We haven’t been out
together like this in a very long while. This is like a
date. I feel very young” (15).
Agnes urges Andrew to go to a café to take two
cups of coffee before going to the hospital. In the
café, Andrew expresses his worry about Hildegarde’s
marital life, but Agnes assures him that she is okay.
She explains to him,
You know what I’m gonna tell her
Tuesday when she comes with the
kids?.... I’m gonna tell her she’s
lucky they still fight. That’s the
worst part of getting old, I decided
…Not even a hot bath or a cup of
tea can make you feel as clean as
when I’d finish yelling at you and
you’d finish yelling at me….You
just don’t have the energy to fight”
(16).
Guare’s perspective on violence in A Day for
Surprises and Something I’ll Tell You Tuesday is not
quite different from his in The Loveliest Afternoon of
the Year. In the three plays, Guare shows that
violence can be positive in healing people’s
psychological problems. In The Loveliest Afternoon
of the Year, young man and woman meet by chance
at a public park. Her way of feeding the pigeons
attracts him to her. He startles her when he asks her
to stop because he has seen pigeons foaming at the
beaks at another place.
She thinks him a mugger because he
approaches her closely and talks nonsense (21). The
man assures her he is not a mugger and begs for one
crackerjack (21)! She is scared and hits him with her
bag. She believes he is richer than her for he wears a
fancy sport coat (22). His advances are considered
sexual harassment because the lady does not
welcome them. Alison Thomas argues, “Like many
feminist sociologists, I see acts of sexual harassment
…as instances from a continuum of male behaviors
through which men consciously or unconsciously act
to assert and maintain their dominance over women”
(135). Rosemarie Skaine agrees with Thomas saying,
“sexual harassment… is not about love or romance, it
is about social control…[and displaying] male
power” (11-12).
The man swears he is poor and tells the lady
weird stories about his life. He narrates to her how
his wife takes his coins and subway token and bends
them in her teeth. He adds that she shoots his feet
with her rifle that has a silencer whenever he comes
home late (22). Moreover, he narrates to the lady
about his sister Lucy whose arm was stuck in the
cage of a polar bear, so the bear bit it off. Though
[25]
doctors could set back the arm by a surgical
operation, white bear hair grew on Lucy’s body (23-
24). The lady does not take his horrible stories
seriously and calls them “awfully funny” (23). She
finds the man amusing. He starts to love him.
The lady says a long monologue that shows she
has been suppressed by society:
SHE: I have been in this city
eleven months now and you are the
first person I’ve spoken to. That’s
spoken to me. Eleven months of
silence—till now. I feel like I’ve
just been released from a
convent—a goddam convent. No,
I’m not laughing at you. I’m a
young girl and I’m pretty and
nobody ever speaks to me—not
even to ask directions—and you’re
the funniest man I’ve ever met and
I thank you in all the languages
there are. Thank you for speaking
to me (22).
Here, an accusing finger turns against the capitalist
American society again. People under the capitalist
system are too busy to make friendship with
strangers. They
work like machines to make money and lead a
comfortable life. They suffer from loneliness though.
The lonely man and lady are happy to be
companions. They meet every weekend in the park.
They fall in love before they know each other better.
The lady suspects that the man’s strange stories are
true. She tells the audience, “He has his life and I
have mine… mugger or not—I like him very much”
(23). The lady is weak enough to submit to the man’s
advances. If she had been psychologically balanced,
she would have never loved such a weird man.
In the meanwhile, the man submerges her in a
romantic atmosphere. He sings loudly and sweetly to
her. He also assures her that he does not have a wife.
He adds, “You’ve saved my life. I’ve never picked
anybody else up before but something about you—
the way you fed those pigeons—I wanted to know
you, and now…now it looks like I’d better thank
you” (25). He feels he is cured of certain
psychological illness.
However, the last part of the man’s love song
shocks the lady. He sings, “We saved both our lives/
Which should lead to husbands and wives/ But since
we must part/ Feed the pigeon that cries in my heart”
(26). That message demonstrates that he cannot
marry the lady he loves. The young lady is shocked
more when she sees a fat woman pushing a stroller
where two ugly fat babies sit. She realizes that that
woman is the man’s wife especially when she finds
her holding a blind dog by a leash.
The young man is scared of his violent wife
Maud. He asks the young lady to hide with him
otherwise Maud will get her rifle from beneath the
children and shoot them (27). Without thinking, the
young lady replies, “And would that be any worse
than you leaving me, me leaving you, you going back
to her, me going back to my empty apartment” (27-
28). This means that she cannot imagine living
without him.
The lady’s courage and sincerity give the man
spiritual support. He immediately overcomes his
fears and decides to face his fate. The couple happily
courts violence. They enrage the wife by calling her
and kissing in front of her.
[26]
7Once she notices what they are doing, she shoots
them, and they fall dead (28). Suzanne Dieckman
remarks,
Violence in Guare’s dramatic world
is never merely gratuitous—it
seems to be the only course of
action for people trapped in a
cellophane-wrapped society….
[T]he couple [in The Loveliest
Afternoon of the Year] chooses to
be murdered by the man’s
grotesque wife rather than separate
and return to their isolated, dreary
existences (244).
On a point suggestively relevant, violence in
these three plays sounds illogical and is unjustified
by John Guare. In A Day for Surprises, it is not
mentioned why the hungry lion leaves the people in
the street and library and chooses to eat Miss Pringle.
In Something I’ll Tell You Tuesday, nobody knows
what kind of marital problem is there between
Hildegarde and George. And in The loveliest
Afternoon of the Year, the man’s wife is abnormal for
carrying a rifle under her children’s seat in the
stroller and shooting her husband and the young
woman without even talking to them. Edmund
Thomas and Eugene Miller says that absurdity is
“[s]omething that is foolish, ridiculous…,plainly not
true , not sensible or contradictory” (249).
Guare’s violent characters seem dangerous and
grotesque. Gene Plunka determines, “critics have
accused him [Guare] of creating cartoonish
characters whose eccentricities bear little
resemblance to reality…..[However, Guare] finds the
sources for his ‘bizarre’ material in everyday life [as
he admits]” (17-18). In fact, avant-gardist writers like
Guare use the grotesque to prove that life is irrational
and full of irregularities.
In The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year, the
young man tells the young lady in the park that life is
full of “weirdness” (24). Here, he is Guare’s
mouthpiece. Gautam Dasgupta points out, “Horrific
and bizarre incidents clutter the plays [of John
Guare], and …they seldom stray from the realistic
premise on which they are grounded. Although
danger lurks at every corner, and events unfold
without the least provocation, there is a sense that
such things belong to normal everyday life” (204).
Grotesquery is, in fact, one feature of the
Theatre of the Absurd. J. A. Cuddon remarks, “In
literature one is most likely to find grotesque
elements in caricature, parody, satire, invective,
burlesque, black comedy, the macabre and what is
known as the theatre of the Absurd” (295). Jonnie
Patricia Mobley points out, “plays in the absurdist
tradition attempt to show the irrational and illogical
aspects of life through absurd characters, dialogue
and situations” (1).
Rodney Simard also notes that the absurdist
dramatists try “to expand the definitions and
boundaries of dramatic reality beyond the limits
imposed by naturalism… [and] destroy
reader/audience identification and have the effect of