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Some Imaginative Motifs From Primitive Sacred Myths In The Theater Of Eugene Ionesco
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Some Imaginative Motifs From Primitive Sacred Myths In The Theater Of Eugene Ionesco
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SOME IMAGINATIVE MOTIFS FROM PRIMITIVE SACRED MYTHS IN THE THEATER OF EUGENE IONESCO by Daniel Albert Kister A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Comparative Literature) September 1973 INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. 5. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed a s received. Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 74-928 KISTER, Daniel Albert, 1936- SOME IMAGINATIVE MOTIFS FROM PRIMITIVE SACRED MYTHS IN THE THEATER OF EUGENE IONESCO. [Portions of Text in French]. } I University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1973 J Language and Literature, modern i ' University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan j I Copyright © by DANIEL ALBERT KISTER 1973 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TH E GRADUATE SCHO OL U N IV E R S ITY PARK LOS ANG ELES. C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by Danljel..AJJaer.t..Kis.ter................ under the direction of his.... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillm ent of requirements of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y Dean Date. DISSERTATION Chairman ! ACKNOWLEDGMENT j ! The author wishes to express his thanks to the members jof his committee, Drs. David H. Malone, Alexandre Rainof, |and John B. Orr, as well as to Dr. Robert S. Ellwood, Jr., ifor their advice and support in the writing of this disser tation . TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT ................................. | INTRODUCTION................................... iChapter I. PRIMITIVE MYTHIC MOTIFS OF SPACE AND TIME ! IN LES CHAISES ....................... Spatial Motifs in Les Chaises Mythic Motifs of Sacred Space and Time Temporal Motifs in Les Chaises II. PRIMITIVE MYTHIC MOTIFS OF TIME IN VICTIMES DU DEVOIR ................ Primitive Initiatory Motifs Initiatory Motifs and Mythic Time in Victimes du devoir Mythic Temporal Rhythms in Victimes du devoir and En attendant Godot III. PRIMITIVE MOTIFS OF THE LOSS AND RECOVERY OF PARADISE IN AM^D^E OU COMMENT S1EN DEBARRASSER ........................... Symbolic Motifs of Evil in Amedee ou Comment s'en debarrasser The Recovery of Paradise in Amedee ou Comment s'en debarrasser Chapter Page IV. FIGURES OF MYTHIC SPACE IN LE NOUVEAU LOCATAIRE AND PLAYS OF OTHER "ABSURD" DRAMATISTS....................................126 A Mythic Spatial Figure in Le Nouveau Locataire Mythic Spatial Figures in Plays of Other "Absurd" Dramatists V. PRIMITIVE MYTHIC MOTIFS OF PARADISE AND ITS LOSS IN TUEUR SANS GAG E S................. 160 ! VI. A MYTHIC SPATIAL FIGURE IN LE ROI SE MEURT . . 181 i | VII. PRIMITIVE MYTHIC MOTIFS OF PARADISE AND ! ITS LOSS IN LE PI&TON DE L1 A I R ...............196 VIII. THE QUEST FOR THE MYTHIC LOST PARADISE IN LA SOIF ET LA FAIM......................... 214 ! CONCLUSION..............................................242 ILIST OF WORKS CITED......................................248 | | iv INTRODUCTION In the course of a discussion on the theatrical ex perience in Notes et contre-notes (Paris, 1966), p. 65, Eugene Ionesco repudiates the kind of historical theater which he sees Brecht as producing and embraces, instead, the timeless, absolute concerns of Shakespeare's historical 'plays, as exemplified in Richard II. In Ionesco's view, a playwright wastes his time if he focuses on purely social, political, or historical phenomena when he could concern himself with more essential human realities, that is, with "des etats d'esprit, des intuitions, absolument extra- temporelles, extra-historiques." Such states of mind in volve privileged moments of wonder, as when "je prends sou- dain conscience de mon existence, et de la presence uni- verselle, que tout me parait etrange, et a la fois familier, lorsque l'etonnement d'dtre m'envahit." Or such states of mind can entail, in an "instant eternel," intimations of mortality or of man's essential solitude, as they do when 1 so aptly expressed in Shakespeare's theater. Ionesco, pp. 67-68, goes on to extol Shakespeare's Richard II for its passionate presentation of the death of kings and for "la prise de conscience de cette realite, de cette evidence permanente, du charactere ephemere de l'homme, conjugue avec son besoin d'eternite." Later in Notes et contre-notes, p. 311, Ionesco defines the essential, non-Brechtian theatrical idiom he seeks in terms of myth: "Un autre genre de theatre est encore pos sible. D'une force, d'une richesse plus grande. Un theatre non pas symboliste, mais symbolique; non pas allegorique, mais mythique; ayant sa source dans nos angoisses eter- nelles." With a similar disdain for a theater concerned with anything but the most essential human realities, he states in a conversation recorded by Claude Bonnefoy in Entretiens avec Eugene Ionesco (Paris, 1966), p. 197, that "en fait, le theatre devrait §tre ceremonie, rituel. II est le plus souvent instrument de propagande." The present study will trace Ionesco's own theatrical development from a ritualistic to a more obviously mythic kind of theater, highlighting in both early and later major works the presence and significance of imaginative motifs through which man has long expressed his "angoisses eternelles" in traditional religious myths. Ionesco's theatrical language regularly incorporates reflections of symbolic structures* motifs* and patterns of imagery that have marked man's archetypal myths and sacred social rites from primitive times down to the more recent past. When seen in the context of the long-established and highly organized mythic tradition which they reflect* many of the seemingly bizarre images and illogical configurations which so confuse or astound the audiences of plays of Ionesco and other "absurd" dramatists appear much less boldly avant- garde and irrationally thrown together. On the other hand* the plays themselves* when seen in this perspective* appear all the more bold and culturally revolutionary in that they thus evoke a sense of existential absurdity which draws a great deal of its theatrical force from an implicit revela tion of absurdities intrinsic to man's most ancient arche typal symbols and religious myths. The present study aims to highlight such primitive religious mythic motifs woven into the theater of Eugene Ionesco and to grasp the func tional and existential significance they have in those plays in which they help form the basic imaginative figurations. Perhaps the foremost student of man's primitive and traditional religious myths and of their significance for 4 understanding both ancient and modern man is Mircea Eliade. Born in Bucharest in 1907, Eliade is a fellow countryman of Ionesco and, as Ionesco indicates in Entretiens. p. 38, a personal friend. He has been a lifelong student of the history and phenomenology of man's religious experience, particularly as this experience is systematized in tradi tional rites, symbols, and myths. It is Eliade's exposition of man's traditional religious rites and myths which will provide the principal touchstone for the examination of the mythic structures and motifs of Ionesco's plays in these pages. Other writers on the religious, mythic, or primitive mentality whose insights will provide means of appraising the traditional mythic significance of Ionesco's theater are, most notably, Gaston Bachelard, Ernst Cassirer, Gilbert, Durand, and Paul Ricoeur. In his various investigations, Eliade, for his part, stresses the imaginative mythic structures through which man has traditionally given form, structure, and comprehen sible, even logical meaning to basic aspects of his exis tential experiences. In particular, his various studies describe and probe the significance of those mythic and ritual structures through which primitive man has sought both to organize his spatial-temporal existence in a manner which would insure contact with his gods and the rhythms of his cosmos and to understand his own limited human condition and explain the wondrous mystical experiences through which his shamans seemed to break free from its frustrating limi tations . All of these imaginative mythic and ritual structures appear in some form as theatrical and poetic motifs and organizational forces in plays of Ionesco studied here. As will be seen, moreover, Eliade's analyses of primitive myths and rites emphasize especially the traditional urge these myths and rites express to flee history and live in extra- historical, pristine, absolute time. Eliade thus finds in primitive mythic activity a concern for the absolute over the historical which Ionesco admires in Shakespeare, finds wanting in Brecht, and demands in any truly effective the atrical experience. Whether due to the fact that both Eliade and Ionesco come from an area of Europe particularly prone to the ravages of history or that they both simply share modern man's vulnerability to the terror of death, both the one, in his mythic investigations, and the other, in his theatrical criticism and in his own plays, manifest an acute sensitivity to the more terrifying aspects of man's historical existence. 6 The presence in many of Ionesco's plays of primitive mythic motifs and religious symbols suggest that though these plays, no doubt, portray modern man's confrontation with existence in a period of crisis marked by apparent freedom from dependency upon religious myths and theologi cal systems, they actually bear clear archetypal marks of his ancient ancestors' religious traditions. These plays, and plays of other absurd dramatists as well, give evidence for Eliade's contention in Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (New York, 1960), p. 17, that "every existential crisis brings once again into question both the reality of the world and the presence of man in the world" and, moreover, that "the crisis is, indeed, 'religious' because, at the archaic levels of culture, 'being' is fused together with the 'holy.' For all primitive mankind, it is religious experience which lays the foundation of the World." Criticism of Ionesco's work has gradually come to focus more and more on archetypal mythic imagery, especially para disaical imagery, which his plays, especially his later plays, employ. Many critics have pointed out in passing mythic imagery or other aspects of Ionesco's plays which link them with archetypal myths, primitive religious rites, or traditional hierophanic experiences. Some critics, especially Philippe Senart, Simone Benmussa, Martin Esslin, Alexandre Rainof, and, to a lesser extent, Claude Abastado, have dwelt upon mythic aspects of his plays and discussed his theater from the perspective of a psychological, meta physical, or theological system seen to be implied in its mythic imagery and symbolism. The present study, which depends primarily upon the work of such latter critics, investigates not only mystical motifs and images of paradise and its loss which their work has highlighted, but other spatial and temporal motifs as well which have traditionally had a significant function both in primitive cosmogonic myths and tribal rituals and in personal ecstatic and ini tiatory experiences of tribal shamans. This study discusses plays which employ such motifs in the context of the primi tive religious mythic system which they reflect, an inte gral, ontological, cosmological, psychological system formed according to the logic of man's prephilosophical, existen tial religious imagination. The study treats of such imagi native existential motifs not only in so far as they suffuse certain of Ionesco's later plays, which previous mythic criticism has tended to focus upon, but also in so far as they underlie some of the playwright's best early work. It 8 also includes some primitive mythic analyses of plays of Ionesco's fellow Absurdists, Beckett, Genet, and Pinter, in order to place the use which this avant-garde playwright makes of traditional imaginative materials in a clearer theatrical and broader cultural context. CHAPTER I PRIMITIVE MYTHIC MOTIFS OF SPACE AND TIME IN LES CHAISES i One of the noteworthy characteristics of many "absurd" plays is their tendency to express man's existential situa tion in images and structural patterns of space and time. Such plays continue the imaginative tradition of the por trayal of the human condition in spatial and temporal terms brought to light in much French and Western literature since; :the Middle Ages by critics such as Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space"* - and Georges Poulet in Studies in Human , i 2 Time and The Metamorphoses of the Circle. But this liter- ary tradition itself continues a much older imaginative ^The Poetics of Space (New Yorh, 1964). This will be referred to as Space in the text. ! 2Studies in Human Time (Baltimore, 1956), referred to hereafter as Time in the text, and The Metamorphoses of the Circle (Baltimore, 1966). 9 10 tradition* that according to which primitive man long ex pressed his sense of contact with absolute* sacred realities in religious rites and myths whose religious and existential significance have depended to a great extent upon definite spatial and temporal configurations created according to a dynamic logic of the primitive religious imagination. Ionesco's plays stand out in the Theater of the Absurd for the rich and varied ways in which they reflect this ancient imaginative tradition. Although it is Ionesco's later plays which tend to reflect this tradition more ob viously* the early Les Chaises, first produced in 1952* already reveals the tendency of the playwright's creative imagination to trace primitive imaginative matrices* in corporating* as it does* primitive mythic patterns of space and time as important underlying integrating forces in the play's dramatic structure. The spatial configurations which will be discussed in the primitive mythic context appear principally in basic stage figures of Les Chaises and entail patterns of geometrical perfection contrasted with formless ness* of inhabited* inner space contrasted with what is out side* and of emptiness. The pertinent temporal patterns become manifest in the course of the dialogue and musings of the Old Man and the Old Woman* his wife. These patterns are expressive of various temporal sensibilities— man’s appreciation of the diminution of his existence in the course of time, his memories of a happier past, his hopes for a better future, an awareness of temporal repetition, and attitudes toward death. Spatial Motifs in Les Chaises The action of Les Chaises takes-place in a room of the habitation of the Old Man and Old Woman, a room which, ac cording to the initial stage directions, appears, not as the typical middle-class living room or office of Ionesco's previously produced plays, La Cantatrice chauve (1950) and La Legon (1951), but as a rather bare space, suggestive of a perfect geometrical figure: "Murs circulaires avec un renfoncement dans le fond. C'est une salle tres depouil- lee," with numerous doors which draw the audience's imagina- 3 tion to what might be beyond. As the dialogue begins, the *3 Eugene Ionesco, Theatre (Paris: Gallimard, 1954-1966), I, 130. Future references to Ionesco's plays throughout all ^chapters of this dissertation will be made to this edition unless otherwise explicitly noted. In quotations from the plays of Ionesco and other dramatists cited, three periods in a row not preceded by a space, thus: perdu... do not indicate an omission, but are punctuation used in the texts themselves, sometimes within a sentence and sometimes— with-! out, however, an additional period— at the end. My omis sions within quoted passages are indicated by three periods 12 audience quickly learns that the room is situated on an island and is surrounded outside by stagnant, death-prone water. For the Old Woman opens the dialogue by telling the Old Man to close the window because "qa sent mauvais l'eau qui croupit et puis il entre des moustiques" and by warning him not to lean out of the window because "tu pourrais tom- ber dans l'eau" (I, 131). A few lines later, she intimates that the water surrounds them completely and has a kind of infinite extension: "Cette maison, cette £le, je ne peux m'y habituer. Tout entouree d'eau... de l'eau sous les fendtres, jusqu'a l'horizon" (I, 132). As the action of the play reveals, the Old Woman's fear1 of slipping into the water is justified. The Old Man and she herself commit suicide by jumping into the sea, where, as the Old Man states, "nous pourrirons dans la solitude aquatique" (I, 177). The play's action revolves around a theatrical tour de ‘ force consisting in a multiplication of empty chairs brought on stage according to a stylized and gradually quickening ritual which gives the impression of crowded activity and hopeful movement, and only at the end unleashes upon the I enclosed within brackets, thus: [...]. 13 audience the chairs' true comic and terrifying significance. "La piece" is, as Ionesco himself has said, "les chaises 4 elle-m§mes." But the full significance of the existential emptiness which they finally so forcefully drive home gradu ally unfolds in the course of the poetic musings in which the Old Man and Old Woman indulge during their reveries, senile chatter, and conversations with the imagined guests which accompany, and, as it turns out, provide a kind of imythic commentary for the ritual multiplication of the empty chairs. These musings evoke a sense of the diminution of a man's life and existential possibilities in the course of :time, in contrast with memories of a brighter, if actually nonexistent, past and with hopes of a more fulfilling fu ture, which provide temporal points of reference by which to gauge the imperfection of the present, an imperfection which, despite man's nostalgias and hopes, will nonetheless ultimately be fixed in death. Toward the beginning of the play, the Old Woman sums up the most concrete aspect of the comic-pathetic "might-have- been" which marks the sense of diminutive existence and ^Quoted in Claude Bonnefoy, Entretiens avec Eugene Ionesco (Paris, 1966), p. 84. This will be referred to hereafter as Entretiens in the text. 14 emptiness of her husband, the concierge: "Tu aurais pu £tre quelque chose dans la vie, de bien plus qu'un Marechal des logis" (I, 135). Her half-chiding words of consolation presume to some extent a moral'appraisal of her husband's life. He should have been able to achieve more. Using a spatial image which will, in its basic force, become the final stage image of the play, she says, "Tu es tres doue. Si tu avais eu un peu d1ambition dans la vie, tu aurais pu dtre un Roi chef, un Journaliste chef, un Comedien chef, un Marechal chef... Dans le trou, tout ceci helas... dans le grand trou tout noir" (I, 134). Shortly after the invisible guests have begun, so it seems, to arrive, the Old Man enters into conversation with his former love, La Belle. In the course of this conversa tion, he associates his failure as a concierge with his sense of the more essential diminution of his life as a life measured by time. In a caricature of Romantic sentiment, he recalls their former love and in so doing expresses the pessimistic attitude toward human time which underlies the whole play: De notre temps, la lune etait un astre vivant, ah I oui, oui, si on avait ose, nous etions des enfants. Voulez- vous que nous rattrapions le temps perdu... peut-on encore? peut-on encore? ah! non, non, on ne peut plus, j Le temps est passe aussi vite que le train. II a trace 15 des rails sur la peau. Vous croyez que la chirurgie esthetique peut faire des miracles? [...] Helas! helas! nous avons tout perdu. Nous aurions pu §tre si heureux, je vous le dis; nous aurions pu, nous aurions pu; peut-Stre, des fleurs poussent sous la neige! Voulez-vous §tre mon Yseult et moi votre Tristan? la beaute est dans les coeurs... Comprenez-vous? On au- rait eu la joie en partage, la beaute, 1'eternite... 1'eternite... Pourquoi n'avons-nous pas ose? Nous n1avons pas assez voulu... Nous avons tout perdu, perdu, perdu. Une pauvre vie de Marechal des logis! (I, 151) These nostalgic words express an all-or-nothing pessi mism according to which beauty, love, and any experience which seems to bestow perfection and timelessness on human existence only serve to point up the ultimate loss and per fect emptiness of an existence tantalized by dreams of per fection and eternity, but marked with the seal of disinte gration in time and death. The Old Man's nostalgia is that "forlorn desire of a life that the mind can never give it self fully in any moment and that, notwithstanding, it sees from afar" which Poulet finds typical of nineteenth-century French Romanticism (Time, p. 26). The reveries which the presence of La Belle stirs up in his mind reflect a sensi-. bility which, in the beginning of the twentieth century, Miguel de Unamuno in Tragic Sense of Life (1921; rpt. New 16 York, 1954), p. 39, underscored in the tragic tension which exists between man's reason, which knows his temporal limi tation, and his vital feeling, which demands unlimited life: "Eternity, eternity 1— that is the supreme desire! The thirst of eternity is what is called love among men, and whosoever loves another wishes to eternalize himself in him. Nothing is real that is not eternal." Toward the end of the play, in a disjointed, mock- solemn address to the crowd which by then seems packed into the room to hear his final message, the Old Man expresses the sense of perfect emptiness which he feels within himself in a spatial, geometrical image both reminiscent of the opening stage image of a spherical space surrounded by door ways leading out toward the water and prefiguring the same basic stage image as it finally stands revealed, a figure of round walls enclosing empty chairs. The Old Man tells |his guests, "Je me reveille quelquefois au milieu du silence absolu. C'est la sphere. II n'y manque rien. II faut faire attention cependant. Sa forme peut disparaitre su- bitement. II y a des trous par ou elle s'echappe" (I, 165). In the course of the play, the Old Man and his wife have been greeting more and more invisible guests who have icome to hear the message which bodes such hope for mankind 17 and will redeem the emptiness of the Old Man's wasted life. More and more empty chairs have been appearing, and the couple becomes caught up in a frantic ritual dance of guest- greeting and chair-carrying until, finally, the audience has the impression "que le plateau est archiplein de monde" (I, 161). Then the Emperor himself arrives, unseen, of course, but with suitable splendor: "des fanfares" and "lumiere maximum d'intensite" (I, 167). Finally, after the old couple's ritual chant of "il viendra" (I, 173), which an nounces the imminent arrival of the Orator to whom the Old Man has entrusted the proclamation of his all-important message, the central portal opens wide, "tres lentement [...] silencieusementj puis l'Orateur apparaitj c'est un personnage reel" (I, 174) . He is a great surprise to the audience in his physical presence and a marvelously ludi crous figure: "C'est le type du peintre ou du poete du siecle dernier: feutre nois a larges bords, lavalliere, vareuse, moustache et barbiche, l'air assez cabotin, suffi- sant" (I, 174). Leaving the climactic proclamation to the Orator, the Old Man and his wife commit suicide, plunging together into the surrounding water in a parody of Romantic love-death and heroic self-sacrifice: "Afin de faire," as the Old Man 18 explainsj "le sacrifice supreme que personne ne nous demande mais que nous accomplirons quand m§me" (I, 177). However, this comically useless suicide only makes final and perfect in death the farcical failure of the Old Man's life. For the Orator turns out to be a deaf-mute who only "fait en tendre des r£les, des gemissements, des sons gutturaux de muet" (I, 179), at which, in the actual first production, the curtain falls (I, 180). In place of the message which would fulfill the intense and hopeful anticipation which Ionesco has by now aroused in his audience, the playwright gives the play an abrupt peripeteia and makes of the Ora- tor's jabber a masterly anagnoris is of the adroit theatrical joke that has been played on the audience, which was led to imagine an active crowd on a stage where there were always only empty chairs, and of the brutal existential joke that is played on man, who imagines fulfillment through dreams, memories, and hopes in a life where the deterioration of time and, ultimately, the final seal of death always have the last laugh. The abrupt, revelatory shift at the climactic, con cluding moment of Les Chaises thus shakes the audience with I "un grand rire liberateur," as Jan Kott has said in "A pro- pos de la representation des Chaises a Cracovie," Cahiers i . . . . . . . . . . 19 de la Compagnie M. Renaud-J.-L. Barrault, 42 (Feb. 1963), 74. In the great comic tradition of Moliere, Ionesco's laughter frees the audience, not from the ties of super ficial concerns, but from basic forces of human existential bondage. Ionesco's plays, however, do not ridicule faulty moral or social mechanisms so much as more basic existential absurdities, particularly, in Les Chaises, absurdities aris ing from the limitations of an existence marked by time and sealed by death. So Ionesco says of the play, "Le theme de la piece etait le neant et non pas l'echec. C'etait 1'ab sence totale: des chaises avec personne. Le monde n'est pas puisqu'il ne sera plus, tout meurt n'est-ce pas?" (En- tretiens, p. 84). In themselves, the empty chairs can ex press any kind of existential emptiness. But associated as they are with memories, nostalgias, and final death of the Old Man, they express, in particular, a sense of the empti ness of temporal existence. The theatrical and existential force of the elaborate imaginative joke of Les Chaises depends, to a great extent, [ on the success with which Ionesco superimposes temporal motifs upon basic spatial figures which, at the start, seem ; to pattern existence in a way which keeps the threat of death outside, but which, in the end, ironically stand 20 completely empty and devoid of any power to give man hope in the face of time's threatening advance. As Gilbert Durand has pointed out in Les Structures anthropologiques de 11imaqinaire. space can be seen in its various imagina tive figurations as "la forme a priori de la creativite 5 spirituelle et de la martrise de 1'esprit sur le monde." Time engenders despair, but imaginative spatial figures tend to bolster man's sense of hope: "C'est le temps qui distend notre assouvissement en un laborieux desespoir, mais c'est l'espace imaginaire qui au contraire reconstitue librement et immediatement en chaque instant 1'horizon et l'esperance de l'Etre en sa perennite" (L' Imagina:'.re, p. 467). In Les Chaises, however, although the geometrical perfection of the opening stage space seems to offer protection against the threat of death from the surrounding water, it is itself an empty space which, even when seemingly packed solid by the end of the play, is filled only with empty chairs. The play is a deft theatrical demonstration of "just how completely 'nothingness' can fill a stage and our minds," as Richard ~*Les Structures anthropologiques de 1' imaqinaire : Introduction a 1'archetypologie generale (Paris, 1960), p. :467. Hereafter this will be referred to as L' Imaqinaire in !the text. 21 Schechner has remarked in "The Inner and the Outer Reality,1 1 Tulane Drama Review, 7, No. 3 (Spring 1963), 198. As the existential joke of Les Chaises extends into the various reaches of man's traditional spatial imagination, it brings into ironic focus not only the dialectic of fullness and emptiness discussed by such critics as Schechner or, to g a lesser extent, Senart, but other implicitly spatial di chotomies as well, most notably those of formal stability versus formlessness and instability and of inside versus outside. Schechner discusses possible philosophical impli cations of such basic spatial dichotomies in another ar ticle, "The Enactment of the 'Not' in Ionesco's Les Chai ses ," Yale French Studies, 29 (1962), 67, where he high lights a Sartrian "mauvais foi" depicted in the play: "We try to fill in the hole at the center of our being and con vince ourselves that we are what we are not." But the joke of Les Chaises depends primarily on ironic twists given to prephilosophical constructions of man's spatial imagination and on the consequent subversion of existential values tra ditionally supported by such imaginative constructs and the 6Ionesco (Paris, 1964), p. 81. This work will here after be referred to simply by its title in the text. dialectics they entail. The old couple's dwelling arouses in the audience's prephilosophical spatial imagination snatches of that "body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability" which, as Gaston Bachelard has pointed out, has traditionally been constituted by any house of the "pre-apartment" era, imbued, as it is, if it is the house of our birth, "with dream values which remain after the house is gone," and appealing in any case "to our con sciousness of centrality" (Space, p. 17). The secure sta bility which the dwelling at first seems to offer ultimately proves illusory and is shown to support within its walls a life filled with dreams and hopes as devoid of existential significance as the suicidal drowning in the water outside. The tendency itself of imaginative configurations of Les Chaises to measure human existence in spatial terms suggests, furthermore, a traditional mythic dimension of the play. As Ernst Cassirer has said in his phenomenological 'investigation into the mythic consciousness expressed in man's primordial mythic heritage in the course of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. "The intuition of space is a basic factor in mythical thinking, since this thinking is dominated by a tendency to transform all the distinctions which it postulates and apprehends into spatial 23 7 distinctions and to actualize them in this form.” More over, the specific spatial figures which the play employs trace those imaginative patterns which primitive man has traditionally employed in his myths and religious rites to keep the zone of his tribal existence free from the threat of destructive time and meaningless death and in contact with the absolute being and timeless reality of the realm of the gods. Mythic Motifs of Sacred Space and Time Mircea Eliade has pointed out in Patterns in Compara tive Religion, his classification and study of the multi farious natural objects and phenomena that have tradition ally helped man structure his apprehension of his world, that primitive man apprehended the tract of earth which his tribe inhabited primarily as a manifestation of the presence in his world of qualities of firmness, solidity, and form. He experienced this territory as a part of a "cosmos" which stood in opposition to the "chaos" manifested in the form lessness of water, for example, and of night. The earth was 7The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Vol. II: Mythical Thought (New Haven, 1955), p. 94. This work will be re ferred to as Philosophy in the text. 24 "'the whole place' in which man found himself. A large number of the words for earth have etymologies which mani fest impressions of space— 'place,' 'wide,' 'province,' . . . or primary impressions of sense, 'firm,' 'what stays, ' 8 'black' and so on." In his discussion of traditional myths and rites of sacred space in The Sacred and the Profane, Eliade explains further that one of the outstanding characteristics of traditional societies is the opposition that they assume between their inhabited territory and the unknown and indeter minate space that surrounds it. The former is the world (more precisely, our world), the cosmos; every thing outside it is no longer a cosmos but a sort of "other world," a foreign, chaotic space, peopled by ghosts, demons, "foreigners."9 Modern man also knows the difference between space which he inhabits, cultivates, and organizes and a hostile wilderness. But, whereas modern man regards his place of habitation as chosen by himself or his family and given order by his own work and presence, primitive man continu ally reiterated myths and rites through which he taught Q Patterns in Comparative Religion (1958; rpt. New York, 1963), p. 245. This will be referred to hereafter as Pat terns in the text. 9The Sacred and the Profane; The Nature of Religion (New York, 1959), p. 29. This will be referred to hereafter as Sacred in the text. himself to regard his land* and also his dwelling and his place of worship, as revealed and discovered, not chosen. He recognizes that, in a profound sense, the order and sta bility of the place he inhabits is not his own work, but i that of the gods. As he says, "If every inhabited territory is a cosmos, this is precisely because it was first conse crated, because, in one way or another, it is the work of ;the gods or is in communication with the world of the gods" (Sacred, p. 30) . The mythic imagination of primitive man thus tradi tionally apprehends any organized space as the work of the igods, as sacred space. It apprehends the world as world, as cosmos, precisely in so far as it imagines this world as a sacred world, as a world in contact with the higher plane of reality, that inhabited by the gods. Moreover, the or ganizing center of the primitive or traditional man's life lies not only on the single plane of the perceived world, but touches and actually originates in this higher, trans cendent plane. Traditional man does not regard all space as homogeneous; he senses breaks in space. But the inter ruptions of order which he finds in chaotic space and in jwhich he locates the center of his reality are, in his ex perience, interruptions of a qualitatively different, sacred 26 order of reality. So he centers his reality and his exis tence around the sacred. Eliade touches on the main ele ments in this religious cosmology and what it meant exis- tentially to traditional man when he says that it is the break effected in space that allows the world to be constituted, because it reveals the fixed point, the central axis for all future orientation. When the sacred manifests itself in any hierophany, there is not only a break in the homogeneity of space; there is also revelation of an absolute reality, opposed to the non reality of the vast surrounding expanse. The manifesta tion of the sacred ontologically founds the world. In the homogeneous and infinite expanse, in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientation can be established, the hierophany reveals an absolute fixed point, a center. (Sacred, p. 21) The primitive or traditional man experienced time, no less than space, as a nonhomogeneous reality. For him, time as well as space has breaks. These breaks or interruptions involve participation in a sacred order of reality quali tatively different from ordinary, everyday, "profane" time and are generally apprehended in imaginative association with configurations of sacred space in basic accord with Durand's observation cited earlier concerning the general dynamics of the spatial imagination and its function in freeing man from time's debilitating aspects (L*Imaqinaire. p. 467). Throughout his works, and most notably in Cosmos and History. Eliade, for his part, tends to focus on the 27 temporal dynamics of primitive sacred rites and myths.'*'0 He is as preoccupied, so it seems, as one of the characters in his novel, For§t interdite (Paris, 1955), p. 139, with the traditional problem of attaining freedom from the limiting bonds of human existence, not "par la mort," but "encore vivants, pendant notre vie, dans le Temps, dans 1'Histoire." Primitive man experienced the liberating interruptions of absolute time into his everyday, historical existence, on one basic level, according to a cyclic temporal rhythm. Living in intimate contact with the rhythms of the moon and then with the yearly rhythms of agricultural production, primitive man became aware of a cyclic order built into the temporal scheme of his world. Moreover, he perceived that certain periods of this cycle have a fresher, more brilliant or vigorous life, while others involve the disappearance or dormancy of life; and he came to regard all life, his own included, as having the possibility manifest in plant life of periodic renewal (Patterns. p. 349). But just as living in the order of inhabited space meant living in contact with the gods who alone have the 1QCosmos and History; The Myth of the Eternal Return (1954; rpt. New York, 1959). This will be referred to as Cosmos in the text. 28 power to draw order from chaos, so beginning life once more each year meant returning to the sources of life, which could only be the gods, and repeating original time in which the gods first made the world and the life that is in it. The rites by which traditional man celebrated the new year involved the recalling of the original cosmogony. The time cycles according to which he came to measure his existence involved more than a simple return to the concrete experi ence of the new moon or spring; they involved a continuous return to the time of the origin of all life and all order, the sacred moment of the original time when the gods showed their power most clearly and forcefully. The rites and myths of the new year celebrations in volved not merely agricultural symbols, but drew on the cosmogonic myths themselves and expressed a return to the chaotic condition at the moment of the cosmogony. These yearly celebrations make use of the myth of the defeat of ithe primordial sea monster, for example, and rites of dark ness, death, and sexual orgy (Cosmos, pp. 51-73, passim). Every new year is thus "a resumption of time from the be ginning, that is, a repetition of the cosmogony" (Cosmos. ,p. 54); and the time that is resumed is a qualitatively different time even from the yearly fresh, spring time of 29 natural plant phenomena. It is the time of the work of the gods, and the "eternal return" to this original time "re veals an ontology uncontaminated by time and becoming" (Cosmos, p. 89). When contrasted with ordinary, everyday time, its most striking characteristic is its eternal re coverability, its reversibility. It is a "sacred time" which is "indefinitely recoverable, indefinitely repeatable" (Sacred, p. 69) . Actually, primitive or traditional man entered into this sacred, ontologically perfect time more often than during the new year festivals. The cyclic pattern of natu ral phenomena naturally opens into this kind of time; but so, too, do other, irregularly occurring events which in trinsically involve newness of life. So traditional man tended to recall the cosmogonic myths and recapture the time of these myths to celebrate marriage, generation, and birth, and to accompany rites of healing, of the construction of a building, and of the inauguration of a king (Cosmos. pp. 23-25, 76-85). In fact, primitive man felt himself projected into the original, sacred, absolute time whenever he performed a significant action or entered into a significant or essen tial period, such as that of war, hunting, fishing, eating, 30 sexual activity, work, or games (Cosmos, pp. 32-35)— all those activities "when the individual is truly himself" (Cosmos, p. 35). He knows that these activities are not of his own making and regards them as originated by the gods or by the former tribal heroes in the beginning of time. He must live his life according to the revealed patterns which alone give significance to his life. All these im portant physiological, social, and cultural activities of his life are ritualized and given mythic meaning no less than the yearly agricultural festivities or the celebrations of birth, marriage, or the inauguration of a king. Through the ritualization of such activities and the consequent renewal of the original hierophany which ini tiated them, man has traditionally sought to give himself the possibility of freedom from the bonds, especially the temporal bonds, of his existence. As the rite always consists in the repetition of an archetypal action performed in illo tempore (before "history" began) by ancestors or by gods, man is try ing, by means of the hierophany, to give "being" to even his most ordinary and insignificant acts. By its i repetition, the act coincides with its archetype, and time is abolished. (Patterns, p. 32) iThe concomitant myth determines the primordial model and significance of a ritual activity or celebration. As 31 Eliade says in Myth and Reality (New York, 1963), pp. 5-6, Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the "beginnings." In other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality. . . . Myth, then, is always an account of a "creation"; it relates how something was produced, began to be. Man's traditional ritual and mythic activity can thus be understood as an imaginary expression of a basic onto logical yearning, of "une vocation ontologique," as Durand says with regard to imaginary creativity in general (L1Ima- i qinaire, p. 466). For the fact that various natural phe nomena reveal to primitive man's symbolically prone mind a structural solidity within the cosmos and temporal rhythms of renewability in life does not imply that the primitive's imagination remains purely passive before such phenomena. Rather, primitive man actively creates his rites and myths precisely to confer on the phenomena their full meaning and significance. As Cassirer says, "Nowhere in myth do we find a passive contemplation of things; here all contemplation starts from an attitude, an act of the feeling and will" (Philosophy. II, 69). The mythic imagination, as Durand says of the creative imagination in general, "bien loin d'etre faculte de 'former' des images ... est puissance 32 dynamique qui 'deforme' les copies pragmatiques fournies par la perception" (L'Imaqinaire, p. 20). The mythic as well as the creative imagination "leste d'un poids ontologique le vide semiologique des phenomenes" (L‘Imaqinaire, p. 467). In basic accord, Eliade maintains in the course of a dis cussion of the myths of Tammuz and other plant gods that it was not the periodic disappearing and reappearing of vegetation which produced the figures and myths of the vegetation gods (Tammus, Attis, Osiris, and the rest); at least, it was not the mere empirical, rational ob servation of the "natural" phenomenon. The appearing and disappearing of vegetation were always felt, in the perspective of magico-religious experience, to be a sign of the periodic creation of the Universe. (Pat terns , pp. 42 5-426) He goes on to say that myth is an autonomous act of creation by the mind: it is through that act of creation that revelation is brought about— not through the things or events it makes use of. In short, the drama of the death and resurrec tion of vegetation is revealed by the myth of Tammuz, rather than the other way about. (Patterns, p. 426) Such a myth fuses the fact of the dormition and awakening of vegetation with the revelation of a fundamental unity of ilife and death in the existence of the cosmos as a whole and of mankind in particular, and it is to maintain and renew that revelation that the myth must be constantly celebrated and repeated; the appearing and disappearing of vegetation, in themselves, , as "cosmic phenomena," signify no more than they 33 actually are: a periodic appearance and disappearance of plant life. Only myth can transform this event into a mode of being. (Patterns, p. 426) The myths and rites which the primitive imagination has thus traditionally generated reveal reality as intrinsically marked by contact with the sacred. Apart from the sacred there is no reality. But the yearning for the sacred which primitive man's mythic and ritual activity betrays is more basically a yearning and thirst for being itself. Speaking iof the temporal dynamics of primitive religious festivals, Eliade stresses that the periodical ritual return to the time of creation, when the cosmos was still fresh, pure, and perfect, originates in a human nostalgia which is "at once thirst for the sacred and nostalgia for being. . . . By all his behavior, religious man proclaims that he believes only in being, and that his participation in being is assured him by the primordial revelation of which he is the guardian" (Sacred, pp. 94-95). Speaking of the rites and imyths according to which such a man consecrates the space jin which he lives, Eliade says that traditional, religious ;man can live only in a sacred world, because it is only in such a world that he participates in being, that he has a real existence. This religious need expresses an un quenchable ontological thirst. Religious man thirsts 34 for being. His terror of the chaos that surrounds his inhabited world corresponds to his terror of nothing ness . The unknown space that extends beyond his world— an uncosmicized because unconsecrated space, a mere amorphous extent into which no orientation has yet been projected, and hence in which no structure has arisen— for religious man, this profane space represents abso lute nonbeing. If, by some evil chance, he strays into it, he feels emptied of his ontic substance, as if he were dissolving in Chaos, and he finally dies. (Sacred. p. 64) Eliade cites a nomadic tribe who would always take their sacred pole along in their wanderings for food. No matter where they would wander, this pole, their sacred cosmic axis, always allowed them to maintain symbolic contact with "their" world, with "their" gods. But once, when this pole was broken, "the entire clan were in consternationj they wandered about aimlessly for a time, and finally lay down on the ground together and waited for death to overtake them" (Sacred, p. 33). Set in the primitive mythic context, the underlying spatial figures and dichotomies which support the theatrical and existential joke of Ionesco's Les Chaises reveal a basic correspondence with figurations of sacred space elaborated by the traditional creative imagination. Avant-garde the atrically though the play is, it uses age-old mythic con figurations to re-echo some of the same temporal and onto logical preoccupations traditionally expressed and given 35 religious import by these configurations. The basic stage figure of the old couple's dwelling appears as a miniature mythic space, solid and secure from the possibility of death which encircles it and prepared, in the course of the play, for the hoped-for saving revelation to be proclaimed by the Orator. Of course, once the couple jump to their death together into the threatening water outside, the Orator's comic revelation does nothing to support a sense of exis tential well-being and security. Rather, it lays bare the ontological emptiness within, which is at least as meaning less and absurd as the suicidal death without, but only more ironically comical. Worked out, as it is, however, in la tent figures of the sacred mythic imagination, the irony of Les Chaises suggests that it is not simply man's life and hopeful dreams that are a big joke. What is especially incongruous is man's life as appearing to have some sort of ontological significance in accord with those ancient dreams of the mythic imagination that have constituted the greater ; part of mankind's whole religious history. Yet just as the sacred mythic system constructed by Ithe primitive imagination would collapse without the support of temporal forms and figures along with the spatial imagi native structures, so, too, Les Chaises depends upon an imaginative infrastructure that has temporal as well as spatial dimensions. Conspicuous temporal motifs of death in the play have already been highlighted in earlier discus sion in this chapter. But as the critical focus shifts from primarily theatrical figures expressed in the setting and action of the play as a whole to primarily verbal images aroused in the various poetic reveries which the Old Man and Old Woman slip into at times in the course of the action, other, less manifest cyclic temporal patterns associated with memories of a lost, more perfect existence come into view. Critics such as Senart, in Ionesco, pp. 108-110, 11 12 Simone Benmussa, and Alexandre Rainof have indicated that the imagery through which such poetic reveries are expressed tend to recall archetypal imagery of traditional myths of a lost paradise. Temporal Motifs in Les Chaises Primitive societies have traditionally tended to regard the world in which they live as well as their own lives and 11Euqene Ionesco (Paris, 1966), pp. 54-57. This work will be referred to simply by its title in the text. 12 "Mythologies de l'Etre chez Ionesco," Diss. Univ. of Michigan 1969, pp. 104-105, 167. This work will be referred to hereafter as "Mythologies" in the text. 37 state of existence as fallen from a former state of perfect being* from the paradisaical condition of the cosmos as cribed to the beginning times by the cosmogonic myths. Thus primitive myths of a "lost paradise" form a sort of corol lary to the cosmogonic myths associated with the maintenance of existence in sacred space and sacred time. These myths of the lost paradise express primitive man's realization that despite his efforts to recapture the wholeness* time lessness* and sacredness of creation at its most perfect moment* he never quite succeeds or does so only briefly and ;with difficulty in a moment of ritual. According to these traditional myths* men of the lost paradisaical era were immortal and lived in close contact with the gods. As Eliade says in Myths. Drearns and Mys- teries, these myths depict the realm of the gods "as* in illo tempore, very close to the Earth* or as easily acces sible* either by climbing a tree or a tropical creeper or a 13 ladder* or by scaling a mountain." The gods, on the one hand* "came down to earth and mingled with men; and men* for ; their part* could go up to Heaven by climbing the mountain* 13 Myths. Dreams and Mysteries; The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (New York* I960)* p. 59. This work is referred to as Mysteries in the text. 38 the tree, creeper or ladder, or might even be taken up by birds" (Mysteries, p. 60). In these wonderful times, men felt at ease and at one with the world in which they lived. They "knew nothing of death* they understood the language of animals and lived at peace with them; they did no work at all, they found abundant food within their reach" (Myster ies , p. 59). Man himself lived a life marked by "immor tality, spontaneity, freedom," of which the supreme mark was immortality (Mysteries, p. 60). Primitive man has traditionally recognized, however, that he lacks the freedom, wholeness, and easy contact with transcendent realities which he came to regard as inherent in his original mode of existence. He realizes that the original paradise must have been lost "as the result of a primordial event— the 'fall' of man, expressed as an onto logical mutation of his own condition, as well as a cosmic schism" (Mysteries, p. 60) . Still, he cannot help longing to live once more in what he regards as his true, para disaical state, to remain always at the heart of reality, of the world, to know the gods easily, with his very senses. In the sacred mythic context, this nostalgia for the para disaical state belongs, as Eliade says, "to those profound emotions that arise in man when, longing to participate in 39 the sacred with the whole of his being, he discovers that this wholeness is only apparent and that in reality the very constitution of his being is a consequence of its divided ness" (Mysteries, p. 98). At the very beginning of Les Chaises, temporal images and imaginative patterns homologizable to those of primitive myths of sacred, paradisaical time begin to suggest their presence when the Old Man and the Old Woman, in their open ing conversation, give vent to their melancholic nostalgia in terms of a gradual encroachment of darkness upon what apparently was at some former time a kind of endless, recog nizably paradisaical day of pure light. The Old Woman re marks that "il n'y a pas de soleil, c'est la nuit" (I, 131). A few moments later, the Old Man elaborates on his wife's simple comment, recalling that at some former time there was more lasting light, perhaps no night: "II est 6 heures de 1'apres-midi... il fait deja nuit. Tu te rapelles, jadis, ce n'etait pas ainsi; il faisait encore jour a 9 heures du soir, a 10 heures, a minuit" (I, 132) . These comments supplement the appreciation of the threatening presence of death implicit in the stage setting with an awareness of time as a passing, gradually eroding process. As Senart has indicated, the Old Man's words 40 reflect both an autobiographical moment in Ionesco's early adolescence and begin to suggest the traditional dialectic according to which mankind's long yearned-for "£ge d'or" or "paradise" is set against death in man's dreams as "une vie victorieuse de la mort" and "une vie guerie de la mort" (Ionesco, pp. 108-109). Ionesco has recorded his own first awareness of the deteriorating passage of time referred to by the Old Man of the play in Journal en miettes (Paris, 1967), p. 13, where some of the same temporal and spatial values underscored in the first few moments of Les Chaises are loosely associated in the playwright's own adolescent imagination and emo tional sensibility in what is basically the same existential association suggested in these opening moments of the play. The playwright records that in his childhood, "le sentiment du temps n'a pas ete lie immediatement a l'idee de la mort." He had early become aware of death as "une interruption definitive du present," but had not appreciated the intrin sic connection between death and the fact that "le temps 'passait'" until his early adolescence. From the time that ;he became aware of his own participation in time's passage, he says, p. 15, that he has tried I tous les jours, de m'accrocher a quelque chose de stable, ; 41 j'essaye desesperement de retrouver un present, de 1'installer, de l'elargir.- Je voyage pour retrouver un monde intact sur lequel le temps n'aurait pas de prise. [...] Un monde nouveau, un monde toujours nouveau, un monde de toujours, jeune pour toujours, c'est cela le paradis . In the play itself, the Old Man gives an elliptical explanation of the gradual shift from light to darkness with the passage of time in seemingly nonsensical terms which, however, introduce the notion of a cyclic temporal movement in the cosmos: "Peut-£tre, parce que plus on va, plus on s'enfonce. C'est a cause de la terre qui tourne, tourne, tourne, tourne... " (I, 132). As Cassirer has pointed out, the light-dark imagery itself has traditional mythic conno tations . For, according to his analysis, the development of the mythic apprehension of both space and time starts from the opposition of light and darkness : ''One and the same concrete intuition, the interchange of light and dark ness, day and night, underlies both the primary intuition of space and the primary articulation of time" (Philosophy, II, 107). By using this common pattern of imagery in a seem ingly curious connection with the evocation of the cyclic movement of the earth and a sense of sinking, Ionesco cre ates a highly elliptical but effective image of the despair which cyclic time can engender when experienced without an 42 apprehension, such as that maintained by primitive sacred myths, that the cyclic movement promises hope. As the conversation between the Old Man and his wife continues, Ionesco reiterates a sense of ever-repeated time as well as the figure of lost radiance and light. The Old Woman asks him to tell the story with which he has rejuve nated her every evening for the seventy-five years of their married life. Complaining of this ritual repetition, he objects that "absolument tous les soirs, tu me fais raconter la m§me histoire, tu me fais imiter les m§mes personnes, les mdmes mois... toujours pareil" (I, 133). He says that she knows the story by heart. But she says, "C'est comme si j'oubliais tout, tout de suite... J'ai l'esprit neuf tous les soirs... Mais oui, mon chou, je le fais expres, je prends des purges... je redeviens neuve, pour toi, mon chou, tous les soirs" (I, 133). The Old Man repeats his story, which mimics the mythic repetition of a verdant, primordial garden, secure and cen tered around contact with the sacred. But the mythic pat tern undergoes an ironic distortion which indicates a more basic pessimism than that springing from the secularization of cyclic time. In the Old Man's account, the primordial, perfect realm of existence itself is, at its core, absurd. In the witty jumble of multiple puns, it turns out to be ; nothing but a ludicrous affair of the belly. He climaxes :his story with a marvelous verbal tour de force: I Alors, on arriva pres d'une grande grille. On etait tout mouilles, glaces jusqu'aux os, depuis des heures, des jours, des nuits, des semaines. IIs ne nous ont pas permis d'entrer... ils auraient pu ; au moins ouvrir la porte du jardin... Silence. La Vieille: Dans le jardin l'herbe etait mouillee. | Le Vieux: Il y avait un sentier qui conduisait a une petite place; au milieux, une eglise de village... Ou etait ce village? Tu te rappelles? La Vieille: Non, mon chou, je ne sais plus. Le Vieux: Comment y arrivait-on? Ou est la route? Ce lieu s'appelait, je crois, Paris... La Vieille: £a n'a jamais existe, Paris, mon petit. Le Vieux: Cette ville a existe, puisqu'elle s'est effondree... C'etait la ville de lumiere, puisqu'elle s'est eteinte, eteinte, depuis quatre cent mille ans . .. II n'en reste plus rien aujourd'hui, sauf une chanson. Alors on arri. .. Alors, on a ri, on avait mal au ventre, l'histoire etait si drfile... le drdle arriva ventra a terre, ven tre nu, le drdle avait du ventre... il arriva avec une malle toute pleine de riz; par terre le riz se repandit le drdle a terre aussi, ventre a terre. Les deux vieux, ensemble, riant: Alors, on a ri. Ah!... ri... arri... arri... Ah!... Ah!... ri... va.. arri... arri... le drdle ventre nu... (I, 134-135) 44 The circumlocution for Paris, "la ville de lumiere," doubles, as Rainof has indicated, as a paradisaical expres sion ("Mythologies," pp. 104, 167). But, with puns piled upon puns, the moment of arrival at "la ville de lumiere" becomes a comic moment of laughter at a pile of rice spilt by an obese, bare-bellied rogue: "On arri. [...] On a ri. Ah!... ri[z]." The adroit word play quickly turns the whole paradisaical venture into a joke and reduces man's existential dreams to an affair of the stomach. As the Old Man tells the story, paradise is not lost; it is nonexis tent, an intrinsically absurd and ludicrous figment of the imagination. His perception of existence, at least of his own existence, involves not so much a realization that this existence has deteriorated from what it should be as that it is, and always was, ludicrously absurd at its very core. In the traditional mythic context which his story helps establish, his punning implies, too, the intrinsic absurdity and foolishness of such religious and ontological ventures as that which primitive man entered upon with his attempts to live a ritualized existence in paradisaical time and space. In addition to mythic motifs of the primeval garden and of light versus darkness, the verbal mythic context of Les 45 Chaises includes motifs of ascension and of the thwarting of ascension and flight which also have a traditional func tion in primitive myths of paradise and its loss . One mark of man's paradisaical existence at the beginning of time was his ability easily to ascend to the heavens and to reach contact with the gods. Once paradise was lost, this ability was lost; and man's separation from the higher plane of the gods marks his present diminished state of existence. Now it is only the shamans who— so the shamanic myths teach— can fly up to the heavens in their ecstasies and dreams. The Old Woman introduces the motif of flight when she tells one of the "guests" that she and her husband had had a son who accused them of killing birds: "II disait: Vous tuez les oiseaux! pourquoi tuez-vous les oiseaux? [...] Les rues sont pleines d'oiseaux tues, de petits enfants qui agonisent. C'est le chant des oiseaux!... Non, ce sont des gemissements. Le ciel est rouge de sang" (I, 153). The boy's charges seem capricious and perverse. But perceived in their possible paradisaical overtones, they help estab lish a milieu in which death shows up the traditional myths of mankind's innocent longing for transcendent freedom as absurd. The Old Man similarly expresses his realization of the 46 absurdity and failure of his own existence in terms of a failure to rise above his own plane of existence due to the betrayal of his friends, who constantly pull him down: "J'ai voulu faire du sport... de 1'alpinisme... on m'a tire par les pieds pour me faire glisser... j'ai voulu monter des escaliers, on m'a pourri les marches... Je me suis effondre. [...] J'ai voulu franchir les Pyrenees, il ;n'y avait deja plus de Pyrenees" (I, 170-171). Such comments of the Old Woman and the Old Man and, more particularly, their conversation at the beginning of the play, with its patterns of futilely turning time cycles and memories of a messy city of light, help create a poetic- theatrical world of arbitrarily shifting figurations of time enigmatically attached to similarly elusive figures of space. Though this world is an astonishingly funny world, it is existentially quite unsettling. Although it evokes :what Ionesco himself terms "1'etonnement fondamental et primordial," it is a world disturbing for its emptiness: "II y a le tourbillon des chaises qui exprime l'evannes- i jcence, la viduite d'un monde qui est la, qui n'est pas la, |qui ne sera plus" (Entretiens. p. 146). The final experience of emptiness evoked in Les Chaises and the various conflicting existential states expressed in 47 the play in the course of its buildup to this experience reflect, no doubt, what Benmussa has called Ionesco’s "ob sessions fondamentales" (Eugene Ionesco, p. 44). For, as this critic indicates, there appear so often in his plays "l'angoisse de la mort qui se traduit par des images d'eau. de vase, de boue ... hantise de la cave et des trous noirs" in dialectical contrast with "le sentiment de joie, de fe- licite," with which "la lumiere inonde les jardins, les cites, les passerelles, les ponts d’argent" (Eugene Ionesco, pp. 52, 54) . At the same time, the feeling of emptiness is something of a sentiment left over from the Romantic era evoked by the final figure of the Orator, "le type du peintre ou du poete du siecle dernier" (I, 174). George Poulet has described existential sentiments pervasive of French pre-Romantic and Romantic literature in terms which could well describe, sans the Ionescian humor, basic sentiments of Les Chaises: amidst the "interflowing images of reminiscence and premo nition, " at the turn from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, there comes "to be superimposed upon actual exis tence the awareness of another existence" (Time, p. 25)i Yet as pre-Romanticism turns into Romanticism, "the romantic effort to form itself a being out of presentiment and memory 48 ends in the experience of a double tearing of the self"; for "there opens, at the center of man's being, in the actual feeling of his existence, an insupportable void which real existence borders on every side; existence in time" (Time, p. 29). Still, the mythic imagery and imaginative patterns set the romantic nostalgia in a more ancient, preliterary con text of an imaginative system of sacred time and space in which existential and religious sentiments were still one. Though less obvious in Les Chaises than in some of the later plays, the imaginative figures of the play already suggest that the "obsessions fondamentales" which seem to haunt Ionesco throughout his career as a playwright are those of his most ancient ancestors. In the present play, the tra ditional imaginative figures which he takes as his own in clude luminous fragments of the traditional lost paradise noted by critics already cited and also remnants of the traditional hero's quest for a saving illumination that would permit men to transcend their present mortal state and recover something of the paradisaical existence, the quest which Edith W. Williams has discussed in its mode of "ironic parody" in "God's Share: A Mythic Interpretation of The Chairs, " Modern Drama, 12, No. 3 (Dec. 1969), 298. But it 49 is not simply the presence of such traditional mythic motifs in isolated strands and pieces that begins to give evidence of the playwright's imaginative and existential kinship with his primitive ancestors. Woven together within the temporal and spatial patterns analyzed in this chapter, the various mythic remnants reinforce one another to give imaginative expression to traditional existential concerns in what is, in fact, a miniature theatrical copy, admittedly roughly traced, of basic patterns of the total sacred mythic system by which primitive man sought to transcend the spatial and temporal limits of his existence. The conclusion of the present play, of course, lays bare the foolishness of such traditional striving for transcendence on any level as a particularly comical and terrifying absurdity of human existence. In so doing, the play dramatizes a pessimistic reaction to the evil of man's existential situation which, though expressed at times through imagery reminiscent of the traditional myth of the lost paradise, stands in fundamental opposition to the existential stance expressed in this ancient myth. As Paul Ricoeur has stated in his discussion of the various myths and symbols that Western man has traditionally used to ex press his awareness of evil in the world in The Symbolism of Evil (Boston, 1967), p. 156, the lost paradise myth ex presses a realization that "evil is not symmetrical with the good, wickedness is not something that replaces the goodness of a man; it is the staining, the darkening, the disfiguring of an innocence, a light, and a beauty that remain. However radical evil may be, it cannot be as primordial as goodness." In Les Chaises, however, nothing appears more radical than the final emptiness, an emptiness which, comical as it may be, can only be considered as ontologically evil to a being such as man, who can dream for some sort of fullness. From the vantage point of Les Chaises, a retrospective look at Ionesco's two earlier plays, La Cantatrice chauve and La Legon, reveals that from the start his creative imagination has tended to focus on the comedy of absurdly empty and evil human situations and to survey such situa tions with a perceptual bias inherited from his primitive ancestors. In each of these two plays, he concentrates on aspects of the emptiness and absurdity of human existence which primitive man recognized, together with mortality, as primary signs of the evil of his lost-paradise universe, that is, its "tensions and conflicts" discussed by Eliade in The Two and the One (New York, 1965), p. 121. The ludicrous Violence and absurdity latent in the social, logical, and 51 linguistic conflicts of these plays unfold ritually during the actual course of the theatrical presentation in a non- mythic span of time measured by a gradually increased in tensity and an ever more chaotic deterioration; but in each play, too, the presentation ends in such a way as to suggest the continued repetition of the ritual in a larger cyclic and potentially mythic temporal context that extends indefi nitely in the imagination both before and after the limited span of the actual presentation on stage (I, 56 and 93). Seen in a primitive mythic context, the imagined repetition of the ritual unfolding of nonparadisaical tensions and contradictions according to an extended cyclic time pattern which traditionally helps man recapture the wholeness and unity of a paradisaical existence adds to each play an im plicit irony. However, it is only with Les Chaises and, one year later, Victimes du devoir that Ionesco begins to em bellish the ritual actions of his plays with sufficient mythic imagery to give these actions their own mythic con text and commentary through which one can apprehend the theatrical ritual, ironically or otherwise, in relation to the prephilosophical ontology elaborated by the primitive religious imagination. In the case of Les Chaises, the poetic and imaginative figures provide such a context and commentary for what is basically a spatial ritual. In the case of Victimes du devoir, the basic ritual action consists in a psychoanalytical mime that evolves into a ritual feed ing process repeated rhythmically and extending imagina tively beyond the termination of the actual performance into an apparently endless cyclic sequence similar to that sug gested by the endings of La Cantatrice chauve and La Leeon. CHAPTER II PRIMITIVE MYTHIC MOTIFS OF TIME IN VICTIMES DU DEVOIR Though much less effective than Ionesco's three former plays in its humor, ritual strength, and imaginative co herence, the next-produced play, Victimes du devoir (1953), gives further evidence of the hold which imaginative figura-: tions from the primitive past have on the playwright's crea tive imagination. The "interieur petit-bourgeois" in which ; the action of the play unfolds is not formalized theatri cally into a stage figure homologizable with traditional sacred space, as is the stage setting of Les Chaises (I, 183). But the repetitive rhythmic pattern into which the central action finally evolves in its aim to force the recollection of an all-important figment or reality from the past gradually becomes recognizable, through the imagi native motifs in which the recollected memories take partial Shape, as homologous with cyclic temporal rhythms 53 54 characteristic of primitive rituals of renewal of the origi nal paradisaical times. And the central action itself* though more immediately perceived as a confused* detective- drama parody of modern psychoanalysis* gradually appears also as a parody of more ancient probes into the collective subconscious such as those undergone by primitive warriors and shamans in their initiatory experiences. The imagina tive figures and patterns which give the psychoanalytic probings of Victimes du devoir their primitive mythic over tones strengthen the unity* coherence* and ontological thrust of the play. Unfortunately* however* Ionesco has cluttered the total theatrical configuration of the play with enigmatic imaginative bits and pieces which distract from the parody on both levels. Structurally* Victimes du devoir is a triptych* in which the central scenes dramatizing the Detective's psycho analytical investigation into the personal and archetypal subconscious of the central character Choubert are framed ;by an introduction to the play's basic thematic materials i and a concluding ritual recapitulation of the investiga tion's ultimate futility. Sitting near the table of his petit-bourgeois quarters* Choubert comments on the news in the daily paper to his wife; Madeleine at the beginning of the play and in so doing states the existential and theatrical notions which will be played with in the course of the central scenes and con cluding ritual. Ke remarks that various news items suggest "l'homme moderne a perdu sa serenite d'autrefois" and notes that the government recommends "le detachement" as "le seul moyen qui nous reste de remedier a la crise economique, au desequilibre spirituel et aux embarras de 1'existence" (I, 1183) . This is only a recommendation, but Choubert knows that "la recommandation tourne toujours en coinmandement" (I, 184) . As the conversation turns to the contemporary .theater, Choubert states his opinion that "toutes les pieces qui ont ete ecrites, depuis 1'antiquite jusqu'a nos jours, n'ont jamais ete que policieres. Le theatre n'a jamais ete que realiste et policier. Toute piece est une enqu§te menee a bonne fin. II y a une enigme, qui nous est revelee a la derniere scene. Quelquefois, avant. On cherche, on trouve" (I, 185). A knock at the door interrupts Choubert's conversation i iwith his wife. The Detective enters9 excuses himself for i his intrusion, declares his affinity to Choubert in his love !of the theater and in his partisanship "de la politique du i'detachment-systeme'" (I, 189), and then suddenly and ominously begins demanding that Choubert search his memory for whatever he can recall of a certain "Mallot" (I, 190 Iff.). In the central scenes which follow, Choubert probes his memory and personal and archetypal subconscious, never successfully, for traces of this Mallot, and in so doing portrays the existential insufficiency of the traditional "theatre policier," of modern Freudian analysis, and, more : implicitly, of traditional sacred initiation rituals to jrecapture the forgotten "serenite" and "l'equilibre spiri- tuel" which the person of Mallot in part represents. I In the initial memory sequence, Choubert enacts his original erotic and romantic attraction for Madeleine, who appears now on stage in more youthful dress and demeanor, as a descent down a ramp at the seaside. The psychoanalyst- detective demands that Choubert make this descent to find Mallot; and Madeleine enticingly urges, "Descends... des cends... si tu me veux!" (I, 195). As Choubert continues to descend into the mud, Madeleine turns aside and reappears as an old woman. Her aged state moves Choubert to remark on the power of romantic love to conquer age and death: "Comme tu as change! Mais quand cela est-il arrive? [...] Je te jure ce n'est pas moi qui t'ai vieillie! Non... je ne veux pas, je ne crois pas, 1'amour est toujours jeune, l1amour ne 57 meurt jamais" (I, 197). These declarations of love begin to give Choubert's recollections an archetypal, mythic quality as he continues in an attempt at song: Les sources printanieres... Les feuilles nouvelles... Le jardin enchante a sombre dans la nuit, a glisse dans la boue... .Notre amour dans la nuit, notre amour dans la boue, dans la nuit, dans la boue... Notre jeunesse perdue, les larmes deviennent des sources pures... des sources de vie, des sources immortelles. (I, 197) The erotic and romantic sequence ends; but, at the command of the Detective and the urgings of Madeleine, Choubert continues to sink down in the mud, feeling his way as a blind man in a blocked tunnel and finally miming the submerging of a drowning man and disappearing completely (I, 198 ff.). Critics such as Simone Benmussa and Jean- Herve Donnard have stressed that the play's investigation concerns more than the psychosexual realities definable in terms of modern psychoanalysis. Benmussa has affirmed that the inquest concerns, rather, man's "impuissance a £tre 'absolument'";^ and Donnard has pointed out in Ionesco dramaturge ou 1'artisan et le demon (Paris, 1966), p. 84, that the detective's investigation, as it progresses, turns ^Eugene Ionesco (Paris, 1966), p. 14. This will be referred to simply by its title in the text. 58 into an alternating series of basic existential feelings which measure out the life of all men, who "sentant et pen- sant sont, a des degres divers, et pour des raisons variees, eyelothymiques." These are existential feelings which Ionesco himself, in Notes et contre-notes (Paris, 1966), pp. 230-231, has recognized as fundamental to all his early plays . As Alexandre Rainof has stressed in his discussion of "Icare et Proserpine" in "Mythologies de l'Etre chez Ionesco," Diss . Univ. of Michigan 1969, pp. 135, 167, 186, the oscillatory ontological states and feelings that both mark the investigatory proceedings of Victimes du devoir and characterize Ionesco's whole oeuvre find theatrical expres sion in contrasting clusters of imagery that center around basic archetypal pairs of light-darkness, ascension-descent, and male-female traditionally expressive of man's awareness of the absence of the harmonious, ontological equilibrium of the paradisaical state and of his efforts to attain it. In Victimes-du devoir, the efforts to regain the paradisaical state into which the investigatory proceedings evolve take ■theatrical form as a kind of primitive initiatory experi ence . 59 Primitive Initiatory Motifs The young of primitive societies learned the myths which formed the cultural archetypes of their particular tribe during initiation ceremonies. As Eliade says in the introduction to his study of initiation rites, Rites and Symbols of Initiation, they learned the basic cosmogonic myths through undergoing rites which led them actually to experience the fundamental life rhythms of new birth and creation from death and a condition of chaos: The central moment of every initiation is represented by the ceremony symbolizing the death of the novice and his return to the fellowship of the living. But he re turns to life a new man, assuming another mode of being. Initiatory death signifies the end at once of child hood, of ignorance, and of the profane condition.^ Of course, the symbolic repetition of the cosmogony which formed the center of the initiation ritual implied a real participation in the events of the time of creation, when the gods manifested their presence and their creative powers. In the course of the initiation, the novice actu ally experienced a new birth into the cultural life of the 2 Rites and Symbols of Initiation; The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (1958; rpt. New York, 1965), p. xii. This ■work will be referred to hereafter as Initiation in the text. 60 tribe as a personal event accomplished by the gods, the prerequisite for which was, of course, an intense experience of separation, death, and disintegration, just as the pre requisite for the original creation was chaos and the pre requisite for any new state of being, to the traditional mentality, is annihilation. All members of a primitive society were thus initiated into the mythic life of their tribe during the transition from childhood or adolescence to adulthood. But some in dividuals or small groups of select tribal members were initiated into particular aspects of the tribe's mythic life or into a more intense participation in the mythic proto types. So initiates into secret men's or warriors' socie ties underwent ritualized experiences of the perilous ex ploits through which tribal heroes were able, through suf fering and illumination, to re-enter the paradisaical state once it had been lost (Initiation, pp. 61 ff.). Similarly, future shamans, in the course of initiatory rites, dreams, and ecstatic visions, came to participate more intensely in the sacred realities of the tribe, to know the secrets of the soul that are of such importance to the tribe, and, as Eliade says in his classic Shamanism, to regain in their jown dream experiences the mythic time of paradise and 61 "become contemporary not only with the cosmogony but also 3 with the primordial mythical revelations.“ It is imagina tive traces of such traditional heroic itineraries which the Detective of Victimes du devoir forces Choubert to follow in the realms of the subconscious. Edith W. Williams, in "God's Share: A Mythic Interpretation of The Chairs," Mod ern Drama. 12, No. 3 (Dec. 1969), 305-306, has pointed to ;the presence of some traces of the heroic myths in Les j Chaises. As will be seen in further chapters, images from traditional shamanic myths show up more manifestly in some !of Ionesco's later plays. ; Both heroes and shamans were imagined in the tradi- I itional myths as having to descend into the labyrinthine caves of the lower world, the realm of death, down into the dark chthonian womb of Mother Earth. To the hero, "the chthonian Great Mother shows herself pre-eminently as God dess of Death and Mistress of the Dead," displaying "threat ening and aggressive aspects" (Initiation, p. 62). The labyrinth he must traverse tends to be imagined "as a 'dan gerous passage' into the bowels of Mother Earth, a passage i 3 Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. 1st ed., rev. (Princeton, 1964), pp. 103, 509. This will be referred ito hereafter as Shamanism in the text. I — >b 62 in which the soul runs the risk of being devoured by a female monster" who is pictured in "terrifying images of aggressive female sexuality and devouring motherhood" (Ini tiation , p. 62). Whoever succeeds in descending alive into the realm of death and confronting the ordeals destined for the dead "no longer fears deathj he has conquered a kind of bodily immortality" (Initiation, p. 64). He also gains access to "the place of knowledge and wisdom" since "the Lord of Hell is omniscient" and "the dead know the future" (Initiation, p. 64). The future shaman's descent to the underworld gives him, moreover, an opportunity to learn the secrets of his profession and other revelations from the souls of dead shamans (Shamanism, p. 34). The physical torture which is characteristic of ini tiatory rites into certain primitive secret societies is supposed to be inflicted by superhuman beings, and its goal is the spiritual transmutation of the initiand. Extreme suffering is likewise an expression of initiatory death. Certain serious illnesses, especially psycho mental disorders, are regarded as the sign that super human beings have chosen the sick man to be initiated— i that is, tortured, dismembered, and "killed," so that he may be resuscitated to a higher existence. (Initia- tion. p. 76) Particularly in the case of the shaman, "initiatory sick nesses are one of the principal syndromes of the shamanic 63 vocation" and constitute a portion of "the terrible suffer ings that symbolize the mystical death of the future shaman" (Initiation, pp. 76-77). The psychic disintegration which such initiatory sicknesses can lead to has a symbolic sig nificance beyond the psychopathological. It signifies "a symbolic return to the precosmogonic Chaos, to the amorphous iand indescribable state that precedes any cosmogony," a re turn which, for primitive man, "is equivalent to preparing a new Creation" (Initiation, p. 89). So the "psychic Chaos" of the future shaman is "a sign that the profane man is being 'dissolved' and a new personality being prepared for birth" (Initiation, p. 89). Eliade stresses that in actual, observable fact, "the shaman is not only a sick man; he is, above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself" (Shamanism, p. 27). In all the shamanic initiatory experiences, whether in visions and dreams or in concretized rituals, "there is no question of anarchical hallucinations and of a purely in dividual plot and dramatis personae; the hallucinations and the mise en scene follow traditional models that are per fectly consistent" (Shamanism, p. 14). Both visions and public rites picture the shaman's rebirth into an existence contemporaneous with the times of paradise in images of 64 bodily dismemberment, reduction to a skeleton, descent to the underworld and, especially, ascent to the plane of the gods above (Initiation, pp. 101-102). He makes his all- important ascent in the image of a bird or with the aid of a drum made from the wood of the "Cosmic Tree" (Shamanism. pp. 156 and 169)j or he crosses a narrow bridge or colorful rainbow or climbs the "Cosmic Mountain" (Shamanism, pp. 118, 135, 266 ff., and 486 ff.). Gilbert Durand stresses in Les Structures anthropologigues de l'imaginaire that the "sym- bolisation verticalisante" of props used in shamanic ini tiations is "dressee contre le temps et la mort" in accord with an imaginative "tradition de 11immortalite ascension- 4 nelle." In the traditional mythic schema, the shaman attains this transcendent immortality "as a privileged being who individually returns to the fortunate condition of humanity at the dawn of time" (Shamanism, p. 144). Fortunately for his own psychic integrity and the existential well-being of his tribe, shamans are noted for their good memory. They are "men who remember their 4 Les Structures anthropologigues de l'imaginaire: In troduction a 1'archetypologie generale (Paris, 1960), p. 129. This will be referred to as L'Imaqinaire in the text. 65 ecstatic experiences" after they return from them; and the shaman thus "stands out by the fact that he has succeeded in integrating into consciousness a considerable number of experiences that, for the profane world, are reserved for dreams, madness, or post-mortem states" (Initiation, p. 102). Yet the wholeness and integrity which he regains have salvific value not only for himself, but for all the members of his tribe. As Eliade affirms in Images and Symbols; Studies in Religious Symbolism (1961; rpt. New York, 1969), pp. 164-166, the shaman's descent into the world of death is not "only initiatory, or undertaken for a personal advan tage; it has a 'redemptive' aim" for the life of the tribe. So, just as the shaman resembles "the great mystics of his tory" in the. imagery of elevation and the sensation of luminosity which suffuse certain of his ecstatic experi ences, he resembles Orpheus and Christ in that his ecstatic journeys regain life for others . Initiatory Motifs and Mythic Time I in Victimes du devoir i ! When, at the urgings of his wife Madeleine and the Detective, Choubert, the "hero" of Victimes du devoir. "mimant comme une descente au fond des eaux, la noyade," has sunk completely into the imagined mud of his own I subconscious to seek out Mallot, he first encounters memo ries of his own childhood (I, 199-201) . First he watches as Madeleine and the Detective play the roles of his mother and father. His mother accuses his father of humiliating her and causing her to grow old, and then his father forces her to go through with a suicidal act of drinking poison (I, 2 02) . Then Choubert appears alone with his mother and, in a more extended scene, with his father (I, 203 ff.). The relationship between Choubert and his father, as it is acted out, is a divided one which gradually seems to take on the function of an image drawn according to vaguely Christian lines of the more basic ontological split between man and the Father God. Choubert asks his father's forgive ness in words which suggest an inversion of the Christian "Our Father": "Pardonne-nous, nous t'avons pardonne" (I, 2 03). Then the father borrows from what seems to be the Christian vocabulary of salvation, justification, and re demption to express his appreciation of what his son means to him, as if he were God the Father expressing the tradi tional Christian appreciation of the saving life and work of the Son, Jesus. He says, "Tu naquis, mon fils, juste au moment ou j'allais dynamiter la planete. C'est ta naissance :qui la sauva" (I, 205); and later he states, "II y avait ta 67 naissance, qui justifiait, rachetait a mes yeux tous les desastres de 1'Histoire. J'avais pardonne au monde, pour l'amour de toi" (I, 206). Neither father nor son, however, hear the words of the other which might heal the split in their relationshipj and they remain estranged. The Detective becomes once more the psychoanalyst- detective and orders Choubert to forget "tes histoires per- sonnelles. [...] Occupe-toi de Mallot. Suis sa trace" (I, 207). Choubert obediently enters less personally orien tated, more ancient archetypal regions of the subconscious . Groping his way, now, as a blind man on a small platform- stage, he describes the imaginary path he is following on the trail of Mallot. It is a path through a broken world of mythic memories and fragments of innocence which, how ever, finally yields a glimpse of a luminous, paradisaical garden-city, such as that which took on such a comic twist in the Old Man's story in Les Chaises. Madeleine and the Detective meanwhile watch, interjecting comments on Chou bert's acting abilities. Choubert asks: Ou suis-je? [...] Une nostalgie, des dechirures, les bribes d'un univers. [... ] Un trou beant. [ ... ] Je souffre d'un mal inconnu. [...] Ou est la beaute? Ou est le bien? Ou est l'amour? J'ai perdu la memoire [...] Mes jouets brises... Mes jouets d'enfant. [...] ! Je suis vieux... Je suis vieux. [...] Autrefois... Un grand vent se leve. [•••] Le vent secoue les for^ts, 68 1'eclair dechire les epaisseurs noires, au fond de la temp§te, a 1'horizon, un rideau geant et sombre se sou- leve. [...] Au fond apparait, lumineuse dans les tene- bres, dans un calme de r^ve, entouree de temp&te, une miraculeuse cite. [...] ou un miraculeux jardin, une fcntaine jaillissante, des jeux d'eux, des fleurs de feu dans la nuit. [...] (I, 208-210) Of course, Choubert loses contact with the paradisaical memories which arise before him and is left with mixed ex istential feelings. He says he feels "une joie... de la douleur... un dechirement... un apaisement... De la ple nitude... Du vide... Un espoir desespere. Je me sens fort, je me sens faible, je me sens mal, je me sens bien" (I, 211). Finally, he cries, "Cela va-t-il s'eteindre? Cela s'eteint. La nuit m'environne. Un seul papillon de lumiere se souleve lourdement. [•••] C'est une derniere etincelle" (I, 211). Madeleine applauds, and the curtain falls on Choubert's little scene. When the Detective complains that Choubert is still on the wrong track and urges him on to fulfill his duty and find Mallot, Choubert mimes a journey up onto a plane of archetypal, mythic reality in the opposite direction from that of his earlier descent into the mud. In traditional mythic terms, he experiences a shaman's terror and wonder of rising above the ordinary observable world of human exis tence. Traversing sea and land, he comes to the foot of 69 Mont Blanc. Climbing alone, high on its slopes, he first experiences a sense of lifeless emptiness in the world around him: "II n'y a plus un oiseau. II n'y a plus de sources. [...] Je fais le tour d'horizon. [...] C'est le desert" (I, 214). As he climbs still higher, he begins to feel the frustration of constantly pressing to go above and beyond his ordinary plane of reality: Je ne supporte pas 1'altitude... Pourquoi dois-je toujours escalader des montagnes... Pourquoi est-ce moi, toujours, que l'on oblige a faire 1'impossible. [...] Pas un coin d'ombre. Le soleil est enorme. La fournaise. J'etouffe. Je grille. [...] Une autre mon- tagne devant moi. C'est un mur sans fissure. Je n'ai plus de souffle. (I, 214-215) Madeleine urges him on to continue what has begun to be a rather oscillatory psychic itinerary: "Plus haut. Plus bas. Plus haut" (I, 215). But Choubert complains, "Je ne suis qu'un homme apres tout" (I, 216). Still, he makes one last effort and reaches the very top of the mountain. There he finds, of course, no sign of the object of his search. But he suddenly experiences that "etonnement d'etre" which Benmussa has singled out as ;"1'intuition premiere" of all of Ionesco's theater (Eugene Ionesco, p. 59). Here the existential astonishment has a purely positive paradisaical valence and wears the tradi- 70 tional mystical guise of a sensation of penetrating radiance and transcendent weightlessness. Choubert marvels: "C'est un matin de juin. Je respire un air plus leger que l'air. Je suis plus leger que l'air. Le soleil se dissout dans une lumiere plus grande que le soleil. Je passe a travers tout. Les formes ont disparu. Je monte... Je monte... Une lu miere qui ruisselle... Je monte" (I, 217). Both Madeleine and the Detective urge him now to descend; but he exclaims, "Je glisse sur la passerelle, tres haut, je peux voleri [...] Je baigne dans la lumiere. [...] La lumiere me pe- netre. Je suis etonne d'etre, etonne d'etre" (I, 218-219). The stage itself is now actually in total darkness. The audience hears the characters speak, then a groan of Chou bert. The lights go on. Choubert's final excursion is finished, and he has fallen into a large wastepaper basket. The whole investigatory proceedings have ended in fail ure. As a theatrical caricature of traditional Western drama, they suggest, in their final frustration, the failure bf such "detective" drama adequately to probe the enigmatic depths and heights of human existence. As a not particu larly funny burlesque of modern psychoanalytical techniques, the frustrated proceedings suggest the inability of such techniques to elucidate the hidden enigmas of the human 71 psyche. As an implicit ritual parody of primitive rituals of initiatory regeneration and return to a paradisaical state, the proceedings lay bare the absurdity of man's ancient striving to attain an experience of immortality, wholeness, transcendence, or contact with absolute being. The quasi-ritual torture and visionary journey accomplish nothing. The Detective summarizes the frustration of the whole investigatory proceedings when, using one of Ionesco's com mon images of the existential polarity of man's experience, he denounces Choubert's inconsistency: "Tu oublies tout, tu t'oublies, tu oublies ton devoir. Voila ton defaut. Tu es trop lourd, tu es trop leger" (I, 220). In a simpler and more commonplace image, he says, "On en est exactement au m§me point que tout a l'heure! De haut en bas, de bas en haut, de haut en bas, et ainsi de suite, et ainsi de suite, c'est le cercle vicieuxi" (I, 221). Although the detective uses a cliche, he has chosen one which exactly embodies the particular kind of existential \frustration expressed in the particular play at hand, more exactly than would the cliche of a "dead end," for example, iwith its linear implications. For the search into memory of Victimes du devoir moves, not forward, along an unfolding 72 straight path, but back along the well-worn circles of nos talgia. It takes place not in linear but in cyclic time. Its frustration is not that which might be said to charac terize the existence of modern Western man, who, with his hopes set on the progress of historical processes, knows that at some future moment death will cancel all such prog ress toward fuller being. Rather, the play's existential futility is that which Eliade has stressed as characteristic of the intelligentsia of certain ancient societies, notably in India and Greece, when, retaining a sense of the cyclic temporal processes of the cosmos, they began to lose their faith in the traditional religious valuation and regenera tive significance of these cyclic rhythms. As Eliade points out in The Sacred and the Profane. The periodical sanctification of cosmic time then proves useless and without meaning. The gods are no longer accessible through the cosmic rhythms. The religious meaning of the repetition of paradigmatic gestures is forgotten. But repetition emptied of its religious con tent necessarily leads to a pessimistic vision of exis tence . When it is no longer a vehicle for reintegrating a primordial situation, and hence for recovering the mysterious presence of the gods, that is, when it is de- sacralized, cyclic time becomes terrifying; it is seen as a circle forever turning on itself, repeating itself to infinity.^ ~ * The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (New York, 1959), p. 107. This will be referred to as Sacred in the text. 73 Victimes du devoir dramatizes on stage what is basi cally the same experience of cyclic futility which the Old Man of Les Chaises expressed briefly in words at the begin ning of that play (I, 132) and which the endings of La Can- tatrice chauve and La Leqon suggest to the imagination of their respective audiences. Both Victimes du devoir and Les Chaises also reveal the emptiness of human existence as made particularly absurd by man's striving for an illumination that will give him the means to fill his emptiness with a sense of being. The final peripeteia of the earlier play suddenly revealed the emptiness in a moment of comic sur prise; the final segment of the present play will make the audience painfully aware of the emptiness in a scene of compulsive ritual torture. As in the case of Les Chaises, the existential emptiness of the present play can be seen to have Sartrian connotations which have been emphasized by J. Serge Doubrovsky, "Ionesco and the Comic of Absurdity," Yale French Studies. 2 3 (Summer 1959), 4-5, and Martin Ess- 0 lin, The Theatre of the Absurd. The emptiness can likewise be seen, through the mythic imagery and imaginative 0 The Theatre of the Absurd. 1st ed., rev. (Harmonds- worth, 1968), pp. 152 ff. This will be referred to as Ab surd in the text. 74 patterns, to be a dramatization of the ancient striving of primitive and traditional religious man for contact with absolute being. Choubert's striving differs from that of the Old Man of Les Chaises, however, not only in its more torturously and consistently cyclic character, but also in the fact that he is a "victime du devoir," whereas the Old Man is a victim of his spontaneous hopes and desires . Caught in an ineluc table and enigmatic obligation, the present protagonist has to strive laboriously to attain what he seeks, all the while experiencing his distance from the sought reality more in tensely as he strives more urgently to fulfill his duty of finding it. His futile striving thus tends to reflect that particular experience of alienation from absolute being which St. Paul stressed as a mark of a certain type of Jew ish spirituality and characterized as the "curse of the law" (Gal. 3:13). In his discussion of sinful alienation and guilt in The Symbolism of Evil (Boston, 1967), pp. 139-140, Paul Ricoeur paraphrases St. Paul's indictment of striving to achieve justification and maintain contact with the di vine through the fulfillment of legal obligations: "The starting-point is the experience of the powerlessness of man :to satisfy all the demands of the law. The observance of the law is nothing if it is not whole and completej but we are never done: perfection is infinite and the commandments are unlimited in number. Man, then, will never be justified by the law." Just as Choubert's search is an endless one and his alienation and distance from the object of this search only appear greater as he strives harder to fulfill his obligation to attain it, so, as Ricoeur, p. 140, notes, Not only is the road that leads to justice an endless one, but the law itself increases the distance. The great discovery of Paul is that the law itself is a source of sin. . . .He compares Law and Sin, as two imagined entities, and reveals their deadly circular ity. . . . The law is that which exhibits sin, that which makes sin manifest. Of course, the law which urges Choubert to search his personal and his archetypal memories for traces of the elusive Mallot does not arise from his own inner desires and psychic needs. Rather, the Detective imposes this law from without. Choubert thus pursues his search in an am biance much like that of the mythic and religious "waste land" which Joseph Campbell, in The Masks of God. Vol. IV: Creative Mythology (New York, 1968), p. 388, finds charac teristic of modern man's 'existential situation. He de scribes this waste land as any world in which "force and not love, indoctrination, not education, authority, not 76 experience, prevail in the ordering of lives, and where the myths and rites enforced and received are consequently un related to the actual inward realizations, needs, and po tentialities of those upon whom they are impressed. The concluding segment of Victimes du devoir expresses in compressed ritual activity the sterile circularity of Choubert's enforced, duty-bound search. Two new and enig matic personages appear— "une Dame, tout a fait indifferente a l'action," who shows up "assise a gauche, pres du mur, sur une chaise" when the lights go on after Choubert's mountain climbing escapade (I, 219), and a large bearded poet, "Nico las d'Eu," who enters somewhat later, "les yeux gonfles de sommeil, les cheveux en broussaile, les v^tements fripes" (I, 222), and whose nominal resemblance to the former Czar seems more puzzling than significant. These two personages vaguely reiterate the maternal-paternal psychological set ting in which Choubert's journeys into the subconscious have taken place; and Nicolas also recalls the introductory re marks on traditional detective theater which had set the I !stage for a playwright's play. In a disjointed discussion with the Detective, which actually detracts from the drama tic tension and could better be left to the lecture hall, jhe states his preference for "un theatre irrationaliste, " "un theatre non aristotelicien," that would spring from a new "psychologie des antagonismes1 1 (I, 225-226). In effect, Nicolas recommends the "Theater of Cruelty" espoused by Antonin Artaud in The Theater and Its Double (New York, 1958), p. 123, a theater which, "renouncing psychological man, with his well-dissected character and feelings, and social man, submissive to laws and misshapen by religions and precepts . . . will address itself only to total man." No doubt, this is the kind of theater Victimes du devoir purports to be. The entrance of Nicolas signals the start of a fast- moving, farcical ritual constituted by Madeleine's hurried piling up of coffee cups on the buffet and the Detective's forced feeding of Choubert. Just after Nicolas enters and takes his seat, the stage directions prescribe: "Madeleine entre, avec une tasse de cafej elle ne voit plus personne. :Elle posera la tasse sur le buffet, sortira de nouveau. Elle fera ce manege beaucoup de fois de suite, sans arrdt, de plus en plus vite, en amoncelant les tasses, jusqu'a icouvrir tout le buffet" (I, 223). For his part, the Detec tive sets about to cure Choubert's faulty memory. He tells him, "Je vais t'en redonner des forces. Tu ne peux pas re- trouver Mallot, tu a des trous dans la memoire. Nous allons 78 boucher les trous de ta memoire!" (I, 223-224). Taking a large crust of hard bread from his briefcase, he gives it to Choubert and orders, "Mange! [...] Je t'ordonne de manger, pour avoir des forces, pour boucher les trous de la me moire!" (I, 224). Though Choubert finds the crust as hard as bark and, more and more like a child, cries to Madeleine as to his mother to aid and protect him, the Detective re lentlessly and cruelly continues to order him quickly to chew up the bread and swallow it: "Avale! Mastique! Avale! Mastique! Avale! Mastique! Avale!" (I, 229). Suddenly Nicolas, who has now ceased discussing the theater, demands, "Mais qu'est-ce que vous lui faites a cet enfant?" (I, 229). When the Detective pays no attention and even begins shoving the bread down Choubert's throat with his fist, Nicolas "brusquement, se leve, s'approche, sans mot dire, menagant, du Policier, se plante immobile devant lui" (I, 230). The action halts. Madeleine has just brought in her last pile of cupsj and Choubert swallows the last bit of bread. Now the Detective himself begins whim pering and explains to Nicolas, "Je ne fais que mon devoir!" : (I, 230). Unimpressed, Nicolas tells him he is a fool, becomes more and more menacing, finally draws an enormous knife, and strikes him three ferocious blows (I, 231-233). 79 Dying, the Detective gasps, "Je suis... une victime... du devoir!" (I, 234). When Madeleine sorrowfully complains, "Qu'allons-nous faire? Qui va nous aider a trouver Mallot?," Nicolas him self takes up the cause (I, 234) . Sitting in the detec tive's place, he gives Choubert a piece of bread and com mands, "Allons, mange, mange, pour boucher les trous de ta memoire!" (I, 235). Choubert has no hunger and exclaims, his mouth full, Moi aussi, je suis une victime du devoir! Nicolas: Moi aussi! Madeleine: Nous sommes tous des victimes du devoir! ( A Choubert.) Avale! Mastique! Nicolas: Avale! Mastique! Madeleine, a Choubert et a Nicolas: Avalez! Masti- quez! Mastiquez! Avalez! Choubert, tout en mastiquant, a Madeleine et a Nicolas: Mastiquez! Avalez! Mastiquez! Avalez! Nicolas, a Choubert et a Madeleine: Mastiquez! Ava lez! Mastiquez! Avalez! (I, 2 3 5) Then "la Dame," who has remained silent until now, goes to ward the other three characters and closes the play with the words, "Mastiquez! Avalez! Mastiquez! Avalez!" (I, 235). i The curtain thus closes on an apparently endless, rit ual feeding process and filling of the stage with cups, a ^representation of a futile attempt to fill the existential void and reach a bottom that does not exist. Though the forced feeding is a reverse image of the constant craving of Tantalus, it expresses the same reiteration of futile activity as constitutive of man's existence, particularly, in the context of the primitive mythic fragments scattered throughout the play, as constitutive of man's traditional existence driven by nostalgic memories of primordial perfect being. Such futile reiteration can elicit laughter, fear, pity, or the free and even joyful disdain which Albert Camus, in Le Mythe de Sisyphe (Paris, 1942), p. 142, attributes to Sisyphus' moments of lucid realization that "il n'est pas de destin qui ne se surmonte par le mepris." But the conclud ing segment of the present play tends to keep all sentiment at bay. The theoretical comments on dramatic novelty and the hints of psychological and social interpretive commen tary interjected here and there into the action keep the audience from entering with full feeling into any particular aspect of the final segment of the play. At the same time, farcical elements, weak though they are, fend off emotions of pity and fearj and sadistic elements make laughter em barrassing. The final sequence of Victimes du devoir thus leaves the audience emotionally detached from the concluding |action in a way which suits remarkably well the final 81 sterile, mechanical ritual, but which, nevertheless, checks the catharsis which the various emotions broached in the course of the play would seem to need. With this themati cally apt but emotionally teasing ending, Ionesco runs the risk of leaving his audience detached from the play itself, a dangerous risk for a dramatist. Mythic Temporal Rhythms in Victimes du devoir and En attendant Godot In January 1953, just one month before the opening of Victimes du devoir, Samuel Beckett's En attendant Godot had its first French performance, the first English production coming two years later in August 1955. Like the theater of Ionesco, the theatrical oeuvre of Beckett also provides a wealth of material suited to mythic, religious, and onto logical analysisj and En attendant Godot, in particular, incorporates such material into a theatrical experience of existential emptiness marked by a feeling of futile temporal circularity which provides basic points for a comparison with Victimes du devoir. A comparison between these two plays, first produced just a month apart, can further under score the imaginative figurations and existential sensi bility particular to Ionesco's play, while providing evi- jdence that the hold which primitive figures of the 82 existential imagination have on Ionesco's creative mind extends also to that of at least one of his "absurd" theat rical colleagues. In Beckett's play* as in Ionesco's, "ce n'est pas le vide qui manque," as Estragon so well puts it toward the 7 beginning of the second act. The realization of existen tial emptiness does not make itself felt in the tortured physical intensity of an accelerated theatrical ritual, as it finally does in Victimes du devoir, but in the relentless reiteration of the dawdling banter of a vaudeville-style theater in which the comic force of the jokes and of slap stick gradually winds down without the comedy team ever being able quite to end their act. When Estragon queries shortly after the comment just quoted, "On trouve toujours quelque chose, hein, Didi, pour nous donner 1'impression d'exister?," Vladimir impatiently agrees, "Mais oui, on est des magiciens" (pp. 116-117). Yet what becomes clear as the play progresses is that they cannot adequately maintain j"l*impress ion d'exister," much less even approach anything i ! *7 I En attendant Godot (Paris : Les Editions de minuit, ■1952), p. 111. Further citations in French will be from this edition. Citations from the English version will be jfrom Waiting for Godot (New York: Grove, 1954) . 83 like "le mepris" by which the existential hero described by Camus, Sisyphe. p. 164, rises above his absurd destiny. Rather, as Estragon had said in the first act, "Rien ne se passe, personne ne vient, personne ne s'en va, c'est ter rible" (p. 70). Yet, despite the seemingly disparate hodge podge of verbal and theatrical tricks which Gogo and Didi conjure up to simulate a sense of existence in the face of nothingness, their act forms, at Beckett's deft touch, a coherent, compelling theatrical experience such as Ionesco, :in Victimes du devoir, does not quite achieve. Like the plays of Ionesco discussed to this point in these pages, Beckett's play evokes an experience of onto logical emptiness whose absurdity springs in great measure from its temporality, a temporality which comes gradually, and quite noticeably at the beginning of the second act, to reveal cyclic, latently mythic dimensions. The play ex presses this time-conditioned experience of existential emptiness and futility in an abstract spatial setting sty listically closer to Les Chaises than to Ionesco's other early plays; but the specific features of Beckett's setting, scant as they are, set the stage for an imaginative milieu delineated by quite different symbolic remnants of the myths of sacred space than the principally horizontal 84 configuration of an area of sought-for stability within, surrounded by forces of disintegration without, that under lies the action of Les Chaises. In the context of snatches of Christian symbolism and ideology which surface, at times, in the banter of En atten dant Godot, the scantily sketched stage setting, "route a campagne, avec arbre" (p. 1 1), can be seen as a symbolic suggestion of a Christian ambiance in which the action of the play takes place, a world in which man's life is a pil grimage under the sign of the tree of the Cross. V. A. Kolve has discussed the theatrical function of this Chris tian symbol in "Religious Language in Waiting for Godot. " Centennial Review. 11 (1967), 108 ff. However, in the con text of other snatches of imagery and symbolic patterns which appear in the course of the play, the stage "arbre" provides the first evidence of a more ancient, primitive religious and ontological milieu in which the action is also set, a mythic milieu whose spatial and temporal coordinates encompass a realization of height and verticality, contact with natural forces of life, and an appreciation of the alternation of day and night. Neither space nor time achieve anything more than approximate definition in En attendant Godot and can best be 85 described, as Estragon insinuates early in the play, as simply the "wrong place" and the "wrong time" to wait for "Godot" (pp. 20-22). But the spatial milieu of the play extends in the imagination of the audience beyond this "wrong place" down along the imaginary road, whose symbolic completeness calls for a sense of the linear time span needed to measure off a journey down its length and a vague expectancy of finding something in the distance; and the milieu gradually comes to extent upward as well, adding, as it does so, a further sense of expectancy and acquiring something of the symbolical "transcendental quality of 'height'" which traditional mythic man has long recognized in the sky above and in anything like mountains, trees, or flying beings that rise above the ordinary plane of human existence to touch the sky. Eliade discusses this tradi tional symbolism of height in Patterns in Comparative Reli gion (1958j rpt. New York, 1963), pp. 39, 99 ff. When, as the play's first act progresses, Godo, Didi, Pozzo, and finally also Lucky, start periodically standing |still and "regardent le ciel" for signs of the approach of night, the time, it seems, of contact with Godot (pp. 45, 53, 58-61), the feeling of expectancy grows along with an jappreciation of the presence of the sky above as a part of the play's spatial setting. Then Lucky, in the course of his famous "think," expresses the feeling for transcendent freedom involved in the absurdity of human existence in association with a sense of motion and height experienced in flight. Stating in his own elliptical syntax what is ba sically the same appreciation as that of Gilbert Durand, seen in connection with Victimes du devoir, of any arche typal "symbolisation verticalisante" as "dressee contre le temps et la mort" (L1Imaqinaire. p. 129)j Lucky fixes upon the rather unusual sport of flying in an enumeration of sporting activities opposed, futilely of course, to the I deterioration of time. "Man," he says, wastes and pines wastes and pines and . . . in spite of . . . the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding . . . tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds . . . I resume flying gliding golf . . . for reasons unknown but time will tell fades away. (p. 29a) The English version includes more sports that can be con sidered aviatorial than the French, as well as the "sport" ■of "dying," and inserts the notions that man "pines" and that "time will tell."8 ! 8 The French version reads: "L'homme [.. . ] est en train |de maigrir et [ . ..] malgre l'essor de la culture physique de 87 When the characters of the first act keep focusing their expectations on the sky, instead of, for example, down the road, they establish a feeling not only for the verti- cality of their spatial cosmos, but also for its phases of darkness and lightj for their concern centers specifically on the quality of the sky's twilight (pp. 59-61). The feel ing for the imaginary spatial milieu of the play thus tends to follow something of the "development of the mythical feeling of space" which Ernst Cassirer describes in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Vol. II: Mythical Thought (New Haven, 1955), 96. He there points out that this feel ing "always starts from the opposition of day and night. light and darkness." according to a process which has given rise, for example, to the Babylonian creation legend, in which "the victory of the light is the origin of the world and the world order." In Beckett's play, of course, the characters focus their expectancy on the coming of night, which, according to Pozzo's comically poetic but moving commentary on the twilight, will ultimately mark, not the : 1a pratique des sports tels tels tels le tennis le football la course et a pied et a bicyclette la natation 1 'equitation 1 'aviation [...] le tennis 1 'aviation les sports les sports d'hiver d'ete d'automne d'automne le tennis [.. . ] l'aviation le tennis [ . . J je reprends l'aviation le golf [... ] on ne sait pourquoi de maigrir retrecir" (p. 73). fulfillment of expectant waiting, but its own dark victory. Looking up at the calm evening sky, he states that "derriere ce voile de douceur et de calme [...] la nuit galope [...] et viendra se jeter sur nous (il fait claquer ses doigts) pffti comme 9a [ . ..] au moment oil nous nous y attendrons le moins . . [ . . . ] C'est comme 9a que 9a se passe sur cette putain de terre" (p. 61). Nonetheless, Didi and Gogo continue to wait until they are given wcprd by a messenger boy near the end of the first act that Godot "ne viendra pas ce soir mais sfire- ment demain" (p. 85). When the boy leaves, "la lumiere se met brusquement a baisser. En un instant il fait nuit. La lune se leve" (p. 87). Cassirer, in Philosophy. II, 110, also stresses that "the primary mythical 'sense of phases' can apprehend time only in the image of life, and consequently it must trans pose and dissolve everything which moves in time, everything which comes and goes in set rhythm, into the form of life." So, as Eliade says, mythic man's "cosmos was imagined in the form of a gigantic treej the mode of being of the cosmos, land first of all its capacity for endless regeneration, are symbolically expressed by the life of the tree" (Sacred, p. j 148). To the extent that the seemingly lifeless tree of the ;first act of Beckett's play, which now, at the beginning of 89 the second act, is surprisingly "couvert de feuilles" (p. 95), can be seen as a mock miniature of the mythic Cosmic Tree, its presence helps fill out the play's imaginative milieu as one reminiscent of the primitive mythic cosmos. Despite the firm theatrical structure of En attendant Godot. the imaginative world, mythic or otherwise, which this structure supports is less definitely fixed and established :than that of the theatrically less secure Victimes du de voir . Yet Beckett's play incorporates natural phenomena, such as the sky, its phases of darkness and light, cycles of night and day, and dormant and flourishing vegetation in a way which insinuates something of the symbolic ontological significance such phenomena had in primitive man's mythic cosmos. The play's action thus unfolds in something of a mythic world and provides evidence that the creative imagi nation of Beckett as well as that of Ionesco reveals a kin ship with primitive ancestral creators of ancient sacred myths. The second act of En attendant Godot begins "lendemain. iMdme heure. Mdme endroit," in the presence of the tree, iwhich, as a mythic prop, has entered upon its flourishing Iphase, and with Vladimir's singing of a round about the slaughter of a dog (pp. 95-96). The continuation of the 90 action into a new day, the setting noticeable for the tree's new foliage, and the repetitive form of Didi's round estab lish for the first time a clear possibility that the action might be evolving according to a cyclic, traditionally mythic temporal pattern. Any optimistic sense of hope with which the contempla tion of the flourishing tree endows such a cyclic pattern has its immediate counterweights in the fact, clear at least to the audience, that the previous day's expectations have ended in failure and the fact that the round turns simply into a repetition of its last lines, "Les autres chiens ce voyant / Vite vite 1'ensevelirent..." (p. 97), losing its circularity in a fixation on death that Lawrence E. Harvey stresses in "Art and the Existential in En attendant Godot," Publications of the Modern Language Association. 75 (1960), 141. Eliade notes that "the pessimistic, even sceptical, vision of life," as well as a hopeful vision, "finds its origin in the contemplation of the plant world: for man is like the flower of the field ..." (Patterns, p. 361). Accordingly, if the leaves on the stage tree hint at hope, leaves also appear as an image of this other, pessimistic vision in Didi's and Gogo's attempt a little later to pass the time in poetical conversation "pour ne pas penser" 91 (p. 105). Estragon raises the subject of Toutes les voix mortes. Vladimir: 9a fait un bruit d'ailes. Estragon: De feuilles. Vladimir: 9a fait comme un bruit de plumes. Estragon: De feuilles. Vladimir: De cendres. Estragon: De feuilles. (pp. 105-106) Eventually, the sonorous, poetic mockery ends where the opening round of the act ended, as Vladimir asks, D'ou viennent tous ces cadavres? Estragon: Ces ossements. Vladimir: Voila. Estragon: Evidemment. Vladimir: On a dQ penser un peu. Estragon: Tout a fait au commencement. Vladimir: Un charnier, un charnier. (p. 108) The circular shape which the play's time promises to take at the beginning of the second act never materializes into anything like the tightly closed, repetitive ritual upon which the curtain falls in Victimes du devoir. Pro jections of both cyclic and linear temporal patterns achieve sufficient definition in the course of En attendant Godot to provide an ironic context of temporal patterns which, 92 endowed with meaning by primitive cosmic myths or Christian dogmas, have traditionally supported a sense of existential hope. Here, however, these temporal patterns provide the measure for an absurd existence characterized by what is felt as an ever more hopeless and futile waiting. The irony and absurdity of this continued waiting and of the relent less repetition of futile attempts to fill the time of wait ing with a sense of existence become compounded, moreover, by the fact that the waiting continues endlessly, without even the vaudeville pair's comic attempts at suicide giving hope of cessation (pp. 25 ff., 89, 161 ff.). The waiting continues "asymptotically," as Darko Suvin describes it in "Beckett's Purgatory of the Individual or the Three Laws of Thermodynamics," Tulane Drama Review. 11, No. 4 (Summer 1967), 25. That is, it continues in accordance with the physical theorem that "absolute zero can be approached only asymptotically, i.e., getting ever closer to it without ever reaching it." Richard N. Coe, Samuel Beckett. 1st ed., rev. (1968; New York, 1970), pp. 89-90, describes the play wright's whole theatrical universe in much the same way, but in accord with a dialectical demonstration of Zeno. The sense of pessimism and absurdity which weighs more and more upon the atmosphere of the play's second act is 93 still further intensified by the concomitant erosion of any possibility of orientation within the endlessly futile ex pectant situation. Looking ahead, one cannot even find a secure existential reference point in an assurance that Godot will certainly never come. As Vladimir says toward the middle of the second act, "Dans cette immense confusion, une seule chose est claire: nous attendons que Godot vi- enne. [ . . . ] Ou que la nuit tombe" (p. 134). Nor can one even orientate one's sense of present waiting within a definite, icomprehensible, and measurable structure of time. The sense of orientation in time and, simultaneously, in existence disintegrates in the second act. Gogo (pp. 102 ff., Ill ff., 123 ff.) and then, when he arrives, Pozzo (pp. 143 ff.) need to have their memories prodded, without adequate success, to recall memorable events of what would seem to be just the day before. The Pozzo of the second act is now blind (p. 143); and Lucky, it finally appears, can hardly be the Lucky who delivered such a marvelous "think" just yesterday, since he is inexplicably mute (p. 154). When Vladimir, in his surprise, asks when Lucky could have become mute, Pozzo, now one of "les aveugles," who "n'ont pas la notion du temps" (p. 147), upbraids him, ex claiming, 94 Quandl Quandi Un jour, 9a ne vous suffit pas, un jour pareil aux autres, il est devenu muet, un jour je suis devenu aveugle [.. .] un jour nous sommes nes, un jour nous mourrons, le m§me jour, le m§me instant. [...] Elies ac- couchent a cheval sur une tombe, le jour brille un ins tant, puis c'est la nuit a nouveau. (p. 154) Just before a messenger boy from Godot appears again shortly afterward near the close of the play, Vladimir muses on Pozzo's words, incorporating the image of the hole that Ionesco, too (I, 134 and 2 09), found so aptly expresses man's existential location: "A cheval sur une tombe et une naissance difficile. Du fond du trou, rdveusement, le fos- soyeur applique ses fers. On a le temps de vieillir. L'air est plein de nos cris . (II ecoute.) Mais 1 'habitude est une grande sourdine" (p. 157). Like Ionesco's Choubert, who, as a "victime du devoir," had to keep searching his inner subconscious for some real ity to fill his existential lack, Beckett's two hoboes have ; to keep on waiting for Godot; for, as Vladimir remarks, if he were to be let down, "il nous punirait" (p. 161). But Vladimir notes that if he comes, "nous serons sauves" (p. 162); and, unlike Choubert, they will be saved, not by closed-in efforts to find existence within oneself, through one's own inner resources, through archetypal human forces that have always remained the same, but from without, through what Esslin terms "the workings of grace" ( Absurd. ip. 55), from a superior force which, if it exists, may fill ;the existential emptiness in a way not foreknown. In the meanwhile, the absurd emptiness of their waiting perdures out on the road, under the sky, according to an ever more sluggish and disintegrating temporal movement, all of which, when set beside Ionesco's Victimes du devoir, accentuates ithe sense of confinement, accelerating repetition, and jritual intensity which characterize this playwright's the atrical expression of the ontological emptiness and evil of human existence. CHAPTER III PRIMITIVE MOTIFS OF THE LOSS AND RECOVERY OF PARADISE IN AM^D^E OU COMMENT S‘EN D^BARRASSER In 1954, one year after the opening of Victimes du ; devoir, Ionesco's Amedee ou Comment s'en debarrasser had its first production. Set once more in the confined quarters of a bourgeois married couple, the play's general situation 'recapitulates imaginative and existential aspects of Vic times du devoir and the other early plays— situation comedy, marital farce, male-female antipodes, playwright's play, investigation into the subconscious, dreams of happiness, social and existential alienation and confinement, guilt, and death; and it does so in what turns out to be a plethora ;of traditional figures and symbols of the mythic imagina tion. Enmeshed unobtrusively from the very beginning in the more obvious farcical patterns of a marital comedy and mock murder mystery, traditional images of the astonishing evil 96 97 of man's existence outside paradise and of wonderful moments! of return to its freedom, transcendence, and timelessness actually end up dominating the imaginative structure of the whole play and make it much more of a mythic play than Les Chaises or Victimes du devoir. Symbolic Motifs of Evil in Amedee ou Comment s1en debarrasser At the opening of Amedee, the rather ordinary, though istrangely anxious, Amedee Buccinioni is walking about his rather ordinary "salle a manger-salon-bureau," trying to write (I, 238-239). But the setting quickly reveals itself as something other than an ordinary room. It has a symbolic; theatrical life all its own, like the room of Les Chaises; but it expresses the strange evil of human existence in terms of creeping proliferation and of increase of mass, not in terms of emptiness or of the futility of trying to fill a void. Amedee's first words establish the rather strange and unusual ambiance in which the play will evolve and also set :the first act's quizzical tone: "Un champignon I Zut! Alors la, s'il va en pousser dans la salle a manger, qa va ;£tre le comble" (I, 239) . It quickly turns out that the i ; imore enigmatic surprise still lies hidden in the adjoining bedroom, where the poisonous fungus first began sprouting. 98 There, in the off-stage bedroom, lies a corpse that, it appears, has been quietly growing during the past fifteen years . Naturally, this strange corpse appears as a curiously intriguing phenomenon to the audience. But Amedee and his wife Madeleine tend, in the first act, drolly to accept its presence as a fact of their everyday married life. After all, as Amedee reminisces, "Nous l'avons installe dans la plus belle piece, notre chambre a coucher de jeunes maries" (I, 256)j and, as he will say later, "II a ete le temoin muet de tout un passe" (I, 296). He actually finds the corpse fascinating and even attractive: "Ses yeux n'ont pas vieilli. Ils sont toujours aussi beaux. De grands yeux verts. On dirait des phares" (I, 250). Amedee's more practical wife views the body mainly as a household nui sance: "II va occuper toute la place, mon Dieu! toute la place I Ou est-ce que je vais le mettre? <£a t'est bien egal, a toi. Ce n'est pas toi qui t'occupes du manage!" (I, 251) . Although the pervading comic tone of the first act iinduces the spectators, too, to accept the weird body as just part of the farce, they soon learn that it has in some jway contaminated and burdened the Buccinionis 1 life 99 together. During the fifteen years of its presence, Amedee has been able to write only two lines of his play (I, 243). It is because of its presence, "a cause de lui, uniquement," claims Madeleine (I, 246), that the mushrooms are sprouting and spreading, so it seems, decay and death throughout the apartment. Amedee and Madeleine have to live in confined isolation. They have their food sent up to them in a basket (I, 252-253) and have not had one visitor to the apartment for fifteen years (I, 257). They feel the body's presence as strangely accusatory and vengeful. As Madeleine says, "S'il nous avait pardonne, il ne grandirait plus. Puisqu'il grandit toujours... c'est qu'il a encore des revendications. II n'a pas fini de nous en vouloir. Les morts sont tene ment rancuniers" (I, 254). Amedee likewise asks, "Nous en veut-il encore? Nous en veut-il encore" (I, 256). By the end of the first act, the body's mass begins increasing at a rate that threatens to become critical, given the modest dimensions of the apartment. The audience takes this as more farce, and Amedee and Madeleine regard this development as a nuisance. But there is something intrinsically ominous about the scene as Am^d^e and Made leine, "muets d'effroi, regardent deux pieds enormes sortir lentement par la porte ouverte, s'avancer d'une quarantaine 100 ou d'une cinquantaine de centimetres sur la scene" (I, 264). In mock desperation* Amedee says* "On ne peut plus rien faire* helasI II a la progression geometrique. [...] La maladie incurable des morts1" (I* 265). In the course of the first act* Ionesco has established what is fundamentally a theatrical figure of man's existen tial situation of standing under the judgment of the ulti mate alienator death* a traditional figure of man after the loss of paradise. The action has been taking place in an "antiparadisaical" space infested with a comic form of death and has been moving forward in a time marked by the pro gressive spread of this deathly blemish. The temporal progress is punctuated by the movement of a clock* "bien visible" (I* 238)* whose hands will later move "a la m£me cadence que les pieds du mort" (I* 281). The first act has covered the course of the morning through the noon meal. The second act begins at three in the afternoon (I* 268). The mass of death continues to increase and the sense of weight associated with it begins to receive greater emphasis. Likewise* the sense of guilt associated with the accusatory corpse and the time of its presence comes into prominence and begins to entail divisive accusations between the Buccinionis. The imperfection of their marriage union 101 becomes more apparent. All of this, however, still con tinues to evolve under the guise of an often very comical farce. The corpse continues to expand. Something must be done. Madeleine accuses Amedee of letting the corpse sadden and imprison their lives for too long. And now, she de mands, "Il faut faire quelque chose absolument! Ecoute, si tu ne m'en debarrasses pas, je divorce" (I, 271). If he had declared the dead man's presence to the authorities fifteen years ago, "la maison serait plus gaie, nous ne vivrions pas comme des prisonniers, comme des coupables" (I, 274). Or, she suggests a little later, "Tu aurais pu encore, le lende— main mdme du meurtre, aller au commissariat, dire que tu l’avais tue dans un moment de colere, par jalousie, ce qui etait la pure verite, puisque tu pretendais qu'il etait mon amant... Je ne l'ai pas nie" (I, 274). To this Amedee quizzically responds, "Ah? c'est pour cela que je l'ai tue? J'avais oublie" (I, 274). Actually, he is not sure just what he is guilty of. "Est-ce que vrai- ;ment je l'ai tue?" (I, 276). Perhaps it was rather a neighbor's baby that he killed (I, 277); or perhaps he is isimply guilty of not aiding a drowning woman (I, 278) . Whatever the origin of the dead body and the mushrooms ; 102 it spawns, the vague but indubitable sense of guilt which their decaying presence embodies increases as Madeleine pursues her shrewish accusations and Amedee tries to re spond. At the same time, the corpse's mass and the heavy atmosphere associated with the time of its presence continue to spread. When Amedee finally promises to remove the body that evening to make Madeleine happy, she complains, "Heu- reuse... Heureuse... Comme si on pouvait rattraper le temps perdul Toutes ces annees g£chees, c'est un poid mort" (I, 279). The tone of the second act first changes from farcical banter and surprise to a more painful sense of marital divi sion and a more richly colored sense of amazement toward the middle of the second act, when images of Madeleine and Ame dee as a young bride and groom appear on stage to haunt Amedee's daydreaming. In this shift from the progressive movement of the play to the time of the beginning of the Buccinionis' married life, the audience comes to appreciate the split that has characterized their marriage from the start. For, as the youthful Amedee exults in the rejuvenat ing joy and love which he feels as his life with Madeleine begins, the young bride expresses the anxiety she suffers in the face of what she apprehends as a threat of sexual 103 defilement from her new husband. At the same time, Amedee's elated young double introduces into the play images which point toward a clearing of its stale and heavy currents and begin to draw in the freshness and freedom, at least for Amedee, of a paradisaical atmosphere. This Amedee II coaxes his young wife: Madeleine, Madeleine' Madeleine II: N'approche pas. Ne me touche pas. Tu piques, piques, piques. Tu me fais ma-al! Amedee II: Madeleine, reveille-toi, ouvrons les ri- deaux, c'est l'aurore du printemps. [...] Madeleine II: ... nuit, pluie, boue!... le froid I Amedee II: Regarde... regarde... dans les souvenirs, dans le present, dans l'avenir... autour de toi! La vallee verte ou fleurissent les lys. Madeleine II: Des champignons!... des champignons!... champignons!... champignons!... Amedee II: Si, la vallee verte... la ronde, on y danse, main dans la main. Madeleine II: Sombre vallee, humide, marecages, on s'enlise, on se noie... au secours, j'etouffe, au se- cours!... Amedee II: Je deborde de chansons... la, li, la, li, la, la, la, la! Madeleine II, criant: Ne crie pas... ne crie pa-a-as! ... Quelle voix stridente! Tu me perces les oreilles! Tu fais ma-a-al! Ne dechire pas mes tenebres! Sadi-ique! Ne tirez pas!... Ne tirez pas!... Les ba'ionettes, les 104 mitrailleuses... Ne tirez pas, j'ai peur! Amedee II: Voix d1enfantsI... voix de sources, voix de printemps! Madeleine II: Non, non des crapauds, des serpents! Amedee II: Le matin ne vieillit pas... Clarte vi- vante... Finie la nuit. .. finie... Madeleine II: Je sombre dans la nuit! fipaises te- nebres! ... a couper au couteau... Je ne veux pas, je ne veux pas... j'ai peur! Aaah! Qui fait pousser aux arbres ces feuilles dures, ces branches cinglantes, ces lianes?! C'est toi qui fais ga, miserable, misera-a-able! Elies ecorchent mes pieds... Des epines de feu! Des flammes pointues, des flammes de glace... On m'enfonce des epingles de feu dans la chair. Aaah! (I, 286-288) Toward the end of this apparition, Amedee II introduces the paradisaical motif of freedom in ascension that will finally take over the play. Speaking still to Madeleine II, he wistfully urges, Si tu voulais... il y aurait, il y aurait: seve d'abon- dance... aux pieds des ailes, nos jambes des ailes... les epaules des ailes... abolie, la pesanteur... plus jamais la fatigue. [...] Univers aerien... Liberte... Puissance transparente... fiquilibre... Legere pleni tude... Le monde n'a pas de poids. (I, 288) At this, the actual, middle-aged Amedee drowsily mutters the opposite sentiment from his armchair: "Le temps est lourd. Le monde epais. Les annees breves. Les secondes lentes" 105 (I, 289). He himself still feels the burden of time. But in the context of imagery reminiscent of that through which primitive man sought to throw off time and attain to trans cendence and absolute being, the time which burdens Amedee begins to be felt not simply as the duration of a specific period of oppression in a stultifying marriage, but as the duration of historical time itself and its advancing threat of death. As the dream dialogue from the past continues, more over, the cries of Madeleine II express not only the terror 'of a sexually threatening marriage, but also a vaguer, more encompassing fear which, described as it is in terms redo lent of mythic motifs of separation from paradise, reveals itself as a reaction to existence itself. The separation inherent in her imperfect and threatening marriage union thus begins to appear also as a theatrical metaphor of that 'basic fault in reality and alienation from being which have long given rise to symbols of nothingness, defilement, separation, and tension between opposites in the language of ritual confession of sin and in myths of the loss of para dise . Madeleine borrows from this traditional symbolic lan guage to lament her situation: 106 La pierre, c'est le vide. Les niurs, le vide. II n'y a rien... il n'y a rien. (pa va nous degringoler sur le crenel... (pa s'est casse sur ma t£-§-te]... Oh]... les sales champignons, 9a sent mauvais, 9a pourrit tout] Je suis veuve, je suis orpheline, je suis pauvre, ma- lade, vieille, la plus vieille orpheline de la terrei Amedee II: Retrouve ta memoire, retrouve ta memoire... Ce qui est loin peut dtre proche. Ce qui est fletri re- verdit. Ce qui est separe se reunit. Ce qui n'est plus reviendra. Nous nous aimons. Nous sommes heureux. Dans la maison de verre, la maison de lumiere. Madeleine II: Maison de fer, maison de nuit] Du feu, de la glace... Du feu... <pa descend en moi. <pa m'entoure. (pa m'enveloppe du dedans, du dehors]... Je brd-dle] Au secours ... Aliduleel... Alidulee! (I, 289-290) The dream doubles disappear^ and, as the actual Amedee ;and his wife await the right time to remove the corpse from their apartment, Amedee tries to console Madeleine: "Sais- tu, Madeleine, si nous nous aimions en verite, si nous nous aimions, tout cela n'aurait plus aucune importance" (I, 290). Joining his hands, he continues, "Aimons-nous, Made leine, je t'en supplie. Tu sais, 1'amour arrange tout, il Ichange la vie. Me crois-tu, me comprends-tu?" But she only Isays, "Laisse-moi done!" (I, 290-291). Mircea Eliade has noted in Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Reali ties (New York, I960), p. 45, that according to the myths of a great many peoples, man lost access to the primordial paradise and "became what he is today— mortal, sexual and condemned to labour— in consequence of a primordial murder." Honor Matthews, in The Primal Curse: The Myth of Cain and Abel in the Theatre (New York, 1967), pp. 12-13, studies the transmission of this myth of the primordial murder in im portant plays of the Western theatrical tradition, focusing on the form of the myth embodied in the legend of two fight ing brothers recorded, among other sources, in the Judaeo- Christian scriptures. There, as he notes, the book of Genesis associates the original fault of murder, charged to man in the story of Cain and Abel, with the original sexual fault, charged to woman in the story of the Garden of Eden. Concluding his study with a discussion of Amedee, Matthews, p. 2 09, rightly observes that Ionesco's play "begins as a fantastic modern parallel to the primordial myth." Indeed, the evolution of the strange and comical situation of the play from its origin in vague memories of murder and, for Madeleine, sexual defilement to the present, guilt-laden state of affairs parallels, as image builds upon image, the 108 general cultural evolution of man's symbolic consciousness of the existential evil of his present, lost-paradise state. As Paul Ricoeur, in The Symbolism of Evil, has traced this evolution, concentrating especially on ancient Hellenic and Hebraic confessional rituals, man early became aware of the evil that he perceived in his world under the symbolic :guise of a contagious stain or blemish, "a quasi-material something," often associated with murder or the violation of sexual prohibitions, "that infects as a sort of filth, that harms by invisible properties."^ According to Ricoeur, the terror and dread of the impure which this quasi-material stain engenders is, from the start, not simply a physical fear. It implies an ethical dread of deadly vengeance (Evil, p. 30) and, indeed, an ontological terror of a threat "which, beyond the threat of suffering and death, aims at the diminution of existence, a loss of the personal core of one's being" (Evil, p. 41). Gradually, however, symbols which "do not so much signify a harmful substance as a vio lated relation" began to dominate man's apprehension of the :evil of his faulty condition (Evil, p. 74) . Man begins to ^The Symbolism of Evil (Boston, 1967), p. 25. This work will be referred to as Evil in the text. perceive his condition as one of sinful separation from his gods, relations with whom had somehow been broken, leaving the sinner "abandoned" to his own "nothingness" (Evil, p. 75). Guilt, the experience that man's inner freedom itself is faulty and gives rise to the evil that threatens him, comes at the final evolutionary stage of man's symbolic awareness of evil. The experience of guilt has its roots back in the dread of vengeance and punishment that had weighed upon the consciousness of one who was defiled. Thus, symbolically, "what is essential in guilt is already contained in this consciousness of being 'burdened,' bur dened by a 'weight'" (Evil, p. 101). But the weight of evil and its burdensome consequences upon the unclean man did not include a realization that one is the actual author of the defiling evil. At that early stage, what was primary in consciousness was "the reality of defilement, the objective violation of the Interdict, or the Vengeance let loose by that violation"] now, with the realization of one's own subjective guilt, what becomes primary is "the evil use of liberty, felt as an internal diminution of the value of the ’ self" (Evil, p. 102). Symbols of captivity and infection passed down from the era of defilement continue to be used to express the sense of guilt. But now these symbols "are 110 transposed 'inward' to express a freedom that enslaves it self, affects itself, and infects itself by its own choice" (Evil, p. 152). Other symbols, for example those derived from juridical and penal experience, also arise to supple ment this inherited language of evil (Evil, pp. 108 ff.). In light of Ricoeur's analysis, the strangely threat ening and comically evil world of Amedee ou Comment s'en debarrasser appears as a world marked not only by death, division, and confinement, but also by a loss of innocence and a diminution of being in some way imputable to one's own inner self. For the basic images are not simply the growing presence of the corpse, the tension of a divided marriage, and the confinement which these realities entail. The basic images are the progressively defiling and vengeful presence of the corpse, the dead body and divided marriage for which Amedee is in some way responsible, and the confinement that, to some extent, is a self-imprisonment. Madeleine says of the corpse, "S ' il nous avait pardonne, -il ne grandirait plus" (I, 2 54); and she tells Amedee that if he had declared the presence of the body from the very start, "Nous ne ivivrions pas comme des prisonniers, comme des coupables" i (I, 274) . Death itself is felt as a threat that is in some way deserved and elicited by one's own guilt. It is Ill revealed as such through an unfolding theatrical pattern which, mutatis mutandis, parallels the cultural evolution which Ricoeur traces from an archaic awareness of evil as a threatening, quasi-material "something" to an appreciation, at least vaguely, of guilt and responsibility for the evil of division that marks the loss of paradise. Amedee1s display of the existential evil of the human situation contrasts strikingly with that of Les Chaises. Amedee uses imagery which emphasizes the positive presence of evil and only briefly, in the cries of Madeleine's double that "il n'y a rien. [...] Je suis veuve, je suis orpheline" (I, 289', evokes a sense of the negative reality of sin and : a sense of alienation as nothingness and abandonment. But Les Chaises uses imagery and structural patterns which stress this negative aspect of evil. Each play borrows in its own way from the symbolic vocabulary that man gradually evolved to reveal his experience of alienation from himself and from his existence as astonishing, as an experience, in Ricoeur's words, "even more astonishing, disconcerting, and scandalous, perhaps, than the spectacle of nature" (Evil, |p. 8 ). However, the astonishment aroused in Amedee begins :to shift during the apparition of the young Amedee and Made leine at the middle of the second act and becomes less an astonishment at the comically disconcerting spread of the bane of their existence and more a wonder at the release, at least for Amedee, from the evil of its encroaching presence. Whereas Les Chaises unmasked evil as that which rests at the core of reality, not merely as that which infects a reality whose more primal characteristics are soundness and whole ness, Amedee thus begins to display human existence as sub ject to the full terms of the myth of the loss of paradise, the myth which Ricoeur singles out among the various archaic narrations of the origin of evil in the world as that which expresses the ultimate intentionality of the basic symbol of defilement. For any infection presumes a more fundamental soundness, and a blemish presupposes purity. And according to the terms of the lost paradise myth noted earlier, "evil is not symmetrical with the good, wickedness is not some thing that replaces the goodness of a man; it is the stain ing, the darkening, the disfiguring of an innocence, a light, and a beauty that remain. However radical evil may be, it cannot be as primordial as goodness" (Evil, p. 156). i The Recovery of Paradise in Amedee ou Comment s'en debarrasser After the apparition, as Amedee and Madeleine wait for |the right moment of night to drag away the corpse, the focus 113 of the action shifts from the Buccinionis to concentrate more and more on the presence of the corpse itself, whose feet are still slowly inching out from the bedroom onto the stage. At this point in the play, the stage directions begin prescribing certain theatrical effects in connection with the corpse. If properly executed, these effects change the emotional tonality associated with the dead body's pres ence from comic curiosity to a strange and growing fascina tion. The stage directions state that "tout d'un coup on entend— tandis que la scene s'est assombrie et que la pen- dule indique 8 heures du soir— venant de la chambre du mort, une bizarre musique s'amplifiant progressivement" (I, 291). After exchanging a few words, Amedee et Madeleine se taisent. Un certain temps, il n'y a plus que la musique, puis, soudain, la scene, qui etait devenue presque completement obscure, s'eclaire, d'une lumiere verte, pas desagreable; au debut, cet eclairage ne porte que sur une partie de la scene, ve nant de la chambre du mort. (I, 2 93) The comic aspect of the play still continues as the Buccinionis rush around to get furniture out of the expand ing body's way and try to tidy up its clothes and shine its shoes (I, 293-294). But "ce mouvement desordonne et silen- ;cieux est interrompu, soudain, par un violent bruit de gong: ;ce sont les pieds du mort qui ont atteint la porte de 114 droite; les mouvements des personnages ralentissent d'un coup, tres visiblement; ils redeviennent lourds, lents" (I, 294) . Now the clock sounds midnight. It is finally time to drag the body out the window. "Amedee a ouvert largement les volets, tandis qu'une froide lumiere de lune, se m6lant a la lumiere verte, ou m§me l'annulant, penetre dans la piece" (I, 297). A sense of cosmic wonder suddenly transforms Amedee as the hitherto closed confines of the apartment open to a night bursting with flowers and to the space of a sky radi ant with rivers of light. The night is often experienced imaginatively as symbolic of negative phases of human life and cosmic realities* but here, in a rich outpouring of theatrical-poetical imagery, the night sky evokes a sense of the positive wonder of existence not unlike that ex pressed by the mystical "dark night" of John of the Cross. As Gilbert Durand notes in Les Structures anthropologiques de 1 1imaginaire: Introduction a 11 archetypologie generale (Paris, 1960), p. 232, the metaphor of this "dark night" is one in which "on suit avec nettete 1 'oscillation de la va- leur negative a la valeur positive accordee au symbolisme I hocturne" and in which one finds the night, as in the play, 115 tied to homologous positive images — "a 1‘union amoureuse, a la chevelure, aux fleurs, a la fontaine, etc...." Amedee calls to his wife to look at the night sky. Regarde, Madeleine... tous les acacias brillent. Leurs fleurs explosent. Elies montent. La lune s'est epa- nouie au milieu du ciel, elle est devenue un astre vi va nt . La voie lactee, du lait epais, incandescent. Du miel, des nebuleuses a profusion, des chevelures, des routes dans le ciel, des ruisseau d‘argent liquide, des rivieres, des etangs, des fleuves, des lacs, des oceans, de la lumiere palpable. [...] Des bouquets de neige fleurie, des arbres dans le ciel, des jardins, des prai ries... des ddmes, des chapiteaux... des colonnes, des temples. [...] Et de l'espace, de l'espace, un espace infini! (I, 298) The apartment itself, with its profusion of mushrooms, ■undergoes a transformation as part of the light show and acquires an aspect of wonder in which "l'horrible et le beau doivent coexister" (I, 298). For the stage directions pre scribe that par la fen§tre, la lumiere eclatante et froide arrive, inondant maintenant le plateau. Le spectacle lumineux se voit par la fendtre, tel que decrit par Amedee. [...] Entre les jeux vus de lumiere, d‘artifices, et 1'aspect macabre de la chambre des deux epoux, il y a un con- traste frappant. La lumiere donne des teintes d'argent aux champignons qui, entre temps, eux aussi, ont pousse et sont devenus enormes. La lumiere, les jeux de lumi ere, ne sembl'ent pas seulement venir de la fendtre, mais d'un peu partout: des murs, des jointures de l'armoire, des meubles, [...] and even "des champignons, des petits germes de champignons 116 qui brillent, sur le plancher, comme des vers luisants" (I, 297-298). Till now the mushrooms have contributed to the setting a sense of decay, such as they connote in many cul tural traditions. But now they suddenly begin to add a sense of entrancing wonder, such as they connote in many other cultures which treasure mushrooms for their ecstasy- inducing properties. R. Gordon Wasson has discussed these properties at length in Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortal ity (New York, 1972), his famous study of tlie cultural his tory of what Eliade terms "the pre-eminently shamanic mush room Agaricus muscarius," commonly used by shamans as an intoxicating means of producing ecstasy before or during a ,2 seance. Madeleine, of course, does not share her husband's enthusiasm for the night air and urges, "Ne perds pas ton temps. A quoi penses-tu? Le froid penetre. Nous allons nous enrhumer. Depgchons-nous" (I, 298). As Madeleine anxiously directs his movements, a rather icalm and detached Amedee” works to drag the body across the i jroom to the window. He has to pull very hard: "On doit i i ; 2 Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. 1st ed., rev. (Princeton, 1964), p. 400. This will be referred to as; jShamanism in the text. 117 avoir 1 'impression que le cadavre [...] entraine dans son depart toute la maison et les entrailles des personnages" (I, 301). "Qu'il est lourd," Amedee exclaims* ”11 a une force passive extraordinaire!" (I* 301), something, indeed, like the phenomenal increase in bodily weight often asso ciated with the evil which shamans and priests of other cultures have traditionally been called upon to exorcise from those possessed. Such an increase in weight appears, for example, in the account of demonic exorcism given by Laurence G. Thompson in Chinese Religion: An Introduction (Belmont, Calif., 1969), pp. 30-32. As Amedee tugs and tugs, Madeleine urges, "Plus vite, tire plus vite, Amedee. [...] Tu vas me tuer, Amedee, tire plus vite, qa n'en finit plus, tire plus vite" (I, 303). Amedee finally climbs out of the window, dragging the legs of the corpse. Only when he is some distance down the street do the shoulders and ithen the huge head of the corpse appear with its long white hair and beard. At the very end of the act, the head itself is at the window, just about to be pulled out. The setting for the third act shifts outside to "la petite place Torco," with tall apartments at the right and lleft and a lower building in the middle that houses a com bination bar and brothel, from which a drunken American 118 soldier is noisily thrown out at the beginning of the act and above which shines a huge moon that lights up the stage (I, 305-306). Amedee enters, lugging the corpse by its feet. At his entry the moon grows even brighter; and there surges up in the sky "d'immenses bouquets d'etoiles" and "des cometes et etoiles filantes, des feux d'artifice" (I, 306). The action moves quickly in a kaleidoscope of bits of improbable farce and elements reminiscent of the magic of a shaman's seance. Dragging in the corpse and admiring the beauty of the sky, Amedee encounters the soldier, who knows little French, and tries to explain that he is writing a play, "une piece dans laquelle je prends le parti des vi- vants contre les morts. Une idee de Madeleine" (I, 310). The soldier gives a big tug at the body, and a large part of it lands on the stage in a heap, making a racket. "En effet, le bruit a fait declencher les aboiements des chiens; a provoque la mise en marche de trains que l'on entend rou- ler dans le lointain" (I, 310). Amedee himself starts bark ing to indicate to the soldier what his tug has started (I, 3H) . Then the body begins rolling up around Amedee's waist, t, jand he "se met a pivoter de lui-m£me pour que le corps 119 continue a s'enrouler" (I, 311). As he continues to spin, Amedee becomes anxious; the shooting stars and fireworks start up again in the sky; shutters begin opening from the tall buildings and heads begin appearing at the windows; the proprietor of the bar appears at the door with another soldier and his girl; and the noise of the dogs and of the trains continues to grow louder (I, 312). Amedee's spinning begins to wind down as he becomes encumbered in the body1s legs. All at once, two policemen come running up "au pas de gymnastique, et sifflant" (I, 313). They begin quickly chasing after Amedee, who disappears and reappears behind the wall. Soudain, le corps, entoure autour de la taille d'Amedee, a dfi se deployer comme une voile ou comme un enorme parachute; la t£te du mort est devenue une sorte d'eten- dard lumineux, et l'on voit apparaitre, au-dessus du mur du fond, la t£te d'Amedee, enleve par ce parachute, puis ses epaules, son tronc, ses jambes; Amedee s'envole, echappant aux policiers; l'etendard est comme une grande echarpe sur laquelle on voit, dessinee, la t£te du mort. (I, 315) To the crowds who have been watching with interest and 'laughing at the police chase, Amedee politely apologizes as I he flies up: "Je m'excuse, Messieurs, Mesdames, ce n'est pas ma faute, c'est malgre moi, c'est le vent... Je vous assure, ce n'est pas moi" (I, 315). 12 0 Madeleine comes running up and anxiously calls, "Am£- dee! Amedee! Amedee! Descends, Amedee, tu vas t'enrhumer, tu vas attraper froid!" (I, 316). She tells him, "Amedee, tu peux venir a la maison, les champignons ont fleuri... les champignons ont fleuri" (I, 317). But Amedee continues rising and disappears. As a woman remarks from her window, "C'est une cure de rajeunissement" (I, 318). As a cure of a marital situation or of a writer's lack of inspiration, the therapy is only partially success ful. For Madeleine laments, "Je vais £tre toute seule imaintenant. Je ne veux pas me remarier! Et il n'a pas fini id'ecrire sa piece!" (I, 319). But as a theatrical metaphor of release from containment, the play as a whole succeeds admirably, provided the stage effects come off properly. As a complex metaphor of the paradox of man's exis tence, the play expresses the polarized apprehension of ^reality which, according to Ionesco's own view, expressed in Notes et contre-notes (Paris, 1966), pp. 230-231, underlies i jail his early plays: "Ces deux prises de conscience ori- | jginelles sont celles de 1'evanescence et de la lourdeur; du i vide et du trop de presence; de la transparence irreelle du jmonde et de son opacite; de la lumiere et des tenebres ; jepaisses." I i As a mythic configuration expressive of the ontological and religious concerns of primitive and traditional man, the play subtly evokes the situation of confined separation from paradise and creates a surprise ritual of release from this confinement and a recovery of freedom in flight. Just as the many primitive and traditional symbols of evil which fill the first half of the play turn what can be considered as basically an unhappy marriage into a complex image of the evil that suffuses man's whole existential state, so, too, imaginative motifs of the mythic paradisaical times which appear in the second half turn the night flight of Amedee, which might otherwise be considered as simply a dream of i : the recovery of sexual satisfaction in marriage, into a bold image of existential freedom and transcendence. On one level, the concluding flight of the play can be seen as a theatrical presentation of such a dream experi ence. But as Gaston Bachelard states in L'Air et les songes: Essai sur 11 imagination du mouvement, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1950), p. 29, "la psychanalyse ne dit pas tout quand ;elle affirme le caractere voluptueux du vol onirique." Rather, he notes, p. 46, la levitation onirique est une realite psychique plus profonde, plus essentielle, plus simple que 1 'amour m§me. Ce besoin d'dtre allege, ce besoin d'etre libere, 122 ce besoin de prendre a la nuit sa vaste liberte, appa- ra£t comme un destin psychique, comme la fonction m§me de la vie nocturne normale, de la nuit reposante. If, however, it is a dream that the last part of Amedee :sets on stage, it is an archetypal, mythic dream. For the flight "que realisent Amedee et son 'corps-ballon'" is, as Alexandre Rainof notes in "Mythologies de l'Etre chez Io nesco," Diss. Univ. of Michigan 1969, p. 160, "I1envoi mythique d1Icare vers le paradis terrestre." It is also a flight such as a typical shaman might have experienced in initiatory dreams that took him back to the original times of paradise and in initiatory ecstasies, sometimes suffused i with a strange and wonderful luminosity, that gave him a feeling of paradisaical transcendence and freedom (Shaman ism. pp. 60 ff.). A number of primitive myths record that originally all |men could ascend up to the heavensj now, in the degenerate world after the loss of paradise, only certain superior ^members of the human race, such as shamans, can perform this feat} and they accomplish it, not bodily, but only in ecs tasy (Shamanism, pp. 480, 486). Yet the public ritual sean- ices of the shaman's initiation gave an external sign of what was imagined to take place in his visionary and ecstatic journeys to both the heavens and to the underworld and display, in theatrical approximation, some of the marvels of the extraordinary worlds of the gods and of the dead through which he journeyed. Costumed as a bird or as some other animal, the shaman displays his "new, magical body in animal form" (Shamanism, p. 156)j or appearing like a skele ton, he gives a concrete sign of his initiatory dismember ment and death, which permit his new birth (Shamanism, p. 158). Ritual imitations of animal sounds recall the pri mordial times, when man "lived at peace with the animals and understood their speech" (Shamanism, p. 99), and establishes |a rapport with a traditional animal psychopomp (Shamanism. ;pp. 92 ff.). Ritual tree climbing or props colored like the rainbow signify the ascent to the heavens (Shamanism, pp. 117-118, 125 ff., 135). A striking theatrical display of sights, sounds, and actions that are all in symbolic harmony both with the shaman's inner visions and the tribe's sacred Smyths, the seance ends "as a spectacle unequaled in the ';world of daily experience" and revelatory of "another world !— the fabulous world of the gods and magicians, the world I in which everything seems possible . . . where the ’laws of inature1 are abolished, and a certain superhuman 'freedom' |is exemplified and made dazzlingly present" (Shamanism, p. William R. Mueller and Josephine Jacobsen, in Ionesco and Genet: Playwrights of Silence (New York, 1968), pp. 234-235, have noted the element of "stage magic" that marks both the theater of Ionesco and Genet— "that return to the deepest roots of theatre, that attack on realism which in cludes in its catholicity the fakir, the circus-clown, the miracle play, the tightrope-walker"; and they have pointed out that "theatrical wonder begins here." Certainly Io nesco's Amedee, particularly the more theatrical second half, is filled with the theatrical wonder of such "stage magic." Ionesco has created his elaborate theatrical image of existential freedom and release from alienating confine ment and the burdens of guilt and of death in a way which shows his kinship not only with the primitive sacred myth makers, who created imaginary forms to express the lost paradisaical experience. He shows his imaginative kinship especially with primitive shamans, who have traditionally incorporated the sacred tribal myths and symbolic images into their own intense existential experiences and expressed them artistically and theatrically in vivid, concrete forms for the existential enrichment of the whole tribe. Andreas ;Lommell, in Shamanism: The Beginnings of Art (New York, 1967), p. 10, maintains that the primitive shaman has played; 125 a decisive role in the early evolution of human artistic creativity in that he gave the tribe's mythic images shape "by portraying them and identifying himself with them, recognizing and using them as real forces, interpreting them artistically." Ionesco uses some of the same archaic images to strengthen the existential and theatrical force of Amedee ; qu Comment s'en debarrasser and does so in a theatrical ^experience charged with some of the same sort of naive :magic, physical vitality, and spectacular surprise that imarked the seances of these early artists of the theater. CHAPTER IV i ; ! FIGURES OF MYTHIC SPACE IN LE NOUVEAU LOCATAIRE AND PLAYS OF OTHER "ABSURD" DRAMATISTS j I The first productions of Jacques ou la soumission. Le Tableau, and, in Swedish in Finland, Le Nouveau Locataire Smarked, in 1955, the end of an early period of Ionesco's theatrical creativity which had first revealed itself five iyears earlier with the opening of La Cantatrice chauve and 'included, in addition to the plays already noted in this discussion, the production of a number of short skits, such as Le Maitre, La Jeune Fille a marier, and Le Salon de S i'automobile. Except for Amedee. none of the plays of this jperiod are full-length. Together, they constitute a body of theatrical production notable for its ritual character, Soften remarkable for its freshness, particularly for the ifresh surprises of its humor, and, at its best, as in Les Chaises. capable of touching an audience at a profound 127 existential level. A Mythic Spatial Figure in Le Nouveau Locataire The fragmented mythic world which has underlain the imaginative structures of plays of this early period already analyzed manifests once more its formative presence in Io nesco's theatrical imagination in the basic theatrical fig ure of a play written in 1953, but introduced to the public ;in 1955, Le Nouveau Locataire. Leonard Pronko, in "The Anti-Spiritual Victory in the Theater of Ionesco," Modern i Prama, 2, No. 1 (May 1959), 31, notes that this play "re minds us of the second act of Amedee. but without the body." It also recalls Les Chaises as its action unfolds in a sty lized setting ultimately reducible to an imaginative mythic jspace similar to that implicit in the setting of this ear lier play. The setting of Le Nouveau Locataire consists, at ithe beginning, of "une piece nue, sans aucun meuble. Une fen^tre ouverte, au milieu, sur le mur du fond. Portes a deux battants, a droite et a gauche. Murs clairs" (II, |174). During the course of the early dialogue between the !Concierge and the new renter of the bare room, the audience I learns that the room is located on the fifth floor of an japartment building which the Concierge vaunts as being 128 "solide, la maison, c'est pas d'hier, on n'en fait plus comme 9a aujourd'hui" (II, 178-179). At the beginning of the play, the apartment is void of furniture, but overrun with the comic clatter of tenement noises and the Concierge's continual jabber (II, 175). At the end, deadly silence will reign over an apartment clut tered with an ever-growing pile of furniture. The trans formation takes place during the course of a brief single act which forms one of Ionesco's simplest, most effective, and also most purely ritualistic theatrical metaphors. The agent of this transformation is the apartment's new tenant, referred to simply as "Le Monsieur." In so far as he cere moniously directs the fabrication of his furniture-piled world in such a way that its ever-increasing mass crowds around a carefully guarded central point of absolute, if comical, peace, stability, and freedom from contact with this world, he engineers the construction of what is re- ductively the imaginative spatial universe of archaic myths and rites of sacred space. Ironically, of course, the i play's configuration centers not upon a point of freedom !from death through nostalgic contact with an immortal, para disaical, sacred realm of being, but upon an act of freedom I in death, one's own individual death. Though imaginatively 129 a descendant of ancestral celebrants of sacred spatial rituals, Le Monsieur focuses his world on nothing more transcendent than the act of his own present demise and entombment in the mass of this world. He thus takes an existential stance markedly different from his primitive ancestors as well as from the nostalgic protagonists of Ionesco's previous mythic plays. Shortly after the play begins, the new tenant enters the scene, dressed all in formal, even funereal black (II, 175). A lone and unattached figure, he has no family (II, :177) and rents, does not own, his dwelling. He takes, how ever, firm and calmly imperious control of his rented space, scrutinizing it and measuring its dimensions carefully, eventually dismissing the garrulous Concierge, and, for the greater part of the play, directing the movements of the two iMovers who appear with his furniture. Taking over the comic role from the Concierge, the Movers bring up what turns out to be a prodigious heap of ifurnishings which becomes more and more bulky and seems to grow limitlessly in extent as the action of the play pro gresses. At first, both Movers farcically struggle to carry iin a little vase which is "visiblenient extrdmement leger" i (II, 186). But by the end of the play, they are dragging in 130 huge pink wardrobes and large screens together with a mul titude of smaller pieces and unidentifiable items (II, 195- 197). Finally, the room itself is filled; but there remain furnishings in profusion outside the apartment, blocking the door, piling up on the stairs, spilling out into the streets, and even damming up the Seine (II, 198-199). Both the controlled rhythmic pacing of the furniture movers' activity and certain items which they carry in high light the basic temporal dimension of the play's image of progressive confinement. The initial stage directions pre scribe a "rhythme" for the play which, "a peine marque, donnera insensiblement au jeu un certain caractere de cere- monie" (II, 174) . In the course of the action, the Movers bring in two large portraits of old ancestors of the tenant which give to the play its only sense of the past (II, 191); they cover the central window with a canvas of a winter landscape, a symbol of the tenant's present situation (II, 193); and finally, they lug in huge pendulum clocks, which the tenant at first refuses, but then has brought in, say ing, "Si... a la rigueur, pourquoi pas?" (II, 197). As a theatrical image of human existence, the Movers' ■struggles with the bulky furniture express something of Ionesco's existential preoccupation with a sense of the 131 weight and heaviness of life. This becomes most evident just before they bring in the clocks, when their actions have become "une sorte de ballet pesant, les mouvements £tant toujours tres lents" (II, 196). On the other hand, the stage directions specify that, in general, "a mesure que les objets apportes seront plus grands et sembleront plus lourds, les Dememageurs auront l'air de les porter avec plus de facilitej finalement, en se jouant et en jouant" (II, 188). Rosette C. Lamont, in "The Proliferation of Matter in Ionesco's Plays," L1Esprit Createur, 2 (1962), 193, has stressed that the play expresses the playwright's Sartrian "despair at the realization of our human imprisonment in matter, his 'nausee.'" But Ionesco's protagonist actually directs the progress of his own material imprisonment. Viewed in a mythic context, the ceremonial self entombment which the new tenant choreographs in such matter- of-fact fashion subtly parodies those ritual celebrations by which primitive man sought to contain his life in a space jordered around a central point of contact with the gods removed from the threat of time and death. For the new tenant directs his gradual self-entombment from the center lof an inhabited space whose basic configuration traces that of the primitive myths of sacred space and whose formal 132 perfection the tenant ritually respects and curiously treasures. While the Movers are beginning to tote in the furnishings in earnest, he draws on the floor "un cercle, a la craiej plus particulierement un cercle plus grand au milieu" (II, 189-190), an action which John Daniel Brown, in "The Absurd Drama of Eugene Ionesco as Religious Ritual," Diss . Drew University 1970, p. 280, has characterized as "a ritual establishing of his territory." The tenant takes satisfaction in the results of the Movers' efforts and, "regardant tout le long des murs, se frotte les mains" and says, "Voila. £a prend fprme. (£a sera tres habitable" (II, 190-191). He cautions them, however, "Attention, n'abimez pas mon cercle. [...] Attention, attention a mes cerclesI" (II, 191). Shortly before bringing in the clocks, they bring in his armchair and set it in the circle in the middle (II, 195). They continue to bring in more furniture, "ser vant de plus en plus pres le Monsieur au milieu du plateau" i (II, 196) and "fermant de plus en plus le cercle autour du Monsieur^ le jeu se fait maintenant sans paroles, dans le silence absolu; les bruits, et la voix de la Concierge, du dehors, progressivement, se sont completement eteints" (II, 197). To make more room, the tenant himself "s'assoit dans son fauteuil a l'interieur du cercle" (II, 197). Screens 133 are brought in, "entourant de trois cdtes le Monsieur, dans son cercle. Un c6te reste ouvert, face au public. Le Mon sieur est ass is dans son fauteuil, chapeau sur la t§te, visage vers le public" (II, 198). Finally, Le Monsieur disappears from sight, not trans cending his world, but, at his own behest, closed in and eclipsed by it. At a signal from one of the Movers, "du plafond descendent, sur le devant de la scene, de grands planches cachant completement aux yeux du public, le Mon sieur dans son haut enclos [...] le nouveau locataire est ainsi completement emmure" (II, 200) . One of the Movers climbs up a ladder to see how his employer is doing. Le Monsieur asks him to close the opening which had previously been made in the ceiling. He does so, takes the tenant's hat from him, gives him a bouquet of flowers, asks how he is, and assures him, "On a tout apporte, Monsieur, vous §tes chez vous" (II, 201). Both Movers finally ask, "Vous n'avez besoin de rien?," to which he replies after some silence, "Merci. iSteignez" (II, 202). The theatrical ritual ends with "immobilite sur scene. [...] Obscurite complete sur le plateau" (II, 202). Though reminiscent in its basic stage patterns of iprimitive ceremonial consecrations of an inhabited space as 134 an ordered cosmos made sacred and real through its orienta tion around a hierophanic center, Le Nouveau Locataire ex presses an appreciation of man's existential situation clearly opposed to that expressed and transmitted through primitive religious rites and myths. For unique among pro tagonists of Ionesco's mythic plays, Le Monsieur pursues his end simply and directly, unmoved by traditional archetypal yearnings for transcendence. He is alone and alienated in :a world of lifeless, enclosing objects which shows its re semblance to his own existential situation only in the cold 'death of a winter landscape and is measured only according to a linear time scale which goes back no further than his own family ancestors and extends no further than his own demise. He thus remains fixed calmly and solely on his own individual and limited human mode of being. For the new tenant, as for the modern, nonreligious, nonmythic man described by Mircea Eliade in The Sacred and the Profane, "the cosmos has become opaque, inert, mute; it transmits no message, it holds no cipher."^ Both inhabit a profane, purely geometrical space which is "homogeneous and ~ * ~ The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion : (New York, 1959), p. 178. This is referred to as Sacred in the text. 135 neutral; no break qualitatively differentiates the various parts of its mass. . . . No qualitative differentiation and, hence, no orientation are given by virtue of its inherent structure" (Sacred, p. 22). Ionesco's tenant can take the Romantic, mythically blasphemous stance of orientating his world around himself as a central point; but "no true ori entation is now possible, for the fixed point no longer enjoys a unique ontological status" (Sacred, p. 23). The new tenant in no way orders his world around himself as a "center of expansive life" or as a "central point" and "sacred source," phrases which Georges Poulet has used to describe Romantic apprehensions of man's unique status in his world in The Metamorphoses of the Circle (Baltimore, 1966), pp. 70 and 95. For Le Monsieur, as for Eliade's modern Western man, irreversible, linear time, "constitutes man's deepest exis tential dimension; it is linked to his own life, hence it has a beginning and an end, which is death, the annihilation of his life" (Sacred, p. 71). Western man originally ac- i ;quired his focus on the linear progress of time and on his participation as an individual in its irrevocable movement i iwithin a religious context, the context of Judaic and [Christian faith in manifestations of the presence of Yahweh ! ! 1 i j i : 136 { j in particular events of the history of His faithful people i | and in particular moments in the lives of individual be- I lievers. This faith, which Eliade, in Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (New York, 1967), p. 143, has termed "the one novelty introduced into the history of religion since neolithic times," has long taught Western man to place supreme existential significance on recognition of and par ticipation in precisely those new and particular moments in history which the more ancient religious tradition shunned as sinful lapses from the ritual reiteration of the origi nal, god-given modes of human activity. Ionesco's tenant retains the attention to linear time and to the individual's participation in it which characterize this Western reli gious tradition; but he has lost the sense of a saving divine presence, which can give the particular moments of his own limited span of time a transhistorical significance. The sole agent of his own brief history, he has lost or re jected the faith and the hopeful linear movement of Judaism |and Christianity as well as the more traditional man's par ticipation in the hopeful, regenerative patterns of the cosmos. The fact, however, that Le Monsieur persists in 137 ritually ordering his demise according to a spatial pattern traditionally used by archaic man to ensure participation in sacred, transcendent realms of being ironically underscores his existential situation as one which, no matter how modern it seems and removed from contact with the sacred, still achieves its definition in ancient, pre-Judaic and pre- ; Christian, primitive mythic terms. Mythic Spatial Figures in Plays of Other "Absurd" Dramatists During the three and one-half years after the 1955 ^openings of Jacques ou la soumission, Le Tableau, and, in Finland, Le Nouveau Locataire. Ionesco introduced only one new play to the stage, the playwright's play, L 1 Impromptu de 1'Alma, in 1956. Yet not long after the first English pro duction of Le Nouveau Locataire. in November 1956, London isaw the world premieres of major plays by three of Ionesco's "absurd" confreres. In their basic stage figures and asso ciated existential attitudes, these plays also show traces of ancient myths of sacred space. They are: Beckett's Fin de partie, first produced in French, 1 April 1957; Jean Genet's Le Balcon, in English, three weeks later, 22 April; and one year later, in April 1958, Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party. While Ionesco's theatrical productivity 138 remained rather dormant, his fellow "absurd" dramatists revealed that they, too, have some imaginative ties with primitive ancestral myth-makers. But the relatively low profile which primitive mythic motifs maintain in their plays underscores Ionesco's own mythic preoccupation, par ticularly as this preoccupation will begin to dominate some of his later plays. A brief look at the appearance of mythic motifs in three of their major plays will highlight i some of the characteristics which distinguish Ionesco as a dramatist, mythic and otherwise, from his fellow creators of ; the Theater of the Absurd. Konrad Schoell, in "The Chain and the Circle: A Structural Comparison of Waiting for Godot and Endgame." Modern Drama. 11, No. 1 (May 1968), 49-50, notes that Beckett's later play distinguished itself from the earlier i Waiting for Godot and revealed an obvious resemblance with plays of Ionesco in that "with Endgame closed rooms appeared in Beckett's drama, too." The bare, closed-in stage setting especially recalls the settings of Les Chaises and of Le Nouveau Locataire. with the figure of Hamm, seated in the i ’ center, reminding one of the final situation of the latter play's protagonist: 139 Interieur sans meubles. Lumiere gris£tre. Aux murs de droite et de gauche, vers le fond, deux petites fen^tres haut perchees, rideaux fermes. Porte a 11avant-scene a droite. Accroche au mur, pres de la porte, un tableau retourne. A 1'avant-scene a gauche, recouvertes d'un vieux drap, deux poubelles l'une contre 1'autre. Au centre, recouvert d'un vieux drap, ass is dans un fau- teuil a roulettes, Hamm.^ Martin Esslin, in The Theatre of the Absurd. 1st ed., rev. (Harmondsworth, 1968), p. 61, has distinguished the feeling for time in Endgame from that of Beckett's earlier play in a way which likewise points up a theatrical and existential resemblance between this second play and Io nesco's Le Nouveau Locataire: "If Waiting for Godot shows its two heroes whiling away the time in a succession of desultory, and never ending, games, Beckett's second play deals with an 'endgame,' the final game in the hour of death." Thus Clov opens Fin de partie by making the state ment, duly qualified, of course, and sufficiently non committal to be typical of Beckett's comic and theatrical universe: "Fini, c'est fini, ga va finir, ga va peut-§tre finir. (Un temps.) Les grains s'ajoutent aux grains, un a :un, et un jour, soudain, c'est un tas, un petit tas, ! 9 ; Fin de partie (Paris: Les Editions de minuit, 1957), p. 13. Further citations in French will be from this edi tion. Citations from the English version will be from Endgame (New York: Grove, 1958). 140 1 'impossible tas" (pp. 15-16). Incomprehensible to the human mind, the existential game played in the course of the play is, for Hamm, "cette... chose" (pp. 19 and 64). Or as Clov says, "Quelque chose suit son cours" (pp. 28 and 49). However opaque to the understanding and devoid of meaning "cette chose" might be, it follows its course within an imaginative milieu which, though quite scantily endowed, appears relatively rich, when set next to Ionesco's Le Nouveau Locataire, in fragments of social relationships, natural phenomena, and fabrications of the human mind and creative imagination that have tradi tionally seemed to give meaning to the game of human exis tence . Traditional fabrications of the sacred mythic imagina tion suggest their presence in the basic spatial configura tion outlined in the course of the play. The abstract, Expressionist stylization of a domestic setting is psycho logically both "a claustrophobic interior," as Esslin, in The Theatre of the Absurd, p. 61, defines it, and "le re fuge, as Hamm himself describes it (p. 17). As a refuge, iit is an imaginative, theatrical remnant of the traditional sacred space centered around a point of contact with the absolute being offered by the gods and secure from death and 141 surrounding chaos. Like Ionesco's tenant, Hairan has a cur ious preoccupation with his placement at the center of his world. Away from this center, he feels ill at ease (pp. 41 43, 100). Like the couple in Les Chaises. Hamm and Clov follow the course of their existence in an inhabitation surrounded by what is described by Clov, peering out the windows, as "zero," "rien a horizon," "du plomb"; "il fait gris. [...] Noir clair. Dans tout l'univers" (pp. 45-48). Hamm states that "hors d'ici, c'est la mort" (p. 23); he refers to what is outside as "le vide [...] le noir" (p. 53). There, he predicts, Clov will one day find himself, without a wall to protect him: "L'infini du vide sera au- tour de toi, tous les morts de tous les temps ressuscites ne le combleraient pas, tu y seras comme un petit gravier au milieu de la steppe" (p. 54) . Of course, in Beckett's ambiguous theatrical world, outside is merely "1 'autre enfer" (p. 41), that complements ithe existential void of the "enfer" within, despite efforts to establish there some sort of orientation point and place of refuge. The ambiguous spatial valuation which Beckett suggests for his spatial figure expresses theatrically what l Gaston Bachelard has noted discursively in The Poetics of Space (New York, 1964), p. 215: being "does not stand out, 142 it is not bordered by nothingness: one is never sure of finding it, or of finding it solid, when one approaches a center of being. . . . Often it is in the heart of being that being is errancy." So Hamm knows all along what, in Les Chaises, was fully felt only at the end of the play: "Ici, " Hamm states, "nous sommes dans un trou" (p. 56). And he goes on to tease Clov with what he might find outside if he leaves him and the refuge which his "home" provides: "Mais derriere la montagne? Hein? Si c'etait encore vert? Hein? (Un temps.) Flore! Pomone! (Un temps. Avec extase.) Ceres!" (p. 56). Later on, in the course of the story to which he keeps on returning to while away the time, Hamm recounts how he had once similarly tantalized a father who was begging food from him for his son. Hamm had demanded, "Mais enfin quel est votre espoir? Que la terre renaisse au printemps? Que la mer et les rivieres redeviennent poissonneuses?" (p. 73). For the natural universe which presently extends around Hamm seems quite dead. If it has any regenerative power left ■within it, the continuing life process will bypass Hamm, his parents Nagg and Nell, and his surrogate son Clov and leave them to die. As Hamm remarks early in the play, "La nature nous a oublies." Or rather, when he adds, "Nous respirons, nous changeonsI Nous perdons nos cheveux, nos dents 1 Notre fraicheur!," Clov corrects him, noting, "Alors elle ne nous a pas oubli^s" (p. 25). When their world actually seems to give evidence that life as they know it might possibly renew itself, the pair regard this possibility as a threat. When Clov at one point announces, "J'ai une puce!," Hamm, "tres iinquiet," exclaims, "Mais a partir de la l'humanite pourrait se reconstituer! Attrape-la, pour l'amour du ciel!" (p. ;50) . Toward the end of the play, when Clov says he sees "un m6me" outside, "un procreateur en puissance," he heads !to the door to go out to kill him, until Hamm observes that "s'il existe il viendra ici ou il mourra la. Et s1il h'existe pas ce n'est pas la peine" (pp. 104-105). In this last incident, the original French version associates the child with attitudes of Moses and the Buddha, as Richard N. Coe has noted in "God and Samuel Beckett," Meanj in Quar- terly. 24 (1965), 75. This association suggests that the child signifies the possibility not so much of regeneration as of saving transcendence. The English version, however, retains only the suggestion of possible regeneration that man has traditionally fostered in his cosmic myths and reli gious rites, not as a threat, but as a sign of hope and existential meaning. Natural temporal phases of light and darkness impli cated in the play's verbal imagery suggest a cosmic ambi ance for the present activities of Hamm and Clov that once ; likewise offered possibilities of existential meaning to the primitive imagination. In their world, however, the pos sible oscillation between light and dark, day and night, ionly strengthen the irony of their unidirectional existence. The blind Hamm can, at best, feel on his face a ray of sun light from one of the windows, a ray which Clov assures him | is not there (p. 8 6). Clov, as was mentioned, sees only igray outside (p. 4 8 and he states explicitly in his final jmonologue, "Sommeil, reveil, soir, matin. Ils ne savent Irien dire. [...] Je me dis que la terre s'est eteinte, quoique je ne l'aie jamais vue allumee" (pp. 108-109). Nagg and Nell have memories of a happier existence, recalled, as in Les Chaises, in connection with a humorous lanecdote which Nagg is in the habit of telling Nell. There was the "apres-midi d'avril," the day after their engage ment, spent "sur le lac de C6me" (pp. 35-36). And there was the time, "autrefois," when they had sawdust, and not just ;sand, in the containers in which they live (p. 32). But such Iformer times are recounted as their own personal recollec tions rather than as archetypal fragments from an indefinite 145 past of all mankind. For Hamm and Clov, nostalgia for the past gives no more meaning to their existence than recogni tion of their present state. In his opening soliloquy, Hamm ,merely asks with a yawn and mock dramatic tone, "Peut-il y ja— (b£illements )— y avoir misere plus... plus haute que la mienne? Sans doute. Autrefois" (p. 17). When Nell "s'est ieteinte" toward the middle of the play, Hamm says, "Elle i ; ietait jolie, autrefois, comme un coeur" (pp. 60-61)— in jEnglish, "like a flower of the field" (p. 42). To this Clov :adds, "Nous aussi on etait jolis— autrefois. II est rare jqu'on ne soit pas joli— autrefois" (p. 61). ’ If the world of Hamm and Clov contains some of the same mythically significant phenomena that go into the making of the fragmented imaginative worlds of Ionesco's mythic plays,: Beckett's pair share with Ionesco's characters none of the traditional nostalgia for a more perfect existence, much lless for anything like a state of paradise. Their lives are not made absurd by pursuing a nonexistent dreamj nor are their lives made wonderful by a surprise experience, as in Amedee, of transcendent freedom. Nor, on the other hand, ! jdoes Hamm share any of the typically modern enthusiasm shown i ; by Ionesco's tenant for choosing his own dwelling space and constructing his own world. The central character of Fin de 146 !partie simply plays out his existence in the meaningless iworld of time, space, and human relationships in which he finds himself, sitting at the center of this world and wait- !ing for the end• Moving from Fin de partie to Jean Genet's Le Balcon, l which had its premiere just three weeks later, one leaves jBeckett's gray and empty theatrical world and enters a rich |universe full to overflowing with Baroque splendor and trompe l'oeil. But one finds oneself still on imaginative ^territory that bears traces of mythic markings from primi tive times, when man sought security from outside forces of | ichaos, death, and destruction at a ritually treasured cen- jtral point of contact with absolute being. Of course, in Genet's play, as in Beckett's Fin de I partie and Ionesco's Le Nouveau Locataire. the fixation on a center of existence ironically entails, itself, a kind of death. For the brothel known as "Le Balcon," with its :splendid ornaments and lustrous mirrors at its core, offers to those who seek refuge within its rigged chambers what the make-believe Bishop terms the "raideur solennellei Immo- > , , 3 bilite definitive," The brothel offers the "dignite j 3 I Le Balcon. 2nd rev. ed. (Decines: L'Arbalete, 1962), p. 23. 147 absolue" (p. 170) of a transcendent sexual illusion acted out according to a choice of scenarios which are "tous re- ductibles a un theme majeur. [...] La mort" (p. 186). On the other hand, moreover, although the inside-outside con trast implicit in the play's spatial setting has tradition ally in the mythic imagination supported significant con trasts of ontological values such as immortality-mortality, ! stability-chaos, and absolute being-change, the spatial ;Contrast here, in Genet's imaginative world, merely forms ;one more bamboozling pair of reversed mirror images of Ultimately the same existential experience, in accord with the constructional technique discussed by Harry E. Stewart in "Jean Genet's Mirror Images in Le Balcon," Modern Drama. 12, No. 2 (Sept. 1969), 197-198. Accordingly, the threaten ing forces of chaos and rebellion outside, which Mme Irma terms "la mort— la vraie, definitive" (p. 82), offer to the I rebels beyond her brothel's confines something of the same opportunity to participate in an illusion of transcendent splendor as those have who act out their illusions inside; ifor the rebellion moves forward under the inspiration of the captivating image of Chantal, one of Irma's former prosti tutes, who now "incarne la Revolution" (p. 122). Philip Thody, in Jean Genet: A Study of His Novels and 148 Plays (New York, 1968), p. 187, has noted with reference to Le Balcon that "everyone in the play is much more anxious to be^ than to do_." Thus the Bishop, standing before the .mock sacristy mirror of the opening tableau, revels in his image, larger than life on high cothurni and resplendent in gorgeous episcopal robes, as a radiant expression of an un spoiled "mode d'etre" (p. 22). The Judge, in the following 1 Itableau, begs the prostitute to play her role of the Thief Iwith the seriousness necessary to support his illusion of ibeing the Judge; he tells her that otherwise, "tu me pri- iverais d'etre'" (p. 38). Visitors to "Le Balcon" act out their typically mythic i concern to maintain an illusion of being in a very special "maison d'illusion," which exudes not only the glamour of a high-class brothel, but is also redolent, at times, of the secure and sacred atmosphere of a "virginal convent," as Harry E. Stewart has noted in "Jean Genet's Saintly Pre occupation in Le Balcon." Drama Survey, 6 (1967), 26. It is redolent, too, of the rare atmosphere of prisons, those :"lieux benits," says the Judge, "ou le mal est impossible, puisqu'ils sont le carrefour de toute la malediction du imonde" (p. 41). In the words of the Chief of Police, it has the air of a "sompteux [sic] theatre, ou a chaque minute se 149 joue un drame— comme dans le monde dit-on se celebre une messe" (p. 104). Throughout the various tableaux of the play, the char acters give an often bewildering running commentary on the moral, social, psychological, and ontological significance of "Le Balcon" and of what they do there, enlisting the aid jand subverting the significance not only of traditional Catholic images, symbols, and ritual paraphernalia, but jalso, upon occasion, of more ancient religious images, which isuggest that the brothel harbors an existential experience ‘ analogous to that lost with the loss of the mythic paradise. ;So, at the end of the first tableau, the visitor who had come to the brothel to be a bishop, after divesting himself jof the episcopal robes and the luminous majesty they bestow, says, "Ornements, dentelles, par vous je rentre en moi-mdme. :Je reconquiers un domaine. J'investis une tres ancienne place forte d'ou je fus chasse" (p. 24). And Mme Irma speaks lyrically of her "maison d'illusions" to her favorite Carmen, as a house which "vole. Ou si tu veux elle vogue jdans le ciel ou elle m’emporte avec elle. [...] Mon cheri, !la maison decolle vraiment, quitte la terre, vogue au ciel |quand je me nomme, dans le secrete de mon coeur, mais avec june grande precision, une tenanciere de boxon" (p. 78) . 150 Gilbert Durand maintains, moreover, in Les Structures anthropoloqiques de 11imaginaire: Introduction a l'arche- typologie generale (Paris, 1960), pp. 148-149, that "le souci de la reconqu^te d'une puissance perdue" has tradi tionally manifested itself not only in luminous imagery, such as the Bishop employs, and ascensional imagery, such as :Mme Irma uses, but also in "des images plus viriles: royau-l te celeste ou terrestre du roi juriste, prStre ou guerrier," jthe images which dominate the scenarios acted out by the three principal visitors to the brothel in the first half of the play and which serve, in the eighth and ninth tab leaus (pp. 150 ff.), to give the populace outside the I brothel the illusion of political stability in the face of the rebellion. The fact that toward the end of the play, the rebellion gives signs of starting all over again almost as soon as it iis put down inserts the action of Le Balcon. vaguely and without much significance, into a larger, cyclic imaginative itemporal setting (p. 174). But during the limited time span ;of the present revolutionary episode, Mme Irma's "maison d'illusions" seems to achieve the apogee of paradisaical perfection and sacred transcendence possible within the in verted logic of the piay. For by the time the revolt is 151 over, the chamber that has elicited Irma's most ecstatic expectations is ready for use— "le plus beau de tous," as she says, "parure definitive, couronne de l'edifice [...] mon salon de la Mort Solennelle, le Tombeau! Le salon mau- solee" (p. 79). As described later by the Court Envoy, this salon constitutes a reverse image of all that the tradi tional mythic imagination could expect of sacred ritual space: ! Une montagne de marbre rouge creusee de cbambres et de ' niches, et au milieu une minuscule guerite de diamants. [...] Celui qui l'aura y sera, mort, pour l'eternite. i Autour le monde s'ordonnera. Autour les planetes tour- neront et les soleils . D1un point secret de la troi- ■ sieme chambre partira un chemin qui aboutira, apres bien des complications, a une autre chambre ou des miroirs renverront a 1'inf ini... Je dis 1'inf ini... (pp. MS- 149 ) Reserved by Mme Irma for the "Heros" (p. 164), it provides an admirable setting for the mock apotheosis of the Chief of Police at the end of the play (pp. 201-203). Throughout Le Balcon. the characters tend to give ex planations of the existential significance, or, rather, non- jsignificance, of their actions, rather than let the actions jspeak for themselves as they have tended to do in the plays ;of Ionesco examined so far. Compared with Genet's play, Ithe early plays of Ionesco appear less rhetorical and more 152 purely poetical, theatrical, and ritualistic; and their absurdity springs more from the humorous surprises, whether terrifying or wonderful, of the worlds they create than from the added bewilderment caused by verbal attempts to explain or schematize such worlds. The yearnings, moreover, which animate Ionesco's characters, whether or not they are ulti mately shown to be inane, are yearnings for an experience of more absolute, perfect, and transcendent life, whereas the absurd yearnings of Genet's characters are, themselves, comical yearnings for a kind of sterile, aesthetically per fect sexual experience that finds its definitive expression in death. Both Genet's Le Balcon and the two plays of Beckett discussed in these pages make use of the traditional religious vocabulary of Christianity as well as the more ancient vocabulary of primitive religious myths to help give expression to the existential longings and feelings they dramatize. Ionesco's plays, however, seldom depend upon Christian images and symbols, apart from those which them selves derive from the archetypal imagery and symbolism con tained in more primitive sacred mythic systems. ; Harold Pinter's earliest plays reflect imaginative con-; ifigurations of primitive sacred myths to a much more limitedi degree than the plays of the three other Absurd dramatists 153 discussed in these pages; but the tendency which marks a number of his plays to image man's existential anxieties in | spatial figures involves, in his first plays, a further tendency to express such anxieties in stage metaphors whose configurations and associated existential feelings recall the fundamental spatial contrast maintained by ancient myths: ;and rites between ontological security within and incompre- j hensible forces of death and disintegration without. So iMartin Esslin, in The Peopled Wound: The Work of Harold Pinter (Garden City, N. Y., 1970), pp. 67-71, stresses that 'in both of Pinter's first one-act plays, The Dumb Waiter and The Room, "we are in a room enclosed by a dark, mysterious ! world outside," inhabited by strangely threatening "super natural powers" symbolic of the characters' "subconscious motivations" and of "the process of alienation to which men ‘ are subjected in a highly organised industrial society." The playwright's first full-length play, The Birthday Party i(1958), uses a similar spatial figure to express not only psychological and possible social realities, but also basic : i ^existential anxieties, in particular, in Esslin's words, p. 82, "man's fear of being driven out from his warm place of refuge on earth. The play would then, like Beckett's Endgame. emerge as a morality about the process of death 154 itself." As such, the play would also reflect the tradi tional spatial figure through which primitive religious man, too, expressed his fear of death and disintegration. The setting of The Birthday Party, whose realistic aura I is dispelled quickly by the dialogue, is "the living-room of; |a house in a seaside town. A door leading to the hall down jleft. Back door and small window up left. Kitchen hatch, centre back. Kitchen door up right. Table and chairs, 4 centre." The central character, Stanley, like Ionesco's tenant, does not own his quarters herej he is merely a visi tor (p. 17). Unlike Le Monsieur, however, Stanley feels the: security of his quarters threatened. He is apprehensive about the arrival of Goldberg and McCann, who appear on the scene to do, as Goldberg says, "this job" that "came up out of the blue" (p. 31) and end up forcing Stanley to stay in and join in the Birthday Party that is being given in his honor, though he himself denies it is his birthday (p. 39). Offering Stanley his congratulations later that eve ning, during the second act, Goldberg exclaims, "What a | : thing to celebrate— birth! Like getting up in the morning. ^The Birthday Party and The Room: Two Plays (New York: Grove, 1961), p. 9. Further citations will be from this 'edition. 155 Marvellous!" But he immediately gives an ominous though comic twist to his analogy: "Some people don't like the iidea of getting up in the morning. . . . Your skin's crabby, you need a shave, your eyes are full of muck, your mouth is Hike a boghouse, the palms of your hands are full of sweat, ;your nose is clogged up, your feet stink, what are you but a corpse waiting to be washed?" (p. 48). Through the able efforts of Goldberg and McCann, the evening's party succeeds iin being not a celebration of birth and awakening to the wonder of life, but a kind of ritual punishment for Stan ley's allegedly guilty participation in life's evil and a ikind of initiatory torture that takes Stanley through a state of darkness and psychic disintegration equivalent to a kind of death. Just before the party gets under way, the inscrutable pair accuse Stanley of numerous, vaguely de fined, past and present instances in which he participates in a sort of mythic "original" sin. They charge him espe cially with betrayal of "the organization" and of his wife, ;if he ever had one, and with mental and sexual inadequacies | (pp. 51-55). "You're dead," Goldberg charges, "You can't i ilive, you can't think, you can't love. You're dead. You're ;a plague gone bad" (p. 55). During the party itself, Gold berg leads the guests in a toast to Stanley, bemoaning with 156 comical nostalgia the passing of "the love, the bonhomie, the unashamed expression of affection of the day before yesterday, that our mums taught us. in the nursery" (p. 59)t i ; McCann reminisces about the good old days in Irish pubs and I sings, "Oh, the Garden of Eden has vanished, they say, / |But I know the lie of it still" (p. 64). Finally, all join ■ in a game of Blind Man's Buff, the climax not only of the : party, but of the motif of blindness that has been growing since the beginning of the play through attention to the ; spectacles Stanley has to wear for his poor eyesight. This ;is a pervasive motif, whose symbolic connection with death ;Peter C. Thornton has analyzed in "Blindness and the Con- ifrontation with Death: Three Plays by Harold Pinter," Die j Neueren Sprachen, 17 (1968), 213-22 3. During the game, as Thornton notes, pp. 216-217, Stanley is "systematically blinded" and tormented into a state of "mental collapse," :in which he tries, as the lights suddenly all go out, to istrangle his landlady, Meg, and to rape Lulu. The next morning, in the third act, Goldberg and McCann Jwait in the living room for Stanley to come down so they can Icart him away in their van. When he finally appears, at the j 1 ,end of the act, the pair give him mock assurance that they will help him regain his visual and mental acuity, an 157 assurance which, if fulfilled, could make the deathly ritual torture of the previous evening the homologous equivalent of ja kind of ceremonial initiation into an integrated new life. Goldberg begins a taunting litany, telling him, ! i Between you and me, Stan, it's about time you had a new pair of glasses. McCann: You can't see straight. | | | Goldberg: Myopic. ! McCann: Epileptic. I I Goldberg: You're on the verge. j i McCann: You're a dead duck. I | Goldberg: But we can save you. ; ! McCann: From a worse fate. j i ' 1 , . . . . . . . I t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i i I | Goldberg: From now on, we'11 be the hub of your ! wheel. I . I McCann: We'll renew your season ticket. j I ! Goldberg: We'll make a man of you. McCann : And a woman. i . j Goldberg: You'll be re-orientated. I : I Goldberg: You'll be a mensch [sic], j McCann: You'll be a success. | Goldberg: You'll be integrated. (pp. 8 6-8 8) I |But the previous night's partying gives no promise of ini- i ! jtiation into new life, even though sprinkled, as it was, with traditionally hopeful symbolic reminiscences of life's j 158 new awakenings; and Stanley's quarters by the sea provide no security from revengeful intruders from without. Stanley stands before Goldberg and McCann, dressed with funereal formality in "striped trousers, black jacket, and white collar" and carrying "a bowler hat" (p. 85), much like Ionesco's tenant (II, 175). Practically sightless and speechless and in a sort of trance, he waits, ready to leave’ the living room and go with them where they are taking him iin their van. His birth, far from being an event to be ’ celebrated, appears, according to one symbolic level of ^Pinter's play, like every man's birth, the beginning of an [initiation into death, whatever physical or imaginative I means might be taken to ward off the process. In a private dream recounted in Journal en Miettes (Paris, 1969), p. 2 02, Ionesco once felt himself accused, together with his fellow Absurdists, Beckett, Genet, and Pinter, as "un assassin, j'ai tue des enfants. Je ne suis pas le seul accuse: Beckett aussi est accuse ainsi qu'un troisieme auteur dramatique, Pinter peut-dtre, ou Gen£t qui ifond, que je vois vraiment fondre et s1evanouir dans un ciel gris mais sans nuages." If, as Ionesco says earlier in his ’ journal, p. 31, the golden age of childhood ends "des que ll'on sait que l'on va mourir, " his dream rightly accused him; 159 and his three "absurd" confreres as child murderers. And if, too, as he says in the course of further musings in Present passe. Passe present (Paris, 1968), p. 250, "l'en- fance, c'est le monde du miracle ou du merveilleux" and : "£tre chasse de 1 'enfance, c'est £tre chasse du paradis," the dream might well have accused them all, likewise, as iassassins of primitive mythic man, whose yearnings for para- !dise they display, each in his own way, as absurd. The plays of other dramatists of the Theater of the 'Absurd studied here employ much less primitive paradisaical imagery than the plays of Ionesco, particularly the plays to be studied in subsequent chapters of this discussion which he began to produce at the very end of the fifties and in the sixtiesj and plays of his fellow Absurdists use prac tically none of the imagery and symbolic motifs tradition ally associated with the shaman's intense experience of death, transcendence, and paradise. Their plays do, how ever, present a variety of permutations and combinations of basic mythic patterns of cyclic time and ordered space sur rounded by chaos or the threat of death as integral motifs jin their dramatizations of man's absurd and inexplicable existential situation. CHAPTER V PRIMITIVE MYTHIC MOTIFS OF PARADISE ! | AND ITS LOSS IN TUEUR SANS GAGES i In the spring of 1959, with the opening of Tueur sans j gaqes, the first of the Berenger plays, Ionesco showed that ; |he had entered upon a new period of theatrical productivity. ;This period would be marked by generally longer, less 'purely ritualistic, more verbose plays, which tend to draw upon primitive mythic motifs more heavily and more obviously! than plays of his earlier period and to incorporate such motifs in a more obviously coherent fashion into the the atrical and poetic textures of the plays which use them. ■The mythic plays of this new productive period also become more dominated by the traditional nostalgia for a more per fect, paradisaical existence and give ample evidence to support the affirmation of Josephine Jacobsen and William R. Mueller, in Ionesco and Genet; Playwrights of Silence (New | York, 1968), p. 25, that "Ionesco is the most nostalgic of j : i i i L. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16° | 161 the absurdist playwrights." Tueur sans gages itself depends much more obviously on mythic figurations than any of the plays analyzed so far in ! : |this study. The initial act of this play can hardly be discussed without reference to the paradise mythsj and the jwhole play can be seen as a theatrical expansion of the |image of the paradisaical garden, with its city of light land yet also its central figure of absurdity, which the Old |Man of Les Chaises recalled verbally each evening for his jwife. As Alexandre Rainof has stressed in "Mythologies de ! Il'Etre chez Ionesco," Diss . Univ. of Michigan 1969, p. 169, I I jit is "le paradis que forme la grande image cen-rale" of ' I the play. ! In the first act, B^renger, the central character of i Tueur sans gages, happens to come upon a wonderful, para- i jdisaical quarter at the heart of his dreary city. As in Les Chaises, very little of the setting is actually realized I |on the stage. Only the lighting and Berenger's ecstatic description creates the setting and its aura of wonder for j Ithe audience. As thus described, the quarter is marked especially by its spring verdure, the intense blue and | [bright white of its sky, its luminous radiance, and, for Berenger, its power to grant a sense of the wonder of life 162 and love. Theatrically, the determining factor of the stage set is the lighting. The stage is empty when the opening ^curtain rises; and the stage directions specify that ] au premier acte, 1 'ambiance sera donnee, uniquement, par j la lumiere. Au debut, pendant que la scene est encore vide, la lumiere est grise comme celle d'un jour de novembre. [...] Dans le lointain, bruit d'un tramway, silhouettes confuses des maisons qui s'evanouissent lorsque, "soudain," la scene s'eclaire fortement: c'est i une lumiere tres forte, tres blanche; il y a cette lu miere blanche, il y a aussi le bleu du ciel eclatant et dense. [...] Le bleu, le silence, la scene vide doivent creer une impression de calme etrange. (II, 63) I I The reliance upon lighting and bare stage space to icreate a sense of the wonder which Berenger expresses when i he comes on stage and contemplates the shining blue space 1 gives a strong visionary quality to his experience and to the theatrical experience of the whole first act. Berenger himself is ecstatic in his praise of the miracle which the Architect, who accompanies him, has worked. "Comme c'est beau," he exclaims, "quel magnifique gazon, ce parterre ifleuri... Ah! ces fleurs appetissantes comme des legumes, ces legumes parfumes comme des fleurs... et quel ciel bleu, 'quel extraordinaire ciel bleu... Comme il fait bon!" (II, i 64). The Architect notes also the ideal centrality of the splendid city he has created: "C'est un noyau qui doit, qui devait plutet, en principe, s'elargir" (II, 65); and, as he 163 will later point out, "Tous les tramways menent ici: c'est le depot" (II, 71). But the most noteworthy mark of his central city and of the setting of the first act is its radiance. Berenger speaks of "ce beau quartier clair, cet arrondissement hors classe, avec des rues ensoleillees, des [ avenues ruisselantes de lumiere... cette cite radieuse dans : la cite" (II, 65). During the course of the conversation between Berenger and the Architect, one gets the impression that they are touring a sort of modern architectural "cite radieuse" like ithat Le Corbusier, for example, had begun to promote in the twenties and thirties, perhaps a theatrical spoof on that architect's La Ville radieuse (Zurich, 1935). Yet the audi-; ence actually sees practically nothing of the city that is imagined on stage. It experiences only a sort of theatri- jcalization of a wondrous existential dream of light and ispace, such as Gaston Bachelard has discussed in association with dreams of ascension in L'Air et les sonqes: Essai sur 1'imagination du mouvement (Paris, 1950), p. 137. Bachelard observes that | il semble qu'un azur, parfois une couleur d'or, apparais- sent sur les sommets ou le r£ve nous eleve. Souvent, de lui-mdme, sans aucune suggestion, en vivant 1 'ascension I imaginaire, le r^veur accede a un milieu lumineux ou il | pergoit la lumiere dans un aspect substantiel. [...] Le 164 r§veur a 1 'impression de baigner dans une lumiere por- tante. Il realise la synthese de la legerete et de la clarte. II a conscience d'etre libere a la fois du poids et de l'obscurite de la chair. It is the theatrical equivalent of such an existential dream iwhich the audience primarily experiences during the first part of Tueur sans gages; or on another imaginative level, it is the theatrical equivalent of the traditional mystical i sensation of luminosity. Such a sensation of light, to gether with experiences of ascension, has marked both the primitive shamans 1 ecstatic recovery of the paradisaical state and the experience of "the uplifting of the soul and union with God" described by the great mystics of history, as Eliade notes in Images and Symbols; Studies in Religious Symbolism (1961; rpt. New York, 1969), p. 166. To a great extent, Berenger1s own ecstatic joy at his discovery of the glorious city at the heart of the drab, ordinary city in which he lives his everyday life stems from the fact that the Architect has objectified and proven the reality of a transfiguring personal vision of just such a marvelous place which Berenger had long ago in his youth, i but has since almost forgotten. Berenger had occasionally had in his youth an experience of awakening to the wonder of existence such as Ionesco himself had had during a period of 165 his own life, an experience which the playwright has equated with living in the traditional lost paradise in a conversa tion recorded by Claude Bonnefoy in Entretiens avec Eugene i Ionesco (Paris, 1966), pp. 11-15. Berenger tends to measure |the quality of his life in reference to such earlier, trans figuring moments remembered from the past and thereby intro- i 1 duces a sense of mythic time into the first act of Tueur j sans gages. The objectification of the personal paradisai- jcal visions of his youth which the radiant city provides irenews in him his sense of the wonder of existence and | jstimulates him to fall comically in love with the Archi tect's secretary Dany as soon as he meets her later in the i act and abruptly to propose marriage to her (II, 81) . Addressing the rather inattentive Architect, Berenger ^recalls his youthful experience with comic enthusiasm: "II !y avait, autrefois, en moi, ce foyer puissant de chaleur !interieure, contre laquelle le froid ne pouvait rien, une jeunesse, un printemps que les automnes ne pouvaient enta- |inerj une lumiere rayonnante, des sources lumineuses de joie Ique je croyais inepuisables" (II, 74). This experience loccurred at some indefinable time in Berenger's past: "II idoit y avoir des siecles... ou peut-dtre seulement quelques i | : jannees, ou peut-dtre etait-ce hier" (II, 75) . The 166 'experience recurred only five or ten times in his whole life, but "assez, cependant, pour combler de joie, de certi tude, je ne sais quels reservoirs de 1'esprit. Lorsque : j'etais enclin a la melancolie, le souvenir de ce rayonne- ment eblouissant, de cet etat lumineux faisait renaitre en moi la force, les raisons sans raison de vivre, d'aimer" : I (II, 76). The radiance, fresh vitality, and contact with :the pure sky which Berenger extols in the Architect's city, !he previously experienced in these ecstatic moments of his iyouth in conjunction with a sense of timelessness: j ! C'est a la fin du printemps que cela m'arrivait, ou bien aux tout premiers jours de l'ete, a l'approche de j midij cela se passait d'une fagon tout a fait simple 1 et, a la fois, tout a fait inattendue. Le ciel etait aussi pur que celui dont vous avez su recouvrir votre radieuse cite, Monsieur 1'Architecte. Oui, cela se passait dans un extraordinaire silence, dans une tres longue seconde de silence. (II, 76) In rambling, self-conscious reflections on the meaning jof his youthful visions, Berenger goes on to analyze their ^significance for him in terms of oneness with the universe, ^transcendent lightness, fullness of being, and immortality which echo Eliade's phenomenological analysis of the onto logical significance of the mythic remembrance of paradise ifor primitive man: 167 Je sentis profondement le bonheur unique de vivre. J'avais tout oublie, je ne pensais plus a rien, sauf a ces maisons-la, ce ciel profond, ce soleil qui semblait s'^tre rapproche, a portee de la main dans ce monde construit a ma mesure. [...] Brusquement la joie se fit plus grande encore, rompant toutes les frontieres! Oh, 1'indieible euphorie m'envahit. Ma paix, ma propre lumiere a leur tour s'£panchaient dans le monde, je comblais l'univers d'une sorte d'ener- gie aerienne. Pas une parcelle vide, tout etait un melange de plenitude et de legerete, un parfait equi- libre. [...] Un chant triomphal jaillissait du plus profond de mon titre: J'etais, j'avais conscience que ; j'etais depuis toujours, que je n'allais plus mourir. [...] Tout etait vierge, purifie, retrouve, je ressen- tais a la fois un etonnement sans nom, mtile a un senti- i ment d'extreme familiarite. Je me sentais la, aux portes de l'univers, au centre de l'univers. [...] Je marchais, je courais, je criais: je suis, je suis, tout est, tout est!... Oh, j’aurais cer- tainement pu m'envoler, tellement j'etais devenu leger, plus leger que ce ciel bleu que je respirais... Un effort de rien, un tout petit bond aurait suffi... Je me serais envole... j'en suis stir. (II, 77-78) Like the traditional man of primitive societies, B^ren- jger knew he could live only through the recollection of this earlier, revelatory experience, of "cet instant lumineux qui," he had told himself, "me permettrait de tout suppor ter, qui devrait titre ma raison d'exister" (II, 80) . | However, Berenger has .not had such an experience from the time of his late teens until his recovery of it in seem ingly objectified form in the Architect's city. With comic ;self-pity, he bemoans, "Les reservoirs sont vides" (II, 76)j 168 and later he says, "II se fit en moi une sorte de vide tumultueux" (II, 79). He lives in "le perp^tuel novembre, crepuscule perpetuel, crepuscule du matin, crepuscule de | •minuit, crepuscule de midi" (II, 79). In terms of one of Ithe most pervasive symbols of the play, he continues: "L'eau de la source s'etait tarie, et je me mourais de soif" I | I (II, 80) . ! i | As in Les Chaises, the image of water in Tueur sans i ; I gages implies deterioration or spoilage and death. In the I iearlier play, water was the foreboding water of chaos which -surrounded the old couple's dwelling. In the present play, water threatens Berenger's dwelling and, as he soon dis covers, the radient city itself from within. Early in the I play, Berenger spoke of the humidity which characterizes the; ienvironment in which he has been living, quizzically com plaining that "dans mon quartier, chez moi plus particu- |lierement, tout est humide: le charbon, le pain, le vent, I i ;le vin, les murs, l'air, et mSme le feu" (II, 6 8 ). Now he hopes that he has found a refuge from the debilitating damp ness and cold of his commonplace existence, a refuge in the j ; lArchitect's city, which flourishes without rain, "arrose par i !en dessous" (II, 67), and whose light has the brilliance of jfire. But the radiant quarter, too, knows the menacing 169 presence of water, in the form of an ornamental pool. This pool first appears in association with flowers, fire, and |light and seems to be one more attractive delight in the ^garden-city. When, by means of the stage lighting, "la | forme vague d'un bass in" suddenly appears at one point in the conversation, Bdrenger exclaims, "Tous est si beau... jj'aime les pieces d'eau, mais je me sens attire aussi par ce ibuisson fleuri d'aubepines" (II, 72). Later, however, he jlearns that it is in this ornamental pool that the Killer loose in the radiant city drowns his victims. It is there j '"qu'on en trouve tous les jours, deux ou trois, noyes" (II, 187). Berenger himself then notices the body of a dead child* I , : ;in the pool: "J'apergois... Est-ce possible... Oui, j'apergois, flottant sur l'eau, le cadavre d'un petit gargon jdans son cerceau... un gargonnet de cinq ou six ans" (II, 188) . j In the mythic context evoked by the imagery of the first act, the use of water involves an irony which goes beyond the theatrical irony of the introduction of a pleas ant pool which turns out to be a pool of death. For accord ing to the primitive mythic mentality, water, even when per- i geived in its dark, fearful, and chaotic aspect as bringing i death by drowning or devastation by floods, ultimately 17 0 promises life in accord with the cyclic mythic sequence of life, death, rebirth. As Eliade says in Patterns in Com parative Religion (1958j rpt. New York, 1963), p. 212, "Whether at the cosmic or the anthropological level, immer sion in water does not mean final extinction, but simply a temporary reintegration into the formless, which will be followed by a new creation, a new life or a new man, depend ing on whether the reintegration in question is cosmic, bio logical, or redemptive." However, in the pattern set up in Tueur sans gages, water appears in a paradisaical context which suggests its powers of fertility and its hopeful promise of ever-recurrent new life; but it ultimately sig nifies final death. Drowning in the ornamental pool does not signify reintegration into regenerative forces of life, as its mythic context should suggest, but ironically gives the final seal to man's inevitable decay under the law of nonmythic, historical time marked by the threat of a Killer. When Berenger realizes that death haunts the Archi tect's radiant realization of his dreams, he immediately loses the sense of life he had recovered and reiterates the theme of Miguel de Unamuno discussed in connection with Les Chaises: "Je me sens meurtri, fourbu!... Ma fatigue m'a repris... 1'existence est vainei A quo bon tout, a quoi bon tout si ce n'est que pour en arriver la?" (II, 89). The stage setting begins to change in accord with Berenger's depressed return to ordinary death-prone reality: "Lumiere grise, legers bruits de la rue et du tramway" (II, 90). The lighting prepares for the heavy realism of the second act: "Le decorateur devra faire en sorte que tout devienne, tres I progressivement. plus reel. Le changement doit s'effectuer Ipar l'eclairage et avec tres peu d'elements sceniques" (II, i 90). Finally, at the end of the act, Berenger sinks into complete despair when he learns that Dany, the Architect's ■secretary to whom he had suddenly proposed marriage, has ;been murdered by the Killer. The Architect futilely urges, i"Calmez-vous. Nous sommes tous mortels" (II, 98). Eliade, in Patterns, p. 408, has emphasized that the jtraditional nostalgia for paradisaical immortality, far from being a kind of "'spiritual' attitude, which depreciates jlife on earth and all that goes with it in favour of a |'spirituality' of detachment from the world," actually con sists in a longing "for a concrete paradise," a paradise that "can be won here, on earth, and now, in the present moment," a kind of "'realizable' eternity to which man still j thinks he may have access." As imagined in the first act of I Tueur sans gages. Berenger's quasi-paradisaical nostalgia 172 finds itself reified in a modern architectural and environ mental marvel. But, as Philippe Senart has suggested in Ionesco (Paris, 1964), pp. 109-110, "la cite radieuse est une cite trompeuse." Ionesco ridicules the pretensions of ^modern society to create its own earthly paradise in an imagined city environment whose aesthetic perfection, none theless, provides no buffer against death and whose govern- Jmental control, which appears more and more totalitarian as ithe act progresses, actually seems somehow to include the j Killer within its organizational machine and to sponsor his jdeadly work. The Architect comes to be called "Monsieur le Commissaire" by the latter part of the act (II, 89 ff.). He! icontrols or occupies other significant offices of the ra- I idiant city as well as that of municipal architect (II, 92). The terrifyingly deadly aspect of his totalitarian control becomes clear when he begins to assure Berenger that "avec Imoi, vous ne courez aucun danger" from the Killer since "il he s'attaque pas a 1'Administration" (II, 88-89) and when jhe later informs Berenger that Dany was murdered only after i Ishe left the Administration in a desire to find "sa ' liber ate! £a lui apprendra. Elle l'a maintenant, sa liberte. Je m'y attendais... " (II, 97). Ionesco's ridicule, however, extends beyond the earthly! 173 "paradise" of a modern totalitarian state to include the traditional dream of paradise itself. The theatrical I structure of Tueur sans gages displays the dream of paradise I as absurd in that confronted with the clear reality of i ! death, whether through the machinations of totalitarian manipulators of human history or through the unaided tem- iporal processes of human life itself, this dream quickly fades into nothingness. The dream quality of the theatrical spectacle of the jplay's first act becomes particularly evident when the heavy jrealism of the second act provides the setting for the fur- :ther dramatization of what gradually turns into Berenger's ipersonal confrontation with the Killer. At the beginning of the second act, the dismal presence of an existential situation marked by the threat of death is expressed in the Idank realism of the setting, Berenger's dark, humid, noisy Iground-floor apartment, and in the deathly figure of Beren ger's friend fidouard, with his obscure connection with the |Killer. The setting is a ’ piece obscure, basse de plafond. [__] Un recoin sombrej dans ce recoin tres obscure, un fauteuil de style re- gence, en assez mauvais etat, dans lequel, au lever du | rideau, silencieux, Edouard est assis. [...] Dans le | reste de la piece, dans la penombre, on aperqoit les i contours de vieux meubles. [ ... ] Le decor du deuxieme ! acte est lourd, laid, et contraste fortement avec .............. 174' 1 'absence de decor ou le decor uniquement de lumieres du premier acte. (II, 99-100) Outside the apartment, "le temps est sombre, il neige et il jpleut finement" (II, 100)j and one can hear the comically disagreeable noise of the Concierge's nonsensical singing, accompanied by "des coups de marteau venant de l'etage superieur, un poste de T. S. F. en marche, des bruits, tan- jtdt se rapprochant, tantdt s'eloignant, de camions et de ;motocyclettes" (II, 101). The Concierge characterizes her I t ilife with an image seen before in other plays: "On se donne |un mal de chien pour aller tous au m£me endroit, dans le trou" (II, 102). The audience first notices the deathly ipresence of Edouard only after Berenger arrives. fidouard is described as "mince, tres p£le, l'air fievreux, v^tu de 'noir, crdpe de deuil a son bras droit, chapeau noir de jfeutre, pardessus noir, souliers noirs. [...] fldouard tous- isera ou toussotera, de temps a autre" (II, 100) . Later in the act, Berenger learns that Edouard has the Killer's | briefcase (II, 12 5-126) and quixotically sets out to chal- i : jlenge the Killer with the evidence the briefcase provides. ! Although the second act provides a good deal of farcical humor in the exaggerated naturalism of its setting and in i Berenger's conversation with £douard, its mythic 175 significance consists simply in thus carrying forward the images of dankness and death introduced in the first act and in reinforcing them with a sense of heaviness, darkness, and comical noise. The first half of the third act leaves the paradisaical imagery further behind as it moves through a series of far cical encounters between Berenger and political adherents of La Mere Pipe, a drunk, fidouard, a series of briefcases iden tical to that of the Killer, and the encumbering military traffic. Throughout all this, Berenger strives to recover |the Killer's briefcase after fidouard misplaces it and to jmeet the Killer. La Mere Pipe opens the third act, waving "un drapeau vert avec une oie au milieu" and haranguing her flock: "Peuplel Moi, la mere Pipe, qui 4leve des oies publiques, j'ai une longue experience de la vie politique. Confiez- moi le chariot de l'Etat que je vais diriger et qui sera Jtraine par mes oies. Votez pour moi. Faites-moi confiance. Mes oies et moi demandons le pouvoir" (II, 136) . She pro claims slogans of change which Ionesco twists into a comic j mockery of totalitarian demagoguery: je vous promets de tout changer. Pour tout changer il ne faut rien changer. On change les noms, on ne change j pas les choses. Les anciennes mystifications n'ont pas 176 resiste a 1 'analyse psychologique, a 1 'analyse socio- logique. La nouvelle sera invulnerable. II n'y aura que des malentendus. Nous perfectionnerons le men- songe. (II, 138) She will point history in the only direction her kind of i Apolitical manipulator can: "Nous ferons des pas en arriere et nous serons a 1'avant-garde de l'histoire!" (II, 141). Theatrically, Berenger's prolonged encounter with La j ;Mere Pipe and her mystified followers functions, together with the drunk's antics, fidouard's bungling, and the traffic i ; jam, as a device which helps establish a sense of crowding ion stage and a sense of expectancy on the part of the audi- :ence and thus prepares for a more intense sense of loneli- j i iness and involvement in Berenger's confrontation with death ' when it actually comes. But the meeting with La Mere Pipe lalso has a semantic function. La Mere Pipe not only delays Berenger's confrontation with the irrevocable, finalizing Imoment of man's individual historical existence. Her pres ence also expands the temporal dimension of the play to suggest the terrible and irrevocable catastrophes which I ; political events and those who direct political movements loften cause man to undergo on the larger, social plane of Ihistory. If an individual's death does not reintegrate him ;into forces of life, but merely seals the end of a limited 177 historical span of time, as it threatens to do in Tueur sans gages, it can only be seen as senseless. Similarly, if the terrors of political history, such as those so clearly felt in the totalitarian movements of this century, acquire no significance through some sort of cosmic, regenerative process, such as that taught in traditional myths, then political action of the type fostered by La Mere Pipe can ionly be regarded as senseless and absurd. At one point during the scene with La Mere Pipe, fidou- jard exclaims, "Nous allons tous mourir. C'est la seule jalienation serieuse!" (II, 145). After the crowd and the Itraffic disperse "comme par enchantement" (II, 158), Beren- iger finds himself alone to face the alienation of death. The staging creates a sense of solitude and emptiness and also establishes a spatial image of movement through linear time. The stage directions state that on aperqoit, maintenant, dans le fond du plateau, une tres longue rue ou avenue, avec, tout au loin dans le soleil couchant, le bStiment de la Prefecturej un tram way en miniature traverse la scene, dans le lointain. | [...] La scene s'est legerement obscurcie. Berenger est maintenant seul. [...] Le metteur en scene, le de- ! corateur, le sp^cialiste de l'eclairage doivent faire sentir la solitude de Berenger, le vide qui l'entoure, ! le desert de cette avenue entre la ville et la compagne. [...] Berenger devra avoir I1air de marcher longtemps, pendant la scene qui suit. [...] On pourra, par exemple, de nouveau faire apparaitre des murs, les rapprocher en | couloir, afin de donner 1'impression que Berenger va 178 6tre pris dans un guet-apensj la lumiere ne changera pas: c'est le crepuscule, avec un soleil roux que l'on apercevra, aussi bien lorsque la scene est large, qu'au fond du corridor qui pourra £tre form4 par les decors representant une sorte de longue rue ^troitej c'est un temps, un crepuscule fige. (II, 158-159) Berenger searches for the Killer in order to confront him with the evidence of his crimes and thus to restore to man a life that is always fresh and radiant. As he marches,, he tells himself that "une fois qu'il sera arr^te, ligote, mis hors d'etat de nuire, le printemps reviendra pour tou- jjours, toutes les cites seront radieuses" (II, 160-161). Finally, almost in a state of suspension outside space, jBerenger meets the Killer face to face: "II n'y a d'ail- ileurs presque plus de decor. II ne reste plus qu'un mur, un banc. Le vide de la plaine. Vague lueur a 1'horizon. Les projecteurs eclairent les deux personnages d'une lumiere blafarde, le reste est dans la penombre" (II, 162). Berenger tries at great length to reason with the Kil ler, presenting him with all the evidence he can muster of his senselessnessj but the Killer, who, depending on the I 'staging, may not be seen at all, but only heard, responds merely with snickering laughter. In the end, Berenger even draws two pistols against the Killer, who by now is playing jominously with a knife. But cowed by the knife and by the 179 idiotic laughter of the Killer, Berenger lowers his pistols and utters the final exclamation of the play: "Mon Dieu, on ne peut rien fairei... Que peut-on faire... Que peut-on faire... " (II, 172). Thus Tueur sans gages presents a forcefully developed theatrical image of the absurdity of human existence in the face of death and of the senselessness of any concoctions of Ireason, political machinations, or aesthetically perfect ;artistic creations which man may use to give meaning to an ! existence marked by irreversible time or to create within 'such a time-marked existential framework anything that could; jbe termed an "earthly paradise." Ionesco singles out as especially absurd modern totalitarian efforts to create an utopian environment; but also, by presenting the radiant ! utopia as the reification of ancient mythic dreams of para dise, a reification actually successful only in its unformed ! radiance, he suggests the absurd unreality of the ancient myths of paradise themselves. Whereas the playwright had before gradually insinuated paradisaical elements into the total imaginative milieu of i ! I Les Chaises and Victimes du devoir through snatches of ver- t bal imagery, he here makes the vision of paradise the basic 'stage setting. Whereas the nostalgias and subconscious 180 strivings of the protagonists of these earlier plays thus appeared only vaguely, often inexplicably, and in fragmented form as traditional mythic yearnings for transcendence and immortality, in accord with the plays' suggestive and frag mented theatrical style, B^renger's desire is here poeti cized clearly, even overexplicitly, as the ancient arche typal desire to evade time, history, and death and to live : in a paradisaical state. In fact, in case the audience does inot grasp the significance of the paradisaical imagery and allegory, Ionesco, as has been seen, has Berenger explain at length and more often than necessary the psychological and existential significance of his yearnings and experiences. Besides diminishing the theatrical effectiveness of the play, such theoretical explanations of the archetypal mythic imagery and traditional existential sensibility expressed in : Tueur sans gages actually make the play much less a mani festation of the mythical consciousness than the earlier plays. For, as Ernst Cassirer has noted in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Vol. II: Mythical Thought (New Haven, 1 11955), p. 73, "this consciousness lives in the immediate 1 ^impression, which it accepts without measuring it by some thing else" in the way that Berenger does. ! CHAPTER VI | | A MYTHIC SPATIAL FIGURE IN ! LE ROI SE MEURT j j | During the four years after the opening in March 1959 ! iof Tueur sans gages. Ionesco saw the first productions of a I few of his short plays which display some of the social and I linguistic inanities, violence, and chaos characteristic of I such earlier, more famous plays as La Cantatrice chauve or I La Lecon. Among these short plays, note can be made of Delire a deux (1962), which extends the comic violence to include the larger chaotic context of warfare. So, too, does the short film scenario La Colere which Ionesco wrote j [during this period. Starting with a scene of paradisaical Ipeace, this film suddenly shifts to a couple's argument labout a fly in some soup, which it finally fuses with the jdetonation of an atom bomb and the explosion of the planet I (III, 297 ff.). During this time, too, he wrote a sketch i |for the ballet Apprendre a marcher (1960), in which he gives | ! I i_ _ ........................... 181 the mime of a young paralytic's relearning to walk a trans cendent sense of larger mythic scope by setting his move ments in a shifting "d£cor" which "se transforme progres- :sivement en jardin lumineux" and by transforming the para lytic's efforts themselves into graceful dance movements through which he finally ascends "un escalier" which "appa- |ra£t dans le fond, tres lumineux et sans fin" (IV, 266).1 However, Ionesco's principal works of these years are I ; the three other plays which have Berenger as their protago- Inist. Although the protagonists of the four Berenger plays iseem to have little that would establish them as a single |identifiable character distinguishable from the similarly l motivated and situated protagonists of, for example, the earlier Am4dee or the later La Soif et la faim, they are at least nominally the same character; and the Berengers of the I three plays subsequent to Tueur sans gages can be seen as 'acting out in fuller form aspects of the three basic ex periences or confrontations of the Berenger of this play. The protagonist of the second Berenger play, Rhinoceros ! I 1 ^Since Vol. IV of Ionesco's Theatre (Paris: Gallimard, 1966) received a substantial addition in a subsequent print ing without giving notice of a change of edition, it seems 'necessary to note that all references to this volume in the present chapter are to the 1971 printing. 183 ; (1959), has to confront what seems to be an ever more totalitarian society, such as that which would be made up ;by citizens mystified by the progressive order of a dictator ilike the Architect or by the propaganda of a demagogue like La Mere Pipe, with her goose-stepping followers. In the ■end, deserted even by his girl friend Daisy, with whom he had hoped, like Adam with Eve, to "regenerer l'humanite" '(III, 112), this Berenger remains alone and uncontaminated in the midst of a populace infected with and converted to i | "rhinoceritis, 1 1 anxious that he is not a rhinoceros himself land determined not to become one (III, 115-117). The pro- itagonists of the two subsequent Berenger plays, Le Roi se meurt. first produced three years later, in December 1962, and Le Pieton de l'air, produced just two months later, in February 1963, experience what can be seen as extensions of the polarized existential experiences which distinguish the ifinal episode of Tueur sans gages from the opening scene. For the Berenger of Le Roi se meurt confronts, alone and Iwith dignity, the presence of deathj and the Berenger of Le Pieton de l'air experiences, unexpectedly and through no 'efforts of his own, a sense of transcendence, ultimately delusive, that men have long regarded as proper to their i jtrue being. 184 Both of these latter plays take place in imaginative theatrical and poetic settings which carry markings of tra ditional mythic designs. But the simple mythic figure underlying the action of Le Roi se meurt. as well as the straightforward unfolding of this action in a ceremony aimed at an acceptance of death, distinguishes this play from both Tueur sans gages and Le Pieton de l'air. with their elabo rate mythic milieus, relatively complex developmental jstructures, and emphases on the terrors of historical time land death. Le Roi se meurt appears, rather, as a further [development of the theatrical pattern seen earlier in the more whimsical imaginative tracings of Le Nouveau Locataire. As Leonard Pronko, in Eugene Ionesco (New York, 1965), pp. 42-43, has recognized, Le Roi se meurt is actually "radi cally different" from both the other three Berenger plays ;and Ionesco's earlier works. For the play relates the death of a man in basically realistic terms, if by realism we mean recognized, genuine emotion truth- ; fully reflected. The progression from security to sus picion, from refusal to realization to slow acceptance, is told in moving terms. The two central characters, | Berenger and [the older Queen] Marguerite, are rounded, reasonably complex people within the areas of their ob sessions. They have a real existence, which is rare in Ionesco's theater. Their language and that of the other characters as well "is 185 not that familiar repetitious, nonrational, amusing speech. With few exceptions it is the speech of reasonably living human beings . " In this least characteristic, and yet one of the best, ;of Ionesco's plays, the playwright has succeeded in creat ing, as Pronko, p. 40, says, "a kind of archetypal dying iking who is both human and mythical." He is mythical as "a I kind of Prometheus and Fisher King in one," according to Pronko's analysis, and also as the center of a realm that is homologous, in its basic imaginative figurations and exis- itential significance, to primitive sacred mythic space. Oriented around his person and his throne, the realm that extends from him depends upon his monarchical power not so much for its political as for its basic ontological security from the inroads of death. Moreover, the image of monarchi cal power itself, like images of elevation and flight, has ilong functioned symbolically in the mythic imagination as an ■image of "la reconqu£te d'une puissance perdue, d'un tonus degrade par la chute" from the primal realm of transcendent freedom and immortality, as Gilbert Durand has noted in Les Structures anthropologigues de 1'imaginaire: Introduction a 1'archetypologie generale (Paris, 1960), pp. 148-149. In ;Ionesco's play, of course, the monarchical trappings and 186 spatial domain serve as a regally and mythically ironic set ting for the stripped and detached King's final ascent to ;his enthronment in death, for his ceremonial exercise, as a lone human being, of the only power and dignity left him, a 'severely limited, but somehow wondrous power and dignity of the free consent to the event of one's own death. As pre sented in the play, this event is given meaning neither by •a role in some larger plan of history nor, unlike the saving death of the primitive antecedent of the Fisher King, by its function in a cosmic mythic process. It is an event which jhas no meaning and dignity beyond what this simple free consent gives it. The theatrical ceremony of the play takes place in what the initial stage directions specify as "salle du tr6ne, vaguement delabree, vaguement gothique. Au milieu du pla teau, contre le mur du fond, quelques marches menant au tr6ne du Roi" (IV, 9). In its vaguely dilapidated condi tion, the throne room is emblematic of Berenger's kingdom, which has lost its vigor and potency at just those points where, to the traditional mythic mind, it should be sym bolically most effective: "Son palais est en ruines. Ses Iterres en friche. Ses montagnes s'affaissent. La mer a defonce les digues, inonde le pays. [...] II laisse des hectares et des hectares s'engloutire dans les precipices sans fond. [...] Le royaume est plein de trous coirune un immense gruyere" (IV, 15). Furthermore, le printemps qui etait encore la hier soir nous a quit- tes il y a deux heures trente. Voici novembre. Au-de-la des frontieres, l'herbe s'est mise a pousser. La-bas, les arbres reverdissent. [...] Chez nous, les feuilles se sont dessechees, elles se decrochent. Les arbres soupirent et meurent. (IV, 17) When the King enters his shabby throne room (IV, 18), ■he is informed by his older Queen Marguerite that he is going to die (IV, 20)j he takes his place, with some signs ;of feebleness, on the throne; the Guard solemnly announces, "La ceremonie commence!" (IV, 21); and Berenger Ier gradu ally begins to admit his own dilapidated state. He, like his kingdom, is, as he somewhat comically bemoans, "plein [...] de trous. On me ronge. Les trous s'elargissent, ils in'ont pas de fond. J'ai le vertige quand je me penche sur mes propres trous" (IV, 54). As his deterioration becomes more and more pronounced, Marguerite, the younger Queen Marie, the Guard, and Juliette, the housekeeper-nurse, at one point sum up his relation to his domain. Juliette reminisces, II etait le roi d'un grand royaume. | Marie: Il en etait le centre. II en etait le coeur. 188 Le Garde: Le royaume s'etendait tout autour, tres loin, tres loin. On n'en voyait pas les bornes. | Juliette: Illimite dans l'espace. Marguerite: Mais limite dans la duree. A la fois j infini et ephemere. Marie: Ils ont grandi ensemble, son royaume et lui. Marguerite: Ils disparaissent ensemble. Juliette: II etait le roi, maitre de tous les uni- vers. ; \ , Marie: Il avait bien organise son univers. II n'en j etait pas tout a fait maitre. II le serait devenu. II j meurt trop tdt. (IV, 62) Marguerite directs the ceremony of Berenger's detach- iment from his kingdom and resignation to death, moved by the; conviction that it is necessary for him to "vivre avec la ■conscience de son destin, " a conviction which distinguishes her from the younger Marie (IV, 14). Marguerite tells him, when he first takes his place on the throne at the beginning of the play, "Abdique volontairement" (IV, 23). The Physi cian in attendance adds, shortly after the commencement of the ceremony, "Le devoir de Votre Majeste est de mourir dignement" (IV, 33). Under Marguerite's guiding care, the ceremony advances "doucement," as she says when he finally begins to detach himself from the attractions of his king- idom, "comme pour un pansement qui entoure une plaie a vif, un pansement dont on souleve d'abord les marges les plus eloignees du coeur de la blessure" (IV, 52). With an appreciation of the life-death process of earthly existence contrary to that which the traditional mythic man learned from the earth's vegetation, Marguerite remarks that the death which she hopes to help Berenger recognize and accept ; "a toujours ete la, presente, des le premier jour, des le germe. Elle est la pousse qui grandit, la fleur qui s'epa- ;nouit, le seul fruit" (IV, 53). In marked contrast with the protagonists of all of |Ionesco's other mythic plays except that of Le Nouveau Loca- I taire and in contrast with traditional mythic man in gen eral, Berenger has to strip himself, in his ceremonical detachment from all that keeps him from accepting death, from practically none of the traditional nostalgia for and attachment to timeless memories of a wondrous past. The iyounger Queen Marie romantically urges him to evade the ’ progress of the present ceremony and live in the memory j de ce matin de juin au bord de la mer, ou nous etions j ensemble, la joie d'eclairait, te penetrait. Tu l'as | eue cette joie, tu disais qu'elle etait la, inalterable, ; feconde, intarissable. Si tu l'as dit, tu le dis. 1 I Cette resplendissante aurore etait en toi. Si elle 1'etait, elle l'est toujours. Retrouve-la. (IV, 42). i |But he has already begun to realize, as he himself exclaims. 190 that, "helas, ce qui doit finir est deja fini" (IV, 41 and 43). When Marie joins the others in trying to convince Berenger that in death he will merely return to the "patrie" : from.which he was exiled at birth, she prays, "Autre monde, jmonde perdu, monde oublie, monde englouti, remontez a la surface"; but he claims that he has "aucun souvenir de cette patrie. [...] Aucune nostalgie, si tenue, si fugitive soit- elle" (IV, 45). The wonders of life which present the most vivid at traction in Le Roi se meurt are not transcendent experiences |of love, ecstasy, memories, or dreams, which generally con stitute the object of the existential yearnings of protago nists of other mythic plays. Rather, they are the marvelous experiences of an ordinary, even laborious workaday exis tence, like that which the domestic Juliette, to Berenger's great amazement, finds such a burden and complains of at Isuch great length. She tells the King, I Je vis mal, Seigneur. | Le Roi: On ne peut pas vivre mal. C'est une contra- i diction. I i Juliette: La vie n'est pas belle. Le Roi: Elle est la vie. i | | Juliette: Je lave le linge de toute la maison au lavoir. J'ai mal aux mains, ma peau est crevassee. 191 Le Roi, avec ravissement: ga n'en finit pas! Juliette: Je suis fatigu^e, fatigu£e, fatigu^e. Le Roi: Apres on se repose. C'est bon. Juliette: Je n'en ai pas le loisir. : Le Roi: Tu peux esperer que tu 1'auras... Tu mar- ! ches, tu prends un panier, tu vas faire les courses. Tu dis bonjour a l'epicier. Juliette: Un bonhoinme obese, il est affreux. Tene ment laid qu'il fait fuir les chats et les oiseaux. I Le Roi: Comme c'est merveilleux. Tu sors ton porte- ! monnaie, tu payes, on te rend la monnaie. Au marche, il y a des aliments de toutes les couleurs, salades vertes, cerises rouges, raisins dores, aubergines vio- I lettes... tout 1'arc-en-ciel!... Extraordinaire, in- croyable. Un conte de fees. Une feerie tout ga, une f§te continuelle. (IV, 48-51) I ; :Gayle Pye Altizer has noted how differently Berenger Ier here expresses his feelings toward life from former Iones- cian protagonists in "Affirmation in the Drama of Eugene Ionesco," Diss . Emory University 1971, p. 169j and Rosette !c. Lamont, citing the evidence of this passage in "Death and Tragi-Comedy: Three Plays of the New Theatre," The Massa chusetts Review. 6 (1965), 396, has stressed that the pres ent play, "a tragi-comedy about the fear of dying, is above hll a paean to life." Nevertheless, beginning with "le pot-au-feu" which Juliette finds so common and unappealing and he himself so 192' appetizing, Berenger enters into the spirit of the ceremony and starts detaching himself from the enticements and at tractions of his life (IV, 51-52). The stars cease to in terest him (IV, 54). He begins to forget Marie and she idisappears (IV, 6 6). He loses his sight; and anxious, like Hamm in Fin de partie, to feel the walls around him, he is led by Juliette to touch one of the walls of the throne room1 (IV, 67-68). Juliette and the Guard disappear, and the I Physician leaves the stage (IV, 6 8 ). They do so, Marguerite assures him, in accord with his will (IV, 69). Finally, alone with Marguerite and then, at the very |end, completely alone, Berenger strips himself completely from attachments to life in a scene which Altizer, in "Affirmation," p. 164, calls "not merely dignified— as Mar- ; guerite persistently demands— but gentle and almost lovely i as well as awe-inspiring." Watching Berenger, the audience ;is drawn with him into a kind of ascetical exercise which iissues in an appreciation of the strange and awesome dig nity of dying without any of the hope which traditional i I myths provide. The scene presents theatrically what Miguel de Unamuno has recommended theoretically in Tragic Sense of Life (1921; rpt. New York, 1954), p. 43: "To consider |our mortal destiny without flinching, to fasten our gaze 193 upon the gaze of the Sphinx, for it is thus that the malevo lence of its spell is discharmed." Unamuno, p. 42, suggests for the meditation of his readers what Marguerite accom plishes ritually for Berenger: I ■ Imagine a slow dissolution of yourself— the light dim ming about you— all things becoming dumb and soundless, enveloping you in silence— the objects that you handle crumbling away between your hands— the ground slipping from under your feet— your very memory vanishing as if in a swoon— everything melting away from you into noth ingness and you yourself also melting away— the very consciousness of nothingness, merely as the phantom ! harbourage of a shadow, not even remaining to you. Marguerite, whose words are the only sounds Berenger can hear at the end, encourages his progress by telling him how she is helping by cutting the ties that bind him and the attractions that weigh him down. At the same time, moving around him, she "coupe dans le vide, comme si elle avait dans les mains des ciseaux invisibles"j and then, leaning down, "elle enleve des boulets invisibles des pieds du Roi, puis elle se releve en ayant l'air de faire un grand effort pour soulever les boulets" (IV, 70). Her action recalls briefly Amedee's heavy efforts to free himself, not from jlife, but from death in the earlier play (I, 294 ff.). Loosening his clenched fingers, she coaxes, "Ces graines ne repousseront pas, la semence est alteree, c'est de la mau- 194 vaise graine. Laisse tomber, defais les doigts [...] ISche les plaines, l£che les montagnes. Comme ceci. Ce n'etait iplus que de la poussiere" (IV, 71-72). Yet the climactic ceremonial enthronement of the con- j eluding moments of Le Roi se meurt are the King's own ac tion. While the old Queen urges, orders, and cajoles from la corner of the stage, "le Roi avance en direction des marches du trdne" and "commence a monter les trois ou quatre inarches du trdne" (IV, 73). Marguerite urges from the side, "Plus haut, encore plus haut, monte, encore plus haut, en core plus haut, encore plus haut"j and then she tells him, : "Donne-moi tes jambes, la droite, la gauche. [...] Aban- donne-moi le bras droit, le bras gauche, la poitrine, les deux epaules et le ventre" (IV, 73). At her direction, Berenger ascends right up to the throne, "raidit ses mem- bres," becomes "immobile, fige comme une statue" (IV, 73- 74). When she herself then suddenly disappears, "le Roi est 'assis sur son trdne" (IV,- 74) . Meanwhile, the surrounding decor has also gradually disappeared. "II n'y a plus rien !sur le plateau sauf le Roi sur son trdne dans une lumiere |grise. Puis, le Roi et son trdne disparaissent egalement. ;Enfin, il n'y a plus que cette lumiere grise" (IV, 74). iBerenger Ier has made his ritual ascent. Like Amedee's 195 final ascent, Berenger's is a marvelous ritual experience of transcendent freedom, but of freedom from the terror of death through a free consent to its very inevitability. CHAPTER VII PRIMITIVE MYTHIC MOTIFS OF PARADISE AND ITS LOSS IN LE PISTON DE L*AIR i The Berenger of Le Pieton de l1air, which opened in jFebruary 1963, comes face to face with death just as surely ias Berenger Ier of the play which opened just two months iearlierj but he does so in the context of a much stronger, jeven overwhelming mythic ambiance of a transcendent para- jdise. His total existential experience thus appears much closer to that of the Berenger of Tueur sans gages . For the enchanting, whimsical setting in which the writer Berenger, his rather uncongenial wife Josephine, and his loving daughter Marthe, carry out this new play's action, displays concretely on the stage basic aspects of the imagined "cite iradieuse" of the earlier play. At the same time, Berenger himself, as an Ionescian protagonist, closely resembles lAmedee. A frustrated playwright and a husband separated ifrom his wife by differences in basic existential I 197 sensibilities, his uncontrollable promenading about the air and dazzling ascent into the heavens provide the climactic action of the play. The wondrous, paradisaical setting of Le Pieton de 1'air. a setting which changes somewhat as Berenger's family moves along its walk in the course of the play, is a verdant English countryside, with Berenger's cottage at the far 1 left. Both the cottage and the country fields "doivent jdonner une ambiance de r§ve," but a dream "rendu davantage par les moyens d'un artiste primitif, faussement maladroit, que par les moyens d'un artiste surrealiste" (III, 121). The fields are fresh and full of light and form a plateau overlooking a valley where one can see "les premieres mai- sons toutes blanches et tres ensoleillees, d'un soleil d'avril, de la petite ville de province anglaise. Le ciel est tres bleu et tres pur. On peut voir quelques arbres sur la scene: cerisiers, poiriers en fleurs" (III, 121). It is Sunday, and one can hear "les cloches de l'eglise catho- lique" (III, 121). i Motifs o,f death and of the ravages of history that had played such significant roles in the three other Berenger plays make themselves felt early in the present play when this Berenger rants briefly against literary geniuses who 198 "considerent que l'Histoire a raison alors qu'elle ne fait que deraisonner" (III, 126) and when he asserts that "nous pourrions tout supporter d'ailleurs si nous etions immor- tels . Je suis paralyse parce que je sais que je vais mou rir" (III, 128). Death and historical destruction also make their presence felt. The Undertaker's Assistant arrives and; informs Josephine that her poor dead father is no longer :dead, to the comic disgrace of "la bonne reputation de notre maison, fondee en 1784" (III, 130). And Berenger's cottage is bombed by a plane which he recognizes as "un avion alle- imand de bombardement. Un rescape de la derniere guerre" | (III, 133). | On the other hand, reiterating something of the nos talgia of Tueur sans gages, Berenger speaks of "une neces- i isite de renouvellement interieur" as a prerequisite for the rejuvenation of his writing (III, 126). And later^ when Marthe gives Josephine and him some of her fresh flowers, he speaks of life in connection with the power of love and the need to remember the beauty and joy of life and love: Je ne resiste pas aux gestes tendres. Ah! si tout le monde etait comme toil On vivrait dans la douceur. La vie serait possible et l'on pourrait aussi mourir sans chagrin, paisiblement. Quand on vit joyeusement, on peut mourir joyeusement. On devrait s'aimer toujours. Marthe: Moi, j'aime toujours. Berenger: Qu'est-ce que tu aimes? Marthe: J'aime... Je ne sais pas quoi... Mais j'aime. C'est tellement beau ce que l'on voit. Berenger: Tu as raison. Mais on oblie. La plupart | du temps, on oublie. Rappelle-le-moi, quand tu nous vois soucieux, ta mere et moi. (Ill, 155) Nevertheless, the setting and, later on, the action of Le Pieton de 1*air highlight a traditional paradisaical iaspect of the play which remained implicit and subdued in Tueur sans gages. The stage setting of the present play j involves not only the horizontal plane of the English Icountryside, but also a whimsically vivid sense of verti- icality. Looking across the pleasant valley below to the 1 opposite hill which forms part of the opening stage set, "on peut voir les cables d'un telepherique et, sur les cables, deux petits wagonnets rouges, montant et descendant" (III, 122). Later in the play, as the action begins to junfold, the sense of verticality becomes more pronounced as it becomes more and more fused with a sense of rapid motion jand luminosity, particularly in connection with the various Iradiant and colorful means of elevated transport and passage that come to exert such a splendid fascination over Berenger and his family. As Berenger, his wife, and his daughter icontinue on their promenade, they stand amazed when they 200 aperqoivent de 1 'autre c6te un palais avec des tours, de style fantaisiste, au milieu des bois [...] on voit monter un train a cremaillere avec des wagonnets di- versement coloresj la toile de fond se deroule toujours et l'on voit sur la cime d'en face une petite Tour Eiffel, un ballon rouge qui s'envole, un lac bleu, une cascade, le terminus d'un telepherique, on voit passer une petite fusee avec des feux qui clignotent, etc., puis de nouveau des bois avec des arbres en fleurs. (Ill, 142) iThe cog railroad, aerial tram cars, balloon, rocket, minia- | Iture Eiffel Tower, and later the shimmering "pont d'argent" (III, 157) have an imaginative structural resemblance to the mountains, ladders, ropes, and rainbow-bridges which have j-traditionally provided shamans, in their ecstatic dreams land ritual seances, with ready means of transcendent access ■to higher planes of the mythic cosmos, as Mircea Eliade notes in Shamanism. ' * ' On the whole, the play's imaginative setting becomes a sort of ideal paradisaical cosmos, filled, so it seems, with means of immediate contact with wondrous, i transcendent realities. I Unfortunately, the imaginative action of the play that provides the spectacular culmination of such motifs of [transcendent, elevated motion does not actually get underway | ^Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. 1st ed., rev. (Princeton, 1964), pp. 117-118, 12 5-127, 2 01-2 02, 483- [484. This will be referred to as Shamanism in the text. 201 until later. Meanwhile, the first third of the play gets bogged down in rather prolonged and dramatically irrelevant conversation, theatrical gimmickry, and banter on the part of Berenger, the Journalist who interviews him, John Bull, j ;the promenading Britishers, and even a "petite cantatrice ;chauve" (III, 135). With their stereotyped banality and sterile "normality," the Englishmen form what Claude Abas- ! itado, in Eugene Ionesco (Paris, 1971), p. 163, calls the : "monde diurne," a world which comes to be contrasted with jthe "monde onirique" and "la vision de l'Antimonde" as the jaction progresses. Abastado there notes that "le premier ; in'est que l'apparence, les autres sont la verite." ; I "Le Passant de 11Anti-Monde" first appears at a time when the amazement of Berenger and his family becomes more marked. He comes on the scene suddenly, "v§tu a l'ancienne mode, avec des favoris blancs," holding in his lips "sa pipe ja l'envers" (III, 144). If the world from which he spora dically appears proves, in the course of the play, to be the Iworld of "la verite," it has, as first described, an imagi native resemblance to the mythic "otherworld" of the dead I : Iwhich some primitive societies have traditionally conceived 1 • I jof "as an inverted image of this world. Everything takes Iplace as it does here, but in reverse. When it is day on 2 02 earth, it is night in the beyond . . . a scarcity of game or fish on earth means that it is plentiful in the other- iworld" (Shamanism, p. 205). Berenger suggests that we can j get some idea of the silent visitor's "Anti-Monde" when we isee les tours d'un chateau se refletant dans l'eau, une mouche la t§te en bas au plafond (...] un jongleur, un acrobate ou les rayons du soleil qui se refractent, se brisent, se desintegrent en une poussiere de couleurs apres avoir traverse un prisme de cristal, pour se re- constituer, tu vois, sur ce mur, sur cet ecran, sur ton visage, comme une lumiere eclatante, unie... et a l'en- vers. (Ill, 150-151) He says that it is thought that the dead go to this other- world (III, 149), where there is hope that perhaps "apres avoir traverse le neant, tout sera-t-il reconstruit, res- taure, de l'autre cdtej a l'envers, certes, puisque c'est de l'autre c6te" (III> 152). While "un arbre en fleurs" and a suddenly appearing "colonne rose, petite, fleurie" disappear and reappear alternately (III, 151), Berenger explains that these objects are maintaining an equilibrium between the ordinary world and the otherworld: "Lorsque Iquelque chose sort (la colonne redisparait). une autre chose doit entrer (1'arbre reapparait)" (III, 152). Shortly thereafter and just after Marthe lovingly gives Berenger one of her flowers (III, 155), there also appears a large "pont d'argent" (III, 157). "]£blouissant de lumi ere, " it joins the two edges of the valley below "comme un vaisseau en forme d'arche, aerien, semblant suspendu tres haut, au-dessus de la riviere, chevauchant les cimes lumi- neuses" (III, 157-158). A theatrical reflection of B^ren- ger's own feelings, the shimmering arch appears at a time iwhen Marthe's loving gesture arouses in his own body a strange and wondrous sense of lightness. "Jamais je n'ai \£te si detendu," he tells his daughter, "jamais je n'ai ete si heureux. Jamais je ne me suis senti si leger. Que jm'arrive-t-il? [...] C'est gr£ce a toi" (III, 155). IShortly afterwards, he begins bounding about and exclaims joyfully, "Je ne peux plus contenir ma gaite. Elle deborde. [...] Cela deborde, cela m'emporte, cela me transporte, cela me souleve de terre" (III, 160-161). The self-contained Britishers and the huge John Bull disapprove. But Beren- :ger's lightheartedness is contagious. They, too, begin hopping about like birds and singing, but without actually flying (III, 162-164). His own feet actually keep leaving the ground. He seems, according to the stage directions, : "d'avoir beaucoup de mal pour se maintenir a la surface du sol" (III, 165). He cries out, "Je m'envole" (III, 165). jBut when he begins bounding up as high as two meters, his 2 04 wife Josephine comically complains, "Finis, voyons. Tu n'es pas un papillon" (III, 165). From this point on, Berenger*s strolling about the air and ascension dominate the action of Le Pieton de l'air. iWhen Marthe later asks how he does it, he says that it is just like riding a bicycle. He demonstrates. A white cir cus bicycle is thrown out from the wings; a few circus props ! appear, as well as a sloping platform on which Berenger icycles up above the spectators' heads (III, 171-173). Then {trapezes descend from the flies and Berenger demonstrates ia more natural, gymnastic method of flight (III, 174-175). | But then "soudain, Berenger, repoussant du pied la Iterre un peu trop fort, prend son envoi, tres rapidement, et disparait en un instant dans les cintres" (III, 176). At a suddenly accelerated pace, he both rises upward and begins also to fly horizontally. The stage directions pre- jscribe that "les Anglais tournent la t§te et se tournent ! s {tout entiers, tres vite, comiquement, pour le suivre dans {sa trajectoire. [...] On voit une sorte de boule lumineuse ou de fusee feu d'artifice, qui apparait, disparait, va de {plus en plus vite, droite a gauche, gauche a droite" (III, j {177). Finally, after more than 2 00 complete circuits, i Marthe says, "II va si vite qu'on dirait qu'il ne bouge 205 |plus"j and the ball stops "au milieu du 'ciel'" (III, 177). Then "on ne voit plus la boule, ni lui, ou peut-£tre un tout ipetit Berenger poupee minuscule" (III, 178). He has Istopped; and as one Englishwoman says, "II regade les quatre coins de l'horizon" (III, 178). Then he goes still higher and disappears. Blaise Cendrars, in "Le nouveau Patron de l'Aviation," ■ j Cahiers de la Compagnie M. Renaud-J.-L. Barrault, 42 (Feb. i |1963), 93-102, has associated Berenger's flying around with |the ecstatic levitation reported of various Christian mys- jtics, stressing the function of the ascensional symbolism iof the play as expressive of man's traditional longing for jrealized transcendence. In the following article of the i same issue, "La F§te aerienne," p. 103, Yves Lorelle speaks j i |of this symbolism as expressive of man's longing for a lost ; ifreedom: "Ayant commence par tomber. l'homme devait neces- 'sairement £tre obsede par 1' idee de remonter . " Moreover, i ; 1 the theatrical and poetic setting in which Berenger's flight occurs contains imaginative structures and embellishments ! i ■ which make it not unlike the spectacular ritual seances, | Sketched earlier in connection with the flight of Amedee, jin which primitive shamanic forerunners of the great mystics ; ! ; ^isplayed symbolically for the public their powers of 2 06 transcendent return to the higher realms of freedom and paradisaical contact with the gods. Such spectacular sean ces were, Eliade notes, "unequaled in the world of daily experience" and revelatory of another, fabulous world "in which everything seems possible" (Shamanism, p. 551) . Prom such a traditional point of view, the setting and action of the play evoke what appear to be something of that para- idisaical world which man has traditionally regarded as more jrightfully his than his present earthbound existence, a l j jworld that a number of primitive myths place in that pri- j imordial time when "all human beings could ascend to heaven, by climbing a mountain, a tree, or a ladder, or flying by their own power, or being carried by birds" (Shamanism, p. 480) . Berenger says as much himself about his wondrous feel ings and buoyant experiences. Referring to the joy of re ceiving Marthe's loving gift of the flower, he speaks of j"une de ces joies oubliees, oubliees et pourtant bien con- nues, comme une chose qui m'appartient de toute eternite, que l'on perd tous les jours et qui cependant ne se perd i jjamais. La preuve, c'est qu'on la retrouve, qu'on la re- I connait" (III, 155-156). The ability to fly, too, is an ! bften lost joy that belongs to man: 2 07 Tout le monde doit savoir voler. C'est une faculte innee. Tout le monde oublie. Comment en ai-je pu oublier le procede? C'est simple, pourtant, lumineux, enfantin. Quand on ne vole pas, c'est pire que si nous etions prives de nourriture. C'est pour cela sans doute que nous nous sentons malheureux. (Ill, 166) :He claims that "voler est un besoin indispensable a l'homme" :(III, 166). Berenger's own flight, however, unlike that of Amedee, ibut like paradisaical experiences, dreams, and flights of fancy of all of Ionesco's other mythic protagonists, ends, |not in joy, but in an experience of death and of the ab surdity of life. Once Berenger has disappeared in the sky, ; "le plateau s'obscurcit petit a petit. Lueurs rouges et sanglantesj grands bruits de tonnerre ou de bombardements. Dans le silence et la penombre, un projecteur eclaire d'a- bord faiblement et isole Josephine" (II, 178), who provides the focal point for several brief theatrical displays of the terrifying personal experience of an individual's absurd living under the inexplicable sentence of death. Then, finally, Berenger himself reappears on stage and tells of the larger historical absurdities which form the core of jthe visionary experience he has been having at a point in the sky from which he could see "les quatre coins de 1 'hori zon" (III, 178) . During his disappearance, the stage is taken over by a series of apparitions which torment his wife, Josephine. ‘ Personages who have already appeared in the course of the play now begin to reappear "defigures comme dans un r£ve, imais a peine" (III, 179) . On one level, these nightmare projections of Josephine's existential fears draw attention ;to the separation involved in her and Berenger's marital llife. But the apparitions also function as a theatrical isurrogate for Berenger's own revelatory vision of the pre cariousness and mortality of human existence and provide concrete theatrical evidence that man's need to fly, like all yearning for transcendence, is delusive. Man's life culminates, not in transcendent flight, but in the fulfill ment of an impending sentence of death. During one of Josephine's apparitions, a child appears. He is trying to scale a wall to get out into the light, but without success. IA dream figure of John Bull, who comes after the child, [ cruelly tells him, "Tu apprendras que la lumiere est bien iplus belle quand on la regarde du fond d'un trou noir" (III, l 1181-182). Then a terrifying "juge monumental avance, sur ides roulettes bien stir, vers Josephine" (III, 183). Not jknowing of what she is accused, she begs, "Dites au bourreau de ne pas me tuer" (III, 185) . But the only response is the i 2 09 "index menaqant du Juge pointe sur Josephine" (III., 185). He disappears; and John Bull appears once more, with a si lent machine gun which he uses to kill two English children standing nearby as a gesture of "euthanasie preventive" i(III, 186-187). He departs. An employee of a mortuary ;takes away the dead children. Then the final apparition jtakes shape before Josephine's eyes. It includes a "Grand ‘ Homme Blanc" and "un bourreau blanc avec cagoule blanche. ! a la droite du bourreau, un gibet" (III, 188). The execu tioner asks Josephine, "Pourquoi laisser pour demain ce qui ipeut aussi bien se faire aujourd'hui?"; and "le Grand Homme Hlanc" reminds her, "Vous savez bien que vous n'y echapperez^ pas. Vous savez bien que tout le monde y passe" (III, 189). Finally the dream world dissolves. The various char acters recover their former normal guise. Once again, "le plateau s'obscurcit petit a petit. Lueurs rouges et san- iglantes; grands bruits de tonnerre ou de bombardements," which turn out to be only "des bruits de petards" (III, 190- |191) . Berenger comes down from his own visionary vantage |point, lands, and, after some hesitation, tells the anxious i crowd standing around what he saw. He had grotesque vi sions, which he insists were not mere nightmare apparitions, jof the absurdity and emptiness of an existence marked by 210 death, war, and conflicts even between warring elements of the cosmos itself: J'ai vu... j‘ai vu... des oies... Des hommes qui avaient des tdtes d'oies. Des hommes qui lechaient les culs des guenons, buvaient la pisse des truies. J'ai vu des colonnes de guillotines marchant sans t£tes, des colonnes de guillotines... sur d'immenses etendues. Et puis, et puis, je ne sais pas, des sauterelles gean- tes, des anges dechus, des archanges vaincus . J'ai vu des continents entiers de paradis en flammes. : Les Bienheureux y brdlaient. Tres haut, j'etais. Pour voir ce qui se passait en direction des autres points cardinaux. Je suis arrive a l'ar&te du toit invisible que je tou- chai du front et ou se rejoignent 1 'espace et le temps. Je regardai a droite, a gauche, derriere, devant. Des gouffres sans fond, les bombardements, les bombar- dements, des gouffres sans fond se creusaient sur des plaines depuis longtemps deja ravagees et desertes. Des millions d'univers qui s'evanouissent, des millions d'astres qui eclatent. i , j Et puis, et puis, la glace succedant au feu infini, le j feu succedant a la glace. Des deserts de glace, des | deserts de feu s'acharnant les uns contre les autres et | venant vers nous... venant vers nous. j Apres, il n'y a plus rien, plus rien que les abimes illi- ! mites... que les abimes. (Ill, 194-198) 211 ; The Britishers present soon tire of Berenger's account of his voyage and wander off. "Allons prendre un the," one iwoman drolly suggests (III, 197). Only Josephine and Marthe :follow him with attention. As he finishes his narration, "le soir tombe sanglant, ; des coups de petards se font entendre, suivis de breves llueurs rouges. Musique foraine, tristement 'gaie'" (III, il98). There is a sort of "14 Juillet anglais" going on. jBerenger assures Josephine and Marthe that there is nothing j to fear from the noise of the firecrackers: "Ce n'est rien iencore pour le moment" (III, 198). Marthe, who has all ;along been the play's only truly active character and whose * spontaneous gesture of love toward Berenger had initially generated his feelings of wonder and set off the principal I ; activities of the play, now has the play's final lines. |With their flimsy consolation, these lines follow the un fortunate tendency of much of the dialogue to obfuscate the Itheatrical force of the play and actually negate the basic Ipoint of the elaborate theatrical display of its final i jquarter. She proposes that "il n'y aura peut-§tre rien i . id'autre que ces petards... cela s'arrangera peut-§tre... ;peut-§tre les flammes pourront s'eteindre... peut-6tre la jglace va fondre... peut-§tre les abimes se rempliront... 212 peut-£tre que... les jardins. . . les jardins... " (III, 198). Le Pieton de l1air evokes a sense of joy and wonder throughout most of the play— the flourishing countryside, jMarthe, the silver bridge with its rainbow colors, and finally Berenger's surprising buoyancy. But the tone sud- i ' : denly changes toward the end as the focus shifts to Jose- iphine and as, in the mythic context, the images of the ispectacular theatrical seance no longer display the recap turing of a paradisaical state through radiant ascent to the heavens and begin to make startlingly present the threat of jdeath. Like Berenger, the traditional shaman met with iforces of death and disintegration in the course of his ! unusual ecstatic journeys to planes of reality not acces sible to ordinary men. But the shaman's contact with death,, as well as his paradisaical experiences, taught him secrets . i 1 \o± the soul helpful and consoling to his tribe; and his own | jinitiatory experience of death drew him into a fuller par ticipation in his tribe's mythic life, in accord with the traditional mythic pattern of life-death-rebirth. Berenger,! ihowever, sees the alienation of death, the division of war ding forces, the elemental conflict of fire and ice, and i jthe violent eruption of the cosmos in no meaningful pattern. |He sees reality as simply absurd and terrifying. So, once ; 213 again, Ionesco has not only summoned up images of the ab surdity of the human existential situation, but also sug gested the absurdity of the religious rites and myths which j primitive man has traditionally used to soothe his anxieties; and maintain his psychic integrity. CHAPTER VIII i j | | THE QUEST FOR THE MYTHIC LOST PARADISE | IN LA SOIF ET LA FAIM j j Perhaps something of the paralysis of the creative ' |imagination that frustrated the literary activity of the jB^renger of Le Pieton de l'air had a hold once more on [Ionesco himself (III, 125 ff.). For the three years after i ! jthe opening of this play saw only two brief new sketches j jgiven their first production, one for a television ballet, j i Le Jeune Homme a marier. and one for the stage, La Lacune. At the beginning of 1966, however, a new major work had its j ' premiere, La Soif et la faim. a lengthy play which, as iSimone Benmussa promptly observed in Eugene Ionesco, "con- |tient tous les themes de son theatre en les developant. |ln particular, this play contains once more the themes of I ! 1 v . ! Eugene Ionesco (Paris, 1966), p. 8 . This will be referred to simply by its title in the text. i 215 the mythic lost paradise and the traditional yearning to recover the paradisaical state. The initial setting of La Soif et la faim recalls the dilapidated, deathly apartment of the second act of Tueur sans gages. The stage directions call for "un interieur assez sombre," with an old fireplace, a dirty, gray wall, ; 2 |an old couch, and a dilapidated old chair (IV, 77). Once iagain, a husband-wife dialogue opens the play. Jean tells jhis wife Marie-Madeleine that he cannot understand why she iwanted to return here to this cold, damp, nightmarish ^apartment, to "ce rez-de-chaussee funebre" that is "plein |de boue. [...] C'est sale, c'est gras, c'est encombre et ga ; continue de s'enfoncer" (IV, 77-79). Jean prefers the kind :of mythically perfect, paradisaical apartment they have just; left, full of light, open to the sky, with views "du Sud, du jNord, de l'Est, de l'Ouest, et de tous les autres points i cardinaux" (IV, 77). Admittedly, he was not completely satisfied with this former apartment. But he wanted to leave it only "pour une maison plus lumineuse encore, enve- ; | j 2 References in this chapter to Vol. IV of Ionesco's i Theatre (Paris: Gallimard, 1966) are to the 1971 printing, jwhich contains a different version of La Soif et la faim ! from that included in earlier printings of this volume with-- iout giving notice of a change of edition. 216 loppee, penetree par l'azur. Une maison perchee sur la montagne" (IV, 80), like those miraculous homes which, with : Itheir consoling views of the sky, "se font oublier d'etre des tombeaux" (IV, 81). i , Jean's longing for a more perfect place in the cosmos springs from the fact that, as he explains it, he can only | live "dans l'espoir que 1 1 extraordinaire va naitre. [...] dans l'espoir du renouvellement et de l'alternance des sai- Isons. [...] II me faut une joie debordante, l'extase" (IV, i |81-82). The dissatisfying, commonplace, ordinary situation j ; iwhich Jean seeks to escape is one subject to death and dis integration, like the existential situations of the Berenger ! 1 plays and of most of the other of Ionesco's plays analyzed in these pages. But at the end of the present play, it will |not be the fact of physical death which proves the absurdity -of Jean's existential situation, but the kind of living ideath that provided the ritual climax of Victimes du devoir. I :Here at the beginning, it is not primarily death and a move- Iment toward death that Jean desires to flee in his longing | Ifor a more perfect life, but the love of Marie-Madeleine. | His wife's very name suggests that she is one of the jworld's great loversj and in contrast with Jean, she seeks jnothing but her partner's love to give her happiness and 217 freedom from the threat of death. She tells him, "Pourvu que je sois avec toi, je n'ai pas peur de mourir. [...] Je suis heureuse" (IV, 82). | Jean, however, responds by telling her, "Vous tenez une I : :grande place. L'univers est encore plus grand, ce qui me manque, plus grand encore" (IV, 83), a response which, in jthe context of images which will appear later in the play, can be taken as an indication of his spiritual kinship with i : jthe hero of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival (New York, 1961), p. 237. During his journeyings, Parzival had re called his lovely wife and said, "I long for her gentle icourtesy, and for her love I sorely mourn— yet even more for' Ithe high goal, to behold Munsalvaesche and the Grail." In the person of Jean's wife, Ionesco has once more set |up an underlying psychological and existential counterpoint to the rhapsodizing of his central male protagonist. But Marie-Madeleine's overwhelmingly positive experience of reality distinguishes her existential sensibilities from jthe fears of love, life, and death which kept the sensi bilities of Amedee's Madeleine and, in Le Pieton de l'air. jB^renger's Josephine confined to the minor mode. In the j ipresent play, it is Marie-Madeleine' s perduring appreciation of the immanent splendor of the world inhabited by Jean and ! 218 herself which contrasts so strikingly with Jean's own per ception of the same surroundings. Her appreciation of the iwonders of a rather ordinary existence provide a secure and i ; iconstant cantus firmus against which Jean's yearning for transcendent wonder gradually reveals its intense mystical character and its intrinsically irresolvable circularity. | Marie-Madeleine feels no urge to leave their apartment, dilapidated though it is. She can see beauty in its i jblotched, old walls: "Elies sont eloquentes ces formes, ces jfigures expressives dans leur mutisme" (IV, 83). She tries |to get Jean to treasure memories which the apartment holds !of his childhood and his family (TV, 92-94) . And she knows ! I : that he will not get what he seeks apart from his present family— from her and their infant daughter Marthe: "Hors de cette maison, hors de nous deux, hors de nous trois, tout lest nulle part" (IV, 95) . Jean, however, with his Expressionist hero's discontent with bourgeois family life and conjugal affection and with his traditional religious desire to recapture memories of a i ! more perfect existence, regards the apartment and all that | 5 it holds quite differently from his wife. In the dirty i blotches on its walls, his imagination can discern only "des i i ivertebres sanglantes, des t£tes penchees, tristes, des 219 jagonisants effrayes" (IV, 83). The memories which the apartment holds for him are mostly unpleasant. The enig matic and overprolonged apparition of "Tante Adelaide" arouses in Jean an uneasy sense of guilt associated with past family events (IV, 91); and the vision which Jean claims to see of a burning woman in the fireplace likewise larouses a vague sense of guilt, in this instance seemingly iassociated with his love of his wife (IV, 93) . Jean rejects | jsuch memories, which are actually intrusions from Ionesco's lown personal dreams, as Claude Bonnefoy records in Entre- i I tiens avec Eugene Ionesco (Paris, 1966), p. 85. Jean pre- ifers "les souvenirs oublies. Non! Pas m6me ceux-la. i jD'autres encore... Les souvenirs d'une vie que je n'ai pas vecue. Non, ce n'est pas ce que je veux dire: des souve nirs que je n'ai jamais eus, des souvenirs impossibles" (IV, 93). He seeks freedom from past family ties and from bonds with his loving wife and their baby daughter. He claims, ;"Mon destin n'est pas le leur, mon existence est ailleurs" ;(IV, 96) . When, at the end of the first episode, Jean actually i makes his break with his present existence and seeks to i transcend whatever happiness he might have with Marie- i Madeleine and their daughter Marthe in the hope of finding 220 more intense and ecstatic joy, the stage imagery and Marie- Madeleine's comments highlight the wound which Jean's 'wrenching separation from the love of his family causes in | jhis psyche and the psychic disease which his constant pining ! I for something more seems to his wife to be. Rocking her jinfant daughter in a cradle, Marie-Madeleine is a "femme i jancree dans la vie, peu ferue de recherches intellectu- jelles," as Alexandre Rainof has described her in "Mytholo- : 3 jgies de l'Etre chez Ionesco." "Quel jardin veux-tu cher- ! Icher? " she asks Jean. "De ton coeur tu ne peux 1'amour jarracher, la plaie serait trop grande, personne ne pourrait igu&rir cette blessure, tu ne peux arracher les racines t J ;d'amour, de ton coeur 1 'amour, tu ne peux arracher, de ton coeur l'amour, de ton coeur l'amour" (IV, 98). But after initiating a game of cache-cache, which Marie-Madeleine |finally finds "trop cruel'" (IV, 101), Jean reappears. "II jarrache de son coeur une branche d'eglantier tres longue, i |sans grimacer, d1 un geste decoratif, essuie les gouttes de i i jsang sur sa chemise, sur ses doigts, il depose la branche ;sur la table, boutonne soigneusement son veston, puis part i I I i 3 j ^"Mythologies de l'Etre chez Ionesco," Diss . Univ. of Michigan 1969, p. 299. This will be referred to hereafter as "Mythologies" in the text. sur la pointe des pieds," saying as he goes, "Tres au-dessus !des vallees hivernales [...] il y a le palais... au milieu |du pare ensoleille. De la, on aperqoit 1'ocean et le ciel reunis... allons" (IV, 102). At the very beginning of the episode, Marie-Madeleine had diagnosed the paradoxical essence of Jean's disease: "Si ce n'est pas 1'agoraphobie, ic'est la claustrophobie" (IV, 77). Now she says that she jwill have to tell the neighbors, once he is gone, that "il ! isouffrait d' une nostalgie ardente" (IV, 102). When Jean has finally given in to his diseased cravings |and disappeared from the scene, the wall behind which he [vanishes suddenly vanishes itself. "On voit un jardin: i arbres en fleurs, herbes vertes et hautes, ciel tres bleu," and on the left, "une echelle argentee, suspendue, dont on ne voit pas le sommet" (IV, 103). Overcome with joy and astonishment, Marie-Madeleine closes the episode with the [exclamation: "Il ne savait pas qu'il y avait cela! II n'a i pas pu voir. Je sentais qu'il y avait ce jardin; je m'en jdoutais . Je n'en etais pas tout a fait sOre moi-m§me. S ' il j avait pu voir, s'il avait pu savoir, s'il avait eu un peu de patience... " (IV, 103). ; At the beginning of the second episode, Jean comes upon i [what the stage directions describe as a "terrasse; elle a 222 l'air suspendue dans le vide. Ciel sombre. A l'arrivee de Jean, le ciel se degagera, cela sera une lumiere, sans ombre et sans soleil. Dans le fond, et tout autour, dans la me- sure du possible, montagnes arides" (IV, 105). Focusing on i I ithe light, height, and purity of this heavenly terrace, Jean perceives it as transfigured with an aura of paradisaical iwonder. He exclaims, "C'est le royaurae de la lumiere," to which the guardian of the museum situated up on this "site ^sublime" responds, "Un peu vide, peut-§tre, un peu seche, i jcette clarte" (IV, 105) . Entering the museum, Jean remarks ! jthat he has been there before, but he cannot remember ex actly when. All memories associated with this paradisaical I y iterrace are "enfouies quelgue part dans la nuit de la me- ;moire" (IV, 106). But in any case, c'est magnifique! Je suis ebloui comme je le fus la premiere fois. Quand? Quand? C'est de nouveau la premiere fois et cette exaltation, je la reconnais. [...] Je me reveille dans l'etonnement d'un matin, de ce matin qui, j'espere, ne finira jamais plusj je renais, je recommence, c'est pour commencer que je suis venu. (IV, 106-107) S As the episode progresses, Jean himself begins to jrecognize the inappropriateness of his naive and uncritical evaluation of his newly found situation. He gradually per- i ceives the coldness and aridity of the terrace as well as 223 the cruel circularity inherent in his search for transcen dent fulfillment. Paradoxically, he now thinks that his former situation, which was encumbered by his wife's love :if by anything, was a situation encumbered by things: "Je m'etais perdu dans des choses" (IV, 107). Yet he finds the jwonderful terrace lacking precisely in the feminine love and jbeauty which he could have found in Marie-Madeleine, but Iwhich he now seeks in a mysterious woman who has promised to meet him, he claims, at the terrace museum. At her arri- ! jval, "le vide va se combler assurement" (IV, 107). In his Iromantic inner gaze, this woman is "une chapelle sur le haut ;d'une colline, non, un temple qui surgit tout a coup dans la for§t vierge" (IV, 109). But as Jean goes on to recall her i mad love for him in imagery and rhetoric reminiscent of words which his wife had used in the first episode to ex press her love for him, this eagerly awaited women appears 'most remarkable for her capacity to give him the same kind of intense love which he fled when it was offered him by Marie-Madeleine (IV, 113). I Jean realizes the truth of his wife's earlier predic- I ; tion that "tu ne peux l'amour arracher, la plaie serait trop grande, personne ne pourrait guerir cette blessure" (IV, 98). For he cries, "Vais-je souffrir pour l'eternite de 224 cette blessure mortelle? Pour l'eternite mortellement sblesse" (IV, 113). However, he knows that his wound is not merely the wound of love which Marie-Madeleine, in her con doling simplicity, believed she could heal. It is, rather, ! Ithe wider and deeper existential wound which the mythic imagery and the overall oscillatory movement of the first itwo episodes have uncovered in Jean's being, a wound which lentails, in part, a desire for concrete feminine affection, but which springs ultimately from the more grave and poi- ;sonous imbalance in the psychic chemistry that arises when jman's traditional craving for the absolute remains unsatis- jfied. i I When, at the end of the second episode, the museum guards remind Jean that it is almost closing time, he ex presses his painful awareness of the existential wound of his psyche in a confused, self-pitying, Expressionist mono- | logue: i II y a maintenant mon coeur comme un animal blesse qui me lacere de ses griffes dans son agonie... mon estomac, j un trou sans fond; ma bouche, un precipice aux parois de feu. Soif et faim, soif et faim. [...] Quel souvenir a-t-elle reveille en moi, quelle nostalgie perdue, quels j desirs caches, quelle necessite oublieei Elle m'a re veille a moi-m§me, elle est le besoin absolu. (IV, 117) i I Sin a cescendo of comic self-pity, he glories, it seems, in 225 his spiritual kinship with the legendary Fisher King, who, suffering terribly and yet unable to die, awaited in the Castle of the Grail the words of Parzival which would cure him of a wound festering, as is Jean's own, from a poisonous imbalance of love and spiritual yearning. Jean cries out, "Vivant comme une plaie vivante. [...] Je m'en vais. Je suis mort. Pourtant, je me meurs encore. Un mot suffirait pour me guerir. Qui est celui qui le detient? Ou est celui que le prononce?" (IV, 118). He adds, "Je ne sais plus ou est mon ancienne maison, j'ai oublie la route, je vais errer" (IV, 118)j and he continues wandering on his journey. The museum guards bid him farewell and, as they ! smell the soup and wine ready for supper, wish him "bon appetit" (IV, 119). In so far as the wound from which Jean suffers actually resembles that of the Fisher King Anfortas, it can be seen as symptomatic of a psychic and religious malaise peculiar to Western culture since the end of the Middle Ages in accord with the diagnosis of Anfortas1 wound made by Joseph j Campbell in The Masks of God. Vol. IV: Creative Mythology | l(New York, 1968), p. 394. Since that time, Campbell notes, there has "spread throughout the Christian world a desolat ing sense not only of no divinity within . . . but also of 226 no participation in divinity without . . . and that, in short, is the mythological base of the Waste Land of the modern soul, or, as it is being called these days, our 'alienation.'" Jean, like modern man, experiences a sense of desolation on two levels: first the social, in a loss of identifi cation with any spiritually compelling, structuring i group; and, beyond that, the metaphysical, in a loss of any sense either of identity or of relationship with a dimension of experience, being, and rapture any more | awesome than that provided by an empirically classifi- ! able conglomerate of self-enclosed, separate, mutually : irritating organisms held together only by lust (crude or sublimated) and fear (of pain and death or of bore dom) . (p. 394) Likewise, like the modern man which Nelvin Vos characterizes1 as the protagonist of Ionesco's theater in general in Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee; A Critical Essay (Grand Rapids, 1968), p. 6, Jean can be seen as "not only cut off from 'God, " but "also from nature and society and even from him self. This sense of cosmic homelessness has its source in the feeling that man is, in the etymological sense of the term, 'absurd,' out of harmony with his world." ; In a more traditional perspective, however, Jean's iquest, as he continues on his journey, "fait songer a 1 'ini tiation des mystiques" of all ages, as Claude Abastado points out in Eugene Ionesco (Paris, 1971), p. 185. For 227 "c'est hors du temps, hors de la mort qu'il cherche l'objet de son desir." From another traditional point of view, that of Zen, Rainof affirms that Jean "se lance dans une re cherche ardue de l'Etre," in contradistinction to his wife, who has already attained "au satori" in the vision, at the end of the first episode, of the garden, which "est le para- dis, le nirvana," there for the finding "dans 1 'appartement ;m§me de Jean, dans la vie de tous les jours" ("Mythologies," ;p. 229). Finally, in the context of a still older tradi tion, Jean follows something of the existential itinerary of ’ primitive heroes and shamans along a lone and arduous path toward a point of separation from ordinary human existence 'where one enters upon a superhuman or paradisaical state of being, such as Mircea Eliade describes in Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (1958; rpt. New York, 1965), pp. 61 ff. As Jean pursues his frustrating journey, he comes face to face with a huge wall in the third episode, "Le Pied du Mur," which was originally produced separately and which, ;if included in the production of La Soif et la faim. extends this already overlong station drama even further. Still, in addition to the stage wall itself, the diverse characters whom Jean encounters in the course of this episode highlight 228 various facets of the absurdity of his existential itinerary I in a nuhiber of succinct theatrical and verbal images and comments. The setting of this episode consists, "dans le fond," of "un grand mur d'un bout a 1 'autre de la scene; tout a fait a la droite des spectateurs, une porte tres basse dans ;le mur. Lumiere bleme. Devant le mur, tout le terrain est :reconvert de broussailes seches, d'une couleur presque j Imarron" (IV, 121) . I Characters appear on stage who display in their persons land in their actions motifs of old age and youth, hard, barren earth and sticky mud, the wonder of springtime and :of entry into marriage and suicide (IV, 122-126). Then Jean enters, barred on his journey by the wall, trying to figure out how to get by it (IV, 126 ff.). One of the characters, the Young Man, offers him the use of a penknife all nicked I up from previous efforts, all unsuccessful, to dig holes in I other walls and encourages him to try it on the present huge wall. "On ne vous impose pas d'aboutir," he tells Jean. I "Vous essayez, simplement. L'essai porte son but en lui- | ;m£me" (IV, 129). The Young Man himself does not share Jean's need to break through the wall and to know "ce qu'il y a derriere. Manie de tout savoir" (IV, 132). The Young 229 Man functions, from one point of view, as a sort of in tellectual male mouthpiece for existential attitudes ex- !pressed in the first episode by Marie-Madeleine in her lov ing efforts to keep Jean home from his wanderings. Thus the Young Man tells Jean, Les murs sont nos garants. [...] Abattre un mur, c'est risque. [...] Le mur nous met a l'abri de l'inconnais- sable, du chaos. C1est une faqon de parler. Nous avons ici 11inconnaissable et le chaos. Mais c'est un chaos qui nous est devenu familier, auquel nous sommes habi tues. Alors, je crois avoir mis un peu d'ordre, alors je crois le connaitre. (IV, 132-133) The Young Man leaves Jean by the wall, where there briefly appears a Woman who has been holding in her hands, so she says, a formerly strong and handsome man who "a perdu sa force. Et puis, il est devenu plus petit. [...] Et puis, tout d'un coup, il a fondu. [...] Je ne le vois plus" (IV, 133). There also appear a Judge and a Convict. ‘ The latter complains to the Judge, "Vous m'infligez les tra- vaux forces a perpetuite, c'est trop" (IV, 133). At greater length and in two different guises, Schaeffer makes his appearance, the ubiquitous rabbi-collaborator-guide- jmagician and all-round historical tyrant, who is adept at | pleading children to their destruction under cover of any land every ideology (IV, 130-132, 135-137). Turning up 230 toward the end of the episode as a tour guide, Schaeffer complains to Jean about one of the tourists, a blind man, iwhom he is shepherding up a hillside: "Il y a des gens qui voyagent, on ne sait pas trop pourquoi, eux-m§mes le savent- !ils? On se demande ce qu'ils peuvent voir" (IV, 135-136). In his role as magician, however, Schaeffer offers to aid Jean on his obscurely aimed meanderings and causes the i 'huge wall to disappear (IV, 137). It is replaced by "une sorte de vieille cuisine sale," whose black walls themselves open up, "laissant apparaitre deux enormes portes beantes" I | (IV, 137-138) . An old Cook, gesturing with her frying pan, Ishows Jean the route he will have to take down from the plateau where he presently is to the plain below. Jean begins the descent, which he fears will be "aussi dure que la montee" (IV, 138). But the old Cook gives him a little ambiguous encouragement: "Mais non. Peut-§tre. C'est une montee en sens inverse. [...] Tu pourrais marcher en chan- tant. (^a rend la marche moins dure. Tu n'as pas le coeur a chanter, tu n'as plus de jeunesse?" (IV, 139). The fourth and final episode, "Les messes noires de la bonne auberge," opens as Jean, unkempt, old, and weary, | comes on the scene and seeks entrance to "la grande salle jou refectoire d'une sorte de monastere-caserne-prison. Au 231 fond de la scene, on aperqoit une grande porte qui se com pose de barreaux assez espaces. Derriere ces barreaux, on ivoit, pour le moment, un paysage terne, peu distinct, un i peu brumeux ou couverte, vide" (IV, 141). In this "etablis- sement" (IV, 143) or "auberge" (IV, 144), under the super vision of "Frere Tarabas, qui a I1air d'un moine et pas tout ja fait l'air d'un moine, cagoule sur la t£te, pas de croix" (IV, 141), Jean comes to experience ritually the intensity jof the diseased craving for ultimate freedom and fulfillment that has been goading him on along his mythic quest. The i ioverall movement of La Soif et la faim thus tends to copy ' I [that of the earlier Victimes du devoir in its passage from unsuccessful mythic excursions to fixed ritual frustration. Jean is famished. Like Choubert in the earlier play, he has "l'air d'un trou" (IV, 145), which the Brothers of ithe "etablissement" try to fill, scurrying around in comi cal, rhythmic fashion to serve him with food and drink with I |which he continues to stuff himself (IV, 145-146) . As a sort of recompense for the meal, Jean begins to entertain them all with a rather jumbled account of what he has seen i ; on his travels, including "soleil, jardin, jardin [sic]." ‘ and something the Brothers know nothing of, "solstice" (IV, il51) . He has also seen "des soldats" and a figure of "la 232 vieillesse m£me" (IV, 154-155). But he could not see well because of the fog, and he has trouble remembering: "J'ai des trous de memoire depuis quelque temps1 1 (IV, 152). Tarabas and the other Brothers, who carefully check his account and keep prodding his memory, had hoped for more. In particular, as Tarabas enigmatically complains, recalling jonce more the medieval legend of the Fisher King, ”11 a ete incapable d'apercevoir le chevalier en armure et, surtout, iil ne se souvient pas de la parole" (IV, 152). Finally, however, Tarabas and the other Brothers end itheir interrogation. Jean has finished eating, and now it is the Brothers' turn to put on an entertainment for Jean. i ; The lengthy ritual playlet which follows extends throughout half this final episode of the play as its principal "messe noire." The first of thirty lessons, the didactic playlet expresses through its prolonged cruel and witty teasing an intense and gripping sense of frustration. Two Brothers play the part of old prisoners, Tripp and Brechtoll, in two separate cages that appear on stage. According to Tarabas' synopsis of the scenario, they both have suffered "de trau- matismes educatifs ou de formations progressivement defor- mantes, si je puis dire. Arrives ou ils sont, ils doivent jrepartir mais dans la direction inverse. Chacun de ces deux 233 personnages doit apprendre le sens oppose. [...] C'est le jeu de 1'education-reeducation" (IV, 156). Tripp, a sort of mock Christian, has arrived at an appreciation of human existence as an existence dependent upon God's paternal providence. Brechtoll, a quasi-Marxist, believes not in providence, but in food. So Tarabas merci lessly prods each of the two prisoners, both of whom are famished, to realize the insufficiency of his particular existential conviction and to try that of the other. If the re-education process succeeds, each will receive some iof the soup that two other Brothers keep tantalizingly ready just outside the cage bars. During the course of the les son, when the starving Tripp continues to ask Tarabas for soup, Tarabas ironically reminds him of his belief in God and God's providence: "Priez-le de vous donner a manger. Sa soupe est meilleure que la ndtre" (IV, 173). Contrari wise, when Brechtoll begs Tarabas for soup, Tarabas urges him, "Experimentez. Demandez votre soupe au Bon Dieu. [...] 11 vous donnera peut-dtre une preuve de son existence. Vous aurez peut-£tre du succes aupres de Lui. Aupres de moi, vous n'en avez pas" (IV, 174). Yet despite the gnawing pangs of hunger which accompany Tarabas' relentless prod- dings and despite Tarabas' mockery, Tripp continues to pray desperately, "Notre Pere, donnez-moi mon pain quotidien" (IV, 175); and despite Tarabas' constant prodding, Brechtoll refuses to pray the same prayer. Ultimately, however, Brechtoll begins to yield, willing to try anything for food. I IHe whimpers, "Dieu, j'ai faim" (IV, 176); he begins to join Tripp in the Notre Pere (IV, 177); and he finally declares, :"Je crois en Dieu. Laissez-moi ma soupe et ma liberte" (IV, ;181). Tripp relents a little less readily. But finally he icries, as Christ on the cross, "Mon Dieu, pourquoi m'aban- idonnez-vous?" (IV, 179). Shortly afterward, he, too, capi tulates and states, "Je ne crois pas en Dieu. [...] Je crois I ia ma soupe. Donnez-moi ma soupe" (IV, 181). To the great satisfaction of all the Brothers present in the audience, the rite of re-education has once more shown its validity. Neither ideologies of a Christian nor ;of a Marxist stamp have any existential significance in the iface of brute, physical hunger. In the end, both Tripp and Brechtoll receive their soup. But they remain imprisoned, since Tarabas is not sure "s1il y a une formule pour la mise |en liberte" (IV, 182). Of course, the Brothers presented the play, at least Ostensibly, as an entertainment for Jean. An apt theatrical projection of Jean's own existential situation, it reflected 235 in concrete images of cages and soup the spiritual hunger and thirst that hold his psyche so torturously trapped$ and it presented in a teasing, two-edged game of wit an intel lectual transposition of the paradoxical oscillation that makes his nostalgic craving so excruciatingly futile. Nevertheless, Jean has shown only sporadic interest in the play. He politely thanks Tarabas, but he would rather not stay for the next twenty-nine episodes. Can't he pay for his meal and move on? "Je dois partir," he says. "II me reste l'essentiel a decouvrir" (IV, 184-185). Still, the Brothers' play seems to have recalled an aspect of his journey which he forgot or neglected to men tion to Tarabas earlier: Tout ce que je desirais s ' evanouissait a mon approche, tout ce que je voulais toucher se fletrissait. [...] L'herbe se dessechait sous mes pieds, les feuilles des arbres jaunissaient, tombaient des que je les regardais. Si je voulais boire a la source la plus limpide, l'eau devenait impure, nauseabonde. (IV, 185) When Tarabas asks, "Vous avez done toujours ete mordu par la soif insatiable, par une faim que vous ne pouviez assouvir?" i(IV, 185), Jean replies with a lengthy rhetorical reitera tion of the old refrain of paradise and its loss: Autrefois [...] lorsque les journees etaient lumineuses, i je m'arr§tais au milieu d'une campagne [...] pris d'un | etonnement indicible. [...] Tout suffisait, tout.etait 236 plein. Je n'avais pas faim, je n'avais pas soif. [...] Pourquoi, tout a coup, y a-t-il eu ce changement? [...] Pourquoi cette soudaine faim, cette soudaine soif? (IV, 186) Jean's speech thus draws the action of La Soif et la ;faim back into the mythic ambiance in which it began. The monologue is unnecessary, however, and, as the text notes, was omitted in the original production (IV, 186). For the atrical means more surely and suitably re-establish both the mythic context and the love motif originally associated with Sit: "Le fond du plateau s'eclaire. A travers les barreaux, :on voit Marie-Madeleine et Marthe. Le decor, derriere les barreaux, represente le jardin de la scene finale du premier episode" (IV, 187), a garden which earlier stage directions termed "ed^nique" (IV, 141) and which the present directions go on to describe as "lumineux, avec un ciel bleu, vegeta tion, arbres en fleurs, echelle suspendue au m§me emplace ment, lumiere tres intense, bleu profond" (IV, 187-188). Marthe, who is now fifteen years old, "est v§tue d'une robe claire, Marie-Madeleine en bleu, on oeillet rouge a la bou- ! jtonniere. Le vieillissement de son visage a disparu et elle parait tres jeune" (IV, 188). Seeing his wife and daughter bathed in this paradisai cal light, Jean suddenly experiences the immanent wonder of their beauty and of the simple love through which Marie- Madeleine has all along assuaged her own existential desires by partaking wholeheartedly in life as it comes her way. He recognizes what she has long known, that "le probleme de la faim est resolu en mangeant. et celui de la vie en vivant," as Rainof has emphasized ("Mythologies," p. 236). He has learned at the monks' auberge that he can assuage his own existential hunger and thirst, not by fleeing the life that, >with Marie-Madeleine and their daughter, is his, but by iliving life and sharing its immanent wonder with them. He lovingly tells them, "Vous §tes dans une lumiere que je In'avais jamais vue; vous avez toujours ete dans cette lumi ere. Tout de suite, je suis a vous, je ne vous quitterai pas de sitdt. Je viens, je viens, je viens" (IV, 189). But Jean cannot leave the confines of the Brothers' establishment until he has paid for his meal. Tarabas sug gests that he reimburse them with his services. For a time, he can serve the Brothers, who are now seated at a long table and who are, Tarabas says, "toujours affames, comme vous" (IV, 190). A hand begins to pass out through a hole in the wall bowls, place settings, a pot of soup, and a ladle. Another monk vests Jean in a monk's habit, and Jean begins serving the soup (IV, 190). How long will he have 238 to serve? How many seconds? minutes? hours? The Brother Accountant begins to state the number of hours Jean will have to serve. As he states each digit of the number of hours required, another Brother writes the digit on a black board. At the same time, lighted screens flash it from various spots in the backgroundj and the Brothers chant it out in rhythmic chorus. The number is an infinitely re peated series— "un, sept, trois, six, neuf, huit, un, sept, itrois, six, neuf, huit, un, sept, trois, six, neuf, huit" I (IV, 193). i Marie-Madeleine promises Jean, "Je t'attendrai tout le :temps qu'il faudra, je t'attendrai infiniment" (IV, 193). Yet the curtain closes with Jean still trapped in an endless ritual repetition of meaningless gestures reminiscent of the final ritual feeding of Victimes du devoir, but more effec tive as a theatrical display of human futility. The frus trating ritual is here expressive of an existential longing which, in the course of the four episodes of the play, Jean has sought to assuage within a broader scope of human ex periences than that provided by the earlier play's limited i search into the personal and mythic subconscious. The sterile ritual that ends La Soif et la faim suggests that, despite the fact that the play's lone Expressionist 239 protagonist has finally come to appreciate the simple, life- entrenched existential stance of his loving wife, he remains Icaught in an attempt to assuage an area of man's traditional hunger and thirst which lies at the core of all of Ionesco's imythic plays as well as at the core of the primitive sacred myths which they reflect, an area of man's existential hun- !ger and thirst that is absurdly unassuageable. As Benmussa has said with regard to this play, "Tout homme a le godt de jl'absolu et de 1 'infini et cherche une reponse justement dans tout ce qui est relatif et temporaire" (Eugene Ionesco. ip. 9). While the hungry Brothers chant out the digits iflashing on the screens at an ever-quickening pace and as the huge number itself continues to stretch out terrifyingly,^ Jean passes out bowls, picks them up, returns them to the hole, gets other bowls, and goes on serving continuously :according to an ever-accelerating, staccato rhythm ad in finitum (IV, 192-193). Since the premiere of La Soif et la faim. Ionesco has seen premiered several short works, including L'Oeuf dur i 1(1966), a lesson in cooking an egg staged in a context of cosmic strife and wonder which makes the simple hard-boiled egg something of a modern version of the ancient mythic ! bosmogonic egg. The egg has long been celebrated as a 240 repetition "of the archetypal birth of the cosmos, the imi tation of the cosmogony," according to the analysis of Mircea Eliade in Patterns in Comparative Religion (1958; rpt. New York, 1963), p. 414. In Ionesco's play, the cele bration ends comically and absurdly rather than hopefully, with an image "des derrieres de poules pondant" framed in a setting sun, "si possible en forme d'oeuf, avec accompagne- ; iment du coeur chantant" the diseases which infected eggs can carry (IV, 248). Ionesco's two principal plays since this time both portray aspects of man's diminution through time and through jhistorical machinations. The first, "Jeux de massacre." L'Avant-Scene. 15 May 1971, pp. 12-39, premiered in 1970 four years after La Soif et la faim. is a macabre, farcical display of men, women, and children as "victimes d'une maladie absurde" (p. 38). They are victims, not of the iincurable longings of a Jean, but of simple human mortality, which is incurable no matter what remedies or palliatives jseem to promise temporary relief. Equally ineffective are j traditional utopian palliatives of a promised "royaume des cieux [...] realise sur terre" (p. 32) and signs of tradi tional mythic hope provided by the wonders of the cosmos such as the Old Woman of one scene dotes upon— until she is about to die: "Comment peut-on s'ennuyer? Les arbres is 1ennuient—ils? La route ne s'ennuie pas. Les lacs refle- i j itent le ciel et s'unissent a lui. [...] Les plantes s'epa- I ^ Inouissant dans la lumiere. Jamais les feuilles ne se des- i ; i Isechent" (p. 34) . The other major play of these years iappeared two years later in 1972— Macbett (Paris, 1972), jwhich is a spoof on Shakespeare's poetization of instigators' of death and historical devastation. i j CONCLUSION | i ! In an interview in L*Express. 28 May-3 June 1973, p. i : 49, Ionesco has said of the hero of his first novel that "il: Ibricole dans 11 inexplicable." This hero of Le Solitaire i (Paris, 1973), to the extent that he is such a bricoleur, ibears a basic resemblance to Ionesco himself as a play- I ■wright. For throughout his series of myth-laden plays, I Ionesco, like a creative bricoleur, seems to be continually prearranging and realigning a rather limited set of hetero- i geneous images and symbolic odds and ends that have been j collecting in his imagination. Whether by inclination or iby necessity, he tends to center his creative activity on j the poetic and theatrical possibilities provided by a rich |but limited hoard of archetypal bits and pieces, fragments from Western man's legends and religious myths, and remnants j from his own personal memories and previous theatrical en- i ; deavors. Generally, Ionesco reworks and rearranges his i jaccumulated materials in such a way as to assemble each new ; 242 243 theatrical creation without destroying the characteristic features which these materials already had in the myths, legends, dreams, or events which previously shaped them. The results are sometimes awkward, sometimes brilliant, but, in general, amazingly variegated and wonderfully expressive of life "dans 1 'inexplicable." As an artistic bricoleur, Ionesco reveals a creative imaginative kinship with primitive mythic man. He reveals ,such a kinship in his poetic and theatrical constructive iprocesses as well as in the imaginative motifs which go into ithe building of these constructions and in the existential nostalgia which they so often express. For Claude Levi- Strauss, in The Savage Mind (Chicago, 1966), pp. 16 ff., has stressed how well bricolage provides an apt analogue to the organizational processes of the primitive mind. He points out, p. 2 1, that in the process of continual reconstruction i from the same predefined materials which marks both the bricoleur1s craft and the primitive's thought, "it is always earlier ends which are called upon to play the part of means: the signified changes into the signifying and vice I versa." Consequently, in both bricolage and mythical thought, the resulting creation "will always be a compromise between the structure of the instrumental set and that of 244 the project. Once it materializes the project will there fore inevitably be at a remove from the initial aim (which was moreover a mere sketch), a phenomenon which the sur realists have felicitously called 'objective hazard.'" It can be said that any creative artist works to some extent like a bricoleur. but Ionesco most notably so. For he draws i ‘ upon materials which already have something of an objective \ form and significance, predetermined and prefinalized, as ;they are, in former dreams and in ancient myths, and uses ;them with a minimum of distortion of their predefined fea- i , Itures as means to the creation of his own fresh theatrical productions. But the present study has aimed at showing Ionesco's creative kinship with primitive religious myth-makers pri marily in the basic images and imaginative motifs from which he constructs his avant-garde theatrical constructions and in the existential sensibilities which these motifs express. As theatrical data revelatory of modern man's existential imagination, Ionesco's mythic plays support the affirmation ; Ithat "the progressive de-sacralisation of modern man has altered the content of his spiritual life without breaking | the matrices of his imagination," an affirmation made by Eliade in Images and Symbols; Studies in Religious 245 Symbolism (1961; rpt. New York, 1969), p. 18. For the imaginative matrices underlying Ionesco's mythic plays re semble symbolic patterns according to which primitive man gave concrete shape to his religious nostalgias and, at the same time, established his spatial and temporal relationship to his cosmos. Selected materials from plays of other Absurdists sketched by way of comparison and contrast with Ionesco's own plays indicate that the imaginative matrices underlying some of their plays likewise reflect ancient symbolic pat terns . As further theatrical data revelatory of modern man's existential imagination, the whole theatrical oeuvre of such other Absurdists as Beckett and Genet deserve more extensive study. With regard to Ionesco's plays themselves, the recog nition of the presence therein of archaic mythic images dispels some of their seeming structural absurdities. Often where structure otherwise seems most to disappear in an absurdly disjointed and illogical maze, archaic images and i mythic motifs have created underlying matrices of order which are solidly structured according to a long-established, richly organized logic of the primitive religious imagina tion. On the other hand, however, at Ionesco's touch, the 246 presence of these archetypal imaginative structures ironi cally reveals profound existential absurdities inherent in the traditional religious nostalgias which these structures themselves have so long supported and expressed. The disintegration at Ionesco's touch of such long- established and existentially supportive imaginative mythic structures, as well as the disintegration of traditional theatrical, verbal, and logical structures throughout the course of his whole theatrical oeuvre, can be seen as nihi listic. But from a primitive mythic point of view, a point jof view which the plays themselves suggest is absurd, but Iwhich still seems valid with regard to these plays, the disintegration perpetrated at Ionesco's hand can be seen as culturally regenerative. For primitive man knows that chaos necessarily precedes any cosmic regeneration and that ini tiatory death provides the necessary preparation for any birth to a higher mode of being. He takes for granted that I "a state cannot be changed without first being annihilated." as Eliade says in Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mys- I teries of Birth and Rebirth (1958; rpt. New York, 1965), p. j xiii. From this point of view, Ionesco's theater is not nihilistic. Rather, it gives language and myth the possi- i bility of new vitality. LIST OF WORKS CITED 247 LIST OF WORKS CITED jAbastado, Claude. Eugene Ionesco. Paris: Bordas, 1971. i ;Altizer, Gayle Pye. "Affirmation in the Drama of Eugene Ionesco." Diss. Emory University 1971. iArtaud, Antonin. The Theater and Its Double. Trans. Mary Caroline Richards. New York: Grove, 1958. iBachelard, Gaston. L'Air et les songes: Essai sur l'ima- i gination du mouvement. 2nd ed. Paris: Jose Corti, | 1950. ; __________________. The Poetics of Space. Trans . Maria i Jolas. New York: Orion, 1964. j jBeckett, Samuel. En attendant Godot. Paris: Les Editions ! de minuit, 1952. j . Endgame. New York: Grove, 1958. ; . Fin de partie. Paris: Les Editions de minuit, 1957. ■ . Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove, | 1954. | •Benmussa, Simone. Eugene Ionesco. Paris: Seghers, 1966. jBonnefoy, Claude. Entretiens avec Eugene Ionesco. Paris: : Pierre Belfond, 1966. ! Brown, John Daniel. "The Absurd Drama of Eugene Ionesco as Religious Ritual." Diss. Drew University 1970. 248 249 Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God. Vol. IV: Creative Mythology. New York: Viking, 1968. Camus, Albert. Le Mythe de Sisyphe. Paris: Gallimard, 1942 . Cassirer, Ernst. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Vol. II: Mythical Thought. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1955. Cendrars, Blaise. "Le Nouveau Patron de 1'aviation." Ca- hiers de la Compagnie M. Renaud-J.-L. Barrault. 42 : (Feb. 1963), 93-102. !Coe, Richard N. "God and Samuel Beckett." Meanjin Quar terly. 24 (1965), 66-85. : . Samuel Beckett. 1st ed., rev., 1968j New York: Grove, 1970. IDonnard, Jean-Herve. Ionesco dramaturge ou 1'artisan et le demon. Paris: M. J. Minard, 1966. Doubrovsky, J. Serge. "Ionesco and the Comic of Absurdity." Yale French Studies. 23 (Summer 1959), 3-10. Durand, Gilbert. Les Structures anthropologiques de l'ima- ginaire: Introduction a l'archetypologie generale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960. Eliade, Mircea. Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eter nal Return. Original title The Myth of the Eternal Return. Trans. Willard R. Trask. 1954; rpt. New York: Harper, 1959. ; _______________ . Fordt interdite. Trans. Alain Guillermou. 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Press, 1964. ______________. The Two and The One. Original French title Mephistopheles et l1Androgyne. Trans . J. M. Cohen. New York: Harper, 1965. Esslin, Martin. "Ionesco and the Creative Dilemma." Tulane Drama Review. 7, No. 3 (Spring 1963), 169-179. ______________ . The Peopled Wound: The Work of Harold Pinter. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1970. : ______________ . The Theatre of the Absurd. 1st ed., rev. I Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968. L1Express. Interview, 28 May-3 June 1963, p. 49. Genet, Jean. Le Balcon. 2nd rev. ed. Decines: L'Arba- lete, 1962 . Harvey, Lawrence E. “Art and the Existential in En atten dant Godot." Publications of the Modern Language Asso ciation. 75 (1960), 137-146. Ionesco, Eugene. "Jeux de massacre." L'Avant-Scene. 15 May 1971, pp. 12-39. 251 Ionesco, Eugene. Journal en miettes. Paris: Mercure de Prance, 1967. ________________. MacBett. Paris: Gallimard, 1972 . : ________________. Notes et contre-notes. Paris: Gallimard, 1966 . _______________ . Present passe, passe present. Paris : Mercure de France, 1968. ________________. Le Solitaire. Paris: Mercure de France, , 1973. 1________________. Theatre. 4 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1954-1966. Vol. IV, 1st ed., rev. 1971. Jacobsen, Josephine, and William R. Mueller. Ionesco and Genet: Playwrights of Silence. New York: Hill, 1968. iKolve, V. A. "Religious Language in Waiting for Godot." Centennial Review. 11 (1967), 102-127 . |Kott, Jan. "A propos de la representation des Chaises a ! Cracovie." Trans. Anna Posner. Cahiers de la Compa- gnie M. Renaud-J.-L. Barrault. 42 (Feb. 1963), 70-74. I Lamont, Rosette C. "Death and Tragi-Comedy: Three Plays of the New Theatre." The Massachusetts Review. 6 (1965), 381-402 . | _________________ . "The Proliferation of Matter in Iones co's Plays." L‘Esprit Createur. 2 (1962), 189-197. i :Le Corbusier [Charles-fidouard Jeanneret]. La Ville radi- euse. Zurich: Editions de 1'architecture d'aujourd' | hui, 1935. j ;Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago: Univ. of ; Chicago Press, 1966. ILommell, Andreas. Shamanism: The Beginnings of Art. | Trans. Michael Bullock. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. Lorelle, Yves. "La F§te aerienne." Cahiers de la Compaqnie M. Renaud-J.-L. Barrault. 42 (Feb. 1963), 103-109. Matthews, Honor. The Primal Curse: The Myth of Cain and Abel in the Theatre. New York: Schocken, 1967. Pinter, Harold. The Birthday Party and The Room: Two Plays. New York: Grove, 1961. _____________ . The Caretaker and The Dumb Waiter: Two : Plays. New York: Grove, 1961. Poulet, Georges. The Metamorphoses of the Circle. Trans Carley Dawson and Elliott Coleman. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966. Studies in Human Time. Trans. Elliott Coleman. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1956. Pronko, Leonard. "The Anti-Spiritual Victory in the Theater i of Ionesco." Modern Drama. 2, No. 1 (May 1959), 29-35. ’ . Eugene Ionesco. Columbia Essays on Modern1 Writers, 7. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1965. Rainof, Alexandre. "Mythologies de l'Etre chez Ionesco." Diss. Univ. of Michigan 1969. Ricoeur, Paul. The Symbolism of Evil. Trans. Emerson Buchanan. Boston: Beacon, 1967. ;Schechner, Richard. "The Enactment of the 'Not' in Iones co’s Les Chaises." Yale French Studies. 29 (1962), 65- 72. . "The Inner and the Outer Reality." Tulane Drama Review. 7, No. 3 (Spring 1963), 187-217. iSchoell, Konrad. "The Chain and the Circle: A Structural Comparison of Waiting for Godot and Endgame." Modern | Drama, 11, No. 1 (May 1968), 48-53. jSenart, Philippe. Ionesco. Paris: Editions Universi- taires, 1964. 253 Stewart, Harry E. "Jean Genet's Mirror Images in Le Balcon'i Modern Drama. 12, No. 2 (Sept. 1969), 197-2 03. . "Jean Genet's Saintly Preoccupation in Le Balcon." Drama Survey, 6 (1967), 24-30. Strem, George G. "Ritual and Poetry in Eugene Ionesco's Theatre." Texas Quarterly. 5 (Winter 1962), 149-158. Suvin, Darko. "Beckett's Purgatory of the Individual or The Three Laws of Thermodynamics." Tulane Drama Re view, 11, No. 4 (Summer 1967), 2 3-36. Thody, Philip. Jean Genet: A Study of His Novels and Plays. New York: Stein and Day, 1968. Thompson, Laurence G. Chinese Religion: An Introduction. Belmont, Calif.: Dickenson, 1969. Thornton, Peter C. "Blindness and the Confrontation with Death: Three Plays by Harold Pinter." Die Neueren Sprachen. 17 (1968), 213-223. Unamuno, Miguel de. Tragic Sense of Life. Trans. J. E. Crawford Flitch. 1921; rpt. New York: Dover, 1954. Vos, Nelvin. Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee: A Critical Essay. Contemporary Writers in Christian Perspective. cLpidot*. ________ Wasson, R. Gordon. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. New York: Harcourt, 1972. Williams, Edith W. "God's Share: A Mythic Interpretation of The Chairs." Modern Drama. 12, No. 3 (Dec. 1969), 298-307. Wolfram von Eschenbach. Parzival. Trans. Helen Mustard and Charles Passage. New York: Vintage-Knopf, 1961.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Kister, Daniel Albert
(author)
Core Title
Some Imaginative Motifs From Primitive Sacred Myths In The Theater Of Eugene Ionesco
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Program
Comparative Literature
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
Literature, Modern,OAI-PMH Harvest
Language
English
Contributor
Digitized by ProQuest
(provenance)
Advisor
Malone, David H. (
committee chair
), Orr, John B. (
committee member
), Rainof, Alexander (
committee member
)
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-755834
Unique identifier
UC11363476
Identifier
7400928.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-755834 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
7400928
Dmrecord
755834
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Kister, Daniel Albert
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
Tags
Literature, Modern