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Grotesque and Godot – Vladimir and Estragon As Modernist Clowns

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Grotesque and Godot – Vladimir and Estragon As Modernist Clowns G3 Level Supervisor: Per Sivefors 2EN20E Examiner: Johan Höglund 15 ECTS points January 2014 ““Well? Shall we go?” “Yes, let’s go.” [They do not move.]” - Vernacular Comedy and Waiting for Godot. Nanna Flensborg Rønne Table of Contents: Abstract Introduction 1 From the Marketplace to the Silver Screen: The Vernacular Clown 3 Waiting for Godot and Clowning 7 Waiting for Godot and Bakhtinian Grotesque Realism 10 Waiting for Godot, Commedia dell’Arte and Silent Movie 13 Waiting for Godot as Critique of the Modernist Approach to Art 15 Conclusion 16 Works Cited and Consulted 18 Appendix 20 Abstract This essay discusses the relationship between the characters Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot and the vernacular clowning tradition. The discussion is supported by analyzing similarities between Waiting for Godot and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of grotesque realism as it is presented in his work Rabelais and His World, as well as elements of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte and 20th century silent movie comedy. The essay concludes that Beckett was considerably influenced by vernacular comic elements and utilised these influences in his play Waiting for Godot in order to question the high level of artificiality in Modernist literature. Introduction Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot is a strange creation. A synopsis of the text would simply state that two men are waiting for a third, who never shows up; nothing happens, twice. Never the less it has been called the most comical of Beckett’s plays, and is often staged with the principal characters Vladimir and Estragon as clowns or at least clown-like in appearance1. Since the play was first published, the approach of scholarly readings of Waiting for Godot has changed considerably. Far into the 1960’s, and even after Beckett had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, these were particularly gloomy readings, and critics saw the play as “a negative vision of life” (Gontarski 32). More contemporary readings tend to view the play if not directly light- heartedly, at least with a much more pronounced appreciation of the comical aspects. A good example of this is Laura Salisbury’s book Samuel Beckett – Laughing Matters. As the title suggests, the book deals specifically with the comic aspects of Beckett’s writing, even up to a point where Salisbury argues that the comedy is not a by-product of Beckett’s authorship, but in many ways it can be seen as the underlying reason for his works altogether. This essay will examine this connection with the comic and clowns, drawing on the historical background of the clown. Even if Salisbury with her intense focus on the comical aspects of Beckett’s oeuvre is breaking new ground, scholarly approaches to laughter and the comic as such are far from new, and most modern day discussions of the subject of laughter start with Mikhail Bakhtin and his work Rabelais and His World. Central to Bakhtin is the thesis of the Grotesque, the Carnival and the World turned upside down for a time, in order to give space for a liberating and rejuvenating laughter. One central aspect of his discussion is the concept of grotesque realism, which is “that peculiar type of imagery and more broadly speaking . that peculiar aesthetic concept which is characteristic of this folk culture” (Bakhtin 18). It is the breaking down of the established, static 1 See for instance Salisbury and Bryden (in Gontaski). 1 world through the use of humour, satire and essentially laughter. Bakhtin also discusses the tradition of carnival and the Feast of Fools in detail and a central figure in this aesthetics of carnival and the world upside down is exactly the Fool, and later incarnations of the Fool such as the Jester and the Clown. Vladimir and Estragon share many traits with the clown, primarily that of being on the outside of society, in an almost parallel existence. Another popular, iconic figure which exists on the outside of society is the Tramp, and one very famous incarnation of the tramp-clown is Charles Chaplin, whom Beckett incidentally wished to play the main character in his film Film (Gontarski 358). Beckett was fascinated by actors of the silent movies, and when it was not possible to have Chaplin, Beckett decided to use Buster Keaton instead. Both Chaplin and Keaton use a very physical slapstick comedy to great effect, and as mentioned above, Chaplin’s beloved character the Tramp shares many traits with the archetypical clown. Just like clowns do, Chaplin’s Tramp often balances a thin line between the tragic and the comic, and this is repeated in Beckett’s characters Estragon and Vladimir. They make us laugh, but often this laughter is just as much a reaction to an uncomfortable truth, which they, like the clown, expose and exaggerate through showing the world upside-down or inside out. One can definitely argue that there is a historical connection, beginning with the clowns and jugglers in the Medieval marketplaces, with their vernacular, folkloristic performances, through the later performances of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte in the sixteenth century, to the performances of Keaton, Chaplin and other stars of the silent movies. The loose scenarios and stock characters of the Commedia dell’Arte are echoed in the slapstick and pie-throwing gags of the silent comedies (Madden). Beckett was very fascinated with these same silent movie actors, and it is an interesting thought that Beckett might have introduced Vladimir and Estragon as these modernist clowns in order to use the clown’s ability to turn the world upside down and inside out, and thus to highlight the bewilderment of the Late Modernism. 2 This essay will investigate the complex relation between Waiting for Godot and the clown tradition, examining how Beckett uses a range of elements from popular comic tradition such as clowning, Commedia dell’Arte and the silent movie stars Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin as a means of questioning the high level of artificiality in Modernism2. This will be done in the form of a close reading of the play, first relating the play to the vernacular clown tradition, the Commedia dell’Arte and then to Bakhtin’s notions of grotesque realism and the lower bodily element, and finally the silent movie comedy. Following this the essay will discuss how the play can be read as a critique of the Modernist approach to art. From the Marketplace to the Silver Screen: The Vernacular Clown Michael Bala in his article “The Clown: An Archetypal Self-Journey” gives an account of the cultural importance of the clown. Among other themes he points out that the figure of the Clown has roots back to the mimes of early Greece, and that all cultures have their own incarnations of this archetype, namely the disruptor of the old order, one who brings new life through breaking down the world as we see it. Similarly, most cultures have, or have had, some form of festival like the Feast of Fools or Carnival, and one can argue that clowns in their many shapes are descendants of the court jester and the archetypical figure of the Fool, seen for instance on decks of tarot cards.3 Furthermore, Joshua Delpech-Ramey in his article “Sublime Comedy: On the Inhuman Rights of Clowns” describes clowns as being structurally immortal, referring to the French mime actor Jaques LeCoq who explains the tradition “according to which the clown cannot be killed” (132). Clowns can and must survive any gag they are subjected to, even up to having a house fall over them, as happens to Buster Keaton in the famous film Steamboat Bill Jr.4 Similarly, this structural 2 This essay will not, however, delve into a discussion of whether or not Beckett’s play is high, late, post- or neo- modernist, since this particular question has been exhausted, and lies well outside the focus of this essay. 3 See illustration in appendix 1. 4 The gag referred to happen approximately 56 minutes into the movie. 3 immortality is what enables court jesters to speak openly and frankly to their rulers, as happens in Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet and King Lear (Bala 56). It is exactly their ability, even obligation, to “ridicule the king, and to indulge in behaviour that would otherwise get [them] killed” (Delpech- Ramey 132) which sets clowns apart from the world, and it is among other things this separateness which is echoed in Beckett’s characters. A recurrent motif for clowns is a repetitive pattern of tension and release, as illustrated in an example with Grock, described by Bryden (in Gontarski), the famous Swiss clown of the first half of the 20th century. In the sketch Grock is to play a simple melody on the piano, but he is constantly interrupted, either by a malfunctioning piano or his own misadventures. The dynamics of the sketch is to build up a certain tension in the audience while it is listening to the melody; at the same time the audience is waiting for the next notes, but also waiting for the next instance where Grock is interrupted. Laughter erupts where this tension is released, but in Beckett’s play there is a marked lack of release, at least on the grander scheme, something which will be discussed below. As introduced previously, Mikhail Bakhtin in his work Rabelais and His World discusses the vernacular aspect of humour, the folk humour which existed and thrived outside and parallel to the official sphere of high literature and which found its natural habitat in the marketplaces. Bakhtin does not locate this marketplace specifically, but uses the term marketplace as a concept, covering “all that is directly linked with the life of the people, bearing its mark of nonofficial freedom” (153).
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