drama subtext

7/29/2019 Drama Subtext

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The Subtext of DramaAuthor(s): Leo RockasSource: College Literature, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Winter, 1976), pp. 42-48Published by: College LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25111108 .

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42THE SUBTEXT OF DRAMA

Leo RockasThe term and the concept of subtext has begun to be used in the criti

cism of drama often enough to suggest that it has some utility and thatan attempt to review the uses of the term and refine the concept mightnow be helpful. Though Maynard Mack mimimizes "what is called in today's theatrical jargon the 'subtext,'"1 critics such as John Russell Brownand J. L. Styan have shown that the concept permits them to make certain necessary observations about plays which they would find awkwardto express without it.

Drama, as I understand it, is based on a petition and the granting orrefusing of it. The "scenes" of a play lacking a petition may with someconfidence be called "expository." The petition for information, for newsor old stories, is a pretext for narration instead of drama, even if apparently dramatic interlocutors are delivering that narration. In Oedipusthe King there is no real drama until the scene between Oedipus andTeiresias. Oedipus petitions Teiresias for what he knows of the pastand future, in a series of imploring gestures, while Teiresias retreats fromhim in increasing horror at his requests. When Oedipus realizes that Teiresias will not satisfy him, he reverses the direction of the subtext and begins accusing Teiresias until he finally drives him off the stage. The subtextis the underlying motives, gestures, and attitudes of the characters, sug

gested by but not contained in the actual words spoken back and forth.The scene between Oedipus and Teiresias has more subtextual complexity than I can indicate here, but I might note at least that Teiresias, by

coming to Oedipus, looks like the petitioner; and by being chased awaylooks like the psychological loser in the scene. But Teiresias has notcome to petition; he has been "summoned." In drama as in life the onewho goes to the other is the one who wants something, and the otherhe goes to has it. Businessmen say, "Let him come to me" for the onecome to is in the seat of authority. But what if a king (or a boss) wantssomething? He must not seem to and so he summons the other. AndOedipus' rejection of Teiresias comes about because Teiresias refuseshis petition. Though Oedipus in this scene boasts and struts and charges,he is clearly and desperately the loser.

The interpretation of subtext implies a discovery of subtleties in thetext, but itmust not be confused with the discovery of "dramatic ironies."

The subtext is what the characters are consciously trying to do to eachother, and may be most easily understood in the imagery of dancing, or

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THE SUBTEXT OF DRAMA 43boxing. When Oedipus says he will punish the murderer of Laius, the onlysubtext is his attempt to impress or intimidate his subjects. To call subtextual analysis psychological may be valid, but it is closely interwovenwith the text and does not

necessarilyview the character as a whole and

real person; the gestures and attitudes of Oedipus in a later scene are theresult of a theatrical, not necessarily a psychological, development. Thesubtext is the dance of those turns and counter-turns of sympathy andantipathy between the characters for which it is hard to avoid the termsstrophe and antistrophe, as of the chorus. It is at least possible that thechoruses and the scenes of classical drama had some structural and dialectical influence upon each other. And the dance or pantomime arisingfrom the text of a play would be an expression of the subtext just as valid,though totally non-verbal, as is the text itself. But the text remains our

only authority for its subtext.Konstantin Stanislavski, founder of the Moscow Art Theater, used

the term "subtext" to refer tothe manifest, the inwardly felt expression of a human being in a part, whichflows uninterruptedly beneath the words of a text, giving them life and abasis for existing, ... a web of innumerable, varied inner patterns inside aplay and

apart,

... all sorts of figments of the imagination, inner movements, objects of attention, smaller and greater truths and a belief in them,adaptations, adjustments and other similar elements. It is the subtext that

makes us say the words we do in a play.2

In England and America the term is associated with Chekhov, with"naturalism," with "method" acting. John Russell Brown, the EnglishShakespearean critic, reports that the word is not listed in the New English Dictionary Supplement of 1939. Nor is it listed in any current American dictionary, including the unabridged Webster's Third New International Dictionary of 1961. Despite the apparent newness of the term,something of the concept seems to be implied in theatrical and criticalhistory for some time back. Brown, who wrote two articles on "Shakespeare's Subtext" in 1963 and reconsidered them in his book Shakespeare's Plays in Performance in 1966, finds references to the conceptall but definitions of the term?in Granville-Barker, in T. S. Eliot, in thelectures of the actor Henry Irving, in Richard Steele's account of Betterton's Othello, in Shakespeare himself.3

Brown's discovery and explication of subtext in Shakespeare is a veryhelpful addition to both literary and theatrical criticism. But he impliesthat the concept is especially applicable to Shakespeare because "a newnaturalism was the kindling spirit in his theatre."4 Though he cites Eliot'sreference to the dialogue of Greek drama as "a shorthand, and often,



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44 COLLEGE LITERATUREas in the best of Shakespeare, a very abbreviated shorthand indeed, forthe acted and felt play, which is always the real thing," it is almost asifBrown is expressing the "method" implications of Shakespeare becauseShakespeare was genius enough to anticipate Chekhov. But was not Sophocles genius enough to anticipate Shakespeare? Can there be a text fordrama without a subtext? The last question raises an even more basicquestion, whether there can be any literary text without a subtext. Brownanalyzes the "subtext" of Brutus deliberating over what to do aboutCaesar, and of Juliet ruminating as she waits for Romeo. But if "soliloquy" has a subtext, must not "lyric" as well? I have elsewhere arguedthat there is no rehetorical difference between lyric poems and the lyricalpassages of drama.5 Brown looks for subtext in

Shakespeare's use of gesture, stage-business and silent physical confrontations; to these means must be added the text itself: sudden shifts in subject

matter or in tone and tempo, broken syntax or metre, the introduction ofunusual words or disproportionate reactions, all need to be sustained by theactor's expression of the unspoken reactions that cause them. If the textis to sound like an "imitation of life" it needs a subtext.6

From this perspective, it is easy enough to see the "subtext" of Shakespeare's sonnets, especially in the passionate addresses to the young manand the dark lady. These are "dramatic" lyrics in the second person,though as usual in lyric the second person is present only in the speaker'smind. But even in lyrics lacking this absent addressee we are teased toimagine what prompted the heart-cry, what lies beneath the text. Thereis hardly a Sapphic fragment so fragmentary as to lack a subtext:

I said, Sappho

Enough! Whytry to movea hard heart?

Pain penetratesme dropby drop.7

Lyrics too are bursting with "the unspoken reaction that prompted them";they certainly suggest gesture, "business," and even confrontation; theycertainly include sudden shifts in tone, broken syntax, unusual words,

are disproportionate, since the stimuli, the "dramatic situations" out ofwhich they arise, are usually silent or indefinite. In prose fiction too thereis "tone," "voice," the authorial presence, the "Henry Fielding" or "Jane

Austen" which Wayne Booth posits as the author of the piece.8 Thesuggestion of the performing storyteller gesturing to his listeners is feltin even the most sophisticated fiction. In fact, such a novelist as Henry



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THE SUBTEXT OF DRAMA 45James or Joseph Conrad may call for more in the analysis of implication,of "subtext," than does for instance such a storyteller as the Ancient

Mariner.

J. L. Styan analyzes "subtext" in the meeting of Gwendolen and Cecilyin The Importance of Being Earnest as a series of battle gestures: "Whereas Cecily and Gwendolen begin on equal ground, as we have seen, quicklythe balance shifts and Gwendolen is the first to be caught at a disadvantage while Cecily becomes increasingly the mistress of the situation."9That is certainly the language of subtext, as I see it. But Styan's analysis ofthe opening lines of Rosmersholm, Mrs. Helseth and Rebecca watchingthe approach of Rosmer, is an analysis of the implications, however subtle,of the text, which is almost entirely in the third person (Rosmer) andtherefore expository. The two women are not working upon, or gesturingat, each other.

These comments are not meant to discredit Brown's and Styan's analysesof subtext, but to suggest either a broadening of the term to include allliterary texts, or a narrowing of the term to the subtext applicable onlyto drama. In the meantime what I am speaking of may be called, a littleredundantly, dramatic subtext. This psychological dance between thespeakers in drama runs more or less continuously throughout a play, butis thin or meager in certain passages. In expository or narrative passages,whether rendered by a single storyteller or as in Ibsen by two or morecharacters questioning themselves or reminding themselves of the past,there is a subtext?the subtext of stories, of prose fiction. The dramaticsubtext of such passages is only in the chance that the stirring up of memories will make a present difference between the speakers. In lyric orsolo passages (a single speaker ruminating to himself, whether other

possible speakersare

presentor

not), there is also a subtext?the subtext of lyric poems. The dramatic subtext of such passages is only in thepossible inclusion of second-hand conversations as reviewed or anticipated by the single speaker, or in the chance of a possible intrusion fromanother speaker. Only then can begin that "working-upon-each-other"between the characters which is the obbligato of dramatic subtext.

Subtext is stronger or more urgent in certain passages, certain plays,certain playwrights. Strangely, since the artistry of Chekhov first promptedStanislavski's insight of subtext, the subtext of Chekhov's plays can sometimes be elusive. It is easy enough to see in the relatively early Sea Gullthat, as Trigorin is tempted to remain behind out of a romantic interestin the young Nina, the actress Arkadina performs one of the most magnificent subtextual dances of her career and renders him helplessly dependent upon her. By the time of The Three Sisters, Chekhov's impression



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46 COLLEGE LITERATUREistic technique has somewhat blurred the causes and effects of his subtext. Masha announces she is leaving and says good-bye, and not untilnine pages later in the Modern Library translation by Stark Young doesshe say, "(Taking off her hat)" that she is staying for lunch. In the meantime she has gotten interested in the arrival of Vershinin, the "lovesick

major," with whom she will later have an affair. I come, then, to a paradox, not I think a contradiction, in my argument. Because subtext canbe elusive in Chekhov, Stanislavski was pressed to arrive at the basis ofall drama; in Turgenev and Tolstoy, in Shakespeare and Shaw, the subtext is closer to the surface and may not need special formulation.

But the necessities of the director are not exactly those of the critic.If the director, in an escape from the artificial declamation of an earliertheater, wishes to encourage a more naturalistic expression of the textand subtext, he will ask the actor to find a consistent tone and attitudein his part, which has its suggested life in the total performance even

when he is not actually speaking, or even on stage. Every actor as nearlyas possible becomes the character he portrays, so that when the text callsupon him to burst into words he will express them as the total subtextof the play suggests. From the critical viewpoint this leads to a biographical view of dramatic character which modern criticism has been at somepains to discredit?in Harold Rosenberg's terms, it leads to the personalities found only in novels and biographies rather than to the identitiesfound in plays.10 At its absurd limits the biographical view of characterleads to the questions of how many children Lady Macbeth had, whatHamlet studied at Wittenberg University, and what Juliet was like as achild.

The life of a dramatic character is a present life, an on-stage life. Helpful as the Stanislavski method has been in the theater, itmust be regarded critically as a somewhat artificial technique of naturalism. But thedispute, if it is a dispute, between director and critic, has no necessaryeffect on the analysis of subtext as I have defined it?as a series of present psychological turns and counterturns between the characters. Whatever thoughts and feelings Hamlet may have had during the undramatizedtrip to England, here is how he behaves now with the gravedigger and withLaertes over Ophelia's grave. Both director and critic, both spectatorand reader, can benefit from a recognition of dramatic subtext. For thesubtext is what makes drama dramatic, and the expression of subtext ina literary work will render it dramatic, whether it is called a play or not.

Prose fiction, for instance, includes conversation or dialogue; do thesepassages constitute drama? A couple of convenient examples occur inthe stories of Hemingway. "The Killers" looks like drama; all but a few



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THE SUBTEXT OF DRAMA 47sentences and paragraphs are in the quotation marks of conversation.But this conversation seems to be used, like the opening of Oedipus,for almost purely expository or narrative purposes, to explain what is

"up" between the characters and what is going to happen. The twomen

have come to kill Ole Andreson, but the "scene" of that murder (whichdoesn't occur in the story) would also be narrative, not dramatic. Ole hasnever seen these men, they say, and so there is nothing personally at issuebetween them. Even if words were exchanged not much subtext wouldbe revealed. Somewhere in his past Ole has offended the man or menwho have sent the killers. That old situation might have yielded manydramatic exchanges, but the story doesn't even bother to hint at them.The only subtext revealed between the speakers is Al's warning Maxnot to talk too much; he says as much three times, but Max takes itwell,or jokes about it. If it is an issue, if it indicates some rivalry betweenthe men, there is not much sign of it.Most of the conversations of this storycan be called "scenes" only inmetaphor; they are used to tell the story andare hardly dramatic; there is no subtextual excitement to them.

"Hills Like White Elephants" is also predominantly conversational. Butin this conversation the speakers are personally and crucially involved.They are deciding whether to have an abortion and whether to continuetheir relationship. The man is petitioning the woman to have the abortion.

Eventually she seems to agree to it, but she does not seem entirely convinced. For she is also, though more subtly, petitioning him to agree tohave the baby and face the prospect of a continuing relationship withher. Her agreement to his petition is only recognition that her own petition has been denied; since he will not agree to the commitment thebaby would necessitate, she grudgingly agrees to his petition, the abortion. The important petition is indicated in miniature early in the storywhen she observes that the hills look like white elephants; it is her bidfor insight and sophistication, a certain claim on the man; but he rejectsher insight, and so suggests he is already denying any such permanentclaim on him. By the end of the story it is pretty clear that she would liketo have the child and raise itwith him, but she must agree to the abortion,which will probably mean the end of their relationship. None of this hasbeen said exactly, just suggested through the subtext of their conversation; for this story, unlike the other, is fully dramatic.

Frank O'Connor, in his book of essays on short-story writers, seemsto be disturbed that so little background is given about the charactersin this story. He would like to know more about the girl's parents, brothers and sisters, job and home?he seems to ask for a story's extensionin time and place. But in another comment, more friendly to Hemingway,O'Connor seems to give a good generic account of such pieces as this



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48 COLLEGE LITERATUREone: "In his stories one is forever coming upon that characteristic settingof the cafe, the station restaurant, the waiting room, or the railway carriage?clean, well-lighted, utterly anonymous places. The characters,equally anonymous, emerge suddenly from the shadows where they havebeen lurking, perform their little scene, and depart again into the shadows."11 This imagery of the theater indicates what I have been trying toshow. Though "The Killers" conventionally passes for a "dramatic" story

meaning "exciting," or narrative?and "Hills Like White Elephants"is "uneventful," as Chekhov is uneventful, an analysis by subtext showsthat the latter story rather deserves to be called "dramatic." "Hills LikeWhite Elephants" may be short even for one act, but there is no definition of play I recognize that it does not meet perfectly; and it can onlybe a typographical prejudice against quotations marks that would preventa critic from agreeing.

NOTES1King Lear in Our Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), p. 32.

2 Building a Character, tr. Elizabeth R. Hapgood (New York: Theatre Arts,1950), p. 113.

3 Shakespeare's Plays in Performance (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969),pp. 197-202.

4 Brown, p. 34.5 Modes of Rhetoric (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964), pp. 197-202.6 Brown, p. 62.7 Sappho, tr. Mary Barnard (Berkely: University of California Press, 1958), nos.

59, 61.8 The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 264.9 The Elements of Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), p. 24.10 The Tradition of the New (New York: Horizon Press, 1959), p. 139.11 The Lonely Voice: a Study of the Short Story (New York: World Publishing

Co., 1963), pp. 166-67.

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