Wednesday February 18, 2009
It’s been up now and I’m pretty much done tinkering behind the hood — for the time being. I enjoy it, anyway. It might change as my needs change but for now it’s up and I am a fan. ;) Lots of customization available, too, which makes me very happy. I do so love Wordpress.
Enjoy! And please feel free to post any feedback/comments about the site design to this post or contact me.
Monday February 2, 2009
I decided today to completely revamp this main website, so as of now I’m in the midst of redesigning it from top to bottom. Please bear with me in the meantime! Navigate to http://blog.efdanehy.com instead.
Thursday January 1, 2009
Originally written for the class British Literary & Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University. For further details about this, contact me.
The complex and somewhat idiosyncratic tragedies of John Dryden’s All for Love and Thomas Southerne’s Oroonoko appear to fall outside of the mainstream of their respective genres. All for Love is not a perfect tragedy with an unambiguous and compelling moral, andOroonoko is probably far from the first example of a Restoration tragedy—or tragicomedy—that comes to mind. Claiming that All for Love is not an effective tragedy because its lovers seem to be praised rather than punished[1] or that Oroonoko’s split-plot structure “has left most critics with a feeling of acute schizophrenia” (Hume, 285), is to make one kind of judgment about the plays, which is not to say there cannot be others. I believe All for Love is a tragedy, but not a formalist, over-moralizing tragedy in which the heroes are so much grander than ordinary figures their tragic flaws and fall are too incredible to be anything but allegories. Dryden’s heroes are both moralistic and realistic. And I believe Oroonoko can stand on its own as a different, adapted version of Behn’s novel, not necessarily as a lesser version, but as its own story, told in its own way. The characters remain true and honorable within the limits of the worlds created by the playwrights; though it means their deaths, they have followed the inevitable course all along and do not regret their actions, merely lament that their societies and fates in life are such are such that they must die to remain eternally together. Though we may see parallels to our own world, those parallels are not necessary for understanding the plays for their own sake.
Dryden also seemed to love the idea of the “moral” in a tragedy, but both All for Love and Oroonoko leave us with an incomplete or possibly vaguely drawn moral. All for Love seems to endorse “passionate love, though earlier in the play…passionate love is condemned as unreasonable and therefore immoral” (Emerson et al., 87), leaving us with a potentially ambiguous conclusion. Mapping the contemporary morality of sexual transgressions versus virtuous marriage (especially the modern morality of such acts) onto the plays invariably leads to more ambiguity. Both Dryden and Southerne, through their actors, do not completely pass judgment on their characters by the end—or least not the judgment or moral we might have been expecting, in either case—and we are left attempting to decide what the “moral” and “intention” of the work might have been. Southerne’s Oroonoko does not necessarily promote or attack slavery[2], nor is it an obvious royalist text (at least not as directly as Behn’s[3]), but it leaves us with a discomforting feeling, either because of the upsetting nature of the tragedy’s ending, or the semi-satirical nature of the ending of the comedic plot in conjunction with the ending of the tragic plot. Additionally, examining supposed authorial intent and its achievement in the text directs attention away from the morals and structures of the world created by the text itself.[4] Neither play seems to espouse as its moral or intent anything clearly obvious or comforting as we might expect, rather giving us more realistic (and by extension, possibly unsettling or different) conclusions.
The power in Dryden’s All for Love is not that the characters are more than human—it is that they are human, flawed and emotional, and often too passionate for pure reason to rule them. They are not allegorical statues of humans, but real people, and within the reality of those emotions of the play lay its power. Dryden heightens emotion and pulls us along his tragic journey in a way that is not lesser than that of Shakespeare, merely different.[5] Southerne’s Oroonoko similarly is not a perfect tragedy, nor do I believe it sets out to be; it is an updated version of a classical tragedy set in a romantic location but filled with familiar characters and themes to make it a tragedy for its contemporary audience, using ancient elements to give tell a very modern and realistic story. Its comic subplot does not undermine its tragedy in so far that it polarizes the tragedy, the contrast between the plots does not demean the main plot but uses the familiarity of the comic plot as a means with which to draw the audience into the romantic tragedy of the main plot. Like the narrator of Behn’s novelOroonoko, the Welldon sisters’ plot serves as a successful device—not a distracting addition—adding, by contrast, to the tone of the tragic main plot of the play.
In All for Love, Dryden’s Antony, like Shakespeare’s, “is a tragic hero in Aristotle’s vocabulary” and Cleopatra is “a fully tragic figure” (Barnet, 332). Yet, rather than condemn his main characters in the play’s, he instead defends “the role of imagination in poetic expression” (King, 269) with his re-telling; not attempting to copy Shakespeare or his predecessors, simply telling a different story. This story is one in which “Dryden has transformed a feudal transgression [into] the bourgeois fantasy of the private” by showing “the last of the aristocratic heroes, revealed for all his literal magnanimity to be no moral superior, [yielding] on the stage of history to the new man of dispassionate bourgeois efficiency” (Canfield, 75). Given the atmosphere 1677 London, Dryden seemingly made a smart and realistic choice in not attempting to punish Antony for his transgressions and adultery, but to demonstrate the worthiness of Cleopatra by developing their relationship as ultimately legitimate and by showing Cleopatra to be a worthier, more faithful and devoted character than Octavia, Antony’s own wife.
Cleopatra is no simple character as she would have us believe, wondering if she is “worth a tear” (II.79). In her essay, “The Defenseless Woman and the Development of English Tragedy,” Laura Brown states that Cleopatra’s function is to elicit “the pitying response” which “defines her function in the action and ultimately the significance of her and Antony’s fate,” calling the main characters “passive victims whose dramatic significance is defined by their pathetic situation rather than their aristocratic merit” (432). While Dryden’s Cleopatra is not the active, elusive character manipulating her own fate as is Shakespeare’s, neither is she completely passive, nor is she wholly a “middle class” woman. If anything she perceives her life as too complex for her desires and wishes simply to have the life of a wife to enjoy the pleasure of a husband her title and lands—and fortune—have so effectively kept her from having. And yet, despite the fact that Cleopatra has consistently “won” Antony from his wife and children, she scorns the title of mistress, the one Antony consistently gives to her. She claims that “Antony / Has taught my mind the fortune of a slave” (II.16-17) and because she cannot see herself as more than that to him, she scorns the word “respect,” saying, “How I disdain it! / Disdain myself, for loving after it!” (II.91-92). Her complex desires here reveal themselves not only through her self-pity, but through her apparent disdain also for her kingdom and earthly responsibilities. When she claims that because of the depth of love for Antony she has “refused a kingdom; / That’s a trifle: / For I could part with life, with anything / But only you” (II.463-66) she almost seems foolish, but for a woman who as a mere child “gave [Antony] love / but [was] too young to know it” (II.307-308), it can seem almost understandable. Dryden effectively sets it up that “within the value system of the play, Cleopatra does ‘deserve’ Antony ‘more’ (III.450)” (Canfield, 71). If Dryden did attempt “the achievement of sympathy and compassion for the errors of the main characters” (King, 270) rather than attempting pure tragic retribution and catharsis, he does so effectively by bringing Cleopatra down from the exalted heights of tragic heroine to ordinary, desiring, loving woman, to better educe our sympathy to those desires.
That so proud and regal a character as Cleopatra can envy the “dull, insipid lump” (II.95) of Octavia seems impossible for the Romans in the play to comprehend; those hints of character complexity invite attack from Ventidius, Octavia, Dollabella, and even Antony. Octavia is proud and loves for the sake of upholding her fastidious “honor in the form of her reputation, which qualifies her ‘love’ as something far more of a vice than the love of Antony and Cleopatra” (Emerson et al., 85). Cleopatra is consistently personified by the Romans as “Fortune” herself (Canfield, 67), described as being as “inconstant” as the blindfolded figure of the fickle Roman goddess Fortuna, spinning her wheel of fate. While the Romans characterize Cleopatra as the embodiment of fortune—ill fortune, at least—the most passionate (if not the most offensive) preacher of this is Cleopatra herself. She denies the charges of promiscuity weighed against her and tells Antony she “ne’er had been but yours” (II.408), claiming that by opening herself to him she did not drag him down to ruin and away from his wives, but simply, as she tells Octavia, offered “easier bonds” (III.486). By drawing Cleopatra as a more ordinary, human tragic heroine, Dryden brings the story of Antony and Cleopatra from mythic heights and presents it on its own terms.
Some have argued that All for Love is not a perfect tragedy, that the intervention of the minor characters (Dollabella and Alexas) is the cause, or one of the causes, of the fatal mistake which leads to the main characters’ demises.[6] While the work of the minor characters does serve to “unwittingly advance the catastrophe” (Levine, 248), it is not entirely their fault; without the inherent, tragic flaws of the main characters, the tragedy would not end fatally. “The principles are themselves ultimately responsible for the catastrophe” (Levine, 256). The tragic flaws of the heroic characters are still the cause of the “fatal consequence” (V.436). Antony’s insult to Octavia is the action that leads her to reject him and allow him to freely return to Cleopatra, and Cleopatra’s decision to play into Alexas’ duplicitous scheme leads her to an ultimately tragic fate. The fatal actions of Antony and Cleopatra lead to their demises. These actions are consistent with their characters, which have been established and developed throughout the play.
Dryden effectively establishes Antony’s suspicious and stubborn character in Act I; he is a man who jumps to conclusions and is not easily dissuaded from them, often adopting a pessimistic or melancholic attitude.[7] Recalling Antony’s behavior from Act I, his consistent behavior in Act IV should come as no surprise. When Antony stubbornly (yet rightly) refuses to believe Cleopatra has been false to him, he betrays the fragile peace he has wrought with Octavia and Rome by showing not only his inability to control his emotions by refusing to say goodbye to Cleopatra, but also his “extreme concernment / For an abandoned, faithless prostitute” (IV.447-48), when he hears the allegations of Cleopatra’s betrayal.
Cleopatra is also at fault. She admits the danger of following Alexas’ council from the start: “You shall rule me, / But all, I fear, in vain” (II.123-24) but she follows that council and allows him to speak to Antony on her behalf, despite Antony’s avowal that he will not see her. Later, when Cleopatra admits she does not believe in the power of jealousy to do anything but ill: “jealousy’s a proof of love, / but ’tis a weak and unavailing med’cine; … [it] has no pow’r to cure” (IV.82-85) and yet she still agrees to Alexas’ idea, desperate for any possible solution to her doleful situation, we should recall, from the beginning, her character and notice its consistency in predicting her actions. Despite Alexas’ manipulation of the weak and hurt Cleopatra, he is not entirely at fault for the decision Cleopatra is responsible for making that triggers the events leading to the tragedy. Cleopatra has consistently shown herself to be a character of strength over the years, despite her frequent despair over her present circumstances. She has additionally shown her ability to see through Alexas’ smooth words and her willingness to berate Alexas when necessary,[8] proving to some degree that she is not easily manipulated. When she discovers the depth of despair to which the scheme has driven Antony, Cleopatra blames Alexas, “’Twas thy design brought all this ruin on us” (V.130). And though she is right, that it was Alexas’ idea, it was Cleopatra’s actions that drove Antony into believing Alexas’ words[9] as true. She immediately hurries to “be justified” (V.146) and tragically, arrives too late.
Both Cleopatra and Imoinda are not as “independent” per se as their male counterparts, but neither are they weak and completely passive. They, like the men they love, are willing victims or “slaves” to their love, and also like their men, seem to give up certain freedoms that Charlotte Welldon, for instance, relishes. Charlotte makes wry and insightful observations about the natures of the minor characters (as well as amusing and honest generalizations of her sex and of men) that would never come from the proud and mournful Cleopatra or the enamored Imoinda. To the tragic heroines, love is less a free enterprise than a kind of slavery, but within the confines of the world of the plays, to be a slave to love is a preferable and desirable situation, despite the inherent consequences.
Imoinda, in Oroonoko, is not as a rich character as Cleopatra is and generally seems a reactive rather than active character, responding to either Oroonoko or the Lieutenant Governor. Where Cleopatra laments, desiring to be a wife, Imoinda is a wife, representing all of the passive, completely dutiful characteristics Charlotte Welldon, in contrast, does not. Welldon is an interesting comparative to Imoinda; though her ultimate goal is marriage, and she is willing to give up what she has gained by the play’s end to become the wife she has wanted to become, she is representative of a much more contemporary and active sort of woman than Imoinda. Instead, it is as if Oroonoko takes up the roles of both the Antony and Cleopatra characters—he has Antony’s active, assertive royal heritage paired with Cleopatra’s weakness of being on the weaker side of the conflict.[10]
So, what role does Imoinda serve within the play? If Dryden did assume “that the essence of drama is to produce pity for the hero” (King, 269), under that definition of tragedy Southerne succeeds by using Imoinda well to that effect. The heightened emotional language and reliance upon Imoinda as a “victim” for pathetic effect establish “a context of sympathetic immediacy for the dilemma [she depicts]” (“Defenseless Woman,” 434). Cleopatra accuses Octavia of having “the specious title of wife” which can “gild [her] cause and draw the pitying world / To favor it” (III.524-26) but where Octavia is “undeniably self-righteous” (Emerson et al., 85) and undeserving of that pity, Imoinda truly is. Southerne effectively educes our pity, our pathos, through Imoinda, increasing the overall tragic effect of the main plot through her consistent character.
Oroonoko, on the other hand, is presented with many more complexities than Imoinda. He is a “noble” man with “Roman” characteristics; he is even named “Caesar” (I.ii.281) in honor of his regal bearing. He is even more of a “Christian” by his actions—his willingness to forgive, his open love, his reluctance to do wrong—than many of the colonists in the play. Oroonoko’s characterization as “a prince, born only to command” (I.ii.208-209) and a “noble” man draw a clear parallel between him and Antony, but Oroonoko is not the same character. In fact, Antony and Oroonoko are strikingly dissimilar characters, unlike in their behavior and emotions, though there are some similar aspects, especially in the interplay between love and duty for both men. Both love their respective women with a passion to overwhelm a nation; Antony tells Ventidius that “Heav’n knows, I love / Beyond life, conquest, empire, all but honor” (I.491-92), but after she comes to him, he loses all resolve to follow Ventidius:
Faith, honor, virtue, all good things forbid
That I should go from her who sets my love
Above the price of kingdoms….
I’ll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra. (II.506-508;512)
Oroonoko, once rejoined with Imoinda, professes his love and devotion in very similar terms:
This little spot of earth you stand upon
Is more to me than the extended plains
Of my great father’s kingdom. Here I reign…
Your love my empire, and your heart my throne. (II.iv.186-190)
Yet despite the similarly worded avowals of devotion, they are different kinds of lovers—probably stemming directly from their differences of age and experience.
The essential details of their ages and current stations in life do seriously impact the nature of their characters. Antony and Cleopatra are older; they have loved a lifetime together, had children together. Oroonoko was divided from his bride after their secret wedding was revealed and their future life together—represented by Imoinda’s pregnancy—is only potentially beginning. Antony earned the ability to be with Cleopatra only after she had been “enjoyed” (II.315) by Caesar first. “He was my lord / And was, beside, too great for me to rival” (II.313-14). Oroonoko faces a similar situation to the one Antony had faced as a young man—with the Lieutenant Governor holding power over him, among others, stepping between him and Imoinda—but the crucial detail is that while Antony loved and wished to have Cleopatra for himself as a young man, he had no “legal” claim to her in the way Oroonoko has with Imoinda—the claim of marriage. At the present time of the play, Antony and Cleopatra are [still] not married and their being together does not ensure any legitimate dynasty will continue beyond them, and their being together disrupts the currently existing nation (represented in Act III with Octavia and the children). Even Dollabella comments on age, saying, “Mine was an age when love might be excused, / When kindly warmth and when my springing youth / Made it a debt to Nature” (III.208-10), seeming to imply that because Antony could not have Cleopatra completely as a young man, he should not have taken her as an older man. Dollabella comments further on the nature of the love Antony has shared with Cleopatra, saying, “The loss was private that I made; / ’Twas but myself I lost. I lost no legions; / I had no world to lose, no people’s love” (III.221-23). Oroonoko is only a king’s son, however, without Antony’s responsibility; he and Imoinda are furthermore married and their future together seems only to have personal (or perhaps local) implications, not the world-shattering implications of Antony and Cleopatra’s. And yet, both men are slaves, in different ways, chained to their fates and love: when Antony went to Cleopatra, he was hidden “from the bus’ness of the world, / Shut out inquiring nations” (II.323-24) for Cleopatra’s sake, losing the “name” of “Roman” “to be a slave in Egypt” (III.481-82), whereas Oroonoko, in the Lieutenant Governor’s words, “would well deserve / The empire of the world” (IV.ii.93-94)—if he were not presently a slave, and without the misfortune to be married to the intended mistress of the Lieutenant Governor.
Very different from Antony is the way in which Oroonoko is willing to forgive and does not easily or quickly place blame. The way in which he reacts to Imoinda regarding how they were separated and how they are reunited is a good example of this aspect of his character. Oroonoko cannot blame his father for his love of Imoinda and his jealousy (III.ii.1-2) citing instead Imoinda’s ethereal beauty which no man can easily deny. This both demonstrates the forgiving character of Oroonoko (especially as compared to the accusing, jealous Antony) and prepares us to anticipate the Lieutenant Governor’s already apparent love as potentially dangerous. Even Imoinda’s beauty is apparent to Aboan, who excuses Oroonoko, who “must not blame” Oroonoko for his love and adoration of her (III.ii.81). Oroonoko is also quick to forgive; he forgives the Captain for selling him into slavery, calling him “the minister of fate” (II.iv.176).
For a “savage” character, Oroonoko consistently exemplifies Christian characteristics, including, as stated, forgiveness, but also a passionate desire for justice instead of revenge, and a dependence on the honor of a man’s keeping his word. He demonstrates a strict code of morals to which not many characters in the play adhere, and his death at the end is tragic in part because when he dies, that morality seems to die with him. He does not initially want to be a part of the scheme to rise up against the planters and “murder the innocent” because he does not want them to have earned their misfortune by their “crimes” (III.ii.125;124). And when he does agree to lead the rebellion, it is not for revenge, and he does not desire it to be bloody; even when captured, he says, “I would not urge destruction uncompelled” but he is not a complete pacifist, because he believes in justice, threatening to defend if attacked (IV.ii.22-23). But Oroonoko is not altogether “godlike,” for when the Lieutenant Governor breaks his word with him and threatens Imoinda severely, Oroonoko vows to find justice for him, and finally does, acting as “the hand of justice” (V.v.347) personally. Oroonoko is changed by his situation from a nonviolent man into a murderer (in the name of justice) but even so cannot endure living with such a mark against himself—and finally dies, making all “as it should be” (V.v.350). He has more “virtue” (V.v.354) in the end than any of the characters (perhaps save Imoinda), and their deaths represent a tragic loss of moral virtue in their world.
Oroonoko is also open and honest in an almost naïve way. It is not a negative mark of his character but rather a demonstration of the magnanimity with which he loves, clearly demonstrating his “noble,” Christian characteristics—but also a product of his lack of life experience with the travails of fate in the way that Antony has experienced. Where Antony is almost embittered at points about the way their love has brought them to their “mutual ruin” (II.286), Oroonoko is optimistic and passionate, even after he is betrayed and both he and Imoinda face death. “All our prosperity is placed in love” (II.iv.184) Oroonoko tells Imoinda after they are rejoined, a love of such force Oroonoko even asks for our understanding:
No man condemn me, who has never felt
A woman’s power or tried the force of love:
All tempers yield and soften in those fires. (V.v.9-11)
There is an endearing, understandable quality to such openness and love, and Oroonoko here, as throughout the play, is not condemned for his deep, passionate love, but seems to be asking for understanding, and possibly praise for his steadfastness to his more mortal goals of assisting Aboan and the other slaves in their rebellion.
Finally, the loss of the promise of the future Oroonoko should have with Imoinda is heartbreaking in a way Antony and Cleopatra’s is not. When Antony and Cleopatra go together to “another world” it is proudly, “as they were giving laws to half mankind” (V.584), an image readily believable because that is—independently—what each ruler did in life. Their deaths are praised and remembered fondly, the preservation in death of a love that their society could not let continue. And it is remembered mournfully, with Serapion’s closing remarks:
…Sleep blest pair
Secure from human chance, long ages out,
While all the storms of Fate fly o’er your tomb,
And fame to late posterity shall tell,
No lovers lived so great, or died so well. (V.590-94)
But for Oroonoko and Imoinda, dying together is not so much a preservation of an idealized life they could not share, as Cleopatra’s last arrangements make hers and Antony’s out to be, but a preservation of their current life as a means to avoid the terrible fate, “to be butchered” (V.v.128), that awaits them if they are found by the very people they tried to rebel against. They choose instead to kill themselves “and so prevent” their attackers from making them suffer (V.v.175-79). These ends are different from each other, but within the framework of each play, the characters are consistent and flawed, inevitably leading to their respective ends.
An interesting similarity between the plays are the functions of Ventidius and Aboan within the plot. To that end much of their language is similar, especially in the scenes in which they attempt to convince their friend and lord of the necessity of his duty to lead his people in battle, instead of first following his heart. Both characters rely on the poetics of a heightened, Roman masculinity of honor, duty, action, and agency to attempt to convince their respective lords of their duty. Ventidius speaks to Antony’s honor and duty: “Up, up, for honor’s sake; twelve legions wait you / and long to call you chief” (I.387-388), and because nations hang in the balance, even the soldiers whom Antony would command have a condition for him—that they will not fight for Cleopatra. But Aboan, a dutiful man who loves Oroonoko, is a tougher, more embittered character than Ventidius; he has suffered much and seeks personal revenge for his fate in a way Ventidius does not, and as such his language is that of frustration and anger where Ventidius’ is the language of “officious love” (I.365), of a neglected favorite. They both call to their lords’ noble heritage in an attempt to convince them of their duty to action, Aboan telling Oroonoko:
Oh royal sir, remember who you are,
A prince, born for the good of other men,
Whose godlike office is to draw the sword
Against oppression and set free mankind. (III.ii.155-58)
Ventidius similarly calls to Antony’s nobility, calling him:
My Emperor; the man I love next heaven:
If I said more, I think ’twere scarce a sin;
Y’are all that’s good, and god-like. (I.281-83)
They reinforce the aristocratic themes of the play, of the duties of the ruling class to their people, and by their masters’ failures to complete their duties with success, demonstrate its tragic possibilities. They each reinforce the importance of the correct aristocratic lineage by each using their lords’ children as a means by which to argue; Ventidius summons Octavia and her young daughters to visibly convince Antony of the family—and duty to that family—he is abandoning.[11] Aboan begs Oroonoko think of the heir Imoinda carries, of the line that would “be born / To pamper up their pride and be their slaves” (III.ii.174-75) rather than following nature’s course.
The fact that both Ventidius and Aboan are compliments of their lords’ personalities is effective in their attempts to convince them; they may more easily play Devil’s advocate and show to their lord what their lord, in his own strident and stubborn way, cannot see because of his character. Ventidius is the idealist of the pair, painting Antony with hyper-masculine language as if supplying by substitution that aspect of Antony’s Roman heritage he has lost by being with Cleopatra. “For manhood’s sake” (II.233), Ventidius pleads with Antony, in an attempt to keep him from succumbing to Cleopatra. Aboan is more practical and ruthless, using more of the language of liberty as his argument, claiming a rebellion is “justified / By self-defense and natural liberty” (III.ii.103-104). Oroonoko is the pacifist and idealist of their pair, reluctant to take up a weapon against his captors and thereby commit a crime for which they can, in laws he can appreciate, convict him. Aboan is also suspicious of their masters, telling the trusting Oroonoko though he has done nothing wrong, “If they incline to think you dangerous, / They have their knavish arts to make you so” (III.ii.208-209). In a way it is Oroonoko’s openness and trust of Aboan and his willingness to cooperate that leads to his downfall, having seen no alternate choices himself; like Cleopatra in following Alexas’ advice, Oroonoko follows Aboan’s to an ultimately fatal end. At the end, such love and loyalty finally brings these secondary characters down to follow their lords’ fates. Ventidius promises Antony, as proof of his loyalty, “I can die with you too, when time shall serve” (I.381), and Aboan tells Oroonoko, “My life was yours, and so shall be my death” (V.v.39). Their deaths reinforce the aristocratic hierarchy of the plays, demonstrating visibly the cost of loyally supporting a tragic hero.
The comic subplot has many levels of importance in Oroonoko and is a crucial element in the play for several reasons. As Robert D. Hume argues, “to juxtapose heroic pathos and hard-style sex comedy creates a contrast that can be used either to exalt or subvert the ‘high’ element” (285), and in Oroonoko, it serves a contrasting function primarily, breaking up the tense and dramatic main plot and preventing it from threatening melodrama or losing focus. It also allows for a “modernization” of the main romantic heroic tragedy plot. Rather than changing the characters of Oroonoko and Imoinda too dramatically from Behn’s fictional counterparts, to make them more “realistic” and less heroically archetypical—wherein lay their potential power—Southerne injects a levity and reality to his version of Oroonoko through the device of the Welldon sisters’ scheme for marriage. Where All for Love relies solely on the detachment from reality that a romantic tragedy allows its audience, to convey a distant almost allegorical moral, the somewhat more contemporary (yet essentially still romantic) setting of Oroonoko and its noticeably contemporary comedic subplot give it an immediacy and recognizability that may enable an audience to more easily identify with the tragedy.
A good subplot serves to reveal additional character depth and dimensions by giving us a chance to see the main characters in different situations or reacting to different personalities. The Welldons are the first characters we see on stage and they, like the narrator of Behn’s novel, bring us into the world of the play because of their open natures, cleverness, and familiarity. The audience would immediately recognize such figures, generating personal identification and allowing for a more resonant and accessible reaction to the spectacle of the shackled Oroonoko appearing on stage in Act I, Scene ii. “Are all these wretches slaves?” (I.ii.204) Lucy asks, with an apparent incredulity an audience already identifying with her and Charlotte would feel deeply. They are the characters who ground the romance and tragedy in elements of the every day, making the play as a whole more accessible and more immediate to the audience.
Another way to view the subplot is its purpose as an ending alternate to that of the Oroonoko and Imoinda suicide ending. Canfield says the subplot is important because, “Britain needs another ending, and Southerne supplies it in his comic plot” (195). As Canfield also suggests, there is a clear satirical tone in the ending of the play because Oroonoko is ultimately more honorable, more Christian-seeming than his supposedly superior counterparts. Though the comic plot ends successfully, the Welldons still have played a nasty trick, despite how much Lackitt and her son may have deserved it, while Oroonoko dies, “guilty of no unbridled passion that destroys him” (Canfield, 196). The thought that the inheritors of this colonial world are “imperial tricksters” (Canfield, 196) is little better than the tragic ending, but it is satirical in its apparent honesty. Southerne does not romanticize his ending or try to trick his audience into believing that the evils of colonialism do not exist. It is an intelligent ending, richer than it would have been without the presence of the comedic subplot.
Both All for Love and Oroonoko have been carefully and purposefully constructed, and neither is attempting to—nor succeeds at—being a facsimile of its original version. They are both adaptations, translations, revisionings of compelling stories refit within their independent author’s creatively constructed worlds and moral frameworks, and deserve to be examined on their own terms. Their characters serve effectively designed purposes and are largely realistic; in the case of a very archetypical character like Imoinda, effective and fresh contrasts—the Welldons—serve to compliment and complicate the lack of her individual character. The plays both establish morals without overt or unrealistic didacticism; Antony and Cleopatra’s love is forbidden by their society’s laws, true, but by the end of the play, Dryden himself does not punish them for it—leaving the audience open to decide for themselves about the ultimate eternal fates of the main characters—not a shortcoming of the play, but rather a realistic and welcome conclusion to a powerful, thought-provoking tragedy. Oroonoko and Imoinda die and with them dies their morality and high virtue, leaving us with the Welldons—rather, the Stanmores and Lackitts—to inherit the earth; it is not an entirely comfortable idea, yet it is not unrealistic. The audience would likely see familiar faces in the Welldon sisters and want them to succeed in their endeavors, as they do, affirming some successful enterprising aspect of society while regretting the loss of another. Both plays exhibit that “world well lost,” the subtitle of All for Love, and leave us with that curious sense of loss and the ambiguous question of what we have gained—leaving us to decide exactly what that is.
Barnet, Sylvan. “Recognition and Reversal in Antony and Cleopatra.” Shakespeare Quarterly 8.3 (1957): 331-334.
Brown, Laura. “The Defenseless Woman and the Development of English Tragedy.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 22.3 (1982): 429-443.
Brown, Laura S. “The Divided Plot: Tragicomic Form in the Restoration.” ELH 47.1 (1980): 67-79.
Canfield, J. Douglas. Heroes & States: On the Ideology of Restoration Tragedy. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2000.
Clark, William S. “The Definition of the ‘Heroic Play’ in the Restoration Period.” The Review of English Studies 8.32 (1932): 437-444.
Clark, William S. “The Sources of the Restoration Heroic Play.” The Review of English Studies 4.13 (1928): 49-63.
Clark, William S. and Kathleen M. Lynch. “The Platonic Element in the Restoration Heroic Play.” PMLA 45.2 (1930): 623-626.
Dryden, John. All for Love, or The World Well Lost. Ed. Tanya Caldwell. The Broadview Anthology of Restoration & Early Eighteenth-Century Drama. Ed. Douglas J. Canfield. Concise Edition. Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Press, 2001. 275-320.
Emerson, Everett H., Harold E. Davis, and Ira Johnson. “Intention and Achievement in All for Love.” College English 17.2 (1955): 84-87.
Ferguson, Moira. “Oroonoko: Birth of a Paradigm.” New Literary History 23.2, Revising Historical Understanding. (1992): 339-359.
Fujimura, Thomas H. “The Appeal of Dryden’s Heroic Plays.” PMLA 75.1 (1960): 37-45.
Hume, Robert D. “The Importance of Thomas Southerne.” Modern Philology 87.3 (1990): 275-290.
King, Bruce. “Dryden’s Intent in All for Love.” College English 24.4 (1963): 267-271.
Levine, Carol Freed. “All for Love and Book IV of the Aeneid: The Moral Predicament.” Comparative Literature 33.3 (1981): 239-257.
McHenry, Robert W., Jr. “Betrayal and Love in All for Love and Bérénice.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 31.3 (1991): 445-461.
Pacheco, Anita. “Royalism and Honor in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 34.3 (1994): 491-506.
Pearson, Jacqueline. “Gender and Narrative in the Fiction of Aphra Behn.” The Review of English Studies, New Series 42.165 (1991): 40-56.
Rothstein, Eric. “English Tragic Theory in the Late Seventeenth Century.” ELH 29.3 (1962): 306-323.
Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra. Ed. David Bevington. Updated Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Southerne, Thomas. Oroonoko. Ed. Joyce Green MacDonald. The Broadview Anthology of Restoration & Early Eighteenth-Century Drama. Ed. Douglas J. Canfield. Concise Edition. Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Press, 2001. 427-475.
[1] Emerson et al. posit that the play, “does not present a picture of ‘the crimes of love’ and of unlawful lovers being punished for their voluntary transgressions” (81), furthermore stating that, “although All for Love is certainly correct in terms of the physical properties of classical tragedy (or at least Dryden’s understanding of them), the play does not provide a true tragic catharsis” (86).
[2] See Maximillian E. Novak and David Stuart Rhodes, eds. Oroonoko, by Thomas Southerne. Regents Restoration Drama Series. (Lincoln, Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1976): xxviii-xxxii. Cited in Canfield, Heroes & States.
[3] By this I refer to the popular royalist reading of Behn’s Oroonoko. For additional discussion, see Pacheco.
[4] See King and Emerson et al. for additional discussion and analysis of Dryden’s intentions.
[5] As Emerson et al. argue, “We should not judge Dryden’s play a failure because it does not do things that Shakespeare’s does; it is a different play” (87).
[6] Emerson et al. state that “the inevitability of the action is marred because the catastrophe is brought about by an accident” (87); see also Levine.
[7] For example, in Act I, Antony does not believe in his own value, even after Ventidius explains troops await his command (387-88), and doubts their loyalty immediately when he hears they have a condition for him (401;415). He even accuses Ventidius of being a traitor after substantial evidence to the contrary (446; 458-59).
[8] See II.5-6, III.543.
[9] “Yet Dollabella / Has loved her long. He, next my godlike lord, / Deserves her best, and should she meet his passion, / Rejected as she is, by him she loved—” (IV.436-39)
[10] In All for Love, Egypt stands no chance against the more powerful Rome, much like the slaves in Oroonoko stand no chance against the planters and colonists.
[11] “Look on her, view her well, and those she brings: / Are they all strangers to your eyes? has Nature / No secret call, no whisper they are yours?” (III.272-74)
Thursday January 1, 2009
Written for a class at Carnegie Mellon University in 2007.
Rosalind and her father, the Magnificent Migo, spend an awkward weekend together at the confirmation class retreat.
Rosalind thought having Confirmation Class during the summer was an injustice against thirteen-year-olds everywhere. With the sun setting at almost nine o’clock, it wasn’t fair that she was stuck in the hot church school building from five to eight every Sunday night. She thought of the retreat in a week and winced. No, she decided, that was the true injustice. A weekend with the other church kids in some woodsy site in cow country.
Rosalind began attempting to beg her way out of Confirmation Class at four-thirty every Sunday. It hadn’t worked yet, but she was optimistic. Persistence will get you anywhere, her father said her often enough. She almost believed him.
“Mom, it’s only the four of us and it’s so boring.” She imagined her sweaty skin sticking to the plastic chairs in the musty classroom while she stared at grumpy Pastor Dan. At least at Sunday School in the mornings she could stare at their teacher, James, and daydream about him. His perfect smile. His perfect eyes.
“Sorry, Rosalind. You’re still going.” Her mother wasn’t looking at Rosalind; her eyes moved down the row of cages stacked against the far wall of the cramped living room with brusque precision. Her mother wore her white veterinarian’s coat as she marked boxes on her clipboard, checking the living room menagerie twice a day with the same attention to detail she obsessively used in her practice down the street. The four parakeets, six doves, and three rabbits were bound to have a more exciting evening than Rosalind.
Mikey, holding a bag of bird food and following their mother as she refilled the feed cups, stuck his tongue out at Rosalind, his brown eyes bulging. “Rosalind’s gotta go to school,” he taunted, “but Mikey actually has a vacation.” In the fall he would be a third grader. It wasn’t worth explaining her situation to him.
“It’s not real school, Mikey,” their mother said absently. “With the retreat next weekend, you definitely should go tonight, Rosalind.”
The logic didn’t make sense. Next week she was getting a double dose of Confirmation Class, which clearly meant she didn’t need to go this week. She was tempted to drag up the old argument, that it was not fair that she had to go to Confirmation Class even when the family didn’t go to church. Her parents had gone to church when they both were younger with their own parents, but didn’t believe in going themselves anymore. But for some ridiculous reason no one had completely explained, Rosalind was forced to go to Confirmation Class.
“But Mom—”
The front door opened and their father entered with his usual flair, dumping down his large black cases in the foyer. “Hey, hey,” he boomed into the house. “The Magnificent Migo has arrived!” He bowed, full of stage flourishes.
“Hi, Migo,” her mother called, grinning as she always did at the Magnificent Migo’s antics.
“Hey, Dad!” Mikey called.
Rosalind spun around to him. “Please say I don’t have to go to Confirmation Class, Dad, it’s not worth my time, really—”
“Rosalind, grab one, won’t you?”
She moved to grab one of the heavy black cases filled with her father’s equipment and heaved it to its usual spot by the couch. “But Dad—”
“No arguing.” Her father wore a black and purple cape over a black sport coat and slacks, white shirt, and purple tie, with red Converse All Stars on his feet to finish the ensemble. “The Magnificent Migo has no time to argue if he’s to get you to class on time.” Her father referred to himself in the third person whenever he was in costume. It was a habit Rosalind had long since gotten used to, and one that Mikey was starting to pick up himself.
“How was it?” her mother called from near the cages. “Seniors liked the show?”
“They always do,” he replied proudly. Only her father’s eyes seemed tired from a day of performing. He did a circuit of the nursing homes on Sunday afternoons, doing one each Sunday for three weeks, then a week off, then cycling back again. Rosalind went with him went he went to the Miller Center for the Elderly every second Sunday, which was only a block away from the church, but third Sundays he went to the Berger Day Center, which meant she didn’t have to stand around looking at the vapidly staring old ladies and gaunt men who clapped tiredly at her dad’s gimmicky tricks. Old people bothered Rosalind only slightly more than the idea of camping with the church kids in cow country.
“Dad, guess what the Magnificent Mikey did today?” Mikey asked excitedly, skipping over to the front door. The bag of birdseed in his arms threatened to spill. “Guess!”
“The Magnificent Migo will guess later, so Rosalind won’t be late,” her father replied, tousling Mikey’s hair and righting the birdseed bag in his arms. Migo turned to Rosalind. “Got your things?”
“Dad, please—”
Migo crossed his arms and looked down at her. The effect of his height, suit, purple tie, and cape was almost as intimidating to Rosalind as it was ridiculous. She sighed and shuffled off to get her bag with a copy of Luther’s Catechism, a notebook, and a pen, praying that no one would see her father in his costume when he dropped her off at the church.
***
Her father’s hand on the worn steering wheel tapped in rhythm with his whistling as he pulled onto the exit ramp. The radio and tape deck had been broken for months now, and the air conditioning for years, so the only noise besides the creaking transmission as her father shifted gears was what they generated themselves. Migo whistled some song Rosalind had never heard before. All he typically needed was a bar or two of any song and he was off, whistling like a mad parakeet. How he managed to have this much energy every day eluded Rosalind. Neither her father nor mother believed in caffeine or carbonation.
It was bad enough that any school friends who came to her house saw the stacked animal cages, her mother always in her lab coat (even when cooking meals, like some sort of mad scientist), Mikey knocking things over and loudly talking in the third person, and her father in all of his colorful costumed glory. It only got worse when her father would pull out a deck of cards and ask them to “Pick a card, any card! The Magnificent Migo will guess exactly which card you have chosen.” After that, they’d made faces that clearly meant Your family is from Mars and hadn’t come over again. She didn’t have enough friends anymore to risk the few friendships she still had by bringing them over.
“Excited about that retreat?”
“Not really.” The exit took them through the heart of White Plains, passing the mall with Sunday evening traffic honking and jostling to get into its overpriced parking garage. The many lanes of the busy streets were tightly packed all the way to the center of the city. The wide-windowed shops on either side and anxious pedestrians hesitating at crosswalks reminded Rosalind they lived in a city, near an even bigger city. All of the loud life and sound around them was home.
“It’s up in Putnam, isn’t it?”
“Duchess County,” she corrected. Even further north than Putnam. “Cow country.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “I like Duchess County. Remember the fair? We took you guys there when you were little—your mother was the on-call vet there one year, remember?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
“It was great. The Rhinebeck fair—that’s what it’s called. We don’t have anything like that down here, none of those food and livestock judging competitions and trick riding shows. We should take you guys there again.” He nodded and glanced over at Rosalind. “It’s good to remember there’s something other than this,” he said, waving a hand to indicate the traffic. “A little natural wonder might go a long way for a practical girl like you.”
She saw him grinning at her. Rosalind slid down her seat and looked out of the window. The Magnificent Migo never knew when to shut up. Unlike Mikey, Rosalind had stopped enjoying the Magnificent Migo’s “magic” tricks when she was in the third grade and she learned about mathematical probability.
They turned onto another wide avenue and the church appeared, its great gray stones a century old and easily dwarfed by the neon-lit structures on either side of it. The old stonework-and-glass church was crammed between an office building with an Italian deli on its ground floor on one side and a men’s suit shop with a multi-story gym over it on the other. A narrow side street led to the quiet road behind the church.
Pastor Dan, tall and white-haired, stood outside the back door of the church school building behind the church itself. He held a cigarette discreetly at his hip as if to pretend he was holding it for someone else. He was always too attentive, active with the sort of grandfatherly energy she associated with the younger men at the nursing homes her father visited.
He flicked the butt to the grass and hurried over to the car, gesturing for Migo to roll down the driver’s side window. Her father complied—or tried to, struggling with the manual window. It jammed. He cranked the knob a few times and it still did not budge. Her father stopped trying and just looked through the two inch gap at Pastor Dan.
“Migo, Rosalind, hello,” he said, bobbing his head to them.
“Hello, Pastor Dan,” they said in unison.
“Migo, I was wondering if I could have a word?” Pastor Dan’s crinkled blue eyes indicated Rosalind. She was not welcome to hear the word, apparently. She didn’t move.
“Yes?” her father asked. He had caught Pastor Dan’s look and evidently agreed with Rosalind.
“Are you available next weekend?”
“Um.” He was silent for a moment, thinking. “It’s my weekend off.”
Rosalind sank slowly lower into the front passenger seat. No, no, no, she thought.
“Wonderful. Would you be willing to be a chaperone for the retreat? Amy’s mother can’t after all.”
“You want me to chaperone?”
If Pastor Dan was asking her father it was bad. Pastor Dan and the Magnificent Migo had gotten into more than one loud argument, though neither were the shouting types, instead attempting to dwarf the other’s words by being louder. From what Rosalind had overheard, they never seemed to be discussing anything that had a right or wrong answer, anyway. Usually they managed to be tightly polite with each other, like now.
“I’d—we’d—really appreciate it, Migo.”
“I’ll have to talk to Claire about it,” he said, and Pastor Dan’s hopeful expression became a little more desperate. “But I’m, um, sure I could do it.”
The relief on Pastor Dan’s face was obvious. “Good, good. I’ll send Rosalind home with some forms. And you might not want to bring your—the costume,” he added.
“Right…Dan.” His voice was cautiously polite. “Rosalind?”
She took her cue and got out of the car. There was no good reason for Migo not to chaperone, and neither of her parents would ever lie to a man like Pastor Dan. Rosalind’s feet were heavy as she walked up to class.
***
All four of them were on time. Amy, silent as ever, was intent on a doodle in her spiral notebook. Rosalind doubted she had written anything about Martin Luther or the church calendar down at all in the past ten months of class. Rocco and Kevin both balanced on two of their chairs’ legs, grinning and insulting each other. They were only friendly because they were the only two boys in the class. Rocco’s shirt had orange cheese powder stains down the front and his long hair was knotted and greasy, while Kevin, the Assistant Pastor’s son, wore a crisp blue polo and khakis. His blond hair was brushed and parted neatly. But despite the neatness, Kevin had a flat face and a flat head and looked to be only Mikey’s age instead of hers. He was completely unlike his sixteen year old brother James, who was perfection incarnate. James taught the seventh and eighth graders Sunday School—for his college applications, he’d confided to Rosalind months ago. She suppressed a shiver at the memory of James’ wink and grin when he’d told her that. He’d be going on the retreat, she remembered. Maybe it wasn’t going to be completely miserable.
Rocco’s chair legs slipped first, sending him toppling over backwards and the chair crashing to the linoleum of the ancient classroom with a resounding smack. He laughing hysterically, rolling around to hop back up to his feet. “Ta-da!” he cried with arms outstretched, as if it had all been planned. Amy didn’t look up. Kevin yanked himself straight and looked around anxiously.
Pastor Dan walked in and ignored both Kevin and Rocco. He put a book, Bible, and a stack of papers on one side of the desk and wrote “1521 – Luther’s Excommunication” on the black board. He passed around a photocopied worksheet from a textbook about Martin Luther’s excommunication. Rosalind studied the artist’s rendering of Luther in black and white on the sheet. He was fat and a definite ex-monk. They had been studying the history of Martin Luther since Pentecost in May, when the eighth graders had all gotten confirmed and left their class. Until September it would only be the few of them until the new group of seventh graders joined them and they started learning about the church calendar and holidays again.
With a finger, Pastor Dan indicated that Kevin should read aloud from the sheet. “In 1521, Luther was called before the Diet of Worms—”
“Worms?” Rocco interrupted, sniggering.
“No, Worms,” Pastor Dan corrected, pronouncing it as Vorms. He put a wide, wrinkled hand to his forehead and rubbed it. “It’s a city in Germany.” Pastor Dan had five grown children and two grandchildren. Rosalind expected if he hadn’t gotten used to handling kids, he would have gone insane a few times over already.
“Why would the Germans name a city after worms?” Rocco asked. He grinned as he asked it, like he did every single time he asked a stupid, pointless question. Rosalind wanted to throw something at him but she didn’t have anything she didn’t want to be contaminated.
“They didn’t, Rocco, it’s a coincidence of language. Kevin, keep reading.”
Rosalind sat back and rolled her eyes. The retreat was going to be amazing. A-ma-zing.
***
Dr. Terrazini dropped off both Rosalind and Migo—plain Migo today, in jeans and a t-shirt—at the church parking lot the following Friday afternoon. They had not owned two cars since Rosalind was little, and it was only at times like this when Rosalind really hated it. She and her father were going to have to ride in Pastor Dan’s van with the other kids.
“Migo, no philosophical arguments with the children in hearing range, please. We don’t want them to be disenchanted just yet,” Rosalind’s mother told her father as he and Rosalind got out of the car.
“Mikey is already disenchanted,” Mikey said enthusiastically from the back seat.
“No, you’re not, Mikey. Have a good time!” she called, leaning over the passenger seat.
“We will,” Migo told her and shut the passenger door tightly. His voice was unusually strained. For a change, he seemed to share Rosalind’s feelings about something.
He held a bulging duffel bag and an ancient sleeping bag wrapped in plastic that had probably last been pulled out of the attic twenty years ago. Rosalind’s gear was newer, part of her Girl Scout necessities. Pastor Dan nodded greetings as he took their gear and stowed it in the back of the van, one of only two remaining vehicles in the small parking lot. Kevin, his mother, and his older brother leaned against the other one, their brand new 1998 Lexus. His father was staying to perform the Sunday service here, because Pastor Dan was going with them. But James was going. Six feet tall with arms crossed carelessly over his broad chest, he nodded to her and her father in greeting. Rosalind grinned back stupidly. She fought the sudden urge to beg a ride with them instead of having to deal with the combined Rocco and Migo experience of Pastor Dan’s van.
“All ready,” Pastor Dan announced. “Let’s get in.” Rosalind hesitated before getting in, glancing back to see the Lexus’ doors were already closed, its passengers inside and no longer looking at the van. She turned back to see Amy already asleep in the back of the van, her arms clutching her backpack like a stuffed toy. Rocco lounged across the middle bench of the van, grinning at her wickedly. Somehow Rosalind had thought she’d be sitting next to her father, not Amy or Rocco. Pastor Dan spoke up again. “Migo, would you sit next to Rocco?”
Migo had never met Rocco. Rosalind squeezed in next to Amy, who didn’t wake up. Rocco stuck his head out of the van and grinned at Rosalind’s father, holding out a grubby hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Terrazini, sir,” he said. “Ros said you’re a magician.”
“Rocco—Dad—I didn’t mean—”
But Migo grinned back. Instead of being upset that she’d mentioned it, he seemed thrilled. “That I am,” he told Rocco, getting in next to him and slamming the door. “The Magnificent Migo, at your service,” he said in his magician’s voice.
“That’s so cool,” Rocco said. There was a something like awe in the look he gave Rosalind’s father. Rosalind’s teeth grated in a silent groan of annoyance.
Pastor Dan sighed and shook his head as he settled in the driver’s seat.
***
The campsite was a collection of three cabins, an open-air kitchen structure, and a bathroom and shower building all clustered around a fire pit. In the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere. In cow country.
Rosalind had counted the cow farms with silos and tractors and the whole deal on their way up the Taconic Parkway—five. Though she could have dozed off through one or two, so she estimated it was really more like eight. Then they had driven from parkway to two lane road to one lane dirt track to this place. The silence of the campground hung heavily in the air around them. The heavy foliage surrounding the rough wooden buildings all but blocked out the sun. Rosalind had never seen trees densely packed enough that she could not see anything beyond them. From the parkways near White Plains she could see more roads through the trees, or streetlights and outlines of buildings at night between the wide trunks. Even when she went camping with the Girl Scouts they were only a mile from a few strip malls—and all of their cabins and kitchens had electricity and running water. The kitchen here was little more than a roof over a cement barbeque.
They were cut off from everything alive, everything that mattered.
She thought of James. Well, not everything.
Migo and Rocco hopped from the van together, still laughing at some joke Migo had made. Their laughter seemed stifled by the oppressive silence, not reaching beyond the small clearing. They had talked and laughed the entire trip, jolting both Rosalind and Amy out of their attempts at naps a few times. Migo instantly adopted the stage speech, mannerisms, and eagerness of the Magnificent Migo once he realized Rocco would be all the captive audience he needed for a performance. He had brought three decks of cards of various types, trick and normal coins, and a few colorful scarves.
Rocco had not bothered anyone else for the entire two and a half hour drive. Pastor Dan had muttered something about a miracle in disguise.
Kevin’s mother, Amy, and Rosalind took one cabin, Migo, James, Kevin, and Rocco another, and Pastor Dan took one to himself. “I’m an old man. I go to bed early,” he said to Migo, by way of explanation, though Migo hadn’t complained.
The cabins were filled with dead leaves and dirt. The cot mattresses were wrapped in a stiff raincoat material and the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling didn’t work when Mrs. Brauer tried the switch. Amy bit her lip and looked around with wide eyes, borderline terrified. Mrs. Brauer’s mouth was flat and a crease appeared between her brows as she surveyed the single room.
The Girl Scouts had prevented her from being as useless as they were. Rosalind claimed a mattress for herself. “I’m going to find a broom,” she announced, leaving Mrs. Brauer and Amy to stand in the dirty cabin.
As she crossed the grassy campsite, she heard shouting from the boys’ cabin and heard Rocco’s distinctive shriek of laughter. “Boys,” she muttered, hurrying to the kitchen area.
Someone was already rummaging in the metal shed in the kitchen. Expecting Pastor Dan, Rosalind almost jumped when the door slammed shut to reveal James.
“Hi,” she said. It sounded more like a hiccup than a greeting.
“Hi.” He held a broom in one hand and looked at her curiously. She stared at the broom. “You looking for this?” His teeth were very straight. Had he worn braces at one time, or were his teeth naturally that perfect?
“Um. Yes.”
“I’ll bring it over when I’m done. How’s that?” She felt herself nod, though she hadn’t consciously told herself to nod. James smiled and turned, walking across the grass to the boys’ cabin with an athletic grace, as if the broom were a lacrosse stick or baseball bat. Her father said that angels were only a lie created by the church, but Rosalind knew there had to be something otherworldly or angelic about James for him to be that perfect.
***
At the fire that night they sat in the groups they had fallen into for the afternoon’s cleaning, settling in, and eating of packed dinners. Pastor Dan sat alone on one large log, facing the others. He held a box of marshmallows and skewers protectively on his lap, as if to prevent Rocco from stealing them if he let them out of sight. Rosalind, Amy, and Mrs. Brauer all sat together but said nothing—they hadn’t spoken to one another all afternoon—while the boys all sat on another log, with Migo in the middle, James and Rocco on either side of him. Kevin sat next to James but kept making faces at his older brother as if James had stolen the better seat. Migo was half-grinning, as if he’d just had the best afternoon imaginable.
Pastor Dan was grumpy. The light in his cabin didn’t work either, but the light in the boys’ cabin did work. Rosalind suspected Pastor Dan of being jealous of that, but he seemed to proud to ask the boys to switch cabins—or light bulbs—because the girls hadn’t asked.
He seemed to decide something. “Karen? Migo? I’m going to turn in. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.” Pastor Dan stood wearily and handed the box of marshmallows to Mrs. Brauer.
“Are you sure?” Migo asked. Their was something about her father’s face that looked a little too much like pleasure to make her believe his sympathetic expression was genuine.
“Quite sure, Migo. Good night, everyone.”
After Pastor Dan left, Mrs. Brauer attempted to assume control of the group. “I think one marshmallow for each person is good,” she said, opening one of the three plastic bags of marshmallows.
“Only one?” Rocco whined at the same time Kevin begged, “Please, Mom?”
“There are plenty, Mom,” James pointed out, pulling out another bag. “Why don’t we each have a few?”
“No,” Mrs. Brauer said, a sharp warning tone in her voice. Immediately James dropped the marshmallow bag and Kevin stopped his pleading.
“Karen. Let’s give them a few each. No harm in that.” Migo spoke soothingly, lifting the bag James had touched and—without waiting for approval—ripped it open. Mrs. Brauer stared at him, shock plain on her face. He stuck in a skewer, put two on it, and handed it to Rocco, then did the same for both Kevin and James.
“I’ve chaperoned on this retreat for—”
“Karen, it’s camping. It’s marshmallows. Come on, relax.”
She did. Rosalind had never seen Mrs. Brauer, a leader at church events, give in so easily.
“Your dad is really cool,” Kevin said quietly to Rosalind as they both reached for marshmallows.
“Yes,” she said, almost hissing the word. It was hard not to scowl.
***
They woke early on Saturday. Pastor Dan was vividly awake with a clipboard in his hands as the group gathered around cold cereal at breakfast. He gave them the run-down of the agenda, and then they were off, heading through the woods on a trail down to a lake hidden behind the trees where one of the campground guides would teach them to canoe and they could swim. After the lake, they were going to do “activities” back at the site in the kitchen that Mrs. Brauer had devised. Rosalind kept her arms crossed and lips tightly closed throughout the morning. Her father was looking unusually bright and chipper. The boys all quietly quarreled over who would sit next to Migo, or walk with Migo, or even talk with Migo.
Stupid boys, Rosalind wanted to mutter, but she kept her mouth resolutely shut. She would show them how mature she could be.
On the hike down to the lake, Kevin and Rocco played a racing game of tag through the trees, Mrs. Brauer listened to a book-on-tape, and Amy stared around them, eyes taking in the scenery. James caught up to Rosalind and Migo, striking up a friendly conversation about the Yankees and the Mets with her father.
“I haven’t seen you at church,” James said later, changing the topic.
“Yes. Claire—Rosalind’s mother—and I don’t go to church.” He smiled awkwardly.
“But Rosalind”—James’ glance actually included her in the conversation—“is in Sunday School and Confirmation Class.”
“Her mother’s idea. My wife thinks everyone should have a working understanding of religion. I agree.”
“You don’t follow a religion yourself?”
“I did. I went to twelve years of Catholic school.” Rosalind had only heard the short version of this story. She glanced curiously up at her father. “I had my share of ‘harrowing hell.’ I barely survived. That, and when I told my folks of my magician’s calling, as it were, they were not exactly pleased.”
James smiled slowly. “I think—” He cut off, daring a glance back at his mother. Her eyes were unfocused as she gave her whole attention to the book-on-tape. “I think I know what you mean about parental expectations, Mr. Terrazini. I have a share of my own.”
Rosalind felt a pang of jealousy as Migo and James shared an understanding glance.
“Migo, please. Just Migo.”
“Isn’t that your stage name?”
“Yes and no. I’m really Michael, but when I dubbed myself Migo about thirty years ago, the nuns told me I profaned my Christian name by shortening it. Naturally, that made it stick with all my school friends.”
Rosalind’s resolution to stay quiet almost faltered. Her father had never told her that before. She knew her father’s name was Michael, of course—Mikey was Michael Terrazini, Jr., after all—but the rest…. She slowed her pace. Migo and James went ahead, not noticing that she fell behind. Her father had never acted sonormal before. But it wasn’t with her.
***
When the forced camp dinner was over—hot dogs and hamburgers with Migo doing the grilling on the kitchen’s charcoal grill—Pastor Dan pleaded exhaustion and went into his cabin. Migo went into his own cabin as James helped the rest build up the fire at the center of the site. Migo reappeared a few moments later—in costume.
Rosalind’s heart sank at the sight of her father, grinning happily at the surprised and smiling faces of the other kids. James grinned broadest, second to Rocco. Mrs. Brauer looked at him with an adult’s skepticism. Rosalind had seen that look on the faces of parents at birthday parties; she usually wore that look herself when watching her father’s act. Migo jumped on top of a log near the fire and bowed to everyone. He began the routine Rosalind remembered from the nursing homes; he only did simple tricks that didn’t involve any elaborate props—he hadn’t brought his black cases—and no rabbit or bird tricks. Even so he put on a grand show with copious bows, grinning, and unnecessary audience assistance. After the first trick, Amy looked up from her spiral notebook and Mrs. Brauer didn’t put on her headphones.
Before long it was completely dark, the fire spitting merrily and the sun completely set, Rocco asked where the marshmallows were.
“James, Rosalind? Do you guys want to get them from the kitchen?”
They both got up and hurried over to the kitchen area.
“I wish my dad were more like yours, Rosalind,” James said when they were under the wooden roof of the open kitchen. “Migo is so straightforward. He hates all the sugar-coated nonsense other parents give instead of real answers. And he’s so funny.” James’ eyes almost glowed as he said it. He rummaged in one of the metal storage closets, the one in which their food supplies were kept in their boxes. “Your family must always be exciting. I’m so jealous.”
She couldn’t answer. James didn’t notice and she realized she didn’t care.
Perfect James admired her father. It tightened her stomach unpleasantly. He was sixteen and he liked the goofiness, the jokes, the antics? James was just a too-tall child underneath the straight smiles and brilliant eyes. All of the boys were as immature and annoying as her father. Could no one be mature without beingold, like Pastor Dan? Mrs. Brauer was, she supposed, but she had complained about the uncomfortable canoes, the sun, and the heat, then had retreated to listening to her book-on-tape for the rest of the day.
And why could James possibly be jealous? His father, when he wasn’t acting as Assistant Pastor, had a good job in White Plains at an office, as did his mother. They had a Lexus and a BMW and a large white house a few blocks from the church. What could be so imperfect about his life?
They went back to the fire in silence, carrying the marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, and skewers. Migo, still in full costume with cape and hat and all, stood perched dramatically on one of the logs, waving his hands with practiced gravity over the deck of cards he held. Mrs. Brauer held a card in her hand, glancing from it to Migo.
“I have it memorized,” she said.
“Place it back in the deck, anywhere,” he told her, and she obeyed. Migo waved a hand over the cards and shuffled them well. “Cut the deck, please.” She divided it in half and then, as directed, divided it in half again. “Now, Rocco, would you be so kind as to take the top card here and show it to Mrs. Brauer?” Rocco hopped up, all obedient assistant, and took the top card and held it up to Karen. She gasped. “Is that your card?”
“Yes!” she said, and Rosalind saw the unfeigned amazement on her face. Her, too?
James dropped the box he carried by the fire and joined the others in their enthusiastic applause. Amy, her arms wrapped around a notebook, even clapped awkwardly, a grin lighting her usually quiet face.
The others crowded around for sticks and marshmallows and chocolate and asked Migo a good number of questions, most of which he loudly thwarted by saying, “Why, a good magician never reveals his secrets!”
Rosalind’s anger burned beneath her skin, nearly trembling with the sudden ferocity of it. She shot a furious look at her father and stormed off into the dark trees behind the cabins, snatching up a flashlight as she went. Her livid tromping through the brush was soon followed by a second pair of hurrying feet behind her.
“Rosalind! Hey, what’s wrong?” It was the Magnificent Migo.
She turned, her anger blazing. “Why do you always have to do that?” she demanded.
“Do what?”
“Take over! Do your stupid tricks! Can’t you stop being the Magnificent Migo for one second? Ever?”
“Since when have you had an issue with my profession, young lady?”
“Since forever! You’re never like any other normal dad!”
He flinched at the word “normal” like she’d flung a curse at him. “You want me to be more like Pastor Dan? Or Kevin’s dad? Some church man who’s got no sense of humor at all?”
“At least they’re serious!” she snapped, reaching desperately in her memory to find the words and arguments she had so often formed in her head so perfectly and intelligently. She had played this moment again and again, how she would tell him how ridiculous and embarrassing he was, how he made her face go flaming red more often than anything else. Now it was all coming out wrong. She was shouting, her limbs vibrating with adrenaline, and she felt the sharp stinging in her nose that meant tears were about to come. “You don’t act the way a father should,” she said, more quietly.
“And how is that, Professor?” His mouth was flat with anger.
“You’re never serious when it matters, never with me or our family. None of my friends want to come over because they think we’re all crazy, especially you. Even Mikey has started acting like you!” She exhaled a sharp breath and felt the bubble of her anger deflate. “You don’t act like a role model. At least not to me.”
He seemed to want to say a lot to that, all of which he dismissed when he snapped his wordless working jaw shut. Finally, he asked, “When did you get so—prudish?” He looked at her as if she were suddenly an adult he had never met. When she looked at him blankly for a moment, he seemed to realize she didn’t understand the meaning of the word. His eyes softened; she was Rosalind again to him. His mouth twisted into a slow, somber smile. “Rosie, when did you get so old?”
It wasn’t a compliment. He meant the word in the wheezy, boring, elderly sense. There was no longer anger in his eyes; her father looked like he did in those rare times when his trick fell apart mid-performance and the audience laughed at him.
She could have dealt with anger, she knew, but not this terrible, broken feeling of disappointment. The hovering tears fell and she turned, half-running, half-stumbling back to the camp and her cabin.
She didn’t think he’d been the one to make her cry.
***
It was Sunday morning. Rosalind had not cried after her initial tears the night before, but had gone to bed feeling like she had flipped her canoe and she couldn’t find a way to climb back in, out of the water. She stared vacantly past her bowl of dry cereal at breakfast, still feeling half-drowned.
Pastor Dan, however, looked bright and rested. He did brief morning services with none of the formality of the church ceremonies she remembered from the few times she had served as acolyte. Migo seemed to be bearing it out without complaint. Rosalind watched him without trying to seem like she was. She half regretted what she had said, but she didn’t want to let him know that. They were still gathered around the little kitchen area, arranged to face Pastor Dan, when he began his sermon, which, he told them, he had made appropriate in the context of the Confirmation Class’ current studies.
Pastor Dan told the story of when Martin Luther, as a young law student, was caught in a ferocious rain storm one night. Lightning had struck a tree close to him on the road, terrifying him. He prayed fervently for his life to be spared, and when he lived, he dedicated himself to the church and pledged to a monastery, giving up his future as a lawyer to his father’s disappointment. Rosalind noticed Migo was making a face at that, but she couldn’t tell what it was—amusement? Annoyance?
“Faith,” Pastor Dan said, “is an odd thing, and different for everyone. Did God really save Martin Luther’s life, or was it pure luck? Would he have dedicated his life to the church if that had not happened? Did that event make his faith in God stronger?” He shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. No one’s faith is the same, or was found in the same way. But God loves no one any less, no matter how deeply, or shallowly, their faith runs.” His eyes flicked over the few of them. Did they linger on Migo or Rocco any longer than anyone else?
Pastor Dan ended the service, settling himself down on the bench.
“Is magic real?” Rocco asked suddenly. He didn’t have the tone of one of his usual pointless questions. It sounded sincere. There was even a curious tilt to his eyebrows that might have meant he was actually thinking hard about his question. He was looking between Pastor Dan and Migo. Both men looked at each other, each surprised and wondering if he or the other should answer Rocco.
Pastor Dan watched Migo warily as he asked Rocco, “What do you mean by ‘magic,’ Rocco?”
“Magic,” he said simply.
“Like what I do?” Migo asked, glancing to Pastor Dan.
“Well, yeah, I guess. Like what you do.”
Pastor Dan looked relieved. A simple answer. “Well—”
“It depends,” Migo interrupted. Pastor Dan’s mouth clamped shut—not in anger, however. Migo’s expression was, for once, very serious. He looked at his hands, then glancing up, looked past Rocco’s head to Rosalind. “What I do are tricks and illusions. But I don’t take what I do lightly.” His eyes moved imperceptibly back to Rocco. “The magic comes from two things, I think. There’s my talent”—he waved a hand and a coin appeared, then vanished again with a flick of a wrist—“and then there’s what you believe as my audience. If you look specifically for the trick, for the secret of how I do it, you don’t see the magic. But if you sit back and don’t wonder about the how—then, when I perform, you really do see ‘magic.’ It’s not just about me. Your belief—your faith, if you will—in what I do is what makes it magic.”
“Maybe Luther just needed to remember that God was there, no matter what,” Amy said. “Maybe he just needed to be tested to realize his faith.” Everyone looked at her. Pastor Dan seemed startled. Of everyone, he hadn’t seen her last night at the fire grinning at Migo’s show, Rosalind realized. Amy did pay attention.
“Maybe, Amy,” Pastor Dan said, a smile slightly tilting his mouth.
***
Migo packed the back of Pastor Dan’s van. Rosalind carried her bag over and handed it to her father. He gave her a small smile and she returned it slowly. “I’m sorry,” she muttered quietly.
“For what?”
“For what I said. I was—I was very mean to you.”
“I’m sorry, Rosie. I wasn’t really paying attention to you this weekend, was I?” She shook her head. “I didn’t think you wanted me to. The way you always act—in the car with me, on the ride up here. I know you think I’m silly, Rosie, but I always love you. I don’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know,” she said.
They got in the back of the van together. Rocco sat with Amy in the middle section of the van, with a borrowed deck of Migo’s cards in one of his hands. “Would you like to see a trick?” he asked Amy.
She looked at him skeptically. “You can do magic, now?”
“Of course!” Rocco insisted.
Migo spent the ride attempting to teach Rocco how to properly do the trick after he failed four times. Rocco was a natural showman, full of confidence and “presence,” according to Migo, but he lacked the finesse to make the trick convincing. “It’ll come with practice. Why don’t you keep that deck?”
“Can I?” He held the deck delicately in his hands
“Sure.”
Rosalind stared out of the window for most of the ride, but she didn’t count the cow fields on the way back south.
They pulled into the parking lot in the late afternoon. Migo unpacked the van while Pastor Dan thanked him with more words than were strictly necessary. The Brauers thanked him, too, James shaking his hand with enough force to jostle Migo’s entire arm.
“He told me he likes how you don’t like to sugar coat things,” Rosalind told her father as the Brauers got in their car. “Are most dads straightforward?”
Migo snorted. “Your grandfather wasn’t. Still isn’t.”
“So it’s a good thing you’re not normal?”
He grabbed Rosalind around the shoulders, holding her in a half-hug. He looked down at her. “Give me another few years and maybe you can tell me.”
The Brauers left in their Lexus. Pastor Dan was about to leave by the time Dr. Terrazini and Mikey pulled up in their battered Toyota. When Rosalind and her father got in, her mother looked between the two of them eagerly.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.” She looked at Migo anxiously.
“It was a good time,” Migo said, half-smiling. “I’m glad I—we—went.”
“Yes, it was good,” Rosalind assured her mother, whose glance had turned back to her. “Dad performed. It was great. Mrs. Brauer wasn’t so annoying and Amy actually talked.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Well, Mikey had a boring weekend,” Mikey declared, giving them both stern, accusing looks. “He was very bored because Mom made him clean. All weekend.”
“Mikey, you know, you’re not a performing magician yet,” Migo said slowly. “You don’t get the official use of the third person until you earn your stage name. You get that after college. Okay, little man?”
Mikey frowned at the surprising comment as their mother pulled away from the church parking lot. “Okay.I think I want to be a doctor, anyway,” he declared.
Migo turned around in the passenger seat to look at Rosalind. “Is that a start, Rosie?”
“A start,” she agreed, and smiled.
Thursday January 1, 2009
Listen little girl, lest you forget your heritage: once you dreamed
of the angelic queen who conquered a nation and mothered a king,
but now your dream has slipped between the cracks you skip while
clutching at your basket with bare fingers. They say everything is relative
yet old winds brush from recollection the lore that ties
our history through webs of generations, fading into mist.
The climbing ivy of ivory women—paling beside husbands
who won the bread you sprinkle on the forest path behind you—
shiver as you tread unthinking on roads not traveled by your kind,
staring cross-eyed at the brilliance before you. You grew tall
without blackened gunpowder in your lungs, so you skip careless
of the ravens feasting in your wake, moving haplessly ahead.
Is fate wrapped in trappings of the Past, dressed as new but carrying
scents and echoes of the Named and Used? Your grandmother
did not have large teeth—can you not smell her scrubbed scent,
nor feel the patched wrongness of her gown? She made the steel-bellied
trip for your salvation, but has salvation found you? You have melted
into new worlds lost in old translation, colors swirled and fogged.
Listen here my daughter, and see what you ignore: the saints replaced
the idols in the temples of the past, a subtle change, a trick—
we have no tricks, have you forgotten that, or are your eyes blinded
by staring hard at reflected light? I have told you not of ghosts but
stories meant to keep you strong. Do not lose your lore-strings, my love!
Stay tied to the mast so you keep your balance in the wind.
by E. F. Danehy
first published in the Oakland Review, Vol. 31, 2006.
Thursday January 1, 2009
From my position under the dinner table,
I can see more of their whittled, worn-out
lives than they know. The father, my father,
sits with rattling oxfords; I can almost see
his lips itching for another stolen cigarette
on the porch after this dinner. His wife scuttles
from the blue-tiled kitchen, dragging the wafts
of aged ham and split-pea through to the cold-
floored dining room, its immense table legs
separating filled seats with a subtle dissecting
space. The women laugh, nieces’ young ankles
crossed hiding sins beneath bare pantyhose,
sisters’ old loafers stained and muddied with
years of long walks over potholes, while men,
grave men with gravelly voices weave brave tales
of bass fish and lost love. Grandchildren swing
patent leathers with frilled socks and sing, “I want
to eat,” to the melody of Beethoven’s Fifth. I take
my seat next to the wheelchair at the head, brakes
tightly closed as if he’ll roll down the street too
fast for anyone to catch him. His motionless feet
have felt more life beneath them than ever I could
wish to tread. He and I sit listening to the vibrating
air and share a secret only old dogs ever know.
E. F. Danehy
first published in the Oakland Review, Vol. 30, 2005.
Thursday January 1, 2009
I’m standing shin-deep in the murky brown water
of the Bronx River that cuts my neighborhood
secretly in half, flows under the too-close houses,
between razor-green fences, under the leaf-strewn
streets, and feeds into the real thing in the end.
I threw a tennis ball in there once and imagined
someone in the Sound finding it bobbing off their dock,
and throwing it to their yellow Labrador. But this part is mine,
from its tadpoles and flowing water to its scarred concrete
and stone bottom. I’m building a stepping-stone bridge
across the stream so we don’t get our sneakers wet when
we cross to the other side. The rain always washes most
of our work to the ocean, but no one there is gonna pick
up our rocks and throw them back to us. On the dirt
above the stream, my friend stands watch, pulling leaves
apart by the veins and throwing the torn pieces into the
water while I stack rocks and wade in the foggy mud.
I just make sure we walk around the empty, pot-holed
streets long enough afterward for the silt to squish out
of the sides of my blue, beaten shoes so no one notices.
They’re my stream shoes and I’ll hide them under my bed,
drying stiff and grey, ready for another adventure tomorrow.
by E. F. Danehy
first published in the Oakland Review, Vol. 30, 2005.
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