Percepción del impacto de la extensión de la jornada escolar

THE FOOL AS OUTCAST: THE W E L L OF THE SAINTS AND THE T1N-

What do they manage to impose on you? Words! Words which everyone can interpret in his own manner!

That's the way public opi n i o n is formed! And it's

a bad lookout for a man w h o finds himself labelled one day with one of these wo r d s which everyone re­ peats; for example, "madman," or "imbecile"1

In this chapter the figure or the outsider will be analysed both in terms of the fool who holds a precarious place in society and also as t h e observer of the community which defines him as external, inferior, and contaminating. Simultaneously the fool and the outsider will be observed as new instances of a literary tradition.

In The Well of the Saints there is a movement from the fringe of society where an old blind couple hav e been living happily in delusion, to the o p e n roads that promise more

dreams and another level of reality. In The Tinker's W e d ­

d ing. a younger vagrant couple mak e tentative moves to join the settled community by going through a religious marriage,

moved by the woman's desire for conformity and status. The 1

1 Pirandello, Henry IV. Act II, in T h r e e Plave. London, J M Dent and Sons, p. 127.

former movement occurs when the couple fail t o retain their place as village fools, and it becomes apparent that they do not share the villagers' eagerness to earn t h e i r bread with

hard labour. The latter attempt to join in is foiled when

the tink e r couple fail to produce the price of their inte­

gration: half a sovereign and a tin can. In bot h cases the

movement towards the open road is not an idyllic elopement

as would be proper in comedy. Both couples h a v e no choice

but to leave as there is no place for them in the village, and they must search on the roads for a life in communion

with Nature, the harsh nurturer. The figure of the social

fool or the outsider is present in all of Syn g e ' s comedies,

and even in Deirdre of the Sorrows. It be c o m e s apparent

that Synge sees these characters as bearers of a different set of values poetry, freedom from social constraint, wor­ ship of Nature sharing some of the nobility of a beaten

race. It also becomes obvious that Irish so c i e t y does not

share this attitude towards the marginal and outsider as ex ­

pressed in Synge's plays. As they embody the life which for

him has all the appeal and mystique of a f u sion and identi­ fication w ith nature, he endows them with a h i g h e r order of

cognition, a wider awareness of the v iability of other

worlds, other rules, other values which should command re­

spect. Synge's contribution in making the fri n g e s of soci­

ety visible, was to give them a place and a voice, much in the same w a y that Hauptmann had given a place and voice to the German workers in The Weavers.

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According to J ohnson the literary fool in Synge's plays can be characterized by three main points, the relationship to nature, irrationality and social status.2

The fool is closer to the movements and secrets of n a ­ ture than other people, his instinctive response comes from

the unconscious. This particular sensitivity is socially

marked as irrationality and can be viewed in two socially

opposed ways. Positively this irrationality can be taken as

inspired and visionary, relating to the vision of the poet

or the enigma of the oracle. If viewed negatively, irra­

tionality can be considered as madness. To all intents and

purposes the fool remains an outsider, relegated to the fringes of the community or kept carefully at bay.

In Shadow the characters who embody the folly of the outsider are the Tramp and Nora, they oppose the worldly wisdom of Dan Burke and Michael Dara, choosing instead a

life in community with nature. Although the Tramp knows the

roads, the glens and hills more closely than the others, he

is aware that his life involves serious risks. Patch Darcy,

the shepherd who knew h i s sheep and all the ways and secrets of the hills, was a strong, able man but the solitude, the gloomy climate and desolate landscape of Wicklow drove him into madness, and to his frightful end, of being eaten by

crows. Throughout the pla y the references to Patch create a

pervasive image that could well be equated with the image of the "Good Shepherd" and through his link with his simple

T o 1B Johnson, Synge, the Medieval and the Grotesque. 1982, chapter o n Folly, p. 118.

living also to the Pauline connection between the fool and

Christian values3 . For the outsider to renounce the values

of the community is an act of folly which is condemned be­ cause it undermines the principles w i t h which society sup­

ports itself. As a matter of fact t h e close experience of

nature and its use in language as symbolic matter for poetic talk, is shared by the fool and the artist, the blind and the gifted Tramp.

In Shadow, both Nora and the Tr a m p lay stress on the better life they can possibly find on the roads as compared

to one under the solitude of a lonely glen. Even at this

moment the threats of desolation a n d loneliness are made very real (the Tramp claims to have been the last to see Patch Darcy alive, who died in a way tha t is so much feared- to go mad on the hills and die alone, half-eaten by ani­

mals) . Synge connects the desolation of the climate and of

the landscape to the high rate of lunacy in Irish society.4 Nonetheless, he keeps throughout his plays and prose, a very

positive vision of the fool/ outsider. He sees the outsider

not as a worthless dropout, but as someone with a character similar to the artist, enjoying sound good health and in

possession of a lively good humour. T h e two fool characters

in Shadow. Patch and the Tramp are healthy fearless men,

with the revered gift of the gab. In some way they keep the

higher expectations that cannot be m e t in life close to the

3 T O'B Johnson, p. 115.

4 See reference to social origin of the t r a m p and the conditions of the peasants in the glens in chapter t h ree on Shadow.

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village, grazing sheep in the low mists of the glens and valleys.

The experience of the "clay and worms" reality out of which Synge expected to create new, living art is also the one chosen by the poetic, solitary fool, the Tramp in Shadow as well as by the Douls.

THE W ELL OF THE SAINTS

When Synge claims that all art is collaboration he is acknowledging the influence and importance of his contact with the peasants and islanders who provided him with a wealth of stories, themes, similes and the fluid m e d i u m of a

versatile language. In the notebooks of his many journeys

through Ireland he held a vast collection of them e s that

would find their way into plays. There are also non-Irish

sources of 'collaboration' from which Synge drew his themes.

There are two main sources for The Well of the S a i n t s . One, "The Woman of Sligo", which covers part of the first act only, and a French "pre- Molière farce", La Moral i t é de 1' Aveugle et le Boiteux as Synge mentioned to Yeats and to his friend Mackenna.

"The Woman of Sligo"

The story of the widow from Sligo was a legend told to Synge in Aran by several people and concerns the miraculous cure of a blind child at a well near the church of Ceathair

Aluinn (The Four Beautiful Persons) in Aranmor. Reference

13«

and is quoted in The Aran Islands.5 The mother of a blind

boy has a dream in which she sees the well on the island

which would cure her son. The following morning she sets

out for the island, and on arrival inquires about the well but refuses further help as she can follow the signs as she

saw them in her dream. Once near the well she bathes the

child's eyes and he is cured. Blissfully, the first thing

he observes are some flowers, "Mother, look at the beautiful

flowers!". With this exulting exclamation, the story ends.

This story has the elements of a particular kind of

pre-Christian Irish legend, the immran, or the journey

across the sea. These are always journeys to the Other

World, where creatures live oblivious of suffering, the pas­

sage of time or decay of physical beauty. Some of the most

famous of these journeys to Tir-na-nOg (the Land of Promise) such as The Wanderings of Oisin, The Voyage of Bran, all

deal with this imaginary happy world. According to H R

Patch the Irish are particularly good at creating this image

of otherworldly happiness in their legends. If, as Anthony

Roche points out, this journey to another world is one of the undercurrents of the play, there exist two distinct un­

dercurrents in it. The play is brought out of the pagan

context of the previous legends into an undetermined Chris­ tian time, to be presented as an ironic reversal of the more

Christian theme of the holy intervention of a saint.6 In

5 In CW II. 56-7.

In 'The two World« of Synge 'a Thg. W g U of the Sajntg in Ifcg ggnrgg 9i If1th Literary. Revival, ed by Ronald Schleifer, Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1979, chp. 3, pp. 28-38.

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this particular case the island is not the place towards which one goes to live in everlasting bliss, but where other

people come to seek to be cured. This makes it an isle of

wonder for the inhabitants themselves as it provides them

with material for storytelling. But in Synge's retelling it

is also the place where their hard struggle is endured.

In the play, the island of the curative waters has been

taken from its previous mythological realm. The water is

now drawn from a well sanctified by the four saints's graves

that lie by it. Cripples will not travel across the waters

to reach the cure; this will now be administered by a Saint to those who are allowed to contemplate God's creation, and

for His greater praise. The contented old couple who en­

dured their blindness so patiently were found deserving of God's special grace by the community, and will be cured:

Timmy [officiously] They are holy father, they do be always sitting here at the crossing of the roads, asking a bit of copper from them that do pass, or stripping rushes for lights, and they not mournful at all, but talking out straight with a full voice, and making game with them that likes it.

Saint [to Martin Doul and Mary Doul]. It's a hard

life you've had not seeing sun or moon, or the holy priests itself praying to the Lord, but it's the like of you that do be brave in a bad time will make a fine use of the gift of sight the

Almighty God will bring to you to-day. (CW III,

89)

For Synge true art should bear the characteristics of

an original style. This would issue from a combination of

the notion of a particular time, locality and authorship. This particular item, the origin of the curing waters, has

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ticular sense of locality, as it would bring to the mind of

the audience associations with the stories of current ac ­

counts of miracles at the particular well mentioned to Synge in Aran, and to the pre-Christian legends of magic Other

Worlds where misery would be washed away. Once the sense of

locality is produced and identification is made, Synge will

subvert the rules just as the “moralité joyeuse' of his

source did, by presenting a totally different set of values from those usually found in a recognizable conventional

structure. As it will become clear, it is not just this

pattern of expectation for the cure of the old couple that will be overturned, but also that of the morality play.

La Moralité deTAYeugle et te Boiteux

The second major source is the medieval French morality La Moralité de -LJAyeagle et Is Pp iteux, which synge read during his courses with Petit de Julleville on medieval

French theatre, at the Sorbonne. He mentions in a letter to

Mackenna that the original inspiration for Well was a "pre-

Moliére farce". This obscure reference to the source is

quite meaningful and worth analysing in order to perceive what is relevant in Synge's conception of comedy.

He calls this old play farce and not morality, which it

is by name and structure. The structure of the morality was

a traditional medieval form which was of little interest to

Synge. As the morality is a piece of devotional indoctrina­

tion, it goes against his ideal of art which he thinks

should not 'serve a purpose'. What therefore is of interest

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by the use to which it is put: to use the morality form to

tell an anti-morality story. By locating it in time as pre-

Moliére, Synge is pointing to the type of comic to be ex ­ pected: not the comedy of manners, nor the sarcasm of farce, but the medieval grotesque.7

In this play the comic rings the note of the grotesque, provokes laughter that is part and parcel of the medieval type of life, without the indoctrination of the traditional

morality play. If one agrees with Saddlemyer, King and

Johnson about the relevant part that the grotesque element plays in Synge's aesthetics, one has to bear in mind that it is not a grotesque of the Romantic literary tradition, but rather that of the medieval social tradition, as it was still an accepted part of popular festive expression.

La Vigne's La Moralité de 1'Aveugle et le Boiteux was a sort of farcical sequel to his Mystère de Saint M a r t i n , both probably drawn from a long anonymous 'mystère* on the life of

that saint. This long piece was edited in Synge's time and

it is possible that he may also have read it. André de La

Vigne split the play in two, one morality, the life of the saint, and one farce, the inopportune cure of two beggars, a blind man and a cripple, which comes at the end of the

anonymous text. Synge picked up this last portion of the

story for his own play, the farce in morality form. It is

never the experimentation in form that appeals to Synge.

In this apparent conformism, the challenge brought in by the

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r endering of such new thoughts in conventional trappings al­ ways comes as a surprise.

This play raises a few controversial questions even for

m o d e r n commentators. For contemporaries of Synge the play

was verging on blasphemy, the Saint was after all a Protes­

tant. Religious and nationalist criticism was met at the

o t h e r extreme by claims that it was moving away from the

"tendencies of modern life and thought". Here the attack

was for leaving rationalism, "intellectual progressivism"8 .

For modern critics, the choice of Martin Doul to remain blind, to refuse the reality we all have to endure is prob­ lematic, seeming to be inconsistent with the principles of

truth Synge has always defended for himself. W. Thornton

summarises the disagreement of critics such as Alan Price, Donna Gestenberger and Robin Skelton by first stating their

comm o n theme for the play - the relationship between

imagination and reality - in Thornton's terms "some idea they are trying to vindicate, and the reality they are faced

with". As Alan Price finds Synge a nihilist, he praises the

n i h i l i s m in the play and finds its escapism agrees with the supposed meaninglessness of life for the Douls and for

Synge. To Gestenberger the development of the play is out

of kee p i n g with the philosophical pattern of other plays. She see s it as a choice between two lies, and therefore in­ consistent with what she thinks are Synge's beliefs as

stated in other parts of his work. She also infers that

1 4 3

Synge supports the final choice of the Douls, which for her is disappointing.9

Here Thornton offers his insight: for him the play is saying that the Douls can base their life on illusion and

untruth. The fact t h a t Synge sanctions this is only an in­

ference by the reader. Synge is exploring, not advocating

what he shows us. Skelton's view of Synge as an existen­

tialist finds the Do u l s have every right to their dreams and sees their departure as a victory.10

All these c ritics see the play in its incapacity to

square with their o w n ideological expectations. The fact

that it has been upsetting critics who try to defend Synge

In document Impacto social de la jornada escolar completa (JEC) en la provincia de Espinar (página 36-39)