Discuss how conventions of the Gothic genre are used to address the Troubles and the conflict of Political Ireland and Religious Ireland in Observe the Sons of Ulster's as they March Towards the Somme, by Frank McGuinness and Reading in the Dark, by Seamus Dean.
In this essay I will be attempting to show how the Catholic writers, Dean and McGuinness, use conventions of the Gothic genre and how they use them to enable communication about the Irish Troubles. I will be comparing each writer’s use of the Gothic genre conventions and how they create a different or similar affect in the two texts and endeavour to explain why this might be.
The Gothic genre was arguably initiated by Walpole's The Castle Otranto (1764) as a response to popular architecture and questioned key events and attitudes of it's time. Indeed, Victorian Gothic fiction was often used to voice a concern of the era that otherwise, if not hidden within allergy and the elements of the Gothic, would have been much too scandalous, or painful to write, be published and to be read. Many writers adopted the genre for their own means, such as Stoker's Dracula (1897) which used the genre to express concerns towards the development of Victorian (mainly female) sexuality and continued the Gothic theme of 'Science or Logical' vs. Religion as a response to the industrial progression of England and the power of the church failing. The Irish Gothic genre, although a sub-genre less known, existed along side these celebrated Gothic texts.
When looking at both Dean and McGuinness' texts, it is clear that both writers have used this genre in a similar way to express concerns along with feelings and ideas that are painful to them and to their country. They both use the genre to express their confusion and critical outlooks on the Troubles in Ireland and the violence that the conflict founded. Both writers mimic the 'Science or Logical' vs. Religion in order to address the Troubles, but change the science concern to one of a Political nature while keeping the Religion. In creating a Politic vs. Religion text, using Gothic conventions, the writers both make unbreakable links to madness and, as a result of the madness, supernatural occurrences both being caused by these two themes. Both texts are strongly focused by other Gothic conventions such as death, the outsider, morals, violence and others that I will be discussing later in this essay.
Both texts are set in the past, a convention in Catholic writing and use ghosts (a supernatural being linked with Catholicism due to being the only religion to believe that the soles in purgatory haunt the living, a technique that is peculiar in Observe the sons… since all of the characters are protestant).In both of these texts, context of the Troubles and the writers religious background engage heavily with the texts intentions and significantly shape the texts aim.
In Reading in the Dark, Dean shows how close his association to the Troubles are through his use of a great amount of autobiographical details, in which he expresses some of his families and his own past involvement.
In an interview with Ross, Dean spoke about his involvement with the Troubles such as being a member in 'the Wolf Tone club' and spoke of how his actual Uncle Eddie disappeared like Eddie in the text. When Ross asked 'how intimately were you shaped by that family experience, and by “The Troubles” in general', Dean responded;
I don’t suppose that there was any point at which I ever felt that there was a visible gap between what people call politics and my private life. The two things were always integrated. I learned that a political system, especially when it’s a rancid one… has an effect on personal relationships — in fact, it spreads right through the whole society. Especially when the political system is based on various forms of coercion and colonization. (Ross, 1997)
This response shows how deeply his life is rooted with in Troubles and how much it effected his personal and family life. He went on to say after Ross asked 'did that rancidness infect people who fought the political system, like some of the characters in your book?';
I think everybody is infected… Some people have the ability — or luck — not to have it run in particular channels. But when a family has directly experienced political violence, then it’s very difficult to avoid the more deforming aspects of it. But it’s also useful, in that it allows you to see just how dangerously insinuating violence is. (Ross, 1997)
In this quotation, Ross introduces the idea of the Troubles infecting people with political hatred which can be linked to another convention of Gothic, pestilence, this technique often used to make the horrific more relatable without stunting any of their seriousness, seen in Dean's novel, Reading in the Dark. Dean also responds to a Religious question in Ross' interview, in which he refers to the Catholic Church as growing 'weaker' and that 'it still has power, but nothing — neither the status nor the power — that it had even 10 years ago.' (Ross, 1997). In this Dean examines how the Troubles has detrimentally affected the Catholic religion, in relation back to his novel the reader may see how Dean has entwined his faith closely to the supernatural in order to express his opinion that his church, like the Fianna in Grianan (pp. 56), may fade but never lose power all together.
Similarly in Observe the Sons…, we see McGuinness' reflecting his experiences with the violence and hatred of Political and Religious Ireland. In a play review, Shannon wrote that the actors for ' McIlwaine and Anderson… give discomfiting authenticity to the play’s invective against “filthy taigs,” as they brandish McGuinness’ anti-Fenian language with compelling brutish vengeance.' (Shannon, 2012). This shows how powerful McGuinness' script is when performed, in particular the strength to its hatred towards Catholic's. As violence and conflict are a key aspect of the Gothic text, McGuinness needed to connect with them successfully and by him writing from the prospective of the 'enemy' he is able to identify with the hatred more closely and effectively, being that he is of a Catholic background himself. The consequence of this is that the audience is given a superior insight into the ridicule he, and Catholic's, would face.
I will now be looking at examples in both texts to argue that they are part of the Gothic genre and what technique both writers use to address the conflict of Ireland.
In the novel, Reading in the Dark, Dean heavily uses both the Gothic convention of madness and the supernatural in such a way that they merge together and become an allergy for war, politics and religion, thus the Troubles.
The character of nameless narrator's Mother is linked strongest with both, perhaps because of her knowledge of all of the secrets and sufferings within the family. She seems to be Ireland in a sense that she is in constant conflict and no side ever triumphs. In the line 'My Mother moved as though there were pounds of pressure pushing her down' (Dean, 1997, pp.139) we can see how she seems to be effected physically by the two and the pressure makes her unable to move. This is like the Troubles, both sides of the Republican/Catholic and Unionist/Protestant pushing against each other with equal force so that they counter each other in to motionlessness. We see Dean linking Political conflict and Religious conflict in this quotation.
'Burning. It's burning. All out there, burning.' She flapped her hands a the field beyond the window… it was always like that. every night, we would be wakened by voices and come downstairs to find her sobbing in the backyard… 'Burning; it's all burning,' she would cry. (Dean, 1997, pp.139-140)
The imagery of burning may be to associate the burning of hell and the explosions of bombs.
The novel begins, similarly to McGuinness, with ghostly activity. Although at this point it is a shadow rather than a fully formed ghost. In the novel, supernatural activity builds as the church diminishes and this development may be to show how the religion being pacified rather than defeated by the Troubles. The supernatural grows significantly when the narrator's sister Una dies.
She, it was Una, was coming right down the path before me for an instant, dressed in her usual tartan skirt and jumper, her hair tied in ribbons, her smile sweeter than ever… I walked home slowly… I didn't know if I would tell or not; that depended on what I was asked. I knew it would upset my mother, but, then again it might consol her to think Una was still about, although I wished she wasn't wandering around that graveyard on her own.
My older brother, Liam, settled the issue for me… [I] told him instantly. At first he was amused, but he got angry when I wondered aloud if I should tell my mother.
'…You'd drive her mad. She's out of her mind anyway…' (Dean, 1996, pp.17-18)
In this quotation the narrator continues, as he did prior to this section, repeating Una's name. This repetition enforces the reality Una is a real Ghost rather than dead which argues my previous point further with Una, a supernatural being linked to Religion. Dean also creates a tone of comfort in the narrator after the supernatural occurrences, this may be Dean expressing his views that the darker side to religion is much less harmful than the darker side to politics and war.
This novel is a bildungsroman, though a failed one, and the use of this genre by Dean may be to highlight the Troubles endlessness, and how Ireland isn't allowing itself psychological and moral growth like the narrator who Dean keeps unnamed, perhaps to hide this interpretation of the text. It also has some aspect, like Gothic fiction, of the Crime genre as the narrator tries to piece together his family history, this may be a metaphor for how long the Troubles has gone on, that no one seems to know what is true and fair previous or prior to the conflict.
The most Gothic section in Deans 'talk-story' text is 'Katie's Story' (pp.59,71) which is very reminiscent on James' (1898) The Turn of the Screw in tone and the use of the hysterical governess watching supernatural activities centred around two sibling children.
For now their voices had changed. The boy had the girl's voice, and they girl had the
boy's voice. She put her hands over her ears. She shut her eyes. then she became calm
for a moment. She knew she had to see… She helped them undress, even though they
usually dressed them selves. And sure enough, their sex had changed too. (Dean,
1996, pp 65)
Capp writes;
In many ways, [Katie's] ghost stories are allegories for what is happening in the family; how the living are possessed by the dead… Katie shares her frustrations with her nephew, talking for the first time about McIlhenny and so providing the boy with further pieces of the jigsaw. "It's all coming out now," she announces, but is still cowed by her sister and quickly clams up. "There's the last story I'll tell you or any of you children," she tells him. "I'm glad it was a true one for a change". (Capp, 2001).
This shows the amount of fear that the characters, who represent all of the people of Ireland, have for the truth concerning anything about the Political conflict, which may be why Dean seems to side more with Religious Ireland.
Crazy Joe is also used as a fear for the outcome of telling the truth, Capp writes 'the novel suggests that in a culture of silence, those who want to tell the truth are liable to be regarded as mad - as is Crazy Joe, the local outcast - or informer' (2001). Furthermore, Dean uses the narrator, such like Pyper in Observe the sons…, to question the state of logical (political) vs. the supernatural when he encounters Bamboozelem the magician, however Dean's narrator seems to be unable to view it as an act due to his belief in the supernatural, that is to say Religion.
They were all laughing. but were they all sure of what had happened? Was Mr Bamboozelem all right?...Liam laughed and called me an eedjit. 'He went down the trapdoor'… How could they be so sure? ' (Dean, 1996, pp.8)
This confusion is to express Deans concern in the Political conflict leading to the ghosting of his religion. 'How could they be so sure' could be in the relation to him questioning the idea that his faith still has any power left, yet Dean portrays this doubt being overcome to reinforce his belief of his Religion not being destroyed, rather it being in a state of hiding.
In Observe the Sons.., McGuinness uses the idea of 'the act' differently from Dean in the repeating of the word 'Dance' as an instruction (First used, McGuinness, 1986, pp.12, last used pp.80) implying that the war is a Dance, therefore an act. He also uses it to enforce the audiences preconceptions of Pyper being insane and how he views himself as a creator (God/Puppet master) and to show that Pyper and therefore McGuinness has the outlook of logical (Political) defeating supernatural (Religion) in the way that it breaks Pyper's sanity and religious views which I will discuss later.
Arguably, McGuinness' play is about the Gothic convention of ruin. Pyper is the embodiment of how war can ruin a person. Herron writes;
It [Observe the Sons…] is “about” what happens when (you think) everything is taken away from you, when (you think) everything is destroyed. The parentheses indicate caution, because in fact the sky hasn’t fallen in yet. Pyper, the last of the sons of Ulster, doesn’t realize that. He sees no further than the ruins. And because of this inability to imagine a future anything other than incarcerated by the past, his predicament and that of the community he stands (in) for are in fact much closer to minor farce than the tragic conditions he imagines both himself and that community to be enduring. (Herron, 2004, pp.137)
But as the ending … folds back into the play’s beginning we realize that the drama will inevitably be repeated again … and again… we observe the men marching to the Somme and to their death, and then we see it again, and then again. This is the vision of the play: men marching toward the Somme in homogeneous, empty time: they marched, they are marching, they will march. (Herron, 2004, pp.139)
In these quotations we can look at how McGuinness may be using the first World War, and the plays deathly climax on the anniversary (July 1st) for the battle of the Boyne, and the ruined life of Pyper not only to be a caution to the individual, but also as a concern to the fight being endless and unsolvable. This is seen in the way McGuinness uses the Gothic genre to reinforce the harsh consequence of war as the only living character is Pyper, his name perhaps a play upon the Gothic Fairy Tale 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' as he, like the Piper in the tale, encourages morale in followers which eventually leads to them following the Piper to their deaths.
In the monologue at the beginning of the play we see him on first observation (which most critics also argue) as an elder who's memories are haunting him in his reality, which Herron defines as prosopopoeia (pp.144). However, Etherton argues a more harsh and realistic view which McGuinness may have been trying to achieve in which he writes that 'Pyper … calls up the ghosts of his slaughtered companions” (1989, pp.48) which could be the horrific aim of McGuinness in order for his morals embedded in to play have impact. Herron also agues that ' the script insists they are ghosts, not shadows, figments, images, simulacra, memories, depictions, imaginings' (pp.148), they are ghosts. By McGuinness deciding that the reality of the play is supernatural, he is creating many paradoxes in religion (Protestants don’t believe in ghosts) and in Political Ireland being that they are now trapped within the state of fighting for freedom (a paradox in its self), so it will never be achieved.
However, as the language used here by McGuinness is very quickly passed, full of questions, pauses, and quick changes in topic it creates an effect whereby the audience questions Pyper's sanity, which leads to the questioning to the authenticity of the ghost as they appear. Yet, as clearly as Pyper is now insane , McGuinness clearly has a motive for his insanity as he plants the first reference to the truth ('they kept their nerve' implying he did not) of what happened as they went over-the-top, in the quotation below, where Pyper seems to be addressing Death, not his memories.
Some were lucky enough to suffer your visions immediately. Those I belonged to, those I have not forgotten… they kept their nerve, and they died. I survived. no, survival was not my lot. Darkness, for eternity, is not survival. (McGuinness, 1986, pp.9-10)
McGuinness is not using his insanity to question the reality of the ghosts but comment on how the war has damaged Pyper, as, prior to going over-the-top, Pyper was more of a joker or at least half-sane compared to what he is in the present.
McGuinness is addressing the social taboo of 'shell-shock' and is exploring it using the Gothic texts to cushion it from having too much realism and he again makes the statement clearly that war is not good for the individual, as it leads to death and mental suffering, as he may be using the haunting and the use of the past repeating to imply that they are all fighting against the inevitable and endless.
We see Religion in the monologue and McGuinness furthers the idea of fighting for someone else, God or country, rather than for the good of the individual.
We wished ourselves to die and in doing so we let others die to satisfy our blood lust. That lust we inherited. The true curse of Adam. (McGuinness, 1986, pp.12)
Pyper seems to see the War, and thus the Troubles, as a bond to God and also as a bond to the tribe, seen with use of the words 'Sons of' in the title referring to the tribe of the division of Ulster and in the quotation above the reference to the biblical 'Adam' who they are all sons of.
By these ideas being so closely bonded, McGuinness forges the parallels between the Political and the Religious agendas hidden within the monologue closer together to the effect that the audience becomes clear on the plays intentions.
Throughout, the audience gets a sense that the play is set in either the recollections of the present day character, Older Pyper, or in a repetition of the past. Either way the play has some unreliability, as in a sense, Pyper is our unreliable narrator, another convention of the Gothic, as we see all that he witnessed and, even more unreliably, what he has not. This is seen by how McGuinness has the other characters questioning Pyper's sanity even when he is being the joker. If it is a time loop, McGuinness is almost creating a paradox in choosing the form of the play (by it being performance itself) in which a repeated performance of the past is its main content. This suggest a further unreliability in the play, almost like a game of pass the message, in which inaccuracy occurs in repetition.
MILLIAN: Is this the barracks or an asylum?
(McGuinness, 1986, pp.19)
PYPER: Then what are you doing here?
CRAIG: My country's at war. I -
PYPER: Did you not join up to die for me?
CRAIG: For you?
PYPER: It'll be good sport.
CRAIG: You're a mad man, Pyper.
PYPER: Am I, David?
CRAIG: Well, you're a rare buckcat any road.
PYPER: Funny word that.
CRAIG: Buckcat? It's a -
PYPER: No. Rare. Are you rare, David?
CRAIG: When I want to be. Army's no place for rareness though.
PYPER: Why not? It tales all sort to make an army.
CRAIG: True enough. You never know. We could end up dying for each other.
PYPER: No, we couldn't. I wont anyway.
(McGuinness, 1986, pp.15-16)
In these quotations we can see another hint to Pyper's abandonment of his comrades and perhaps a hint towards a God complex in the lines 'Did you not join up to die for me?' and ' It'll be good sport'. McGuinness may be doing this to Pyper in this scene to point out the barbarousness in the notion of fighting for Religion. McGuinness also writes of the characters hatred towards Protestants, shown in the ludicrous ways they punish and uncover them.
PYPER: She bled to death.
MOORE: Why?
PYPER: I sawed her middle leg off.
(McGuinness, 1986, pp.30)
(ROULSTON snatches the bible violently. He roars.)
ROULSTON: Do you dare defile the word of god? Do you dare blaspheme against my Father?
(McGuinness, 1986, pp.32)
ANDERSON: I spy a Taig. I spy a Taig.
MCILWAINE: Where? Tell me where?
ANDERSON: Use your nose, lad, use your nose. Have I not trained you to smell a Catholic within a mile of you? Get him.
(MCILWAINE flings back his head, howls, rushes for CRAWFORD.)
Tear his throat out. Mad dog…
(McGuinness, 1986, pp.33-34)
McGuinness uses very horrific and macabre images here, relating Anderson to a beast, linking again to the Gothic conventions and to the horrific violence that the Troubles ensured. It is clear that Dean and McGuinness have both used the Gothic Genre to address the conflicts of the Troubles in their texts, to the means of expressing the truth from their view points within Irish Society. They both question Political and Religious morals in their texts using the genre to communicate their views using the Gothic to sensor the severity of the conflicts reality, as is the reason for this genres conception.
Bibliography
Capp, F. (2001) 'Reading in the Dark; Haunted by Ghosts of the Past'. The Age Educational Resource Centre [Internet] <http://education.theage.com.au/cmspage.php?intid=136&intversion=21>
Dean, S.(1977) Reading in the Dark. London; Vintage.
Etherton, M. (1988) Contemporary Irish Dramatists. Basingstoke; Macmillan.
Herron, Tom (2004) ‘Dead men talking: Frank McGuinness’ spectral theatre’ Éire-Ireland: an interdisciplinary journal of Irish studies 39: 1 Spring / Summer 2004, 136 – 162.
McGuinness, F. (1987) Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme. London; Faber and Faber.
Ross, A (1997)'Irish Secrets and Lies'. Salon [Internet] <http://www.salon.com/1997/04/11/deane/>
Shannon, B. (2009) 'Review; Observe the Sons of Ulster as Marching Towards the Somme'. Irish Theatre Magazine [Internet] <http://www.irishtheatremagazine.ie/Reviews/Current/Observe-the-Sons-of-Ulster-Marching-Towards-the-So>
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