Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)
STUDIES - Judit Kádár: The Figure of 'Everyclown'in Jack Richardson's Gallows Humour
As he claims, female masks often stand for illusion, falsehood, cunning and deception. An even more interesting mask is Philip's black hood, the Black Hood of the hangman in the Middle Ages, but here the mask-motif is not so simple and serves a different function, too. Warden: But think of what it would do to your reputation! Instead of being a finely edged instrument in a clinical, detached operation, you become a villain, a strangler —a black knight (GH 98) Philip would keep that hood on for it would enable him to keep eyecontact with the victim of his action, i.e. the hanged. There would be at least some sort of human contact and feeling involved in the act of killing; even if it is fear, it is "healthy fear" (GH 110) instead of endless hypocrisy. Here the real mask is transferred into something metaphysical in the sense that those people 'wear' it who will kill the misfits by pushing a button without their personal presence and keep their hands sterile from responsibility the way Pilate did when washing his hands. As opposed to the latter, Philip's preference of liealthy fear' found an echo in recent and contemporary literature; one of its most powerful ways of presentation is the various branches of humor examined in the following. 2. Generic Questions and Comic Qualities in Gallows Humour 2.1. Between Absurd and Black Comedy According to the title of the play it is about tragic and comic elements in life. Similarly to Dante's Divina Commedia we cannot really talk about comedy or humor in their clear terms, we cannot find the entertaining function fulfilled with easy laughter either. Tragic elements mix with comedy and seem to overwhelm the effect of the play. Still it would be an oversimplification to categorize Gallows Humour as a tragicomedy —with or without the hyphen that Richardson mentions in his Preface. Comic qualities such as satire, Black Humor, Black Comedy, clownery, the grotesque, paradox, sarcasm and tragicomedy are blended in this play with difference in their presentation, appearance and emphasis. 53
