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
Emotions are expressed in a similarly dynamic language. A significant example for this is the rise and fall technique of the Martha-Philip dialogue, where the latter's ideas fly away in the air, while Martha kills these ideas with the 'law of gravity' drawing Philip back to earth like: "Put the cup face down, Philip" (GH 111—italics mine J.K.). While Philip gradually loses his force, Martha grows into a Big Nurselike character, who commands the husband, treats him as a child and makes little allowances. She is the one who has future —at least all the circumstances and her conviction point in this direction. Mentioning Ken Kesey's Big Nurse figure (in One Who Flies over the Cuckoo's Nest), one can also find a correlation of the hospital there and the prison here in the first part of Richardson's play. Both serve the function of creating cooperative members of the community out of the misfits with or without much sense. The description of the Warden given to Lucy about Walter seems to prove this and some lines later his idea of turning maniacs back to useful men (GH 75). Without noticing we get deeper and deeper into the examination of Black Humor elements in the play. The male-female relations together with the man-society relation detailed above are frequent topics of other literary pieces containing Black Humor elements, too. For the sake of mentioning some more let the followings stand here: The 'lost number patch-lost identity and order' relation; the "machinery inside me" (i.e. Lucy GH 81) motif; the mordant wit of situations like spending two happy hours before being hung, or the "Please stop breathing" (GH 118) way of killing someone; the claim that the Press and Media should be satisfied on the account of personal lies and losses; the insect comparison (GH 76) and the cliché-like empty mechanical actions that tend to the direction of false order and entropy. The Black Humor elements mentioned above are to indicate the presence and successful exploitation of postmodernist features in the play. Richardson's drama is a colorful, witty piece of literature that utilizes the achievements of the theatrical traditions of tragicomedy but through unfiltrating (postmodern literary methods that are efficient both in fiction and drama, he broadens the notion of the Rebellious Drama of the 1960s in a peculiar way with his Gallows Humour. 58
