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

Alienation is a keyword of contemporary life with its universal appeal, while conformism

—also in a causal relationship with the former one

—is another keyword frequently used to describe and explain trends in presentday American society and literature. Critics, for example C. W. T. Bigsby, John Gassner, George Lukács and Péter Egri have emphasized the significance of alienation and conformism with different stresses on either the psychological or the social consequences presented in various artifacts. Again, the two major trends in American Drama stand for this doubledetermined ness of the conflict between the polarities of reality and illusions, man's essence and existence. The lack of free will, the seclusion in an empty and indifferent world, the frustration, loneliness, vegetation and growing callous in everyday automatisms is a major theme since Beckett and it has different dramatical presentations as far as conflict, characterization, composition and style is concerned. As Szilassy has pointed out, Richardson's play is built upon the conflict between the opposites of life and death, individuality and conformism, illusion and reality, order and disorder (38). This duality is presented in the two parts and the two small correlative set of characters in Gallows Humour. (The question of how they represent these oppositional ideas will be discussed later on.) Conformism and its impact on the American national character is often presented in literature through its effects on the individual; according to Walter Kerr it is popular to attack it and even the artist's attempt to criticize this social phenomenon shows a degree of intelligence on the writer's side. However, he also expresses his doubts about the alternatives —if there are any at all

— offered by the writers of the 1960s (see Kerr 50). It is difficult to agree with Kerr's statements about the pointless ironizing in this literary trend. One could take the example of Peter in Albee's Zoo Story,

; where he is pushed out of his neat little world organized by the principles of conformism. In the case of Gallows Humour

; for instance, we will see that the different techniques of humor can show a skeptical authorial opinion but in an indirect way: we are told how not to live. The character of the MISFIT is powerfully presented with all his relationships, reasons and causes in a psychologically and socially well48