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

described way. The attempt he makes to ESCAPE 'the neat world', the enclosure in a philosophical sense with no choice, chance or free will of the individual, remains unsuccessful; the possibilities are actually reduced to a final one which is always destructive for the individual in its effect O'Neill's expressionistic plays (e.g. The Hairy Ape) did not do away but reinterpreted the original theatrical idea of Stanislavsky: the 'room-sized destiny for small pimple' topic appear in American Theater. The images of CAGE and PRISON also come up in Richardson's choice of setting in the two parts: the cell in the first and the "early morning confusion of a suburban kitchen-dining room" (GH 97) proves for us Richardson's artistic consciousness here again, since the first one is a universal symbol for the lack of freedom and possibilities, while the suburban kitchen with all of its described details, such as the peppermill ('grinder of life'), symbolize the American way of life, the dull uniformity of the lives of millions who accepted the Dream as their civil religion, their leading principle of life. The DOOR of the kitchen, the WALL of the prison are BOUNDARIES, limiting forces. They are also symbolized, and as such, they are perfectly utilized in a technical sense by the author. Those who guard and defend the existing ORDER (i.e. latent order covering chaos in the outside world) do not let the MISFIT cross the limitations, for they have the support of institutions and ideologies. That is why Walter and Philip, two faces of the same figure (usually played by the same actor) are unable to break out. The ORDER-DISORDER relation is manifold in the play. Walter insists on keeping the order of his cell by all means, since the order of objects around him provides the only possibility of security. Walter complains about the loss of order in the outside world, loss of predictability based on the laws of life and a rise of a new order, a negative one where predictability means the loss of chance for individual action. The fear of lost order is symbolized also in Walter's agonies about losing his number patch

—something that brings the memories of the protagonist's struggle in the opposite direction in Orwell's 1984 into my mind. Later on, Lucy forces Walter to realize that his effort is pointless, because the order of the outside world represented by the institutions of law, the prison and the whole procedure of the last hours before being hung

—all control their actions. In 49