Narrative Universals,
Heroic Tragi-Comedy, and
Shakespeare's Political Ambivalence
Review by Me for Patrick Colm Hogan
Two of these structures—romantic
and heroic tragi-comedy—dominate
Shakespeare's work as well.l
The romantic
plot involves two people falling in love, some
conflict between the lovers and their society
(often parents), the separation of the lovers,
and—in the full, comic version^—their even-
tual reunion.
The heroic plot involves a
usurpation of social power inside a society
(e.g., the overthrow of a king) and an invasion
of the home society by a foreign power. In
the full, comic version, the usurpation is
overturned and the invasion is repulsed.
Most of Shakespeare's plots are identical. There is a difference between Romeo and Juliet on the one hand znd gakuntala (or, for that matter. Titanic) on the other.
These difference result from the specification of prototypical structures (e.g., the development of the personality traits, appearance, and conditions of the lovers); the rearrangement of prototypical elements in discourse (e.g., altering the order in
which the story is told or shifting the focus from the lovers to some appar-
ently ancillary character); the deletion of prototypical events (as in tragedy,
where the comic resolution is absent); the addition of further, comphcating
events, and so on.
Heroic Tragi-Comedy
Usurpation sequence; the second is the invasion or threat/defense
sequence.
Usurpation sequence. The two may and often do appear independently. The usurpation
sequence involves the rightful leader being removed from his/her position of
The invasion sequence focuses on a conflict between societies rather than within one society. In this sequence, a foreign power attacks the home society, nearly causing the near destruction or metaphorical death of the society.
Thus usurpation is often the act of a family member. In some cases,
even invasions involve familial conflict (as in the famous battle of Rostam
and his son Sohrab in the Persian epic Shdhndme
3 developmental sequences
Thus, in the usurpation sequence, the usurper violates
social law (e.g., fealty), the higher ethical principles (e.g., those of loyalty) that
underwrite the social law, and the divine will that underlies both
(e.g.,"divine right" for English kings or the "mandate of heaven" for Chinese
monarchs). Likewise, in the invasion sequence, the home society is ethically
and spiritually superior to the foreign, "attacking" society.
The usurpation itself
must be the first act, the initiation of the series of events. It cannot be a
response to prior usurpations, prior injustices. Plot order.
At the same time, that triumph itself is evidence of divine authorization.
Since the godly side must win, whoever wins must be the godly side.
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Presidential speeches and government propaganda are fairly brazen in
emplotting national history in these terms. However, canonical literary works
are rarely if ever entirely unequivocal on normative alignment, absolute origins.
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Shakespeare
Shakespeare takes up the standard motifs and development principles. He
uses some only occasionally (e.g., the conflict between the loyal retainer and monarch - Lear & Kent)
Consider descriptive allignment. Shakespeare might parallel nature, not
only with society, but with the hero's mental state and personal relations as
well.
Lear - Lear's madness mirrors the disruption of the state (due to his disposses-
sion), which in turn mirrors the disruption in his family (due to the rule of
the children over the parent), which in turn mirrors the disruption in nature
(due to the terrible storm).
Another standard development principle, famil-
ialization, is also one of Shakespeare's most common strategies.
Macbeth - In keeping with a cross-ctilturally common principle, this familiarization is sometimes literal (as in King Lear), but at other times a matter of imagery or a charac-
ter's associations, as in Lady Macbeth's thinking of Duncan with her father
("Had he not resembled/My father as he slept, I had done 't" [II.ii.12-13]).
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In some cases, Shakespeare takes up a common motif, but changes it in
significant ways. For instance, the killing of an innocent youth is a fairly
widespread motif in heroic plots cross-culturally.
Morally justifiable - Richard III killing his nephews.
- Macbeth murdering Macduff's son
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A motif—or, rather, the combination of a motif and a development prin-
ciple—still more peculiar to Shakespeare is the death of the usurper's
beloved, often through suicide, and usually at a moment of particular conflict
and suffering. This is presumably a technique of emotional intensification.
King Lear - Goneril commits suicide more or less at the
moment of Albany's triumph. In this case, the event is not so much sorrow-
ful as horrible, a continuation of the terrible devastation that marks this play,
even in "success."
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Richard II
Richard II focuses on the usurpation sequence, though it does so almost
in slow motion, dividing the usurpation into stages—thereby revealing
another one of Shakespeare's development principles. (We find something
similar in King Lear.
- The theme of usurpation is asserted at the outset when Mowbray and Bolingbroke accuse one another
- However, in the second scene, we hear that Richard is himself a usurper. Indeed, he is reported to be responsible for the very murder debated by Mowbray and Bohngbroke.
- Should Bolingbroke be killed, that eliminates one of Richard's enemies. On the other hand, if Mowbray is killed, then (we may infer from events later in the play) that silences someone who might have testified to Richard's guilt.
- After these preliminaries, Bolingbroke is exiled. In keeping with the
- standard structure, right after the exile of Bohngbroke, the story turns to a
- threat, in this case from Ireland.
- In the usual manner of Shakespeare's (slight-
- ly modified) prototypical structure, Bolingbroke does not return to fend off
- this threat. Instead, he makes use of the opportunity to stage his own inva-
- sion, supported by the Duke of Brittany.
- In this way, Shakespeare doubles the foreign attack sequence. (Doubling, or even tripling, is another development principle used by Shakespeare.) In part drawing our sympathy toward Bolingbroke, Shakespeare presents a series of complaints against Richard
- (e.g., II.i.246-55).
- But right after this we witness the affection Richard's wife
- has for him (II.ii).This helps to re-humanize Richard and tends to foster
- compassion for his side in the conflict. Sympathy is not the only wavering
- value here.
- Law too is unclear. York states that legal right is on the side of
- Richard (II.iv.167-68), while Bolingbroke claims illegal dealings on
- Richard's part (II.iiil28-35).
- Bolingbroke then goes on to order executions
- with very flimsy justifications (Ill.i), a point with both legal and emotive
- ramifications.
- The ambivalence cultivated throughout the play (with its
- intensification through familialization) is stated directly by York when he
- says, regarding Richard and Bolingbroke, "Both are my kinsmen./Th'one is
- my sovereign, whom both my oath/And duty bids defend; t'other again/Is
- my kinsman, whom the King hath wronged,/Whom conscience and my
- kindred bids to right" (II.ii.lll-15).i8
Trial regarding Gloucester's murder.
But, first, the trial is inconclusive (as both sides have reason to he) and, sec-
ond, the purges engaged in by Bolingbroke seem worse than anything done
by Richard.
Indeed, in a perversion of the idea of providence, we find
Bohngbroke himself playing God in making his decisions as to whether oth-
ers should live or die.
In one such instance he is exphcitly called "god on
earth" (Viii. 135)—a sort of ultimate usurpation, but one not punished by
divine intervention. In short, the only providence this play appears to accept,
at least in the short term, is the providence of powerful rulers. -POWER DYNAMICS
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The play ends with Bolingbroke's rejection of the henchman he used to
kill Richard and Bohngbroke's vow to "make a voyage to the Holy Land,/To
wash this blood off fi-om my guilty hand" (Vvi.49-50).
The rejection may
function to indicate some moral decency on Bolingbroke's part, some lin-
gering conscience. But it may equally operate to indicate that Bolingbroke
lacks even that basic "honor among thieves" that we find in, for example,
Macbeth.
The pilgrimage is a projected epilogue of suffering. It is a Christian
specification of the temporary exile, the time of repentance and spiritual
renewal that precedes full accession to kingship in the complete prototypical
structure.
But here too there is ambiguity. The epilogue of suffering is usual-
ly the act of the rightflil ruler, the ruler who has been overthrown and
restored, or of the loyal retainer who was unjustly treated but has been
returned to his rightflil place.
It is hardly clear that Bohngbroke is either.
Moreover, the vow of the pilgrimage has the ambiguity of aU epilogues of
suffering. On the one hand, it is an expression of remorse and an act of
penance. On the other hand, it is a cheap way of freeing oneself from guilt,
purging one's conscience and currying divine favor.
It is not entirely clear that, at this point, Shakespeare fully recognized the
ambiguity in Bolingbroke's remorse, or in the epilogue of suffering more
generally. By the time of Hamlet, however, the hypocrisy, and Shakespeare
recognition of that hypocrisy, are unmistakable.
Claudius is, to my mind, far preferable to BoUngbroke in admitting that he cannot beg forgiveness for his
murder of King Hamlet,"since I am still possess'd/Of those effects for which
I did the murther:/My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen"
(III.iii.53-55). On the other hand, if Shakespeare—and his audience—did
not recognize the ambiguity in Bolingbroke's final speech, that only enhances
the ambivalence of the play. It gives the audience some reason to sympathize
with Bohngbroke's feehngs of remorse, and to admire his spiritual dedication,
even if this hardly counterbalances the affection most audience members
have developed for Richard after his defeat. - AMBIVALENCE
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- Hamlet
- As the preceding reference to Hamlet suggests, the anti-functional
- ambivalence we have been considering is also not confined to plays before
- Henry V. It spans Shakespeare's career.
- Henry V does not mark a turning point
- firom youthful non-conformity to mature traditionalism any more than it
- marks a shift from youthful conformism to mature emotional and evaluative
- complexity. The complexity is there from start to finish. Hamlet provides a
- clear instance.
