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Theatre : George Dandin by Molière
George Dandin by Molière (1668)
George Dandin is a play by Molière, created in 1668, the same year as L’Avare (The Miser) and Amphitryon. It’s a comedy about George Dandin, a rich peasant who married Angélique, the daughter of an impoverished gentleman, Monsieur de Sotenville. They wanted the match for the money, he wanted it to become a gentleman. It’s a miserable marriage for him because his parents-in-law despise him and Angélique was forced to marry him. They humiliate him any time they want and Angélique is being courted by a neighboring gentleman, Clitandre. He slips her love notes (billets doux!) through their respective servants, Claudine and Lubin. George Dandin learns about the affair and tries to make his parents-in-law aware of their daughter’s behavior but each time he tries, the tables are turned against him and it only results in more humiliation for him.
Molière wrote a comedy with a dark side that leaves no character unscathed.
Molière is not kind for Monsieur and Madame de Sotenville. They are small nobility from the country, like the Bennets or the Lucas. They are ruined and their situation was dire enough to accept this marriage. They are insufferable snobs, they are sure that their linage and the good education of their daughter are intangible assets that have more value than Dandin’s very tangible properties. Seeing how petty and narrowminded they are, how flirtatious her daughter is, I’m not sure their asset would successfully pass any impairment test. They certainly don’t throw any goodwill in the transaction. They are conceited and vapid, relying on their daughter’s purity to secure their financial future. When you come down to it, they’re not so different from their son-in-law, selling their daughter to an older stranger as if she were rare breed of cattle.
In appearance, George Dandin is the victim of proud and insensitive noblemen that consider him as a non-entity. It’s true and I’d feel a lot sorrier for him if he weren’t an oaf. He reminded me of Charles Bovary. His wife and her parents show him no respect but his attitude doesn’t concur to a change of heart on their side. He’s loud, brutal sometimes and totally lacks finesse. He’s dealing with people for whom appearances, customs and traditions are crucial, their only asset, the only thing they have left. Instead of playing the game and respect the rules, he doesn’t want to change. But then, what was the real aim of his marriage? You’d think he’d want to absorb anything he can from his wife’s family to try to fit in his new social class, a pass he paid a steep price. Not at all. He lacks social intelligence and instead of learning the codes of his new milieu, he wants Angélique to fit in. Instead of taking the social elevator up, he wants his wife to hop in the carriage with him and take the lift down.
This play was first shown in Versailles, in front Louis XIV and the court. I suppose Molière had to create a ridiculous parvenu. It would have been too harsh on the nobility if the man they constantly humiliate was good and intelligent.
Molière drew up Angélique as a cunning and frivolous young woman. She gets around her husband’s back and is ready to anything to keep on seeing Clitandre. She’s unfaithful and doesn’t hesitate to lie to his face, to her parents and let them humiliate Dandin. But Molière is fair to her as he lets her speak her heart and tell that she didn’t want this marriage. Nobody asked for her opinion, her parents married her off to the highest bidder and her wishes and happiness were never taken into consideration. Does she have to live the rest of her life buried in a house with an older husband she never chose? I thought that it was very modern of Molière to point out how society treated women.
The lover, Clitandre, is also a living proof that good manners don’t always go with a good personality. He uses his good manners to ridicule Dandin and his title as a viscount to silence Monsieur and Madame de Sotenville. And he’s hitting on a married woman which is immoral in itself. But in his eyes, is she really married ? Dandin is such a non-entity for him that he probably doesn’t think it’s dishonorable to court her.
Dandin is considered and treated as a citizen of second zone. Actually, in this era, the idea of “citizen” didn’t exist. The concept became popular during the French Revolution. Going out of the theatre, the violence toward Dandin was such that I couldn’t help thinking “Not surprising that 120 years after, the Sotenville of this world had their heads cut off”. We have racism, antisemitism, sexism, homophobia but I don’t think we have a word to qualify the action of writing someone off because they come from a lower social class. The Dandins of the world are dismissed. The idea that they could be intelligent, kind and worthy of acquaintance never crosses the Sotenvilles’ minds. Try to imagine a girl from high bourgeoisie bringing home someone from a lower income neighborhood. See if they behave well to this newcomer.
George Dandin is a thought-provoking play and as often with Molière, these deeper thoughts are wrapped up in comedy. It’s fun, in the text and in the comedy of manners. It’s a lively play even if it’s terribly sad.
The names of the characters enforce the comic side of the play. Angélique is far from angelic. Her parents are named de Sotenville, which could be translated as Sir / Lady Sillytown. In the 15th century, a dandin is a simpleton who has no composure, something the audience knew and something that fits George Dandin like a glove. He also gets knighted as George de la Dandinerie after his marriage, which means something like Sir George the Strutter. Since être le dindon de la farce (literally, to be the turkey of the farce or in good English, to be the fall guy) evokes what happens to George Dandin and seeing how turkeys walk…
I saw a very good version of this play. It was directed by Jean-Pierre Vincent. Dandin was dressed as a would-be nobleman, with an outfit that seemed to match Molière’s costume for this role. (He was the first Dandin and the description of his clothes was found) Vincent Garanger was an excellent George Dandin, with a great acting palette. His impersonation of the character felt right, not excessive, with the appropriate touch of pathetic, obnoxious and stupid. The other members of the cast were well in their roles as well. The two domestics brought out the comic in their scenes, bringing lightness to alleviate this George Dandin bashing.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. (1938) French title: Cette sacrée vertu.
I bought Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson after reading Jacqui’s enthusiastic review confirmed by Max’s review, both excellent, as always.
I was drawn to this story of a mousy spinster who gets shaken up in her life after a serendipitous mix up. Miss Pettigrew works as a governess not by choice but out of obligation. She needs to work for a living and it’s the only profession she knows. It’s not a calling and she’s not very skilled at it. With the years, the family she works for are getting worse and she’s been ill-treated by her employers. Miss Pettigrew is poor, she’s lonely and she doesn’t have any other option than taking another job as a governess. The last family you hired her bullied her and she dreads starting anew somewhere else. Her resistance to harship is getting low and her work agency has sent her to an address to start a new position. She feels like she’s going to the gallows.
Outside on the pavement Miss Pettigrew shivered slightly. It was a cold, grey, foggy November day with a drizzle of rain in the air. Her coat, of a nondescript, ugly brown, was not very thick. It was five years old. London traffic roared about her. Pedestrians hastened to reach their destinations and get out of the depressing atmosphere as quickly as possible. Miss Pettigrew joined the throng, a middle-aged, rather angular lady, of medium height, thin through lack of good food, with a timid, defeated expression and terror quite discernible in her eyes, if any one cared to look. But there was no personal friend or relation in the whole world who knew or cared whether Miss Pettigrew was alive or dead.
She musters the courage to knock at the door of her new employer and she’s immediately welcomed by Miss LaFosse who thinks that Miss Pettigrew is her new maid. They don’t have time to exchange a word before Miss Lafosse begs for Miss Pettigrew’s help. Indeed, Miss Lafosse has a lover at home (Nick) and her other lover (Michael) is coming soon. She wants Miss Pettigrew to make Nick leave before Michael arrives. Without thinking, Miss Pettigrew obeys and successfully pushes Nick out the door. Miss LaFosse is convinced she’s got a new best friend and takes Miss Pettigrew under her wing.
Miss LaFosse is young and pretty. She’s an actress and a flirt. She runs in totally different circles than the ones Miss Pettigrew is used to. Worse than that, she lives a life Miss Pettigrew has been taught to consider sinful and dissipated. But Miss Pettigrew is at the end of her rope, she decides she’s not in a position to judge Miss LaFosse and she quite enjoys the attention she gets from her.
Miss Pettigrew now forgot all about her original errand. For the first time for twenty years some one really wanted her for herself alone, not for her meagre scholarly qualifications. For the first time for twenty years she was herself, a woman, not a paid automaton. She was so intoxicated with pride she would have condoned far worse sins than Miss LaFosse having two young men in love with her. She put it like that. She became at once judicial, admonitory and questioning.
She’s swept off her feet and dizzy with the whirlwind of Miss LaFosse’s love life. And as the day goes on, Miss Pettigrew questions the values she was taught and that she respected all her life. The French title of the book is Cette sacrée vertu, or in English This bloody virtue and it sums it all. What good did it bring her to be good and virtuous? What joy did it bring in her life?
In a dull, miserable existence her one wild extravagance was her weekly orgy at the cinema, where for over two hours she lived in an enchanted world peopled by beautiful women, handsome heroes, fascinating villains, charming employers, and there were no bullying parents, no appalling offspring, to tease, torment, terrify, harry her every waking hour.
Is that all that she can hope for? A life where her only happy place is a two-hour visit to the cinema? She starts thinking that she might deserve more than being a bullied and poor governess. As the story unfolds, we see a character coming out of her safety shell to dare living. This kind of plot could be mawkish but it’s not. It’s served by Watson’s witty prose and she turns this late blooming into a light and bittersweet comedy. Her sense of humour is fantastic, as you can see in these passing lines:
Miss LaFosse sat in front of the mirror in preparation for the greatest rite of all, the face decoration.
Miss Pettigrew, completely submerged in unknown waters, did her best to surmount the waves.
It is also vivid thanks to energetic dialogues that reminded me of vaudeville and comics.
‘???…!!!…???…!!!’exploded Nick again.
Totally Captain Haddock, no?
Reading Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was a real delight. It’s funny as hell, lovely and still thought-provoking. Of course, there’s the condition of women and the difficulty to work for a living. Miss Pettigrew also shows that living as a saint might be commendable but not that enjoyable and Miss LaFosse demonstrates that living as she wants, duty be damned, is a lot more pleasant and that in the end, it doesn’t hurt anybody.
Kim at Reader Matters, listed Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day in her list of five uplifting reads. I think she’s onto something there.
Highly recommended.
Many a true word is spoken in jest
L’Epouse rebelle (1934) by Zsigmond Móricz (1879-1942). Translated into French by Suzanne Horvath. Not available in English (I think) Original title: Az asszony beleszol, which means “She says” according to Google Translate.
Imre and Ilonka Vigh are a young married couple in Budapest. The book starts on March 28th, 1933. Imre is a journalist of what we call in French the “faits-divers”. There’s no exact translation of that word in English, I think. It means that Imre writes articles about odd stories, murders, conjugal disputes and various accidents. He’s often out late at night, chasing stories for the newspapers he works for. Of course, Ilonka doesn’t work and spends all her time in their apartment, cleaning, cooking and waiting for him to come home. The country, like the rest of the world, is in a deep economic crisis. Ilonka juggles with money and indeed, money is a central character of this falsely humoristic novel.
The novel opens on a special night where Imre witnesses something intriguing in his own building and starts investigating to dig out a juicy story. That same night he receives four free tickets to go to the theatre. When he comes home, he says to Ilonka that they should go and invite her aunt and cousin who help them financially. It’s a way to thank them for their generosity.
Ilonka immediately points out that they don’t have the money for this evening at this time of month. Indeed, the tickets are free but they would still have to pay for the tramway to go there, the cloakroom at the theatre and sweets for the family. Despite Imre’s wishes, she decides to offer the tickets to a neighbor, Mrs Véghely, so that they don’t go to waste. What seems like a nice gesture is actually a poisonous gift since the Véghelys face the same problem as the Vighs: they don’t have the money for all the side expenses attached to going to the theatre. The tickets make their way to the Schultheiszes. The husband is a civil servant, he should have the money. But are they really better off? Follows a comedy in the apartment building where women meet and try to place these tickets somewhere.
It is funny to witness the circus created by these four free tickets. But it allows us readers to enter the homes of several families in the apartment building. It is mostly occupied by bourgeois families and we discover everything through the wives’ point of views. Zsigmond Móricz discloses the tricks they use to save money, the consequences of the crisis on families from all social circles. The story of the tickets that nobody wants is a pretext to show a society that has reached the end of its rope. What should be an opportunity –free tickets—turns into a nightmare. These tickets aren’t a gift anymore but a burden because money is so tight that finding the cash to cover the extra-expenses to enjoy the evening requires too much energy. And at the same time, they have too much pride to cut-off these expenses and see the play without the extras. Zsigmond Móricz mocks these bourgeois who are too attached to their social status to see how ridiculous they are.
All the families struggle with money and it weakens the husbands’ place in the family and in society. They’re used to having all the power for being the provider and protector of the family. They also run the State and the institutions. The wives accepted their position in the household as natural. Husband and wife had a role and they played by the rules. As the economic crisis lasts and worms its way in every aspect of their lives and as the end of the tunnel is yet to be seen, the wives start questioning their husbands’ “natural” position in society. They go down from their pedestal: they don’t know how to solve the crisis, they don’t know how to keep or improve their income and they fail to provide for their family. So why should they rely on them? Why should the wives accept their submissive position? They start to rebel.
L’Epouse rebelle would make an excellent film: it is a situation comedy with twists and turns, misunderstandings and funny dialogues. And yet it shows a realistic vision of the crisis. Some passages are painfully contemporary like this one:
| – Les jeunes gens d’aujourd’hui n’ont ni emploi ni avenir. A trente ans, ils ne travaillent pas encore. Un technicien diplômé a trente-deux ans et il n’a pas encore gagné un sou ; de notre temps un homme de trente-deux ans occupait déjà un poste de dirigeant, on le prenait presque pour un homme âgé.
– Et ça ne changera jamais ? – Crois-moi, Gizi, ici il n’y a aucune perspective. – Tu seras d’accord avec moi : on supporte n’importe quoi, à condition de pouvoir espérer un meilleur avenir pour ses enfants, mais sinon ?… – Tout ce qu’on peut faire, c’est les pousser dans les études. Mais quand un garçon ne trouve pas de travail, ce sera bien pire encore pour les filles. |
– Young men have no job and no future. At thirty, they don’t work yet. A technician with a diploma is thirty-two and has never earned money. In our time, a thirty-two year old man had already a managing position. He was almost an old man.
– And it will never change? – Believe me, Gizi, here, there’s no perspective. – You’ll agree with me: we can bear anything as long as we can hope a better future for our children. But otherwise?… – All you can do is push them to study. But when a boy doesn’t find a job, it will be even worse for girls. |
Or this one, where a housekeeper talks with Ilonka:
| – L’argent…Çui qui veut du pain, la ville lui en donne à gogo. On le distribue par kilo ou par deux kilos…Et il suffit d’aller à la soupe populaire pour avoir des déjeuners comme c’est pas croyable. Il ne faut rien d’autre pour les avoir que d’être en chômage. Moi, Madame, j’y ai pas droit, parce que moi, je travaille.
– Mais ne vous montrez pas si cruelle. On leur en donne parce qu’ils sont dans le besoin. N’enviez pas un tel pain. – Pourquoi ? J’suis pas dans le besoin, peut-être ? C’est justement mon malheur. Comment que je peux leur expliquer qu’entre mon mari et un chômeur, c’est du pareil au même ? |
– Money…If someone wants bread, the city gives him as much as he wants. It’s given away in kilos…You just have to go to the soup kitchen to have incredible lunches. You need nothing else that to be unemployed to have them. Me, I can’t have them because I work.
– Don’t be so cruel. They give them bread because they’re in need. Don’t be envious of such bread. – Why not? Am I not in need too? That’s my misfortune. How can I explain that between my husband and an unemployed person, it’s all the same? |
Sounds familiar, eh? It reminds me of many discussions I’ve heard about poor workers and workers who earn just enough to be above thresholds to receive social benefits but still struggle to make ends meet. It’s a bit disheartening to discover something like that in a novel from the 1930s, especially when you know where this economic crisis led Europe.
In the foreword of the book, they say Zsigmond Móricz could have immigrated to the United States. He chose to stay in Hungary and write about the life there. His tone is light but his lightness is deceitful. Many a true word is spoken in jest could be the symbol of this book that uses comedy to describe a very serious economic situation for the population of Budapest.
I heard about L’Epouse rebelle on the French blog Passage à L’Est. Thanks Bénédicte, that was a find.
This review is my first contribution to Stu’s Eastern European Lit Month.
Let’s die for ideas, OK, but only of slow death
The Suicide by Nicolaï Erdman 1928. French title: Le Suicidé. Translated into French by André Markowicz.
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Mais rappelez-vous comment ça se passait dans le temps. Dans le temps, les gens qui avaient une idée, ils voulaient mourir pour elle. A l’époque où nous sommes, les gens qui veulent mourir n’ont pas d’idée, et les gens qui ont une idée ne veulent pas mourir. C’est une chose qu’il faut combattre. Aujourd’hui plus que jamais, nous avons besoin de défunts idéologiques. But remember how it was in the old days. In the old days, the people who had an idea wanted to die for it. Nowadays, the people who want to die don’t have any idea and the ones who have an idea don’t want to die. It is something we must fight against. Now more than ever we need ideological deceased.
I’d never heard of Nicolaï Erdman before I watched his play The Suicide at the theatre the other day. If you’re like me, then a bit of biography won’t hurt. Nikolai Erdman (1900-1970) is a Russian writer. His first play, The Mandate was played in 1925 and was a huge success until 1930 when the authorities thwarted it. It wasn’t showed again until 1956. He wrote his second play, The Suicide (In French, Le Suicidé, literally The Suicided) in 1928. It was censored in 1932 and won’t be put on in Russia until 1982. It will be the end of Erdman’s career as a playwright. From there on, he will live upon his job for the cinema and will influence the Russian theatre by working with young directors. He will always remain in the shadows but according to the foreword of my French edition, he will be highly influential.
Now, the play.
First scene. Semione, an unemployed Russian of the 1920s wakes up his wife in the middle of the night because he’d want more of the sausage they had for diner. His wife isn’t pleased and they start arguing. During their fight, Semione resents that his wife has a job when he’s out of work. He feels bad to live on her wages and his wife is afraid he might commit suicide. When he leaves the room, she wakes up the neighbour and tells him his husband is suicidal. From then on, the word spreads among a small community and all kinds of people want to use his suicide for their own profit and want to influence the substance of his farewell note.
The intellectual representing the intelligentsia asks him to mention that he killed himself for the sake of the persecuted intelligentsia. A nymphomaniac wants him to explain he couldn’t live without her and committed suicide for unrequited love. A writer also wants to use Semione’s suicide to promote his cause. The priest wants to use his suicide to show that the Church is oppressed.
They all go very far, negotiating what he should write, organizing a farewell lunch, setting an hour of death and taking care of the funeral. Only Semione doesn’t want to die.
In one of his songs, Georges Brassens says Mourons pour des idées, d’accord, mais de mort lente, which is the title of this post. In this play, Erdman explores the reasons why someone should sacrifice themselves for a cause. As mentioned in the opening quote, those who have ideas don’t want to die and those ready to die don’t have ideas, the intellectual says. It reminded me of the terrorists who put a bomb while they know they won’t survive. They are manipulated into thinking they are heroes for their cause, that they bought their ticket to paradise. Several people try to feed Semione with ideas to take over his suicide for their own ends.
On the verge of killing himself, Semione wonders about life after death and someone advises him to ask the priest, as he’s a specialist. Here is the priest’s answer:
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Le Père Elpidy– Voulez-vous que je réponde comment: selon la religion ou selon la conscience?Semione – Quelle difference ça fait?Le Père Elpidy – Une difference co-los-sale. Ou je peux parler aussi selon la science. Semione – Moi, ce serait selon le plus juste, mon père.
Le Père Elpidy – Selon la religion – c’est oui. Selon la science – c’est non. Et selon la conscience – personne ne sait.
Father Elpidy– Do you want me to answer according to religion or according to consciousness?Semione– What’s the difference?Father Elpidy – A HU-GE difference. Or I can speak according to science too. Semione – For me, I would like the most accurate, Father.
Father Elpidy – According to religion, it’s a yes. According to science, it’s a no. And according to consciousness, nobody knows.
Semione questions the meaning of being human, there is a direct reference to Hamlet in the text. He brings historical events at a human-being’s height. For example, he says that when there is a war, leaders think of political moves while all John Does only wonder if their battalion is call up right away or not. In French we say, chacun voit midi à sa porte (literally, everyone sees noon at their own door) or in other words, we all grasp events and circumstances according to our own selfish and narrow or limited perspective. It’s also from a man’s point of view, far from Nations and big collective concepts.
The Suicide is like a Vaudeville with a Gogolian sense of humour and a slight touch of Beckett. Can you imagine it? It’s hilarious and cynical at the same time. The text includes incredibly bold sentences on Marxism and the author certainly knew well that the play would be censored. It’s about suicide but it’s also Erdman’s suicide as a playwright.
I think the French title, Le Suicidé (The Suicided) is better than the English one. The word doesn’t exist in French either but the neologism express very well the plot of the play: everyone wants Semione to commit suicide and be a useful victim when thinking of suicide only makes him realize how much he enjoys life, as miserable as he can be, it feels good to be alive.
Highly recommended.
Book Around the Corner 