42 THE SUBTEXT OF DRAMA Leo Rockas The term and the concept of subtext has begun to be used in the criti- cism of drama often cnough to suggest that it has some utility and that an attempt to review the uses of the term and refine the concept might now be helpful. Though Maynard Mack mimimizes “what is called in to- day’s theatrical jargon the ‘subtext,"”! critics such as John Russell Brown and J. L. Styan have shown that the concept permits them to make cer- tain necessary observations about plays which they would find awkward to express without it. Drama, as I understand it, is based on a petition and the granting or refusing of it. The “scenes” of a play lacking a petition may with some confidence be called “expository.” The petition for information, for news or old stories, is a pretext for narration instead of drama, even if appar- ently dramatic interlocutors are delivering that narration. In Oedipus the King there is no real drama until the scene between Oedipus and Teiresias. Oedipus petitions Teiresias for what he knows of the past and future, in a series of imploring gestures, while Teiresias retreats from him in increasing horror at his requests. When Oedipus realizes that Tei- resias will not satisfy him, he reverses the direction of the subtext and be- gins accusing Teiresias until he finally drives him off the stage. The subtext is the underlying motives, gestures, and attitudes of the characters, sug- gested by but not contained in the actual words spoken back and forth. The scene between Oedipus and Teiresias has more subtextual complex- ity than I can indicate here, but I might note at least that Teiresias, by coming to Oedipus, looks like the petitioner; and by being chased away looks like the psychological loser in the scene. But Teiresias has not come to petition; he has been “summoned.” In drama as in life the one who goes to the other is the one who wants something, and the other he goes to has it. Businessmen say, “Let him come to me,” for the one come to is in the seat of authority. But what if a king (or a boss) wants something? He must not seem to and so he summons the other. And Oedipus’ rejection of Teiresias comes about because Teiresias refuses his petition. Though Oedipus in this scene boasts and struts and charges, he is clearly and desperately the loser. The interpretation of subtext implies a discovery of subtleties in the text, but it must not be confused with the discovery of “dramatic ironies.” The subtext is what the characters are consciously trying to do to each other, and may be most easily understood in the imagery of dancing, orTHE SUBTEXT OF DRAMA 43 boxing. When Oedipus says he will punish the murderer of Laius, the only subtext is his attempt to impress or intimidate his subjects. To call sub- textual analysis psychological may be valid, but it is closely interwoven with the text and does not necessarily view the character as a whole and real person; the gestures and attitudes of Oedipus in a later scene are the result of a theatrical, not necessarily a psychological, development. The subtext is the dance of those turns and counter-turns of sympathy and antipathy between the characters for which it is hard to avoid the terms strophe and antistrophe, as of the chorus. It is at least possible that the choruses and the scenes of classical drama had some structural and dia- lectical influence upon each other. And the dance or pantomime arising from the text of a play would be an expression of the subtext just as valid. though totally non-verbal, as is the text itself. But the text remains our only authority for its subtext. Konstantin Stanislayski, founder of the Moscow Art Theater, used the term “subtext” to refer to the manifest, the inwardly felt expression of a human being in a part, which flows uninterruptedly beneath the words of a text, giving them life and a basis for existing, . .. a web of innumerable, varied inner patterns inside a play and a part, . . . all sorts of figments of the imagination, inner move- ments, objects of attention, smaller and greater truths and a belief in them, adaptations, adjustments and other similar elements. It is the subtext that makes us say the words we do in a play? In England and America the term is associated with Chekhov, with “naturalism,” with “method” acting. John Russell Brown, the English Shakespearean critic, reports that the word is not listed in the New Eng- lish Dictionary Supplement of 1939. Nor is it listed in any current Ameri- can dictionary, including the unabridged Webster's Third New Interna- tional Dictionary of 1961. Despite the apparent newness of the term something of the concept seems to be implied in theatrical and critical history for some time back. Brown, who wrote two articles on “Shake- speare’s Subtext” in 1963 and reconsidered them in his book Shake- speare’s Plays in Performance in 1966, finds references to the concept— all but definitions of the term~in Granville-Barker, in T. S. Eliot, in the lectures of the actor Henry Irving, in Richard Steele's account of Bet- terton’s Othello, in Shakespeare himself. Brown's discovery and explication of subtext in Shakespeare is a very helpful addition to both literary and theatrical criticism. But he implies that the concept is especially applicable to Shakespeare because “a new naturalism was the kindling spirit in his theatre.” Though he cites Eliot's reference to the dialogue of Greek drama as “a shorthand, and often,44 COLLEGE LITERATURE as in the best of Shakespeare, a very abbreviated shorthand indeed, for the acted and felt play, which is always the real thing.” it is almost as if Brown is expressing the “method” implications of Shakespeare because Shakespeare was genius enough to anticipate Chekhov. But was not Soph- ocles genius enough to anticipate Shakespeare? Can there be a text for drama without a subtext? The last question raises an even more basic question, whether there can be any literary text without a subtext. Brown analyzes the “subtext” of Brutus deliberating over what to do about Caesar, and of Juliet ruminating as she waits for Romeo. But if “soli- loquy” has a subtext, must not “lyric” as well? I have elsewhere argued that there is no rehetorical difference between lyric poems and the lyrical passages of drama. Brown looks for subtext in Shakespeare’ use of gesture, stage-business and silent physical confronta- tions; to these means must be added the text itself: sudden shifts in subject- matter or in tone and tempo, broken syntax or metre, the introduction of unusual words or disproportionate reactions, all need to be sustained by the actor’s expression of the unspoken reactions that cause them. If the text is to sound like an “imitation of life” it needs a subtext® From this perspective, it is easy enough to see the “subtext” of Shake- speare’s sonnets, especially in the passionate addresses to the young man and the dark lady. These are “dramatic” lyrics in the second person, though as usual in lyric the second person is present only in the speaker's mind. But even in lyrics lacking this absent addressee we are teased to imagine what prompted the heart-cry, what lies beneath the text. There is hardly a Sapphic fragment so fragmentary as to lack a subtext: I said, Sappho Enough! Why try to move a hard heart? Pain penetrates me drop by drop.” Lyrics too are bursting with “the unspoken reaction that prompted them”; they certainly suggest gesture, “business,” and even confrontation; they certainly include sudden shifts in tone, broken syntax, unusual words, are disproportionate, since the stimuli, the “dramatic situations” out of which they arise, are usually silent or indefinite. In prose fiction too there is “tone,” “voice,” the authorial presence, the “Henry Fielding” or “Jane Austen” which Wayne Booth posits as the author of the piece.® The suggestion of the performing storyteller gesturing to his listeners is felt in even the most sophisticated fiction. In fact, such a novelist as HenryTHE SUBTEXT OF DRAMA 45 James or Joseph Conrad may call for more in the analysis of implication, of “subtext.” than does for instance such a storyteller as the Ancient Mariner. JL. Styan analyzes “subtext” in the meeting of Gwendolen and Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest as a series of battle gestures: "Where- as Cecily and Gwendolen begin on equal ground, as we have seen, quickly the balance shifts and Gwendolen is the first to be caught at a disad- vantage while Cecily becomes increasingly the mistress of the situation. That is certainly the language of subtext, as I see it. But Styan’s analysis of the opening lines of Rosmersholm, Mrs. Helseth and Rebecca watching the approach of Rosmer, is an analysis of the implications, however subtle, of the text, which is almost entirely in the third person (Rosmer) and therefore expository. The two women are not working upon, or gesturing at, each other. These comments are not meant to discredit Brown's and Styan’s analyses of subtext, but to suggest either a broadening of the term to include all literary texts, or a narrowing of the term to the subtext applicable only to drama. In the meantime what I am speaking of may be called, a little redundantly, dramatic subtext. This psychological dance between the speakers in drama runs more or Jess continuously throughout a play, but is thin or meager in certain passages. In expositiory or narrative passages, whether rendered by a single storyteller or as in Ibsen by two or more characters questioning themselves or reminding themselves of the past, there is a subtext— the subtext of stories, of prose fiction. The dramatic subtext of such passages is only in the chance that the stirring up of mem- ories will make a present difference between the speakers. In lyric or solo passages (a single speaker ruminating to himself, whether other possible speakers are present or not), there is also a subtext—the sub- text of lyric poems. The dramatic subtext of such passages is only in the possible inclusion of second-hand conversations as reviewed or antici- pated by the single speaker, or in the chance of a possible intrusion from another speaker. Only then can begin that “working-upon-each-other” between the characters which is the obbligato of dramatic subtext. Subtext is stronger or more urgent in certain passages, certain plays, certain playwrights. Strangely, since the artistry of Chekhov first prompted Stanislavski’s insight of subtext, the subtext of Chekhov's plays can some- times be elusive. It is easy enough to see in the relatively early Sea Gull that, as Trigorin is tempted to remain behind out of a romantic interest in the young Nina, the actress Arkadina performs one of the most magnifi- cent subtextual dances of her career and renders him helplessly depen- dent upon her. By the time of The Three Sisters, Chekhov's impression-46 COLLEGE LITERATURE istic technique has somewhat blurred the causes and effects of his sub- text. Masha announces she is leaving and says good-bye, and not until nine pages later in the Modern Library translation by Stark Young does she say, “(Taking off her hat),” that she is staying for lunch. In the mean- she has gotten interested in the arrival of Vershinin, the “lovesick major,” with whom she will later have an affair. | come, then, to a para- dox, not I think a contradiction, in my argument. Because subtext can be elusive in Chekhov, Stanislavski was pressed to arrive at the basis of all drama; in Turgeney and Tolstoy, in Shakespeare and Shaw, the sub- text is closer to the surface and may not need special formulation. But the necessities of the director are not exactly those of the critic. If the director, in an escape from the artificial declamation of an earlier theater. wishes to encourage a more naturalistic expression of the text and subtext, he will ask the actor to find a consistent tone and attitude in his part, which has its suggested life in the total performance even when he is not actually speaking, or even on stage. Every actor as nearly as possible becomes the character he portrays, so that when the text calls upon him to burst into words he will express them as the ‘oral subtext of the play suggests. From the critical viewpoint this leads to a biographi- cal view of dramatic character which modern criticism has been at some pains to discredit—in Harold Rosenberg’s terms, it leads to the person- alitics found only in novels and biographies rather than to the identitics found in plays."° At its absurd limits the biographical view of character leads to the questions of how many children Lady Macbeth had, what Hamlet studied at Wittenberg University, and what Juliet was like as a child. The life of a dramatic character is a present life, an on-stage life. Help- ful as the Stanislavski method has been in the theater, it must be regard- ed critically as a somewhat artificial technique of naturalism. But the dispute, if it is a dispute, between director and critic, has no necessary effect on the analysis of subtext as I have defined it—as a series of pre~ sent psychological turns and counterturns between the characters. What- ever thoughts and feelings Hamlet may have had during the undramatized trip to England, here is how he behaves now with the gravedigger and with Laertes over Ophelia’s grave. Both director and critic, both spectator and reader, can benefit from a recognition of dramatic subtext. For the subtext is what makes drama dramatic, and the expression of subtext in a literary work will render it dramatic, whether it is called a play or not. Prose fiction, for instance, includes conversation or dialogue; do these passages constitute drama? A couple of convenient examples occur in the stories of Hemingway. “The Killers” looks like drama; all but a fewTHE SUBTEXT OF DRAMA 47 sentences and paragraphs are in the quotation marks of conversation. But this conversation seems to be used, like the opening of Oedipus, for almost purely expository or narrative purposes, to explain what is “up” between the characters and what is going to happen. The two men have come to kill Ole Andreson, but the “scene” of that murder (which doesn’t occur in the story) would also be narrative, not dramatic. Ole has never seen these men, they say, and so there is nothing personally at issue between them. Even if words were exchanged not much subtext would be revealed. Somewhere in his past Ole has offended the man or men who have sent the killers. That old situation might have yielded many dramatic exchanges. but the story doesn't even bother to hint at them. The only subtext revealed between the speakers is Al's warning Max not to talk too much; he says as much three times, but Max takes it well, or jokes about it. If it is an issue, if it indicates some rivalry between the men, there is not much sign of it. Most of the conversations of this story can be called “scenes” only in metaphor; they are used to tell the story and are hardly dramatic: there is no subtextual excitement to them “Hills Like White Elephants” is also predominantly conversational. But in this conversation the speakers are personally and crucially involved. ‘They are deciding whether to have an abortion and whether to continue their relationship. The man is petitioning the woman to have the abortion. Eventually she seems to agree to it, but she does not seem entirely con- vinced. For she is also, though more subtly, petitioning him to agree to have the baby and face the prospect of 2 continuing relationship with her. Her agreement to his petition is only recognition that her own peti- tion has been denied; since he will not agree to the commitment the baby would necessitate, she grudgingly agrees to his petition, the abor- tion. The important petition is indicated in miniature early in the story when she observes that the hills look like white elephants; it is her bid for insight and sophistication, a certain claim on the man; but he rejects her insight, and so suggests he is already denying any such permanent claim on him. By the end of the story it is pretty clear that she would like to have the child and raise it with him, but she must agree to the abortion, which will probably mean the end of their relationship. None of this has been said exactly, just suggested through the subtext of their conversa~ tion; for this story, unlike the other, is fully dramatic. Frank O'Connor, in his book of essays on short-story writers, seems to be disturbed that so little background is given about the characters in this story. He would like to know more about the girl's parents, broth- ets and sisters, job and home—he seems to ask for a story's extension in time and place. But in another comment, more friendly to Hemingway. O'Connor seems to give a good generic account of such pieces as this48 COLLEGE LITERATURE one: “In his stories one is forever coming upon that characteristic setting of the cafe, the station restaurant, the waiting room. or the railway car- riage—clean, welklighted, utterly anonymous places. The characters, equally anonymous, emerge suddenly from the shadows where they have been lurking. perform their little scene, and depart again into the sha- dows." This imagery of the theater indicates what I have been trying to show. Though “The Killers” conventionally passes for a “dramatic” story— meaning “exciting.” or narrative—and “Hills Like White Elephants” is “uneventful.” as Chekhov is uneventful. an analysis by subtext shows that the latter story rather deserves to be called “dramatic.” “Hills Like White Elephants" may be short even for one act, but there is no defini- tion of play I recognize that it does not meet perfectly; and it can only be a typographical prejudice against quotations marks that would prevent a critic from agreeing. NOTES. 1 King Lear in Our Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), p. 32. 2 Building a Charactor, tr. Elizabeth R. Hapgood (New York: Theatre Arts, 1950), p. 113 3 Shakespeare's Plays in Performance (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969), pp. 197-202. 4Brown, p. 34. 5 Modes of Rhetoric (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964), pp. 197-202. 6 Brown, p. 62. 7 Sappho. tx. Mary Barnard (Berkely: University of California Press, 1958), nos. 59, 61. 8 The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 264. 9 The Elements of Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960). p. 24. 10 The Tradition of ihe New (New York: Horizon Press, 1959), p. 139. 11 The Lonely Voice: a Study of the Short Story (New York: World Publishing Co., 1963), pp. 166-67.