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Plays: Third Series:
The Fugitive
The Pigeon
The Mob
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The Fugitive, by John Galsworthy.
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Here again Galsworthy goes into the theme of marital incompatibility that he began Forsyte Saga with, where stolid and prosaic has married sensitive without the former understanding the forthcoming disaster.
Here, unlike in Forsyte Saga, the latter had no clue, either. But in Forsyte Saga, having a premonition and hesitation, leading to putting conditions asking for freedom if it didn't work, didn't work for Irene as she'd hoped, either - her then husband simply insisted on his rights, refused separation and even refused to respect separate rooms, and the wife had no legal or physical recourse if she had no financial independence.
As in the previous play in the Complete Works of John Galsworthy, the tragic end here hurts deeply, the turn impressing on one just how inexorably helpless an innocent was rendered by the grinding of wheels that chose to go over anyone who stepped out of chains.
And yet, this social setup wasn't about morals, as evident by the goings on in upper castes right up to the royals, from at least Henry VIII onwards till date - and especially during the times this play was written, as evident from history of the era, and exposed in at least Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw.
So the victimisation of women took place when they chose to go against the supposed morality by demanding a separation from a husband, but only if they did so without first ensuring a more powerful protector of sorts, whether a blood relative or another lover.
It's not that different from the setup depicted in the autobiographical work of Tehmina Durrani, at that.
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"TWISDEN. Yes! Mrs. Dedmond! There's the bedrock difficulty. As you haven't money, you should never have been pretty. You're up against the world, and you'll get no mercy from it. We lawyers see too much of that. I'm putting it brutally, as a man of the world.
"CLARE. Thank you. Do you think you quite grasp the alternative?
"TWISDEN. [Taken aback] But, my dear young lady, there are two sides to every contract. After all, your husband's fulfilled his."
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"MALISE. [Twisting the card] Let there be no mistake, sir; I do nothing that will help give her back to her husband. She's out to save her soul alive, and I don't join the hue and cry that's after her. On the contrary—if I had the power. If your father wants to shelter her, that's another matter. But she'd her own ideas about that.
"HUNTINGDON. Perhaps you don't realize how unfit my sister is for rough and tumble. She's not one of this new sort of woman. She's always been looked after, and had things done for her. Pluck she's got, but that's all, and she's bound to come to grief.
"MALISE. Very likely—the first birds do. But if she drops half-way it's better than if she'd never flown. Your sister, sir, is trying the wings of her spirit, out of the old slave market. For women as for men, there's more than one kind of dishonour, Captain Huntingdon, and worse things than being dead, as you may know in your profession."
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"MALISE. Had a very bad time?
"CLARE. [Nodding] I'm spoilt. It's a curse to be a lady when you have to earn your living. It's not really been so hard, I suppose; I've been selling things, and living about twice as well as most shop girls."
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Prevalent social atmosphere forced a change to the wordings of the play, one supposes!
"CLARE. [Hardly above a whisper] Because—if you still wanted me— I do—now.
"[Etext editors note: In the 1924 revision, 11 years after this 1913 edition: "I do—now" is changed to "I could—now"— a significant change in meaning. D.W.]"
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June 07, 2021 - June 08, 2021.
Purchased June 14, 2013.
Kindle Edition, 101 pages
Published May 17th 2012
(first published February 1913)
ASIN:- B0084B3S4W
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The Pigeon, by John Galsworthy.
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About charity, religion, heart, practical facts, ..... and human nature that refuses to fit into definitions, boundaries, principles, or even practical necessities!
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"FERRAND. Ah! Monsieur, I am loafer, waster—what you like—for all that [bitterly] poverty is my only crime. If I were rich, should I not be simply veree original, 'ighly respected, with soul above commerce, travelling to see the world? And that young girl, would she not be "that charming ladee," "veree chic, you know!" And the old Tims—good old-fashioned gentleman—drinking his liquor well. Eh! bien—what are we now? Dark beasts, despised by all. That is life, Monsieur. [He stares into the fire.]"
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"FERRAND. [Eagerly.] Monsieur, it is just that. You understand. When we are with you we feel something—here—[he touches his heart.] If I had one prayer to make, it would be, Good God, give me to understand! Those sirs, with their theories, they can clean our skins and chain our 'abits—that soothes for them the aesthetic sense; it gives them too their good little importance. But our spirits they cannot touch, for they nevare understand. Without that, Monsieur, all is dry as a parched skin of orange."
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"FERRAND. Monsieur, of their industry I say nothing. They do a good work while they attend with their theories to the sick and the tame old, and the good unfortunate deserving. Above all to the little children. But, Monsieur, when all is done, there are always us hopeless ones. What can they do with me, Monsieur, with that girl, or with that old man? Ah! Monsieur, we, too, 'ave our qualities, we others—it wants you courage to undertake a career like mine, or like that young girl's. We wild ones—we know a thousand times more of life than ever will those sirs. They waste their time trying to make rooks white. Be kind to us if you will, or let us alone like Mees Ann, but do not try to change our skins. Leave us to live, or leave us to die when we like in the free air. If you do not wish of us, you have but to shut your pockets and—your doors—we shall die the faster."
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June 08, 2021 - June 08, 2021.
Purchased August 12, 2013.
Kindle Edition, 87 pages
Published May 17th 2012
(first published 1912)
Original Title
The Pigeon: A Fantasy in Three Acts
ASIN:- B0084B3SGK
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The Mob, by John Galsworthy.
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That Galsworthy was revolutionary in his thinking for his times, at least, is known to anyone who read his most famous Forsyte Saga, and is acquainted with the strictures against women then; but that he was so ahead of his times as to see through blinkers of colonial prejudices that most so called progressive and liberal intellectuals of West failed to do, is astounding.
The finale here is strongly reminiscent of the scene in All Roads Lead to Calvary, by Jerome K. Jerome, where a soldier turned conscientious objector after having fought in the war halfway through and wounded, his change of mind due to the carnagè rather than personal injury, is torn to shreds by a civilian mob in his hometown in a frenzy.
Galsworthy portrays effectively the turning of a supposedly civilised country into a mob when attempting to put down another, small nation, even more so when it's another culture, another race. This play could be about any of the wars fought in such an endeavour, or even about the massacre at Amritsar by Dyer, which was not approved by the then British government of India - Dyer was sent home in disgrace for massacre of unarmed civilians who had no chance to escape from the enclosed garden as he blocked the one gate with a tank, ordering soldiers to open fire till everyone died, every child and woman and old person as well - but his fellow officers, especially their wives, sympathised with Dyer, had a grand farewell organised for him, and as for the British government back in Britain, they promoted him!
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"SIR JOHN. We didn't begin this business.
"MORE. What! With our missionaries and our trading?
"THE DEAN. It is news indeed that the work of civilization may be justifiably met by murder. Have you forgotten Glaive and Morlinson?
"SIR JOHN. Yes. And that poor fellow Groome and his wife?
"MORE. They went into a wild country, against the feeling of the tribes, on their own business. What has the nation to do with the mishaps of gamblers?"
"THE DEAN. Does our rule bring blessing—or does it not, Stephen?
"MORE. Sometimes; but with all my soul I deny the fantastic superstition that our rule can benefit a people like this, a nation of one race, as different from ourselves as dark from light—in colour, religion, every mortal thing. We can only pervert their natural instincts."
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"SHELDER. There are very excellent reasons for the Government's policy.
MORE. There are always excellent reasons for having your way with the weak.
"SHELDER. My dear More, how can you get up any enthusiasm for those cattle-lifting ruffians?
"MORE. Better lift cattle than lift freedom.
"SHELDER. Well, all we'll ask is that you shouldn't go about the country, saying so.
"MORE. But that is just what I must do.
"[Again they all look at MORE in consternation.]
"HOME. Not down our way, you'll pardon me.
"WACE. Really—really, sir——
"SHELDER. The time of crusades is past, More.
"MORE. Is it?
"BANNING. Ah! no, but we don't want to part with you, Mr. More. It's a bitter thing, this, after three elections. Look at the 'uman side of it! To speak ill of your country when there's been a disaster like this terrible business in the Pass. There's your own wife. I see her brother's regiment's to start this very afternoon. Come now—how must she feel?"
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"MORE. [Turning on him] Mr. Home a great country such as ours—is trustee for the highest sentiments of mankind. Do these few outrages justify us in stealing the freedom of this little people?
"BANNING. Steal—their freedom! That's rather running before the hounds.
"MORE. Ah, Banning! now we come to it. In your hearts you're none of you for that—neither by force nor fraud. And yet you all know that we've gone in there to stay, as we've gone into other lands—as all we big Powers go into other lands, when they're little and weak. The Prime Minister's words the other night were these: "If we are forced to spend this blood and money now, we must never again be forced." What does that mean but swallowing this country?
"SHELDER. Well, and quite frankly, it'd be no bad thing.
"HOME. We don't want their wretched country—we're forced.
"MORE. We are not forced.
"SHELDER. My dear More, what is civilization but the logical, inevitable swallowing up of the lower by the higher types of man? And what else will it be here?"
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"MORE. [Above the murmurs] My fine friends, I'm not afraid of you. You've forced your way into my house, and you've asked me to speak. Put up with the truth for once! [His words rush out] You are the thing that pelts the weak; kicks women; howls down free speech. This to-day, and that to-morrow. Brain—you have none. Spirit—not the ghost of it! If you're not meanness, there's no such thing. If you're not cowardice, there is no cowardice [Above the growing fierceness of the hubbub] Patriotism—there are two kinds—that of our soldiers, and this of mine. You have neither!"
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June 08, 2021 - June 09, 2021.
Purchased June 08, 2021.
Kindle Edition, 81 pages
Published May 17th 2012
(first published June 1914)
Original Title:-
The Mob : a Play in Four Acts
ASIN:- B0084B3XR4
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ASIN BOO84B3SGK belongs to The Pigeon, by John Galsworthy, publication by Public Domain; Goodreads did not yield that in search, and this edition of
Plays: Third Series: The Fugitive -- The Pigeon -- The Mob
by John Galsworthy
got created by mistake, despite that original existing in Goodreads catalogue and having been bought on Amazon as long ago as 2013. Why did Goodreads not bring up the book when searched by ASIN?
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June 07, 2021 - June 09, 2021.
Purchased June 08, 2021.
Kindle Edition
Published March 24, 2011.
(first published July 20th 2006)
Original Title:- Plays: Third Series:
The Fugitive -- The Pigeon -- The Mob
ASIN:- B004TP07AA
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