A Short Introduction and Jarry's Ubu Rex

A Short Introduction

I am more familiar with the visual art of Dada and Surrealism than with the literary works in those movements. I enjoy the artwork of Dali, Duchamp, and Magritte, as well as the photography of Man Ray. I find Max Ernst’s Une Semaine De Bonte fascinating. However, I haven’t taken any classes on these visual artists, so my knowledge is almost entirely self-taught and surface-level. My second major (along with literature) was film, so I have studied the films of Bunuel (L’Age d’Or, The Exterminating Angel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Un Chien Andalou, etc.), as well as early avant-garde cinema such as Ballet Mécanique and films by Hans Richter (Dreams That Money Can Buy). I decided to take this class specifically because I have little knowledge of literary Surrealism, Dada, or Oulipo. I have read some excerpts from Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism in a film class. I have also read some poetry from Mallarmé, as well as “Crisis in Poetry,” and am familiar with the famous declarations attributed to him: “to name is to destroy, but to suggest is to create” and “form is meaning.” Beyond these brief encounters—and perhaps a few that have slipped my mind—I come into this class with very little knowledge or background in the concepts, theories, and writers of these important movements.

Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Rex (1896)

Jarry’s over-the-top slapstick humor, verbal barbs, and political commentary remind me in part of Kleist’s The Broken Jug and Gogol’s Government Inspector, although Jarry’s humor is far more vulgar and crude. Like Kleist and Gogol before him, Jarry revels in mocking the absurdities of political incompetence and the farcical extremes to which government leaders take even the smallest amount of power they might possess. As in Kleist’s play, names and descriptions carry obvious connotations (“Captain Sexcrement,” “the phynancial horse,” etc.), while certain scenes are highly symbolic of characters’ political foibles. In Act III Scene 7, for example, Ubu prepares himself for war by donning an overwhelming amount of armor: “I’ll soon have so much junk weighing on me that I won’t be able to walk if they chase me” (36). He literally envelops himself in material wealth--a sign of his own cowardice--that ultimately adds to his burden instead of offering the protection he desires. Likewise, Ma Ubu’s observation that Ubu’s “[phynancial] horse could never carry you now” is a brilliant send-up of the trap in which so many world leaders find themselves: riding the nearly-dead money horse until the beast's back breaks, never acknowledging that the financial waste that brought them to power will also be the cause of their downfall once the money dries up.

Ubu seems to me to be the reverse of the German stock character Hanswurst (a type of Teutonic Falstaff) who appears in one of my favorite plays, Ludwig Tieck's Puss-in-Boots (link goes to Act III, Scene 3, in which characters discuss the "play-within-a-play," also titled Puss-in-Boots). Although both characters have inflated egos, Ubu is far more crude and disgusting than Hanswurst. Whereas Hanswurst, at least in Tieck’s incarnation, is performing a jester’s role with a nod-and-wink to the audience, Ubu is unaware of his bumbling,“sad imbecile”(68) persona. I would argue that this important difference relates directly to the characters' differing social classes and how audiences are expected to respond to both. Hanswurst is a man of the people, so his coarse behavior in German drama is earthy and ironic. When interacting with (or mocking) social superiors, his daftness seems almost eloquent. Ubu, on the other hand, is one of the “venal, brutal bourgeoisie,” as David Copelin writes in his postscript, so his antics in Jarry's play are characterized as blindly stupid. When Ubu mocks King Wencelas or the financiers, the joke is on Ubu himself. Ma Ubu's sly asides function almost as a chorus for what the audience is thinking. We are not meant to relate to the bourgeoisie foolishness of Ubu or to forgive his antics, even on a comic level. Unlike previous theatrical fools like Hanswurst or Falstaff, Ubu's crudeness does not endear; it alienates.