ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
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| “Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.” ― Carl Sandburg |
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Section 5:
"The facts of this world seen clearly
are seen through tears;
why tell me then
there is something wrong with my eyes?"
from "Notes Towards a Poem that Can Never Be Written"
a poem in 6 sections, for Carolyn Forché
by Margaret Atwood
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hidden ocean
"She held her grief behind her eyes like an ocean
& when she leaned forward into the day
it spilled onto the floor
& she wiped at it quickly with her foot
& pretended no one had seen."
from StoryPeople by Brian Andreas
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“Crying does not indicate that you are weak.
Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.”
from Charlotte Brontë by Jane Eyre
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“Tears are the medium of our most primal language in moments as unrelenting as death, as basic as hunger, and as complex as rites of passage. They are the evidence of our inner life overflowing its boundaries, spilling over into consciousness. Tears spontaneously release us to the possibility of realignment, reunion, catharsis, intractable resistance short-circuited… It’s as though each one of our tears carries a microcosm of the collective human experience, like one drop of an ocean.”
from "The Topography of Tears: A Stunning Aerial Tour of the Landscape of Human Emotion Through an Optical Microscope"
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"Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
'She must weep or she will die.'"
from "The Princess" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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A Look at Tears & Crying
in the Work of Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989)
~ Part I ~
"What kind of a country is this
where a woman can't weep her heart out
on the highways and byways
without being tormented by retired billbrokers!"
~ by Samuel Beckett from "All That Fall" ~
In the work of Samuel Backett, ranging from his earliest fiction to drama and later fiction, we find a world in which people can indeed weep their hearts out, a world in which the ability to cry is a quality that keeps human beings in touch with their own humanity and aware of the humanity of others. In Beckett's world, crying is a means of communication. Sometimes it is a necessary addition to words; other times it replaces them. In the next couple of blog posts, I will take a look at the theme of crying that runs consistently through Beckett's art.
Tears and crying offer an alternative to linguistic expression and a supplement to a language which is, by its very nature, insufficiently expressive. To allow characters to cry and to describe their tearful experiences in painstaking detail is a stylistic choice made by Beckett, not only out of an obligation to express the inexpressible, but also in at attempt to provide a mimetic realization of a world in which people actually do weep in reaction to the disorientation, the rage, the suffering, and the disconcerting frustrations they experience.
For those who cry, for Beckett's characters, crying is neither a linguistic act nor a stylistic choice. Rather it is an involuntary expression of emotion. Of course, one can choose to cry for the production of an effect, but such is not usually the case -- in life or in the modern fiction of Beckett, where crying is a sincere, uncontrived emotional and physiological reaction to distress.
In "All That Fall," a character named Mrs. Rooney argues for the right to publicly display emotion. Why must we be denied -- or deny ourselves -- the option of a good cry? Mrs. Rooney seeks to defy the human tendency to deny that we are or have been crying. Typically, we would rather claim "it's the onions," or "it's my allergies" or "I have been sleeping." We would rather wear dark glasses than let others see our puffy eyes. But not Mrs. Rooney. She says that crying is a natural and necessary activity that should not be denied to any individual because tears are a "vent" which promotes "good health."
In the play, Mrs. Rooney is suddenly overcome with sadness as she walks to the station to meet her husband. She thinks of her daughter, Minnie, who died in infancy, and imagines that, had she lived, she would now be in her forties, nearly beyond child-bearing, approaching menopause. Mrs. Rooney grieves not only her deceased child, but also the imagined aging of her adult daughter, and the lost opportunity for grandchildren. She desires only to vent her emotions rather than suppressing them at the expense of her health, but she is annoyed by the solicitous Mr. Tyler, who wants to take her arm and comfort her. Sobbing, she asks him, "Have you no respect for misery? . . . What kind of a country is this where a woman can't weep her heart out on the highways and byways without being tormented by retired billbrokers!" No sooner has Mr. Tyler taken himself off than Mr. Slocum comes along asking, "Is anything wrong, Mrs. Rooney? You are all bent double. Have you pain in the stomach?" Following his remark is Beckett's stage direction: "[Silence. Mrs. Rooney laughs wildly. Finally.]"
This final wild laugh signifies her despair that she will ever be allowed to vent her grief properly, considering all the artificial restraints placed on her and all the well - meaning but ill - directed attempts to solace her. The solace that Mrs. Rooney needs can be achieved only through weeping, not through stifling her cries or having them stifled. She prefers to express her emotions unabashedly, on the highways and byways or wherever sadness overtakes her. She laughs wildly in realization that she must relegate her emotional responses to privacy and solitude if she is not to be repeatedly misunderstood.
Next Fortnightly Post: ~ To Cry or Not to Cry ~
Saturday, August 28th
Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com
Green Tomatoes ~ Fall 2019
Multi-Colored Veggies ~ Fall 2017
Apples ~ August 2013
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