eJournals Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 37/72

Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature
pfscl
0343-0758
2941-086X
Narr Verlag Tübingen
61
2010
3772

The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon

61
2010
Kathryn Willis Wolfe
pfscl37720093
PFSCL XXXVII, 72 (2010) The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon K ATHRYN W ILLIS W OLFE The strong influence that the traditions of French farce and of the Commedia dell’arte exerted on Molière has appeared rather weak to modern critics in the case of his Amphitryon. Amphitryon is treated as a play apart, atypical of Molière’s dramatic production by virtue of its classical Roman characters and setting, inherited from Plautus as well as from Rotrou, whose Sosies was still being successfully performed only a few years before the creation of Molière’s own play. Patrick Dandrey, currently the preeminent moliériste working in France, considers in fact that Amphitryon stands at the opposite pole from those of Molière’s plays inspired by farce - plays, such as Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Les Fourberies de Scapin, that are marked by what he calls “le triomphe du comique absolu, […] délivrant une image de la vie ressentie et figurée comme une mascarade” - and has thus preferred to categorize it as a comédie galante. (Dandrey 286) Even Bernadette Rey- Flaud, who affirms the play’s debt to the traditions of plot development associated with medieval farce, reads the play as the tragedy of Amphitryon. Molière, it should be remembered however, saw fit to call his play neither comédie galante nor tragédie, but comédie, conferring on it a label that bears with it implications we ignore at our peril. If Rey-Flaud dismisses Sosie’s wife rather disingenuously as being “hors-jeu” in order to focus on the plight of Amphitryon, it is in part because she fails to explore the structural complexity achieved in the play through its expanded number of doubled characters over those present in the works of Plautus and Rotrou. (Rey-Flaud 139) Given Molière’s success in exploiting the concept of doubled characters inherited from the medieval comic tradition, however, it is not impossible to argue that Molière’s Amphitryon is, contrary to received opinion, actually structured as a Carnival masquerade, complete with a King of Carnival who reigns over a world of alternative views. As such, it is not an atypical work at all, but one that exhibits the profound influence of the medieval culture of laughter, whose conceptual basis is so expertly revealed Kathryn Willis Wolfe 94 in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and from which both French farce and the Commedia dell’arte are known to have developed. It is not insignificant that the play was first performed in the dead of winter, on January 13, 1668. The celebrations associated with Carnival grew out of the agrarian rituals tied to the winter solstice, when the sun seemed to stop and reverse direction. During these feasts, which matched days of Carnival folly and laughter to each Christian holy day, time as it is measured in the everyday world was seen to stop, the things of this world were thereupon reversed (or, as it is more commonly termed, “turned upside down”), and the people as a whole engaged in topsy-turvy merriment that sought to look at the world differently. Its aim was to quell the hierarchical distinctions of rank and power while stressing those elements of life necessary for the physical and psychological survival of the community as a whole. Looking to an idealized future for all of society, Carnival privileged themes of abundance and fecundity, played on the boundaries delimiting time, space, and social groups with a view to creating possibilities for overstepping them, and made use of contrasts, parallelisms, and doubles in its assault on authoritarianism and the fear it inevitably engenders. Raised to the role of King of Carnival for the duration was some lowly personage, to be uncrowned at the end of the festivities, but allowed to demand that others do his bidding until that time. Appropriately, Molière did not give this role of meneur du jeu to the king of the gods, for Jupiter, whose role he made far less arrogantly triumphant than that of the Jupiters of Plautus or Rotrou, is far too much of an authority figure to be given le beau rôle in a Carnival-inspired play. Like Amphitryon himself, Jupiter must serve as a target of egalitarian discontent for Alcmène, who refuses to accede to his desire that she show a preference for him, as the lover, over Amphitryon, as the husband. Instead, Molière assigns to his subordinate, Mercure - whose role involves no such moments of defeat - the task of controlling the masquerade as King of Carnival, from his initial intervention in the play’s Prologue till his final revelation of the gods’ true identities at the play’s end. In this carnivalized vision of Mercure’s role, Molière found a means of utilizing to his own ends the tradition of providing the play with a prologue. Unlike Plautus and Rotrou, who sent forth a single character to address the audience prior to the beginning of the play, Molière chose to write a dialogue that involves two characters, Mercure and La Nuit, and that constitutes the initial action of the comedy. This format allowed him to exploit the interplay of differing viewpoints, which is characteristic of dialogue, so as to imbue the classical context inherited from his predecessors with a contemporary outlook and the subversive spirit of Carnival: La Nuit The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 95 approaches the traditional givens from above, as the defender of midseventeenth-century notions of behavioral bienséance, while Mercure approaches her criticisms as one who views the world from below, from a Carnival perspective. As the play opens, Mercure makes his bid to control both time and space. He accosts La Nuit with the intention of asking her to slow her course so that a longer night will fill the theatrical space, thereby allowing Jupiter more opportunity to enjoy the favors of Alcmène whose husband he is currently impersonating. Not surprisingly, their ensuing conversation will go well beyond achieving this goal, for Molière used this plot-related task, along with some necessary expositional material, to divide the scene into three segments that function to establish the revised comic context through which the play’s action is to be understood, scrutinizing first the behavior of Mercure, then that of Jupiter, and finally that of La Nuit herself. La Nuit responds therefore with astonishment at finding Mercure “dans cette posture.” (v. 6) In so doing, she invites us to laugh at the incongruity of recognizing the messenger of the gods in this individual who - it would be undignified for her to pronounce the word - is actually seated, as if he were a comic character (for on joue la comédie assis). Mercure has no such scruples of propriety, but freely admits his gesture: “me trouvant las, […]/ Je me suis doucement assis sur ce nuage,/ Pour vous attendre venir.” (v. 7, 9-10) He thus cunningly draws her into dialogue by enticing her to react in such a manner as suits her sense of propriety. Adhering to very worldly notions of social respectability for one who presumably travels above such things, La Nuit obliges, glossing the further comic effect produced, this time, by his words: “Vous vous moquez, Mercure,” she protests, “et vous n’y songez pas: / Sied-il bien à des Dieux de dire qu’ils sont las? ” (v. 11-12) She goes on to proclaim the necessity of maintaining “le decorum de la divinité” in one’s choice of words: Il est de certains mots dont l’usage rabaisse Cette sublime qualité Et que, pour leur indignité, Il est bon qu’aux hommes on laisse. (v. 15-18) Speaking as a member of the ruling elite of heaven, La Nuit reveals a fullyformed awareness of the importance of language in maintaining a status quo when she senses in his words the will to draw attention to what is, quite literally, the comic underside of his present position. Summed up by her use of the verb rabaisser, the problem she finds in Mercure’s word choice proves to be the same as in his choice of posture. Mercure does not hold himself upright as a god should, nor does he speak as a god should speak, so as to uphold the reigning power structure by cloaking his thoughts in verbal garb Kathryn Willis Wolfe 96 appropriate to his rank. His efforts, quite the contrary, tend downward. Even as he rejects the godly posture, so too he rejects the use made of language by the powerful, for he speaks as a man would speak, a lowly laborer worn out from the day’s work, for whom the notion of “appropriateness” relates less to decorum than to finding a suitable place to rest his bottom. By his use of las (not to mention the verb s’asseoir, which she finds it preferable to ignore altogether), Mercure affirms the power of improper speech to resist the powerful, a major Carnival theme. To be sure, the word with which she finds fault is not as forcefully lowbrow as one Rabelais might have chosen for the circumstance. Nevertheless, it is a word that has proven capable of debasing a god to the level of a mere mortal in the eyes of La Nuit. By delicately focusing attention both visually and verbally on the problems of Mercure’s lower bodily stratum, Molière has invoked the Carnival tradition of grotesque realism, which, as Bakhtin says, “degrade[s], bring[s] down to earth, and turn[s its] subject into flesh.” (Bakhtin 20) If La Nuit reveals the ambivalence of her persona, undercutting her stance as defender of the ways of the powerful by unveiling Mercure’s revised status as a Carnival being to the audience and thus furthering the comic enterprise, Mercure for his part treats her unambiguously as a comic character. After all, she too plays her role from a seated position: she is never forced to suffer from fatigue or from lack of a place on which to rest her own bottom, for she has a vehicle at her disposal while making her rounds: A votre aise vous en parlez, Et vous avez, la belle, une chaise roulante, Où par deux bons chevaux, en dame nonchalante, Vous vous faites traîner partout où vous voulez. (v. 19-22) As he compares their respective situations (“Mais de moi ce n’est pas de même”), Mercure senses that there is indeed a problem surrounding the decorum attendant on his role as a god, one reminiscent of that facing a minor nobleman of mid-seventeenth-century Paris, whose standing and convenience suffer from the lack of a personal means of transportation like that enjoyed by La Nuit. (v. 23) He conceives of his problem, however, as befits a Carnival character, from below, for what Mercure expresses is resentment toward his superiors in this matter. He recognizes that the source of his transportation-related problem of status comes from those who control his fate, rather like his double Sosie, who will complain of unfair treatment at the hands of the powerful when, in the next scene, he lists the situations in which he, too, has been exploited when forced to “fly” in the service of others: The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 97 Jour et nuit, grêle, vent, péril, chaleur, froidure, Dès qu’ils parlent, il faut voler. Vingt ans d’assidu service N’en obtiennent rien pour nous. (v. 172-75) In the case of the wing-footed Mercure, the fault lies not with his master Jupiter, however, but with the poets, those whose bidding he is even now doing as he fulfills his duties as King of Carnival. For it is their insistence on perpetuating what he judges to be an injustice toward him that provokes his volley of verbiage, whose accumulation of nouns is akin to Sosie’s list: Et je ne puis vouloir, dans mon destin fatal Aux poètes assez de mal De leur impertinence extrême, D’avoir, par une injuste loi, Dont on veut maintenir l’usage Donné quelque allure en partage, Et de me laisser à pied, moi Comme un messager de village. (v. 24-32) Formulating his complaint regarding his status in terms of the lack of a vehicle whose utility would principally be labor-related (for no one, he claims, is more in need of “de quoi me voiturer” than is he, Mercure, “le fameux messager du souverain des Dieux”), he acts as a god bent on drawing a parallel between himself and the play’s lowliest characters, defined in terms of their service to others. (v. 38, 34) He thus offers a logical justification for his upcoming role as Sosie’s Carnival double, one that at the same time acknowledges his temporary ascendancy over Jupiter in a world turned upside down (where his true master is Molière, one of the band of impertinent poets). Jupiter is left to be cast in the role of Alcmène’s husbandly lover, for his position as Mercure’s master has been deproblematized. Jupiter and Mercure will never, in fact, engage in dialogue on stage. Momentarily siding with Mercure by acknowledging their powerlessness before the whims of the poets (read Molière), La Nuit even allows herself to note, somewhat acidly, that “Ce n’est pas la seule sottise/ Qu’on voit faire à ces messieurs-là.” (v. 41-42) Nevertheless, she soldiers on, refusing to acknowledge her deep kinship with Mercure by continuing her criticism of his speech: “Mais contre eux toutefois votre âme à tort s’irrite,/ Et vos ailes aux pieds sont un don de leurs soins.” (v. 43-44) Her attempt to outwit Mercure fails once more, however, for she again proves herself an unsuspecting ally by providing him with a springboard for launching a witticism that will lay the dispute over his behavior to rest in a burst of Kathryn Willis Wolfe 98 laughter, by reinforcing his initial complaint: “Oui, mais, pour aller plus vite,/ Est-ce qu’on s’en lasse moins? ” (v. 45-46) Sensing her defeat, La Nuit changes the subject: “Laissons cela, seigneur Mercure,/ Et sachons ce dont il s’agit.” (v. 47-48) Once Mercure has provided the play’s basic expositional material concerning Jupiter, Alcmène and Amphitryon, however, La Nuit turns their conversation once again to the Carnival issues at stake. This time she broaches the subject of Jupiter’s disguises, subjecting it to the second phase of reorienting debate by criticizing the apparent pointlessness of it all: “J’admire Jupiter, et je ne comprends pas/ Tous les déguisements qui lui viennent en tête.” (v. 76-77) Mercure explains Jupiter’s love of masquerade as befits the carnivalesque context still familiar to Molière’s contemporaries: by its egalitarian appeal (“Il veut goûter par-là toutes sortes d’états”) and by its capacity to further the pleasure Jupiter takes in his carousing by making him into someone he ordinarily is not (“Et pour entrer dans tout ce qu’il lui plaît/ Il sort tout à fait de lui-même,/ Et ce n’est plus alors Jupiter qui paraît.”) (v. 78, 90-92) To these proofs against pointlessness, Mercure adds a spate of adjectives which devalorize the outward, fear-inducing appearance of divinity as a virtual straightjacket, foolishly inhibiting Jupiter’s liberty of movement: Je le tiendrois fort misérable, S’il ne quittait jamais sa mine redoutable, Et qu’au faîte des cieux il fût toujours guindé. Il n’est point, à mon gré, de plus sotte méthode Que d’être emprisonné toujours dans sa grandeur; Et surtout aux transports de l’amoureuse ardeur La haute qualité devient fort incommode. (v. 81-87, italics mine) To this devalorization of the heights of grandeur corresponds a subsequent valorization of the downward movement characteristic of Jupiter’s masquerades: “Jupiter, qui sans doute en plaisirs se connaît,/ Sait descendre du haut de sa gloire suprême.” (v. 88-89) We should note that Jupiter’s rankleveling disguises are, in fact, of considerable utility in accomplishing his amorous goals, for love does not admit of hierarchy, but thrives on a truly egalitarian relationship, without which the lover cannot hope for assurances of love that are not to some degree forced. It is precisely this egalitarian aspect of love, however, that will turn problematic for him after he has taken over Amphitryon’s appearance, becoming the source of his troubles with Alcmène as the play unfolds. For Alcmène will not accept the fundamentally hierarchical view that, in this case, the lover can be differentiated from and preferred to the husband, some equals apparently being more equal than others. The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 99 La Nuit nevertheless presses her case by calling attention to the inappropriateness of Jupiter’s traditional penchant for adopting animal disguises, although these will play no direct role in the play: Mais de voir Jupiter taureau, Serpent, cygne, ou quelque autre chose, Je ne trouve point cela beau, Et ne m’étonne pas si parfois on en cause. (v. 99-102) The fecundity theme of Carnival will be made explicit by the play’s end with the expected birth of Alcmène’s son, but for the time being Mercure dismisses La Nuit’s concern for bienséance by ending on another witticism while affirming the existence of a transcendent wisdom that underpins the Carnival enterprise: Laissons dire tous les censeurs: Tels changements ont leurs douceurs Qui passent leur intelligence. Ce dieu sait ce qu’il fait aussi bien là qu’ailleurs; Et dans les mouvements de leurs tendres ardeurs, Les bêtes ne sont pas si bêtes que l’on pense. (v. 103-08) We should recognize here that at a time when the Carnival-related practices of charivari were common, the idea of a reveler bent on amorous exploits disguising himself as an animal was still widely accepted. Since, once again, Mercure seems to be playing the stronger hand, luring the spectator into his comic net by his witticism, La Nuit changes the subject for a second time: “Revenons à l’objet dont il a les faveurs./ Si par son stratagème il voit sa flamme heureuse,/ Que peut-il souhaiter? Et qu’estce que je puis ? ” (v. 109-11) Mercure obligingly explains her role in the upcoming action and thereby provokes a response that finally opens up to examination the obsession with propriety that characterizes La Nuit’s own stance. Despite her losing record in debate with Mercure, La Nuit senses she must take a final stand on impropriety, for she is not blind to the irony of finding herself - as the defender of upper class propriety - directly implicated in the immorality of Jupiter’s schemes: Voilà sans doute un bel emploi Que le grand Jupiter m’apprête, Et l’on donne un nom fort honnête Au service qu’il veut de moi. (v. 120-23) Unwillingly cast in the role entremetteuse, La Nuit focuses once again on the word itself, a word that evokes the world of grotesque realism, a word so distasteful to her sense of respectability that she cannot bring herself to utter it, contenting herself instead with disparaging it through irony. Kathryn Willis Wolfe 100 Mercure parries by observing the matter of her service to Jupiter from his own vantage point, one that upends hers by calling into question the very modernity and aristocratic orientation of her point of view. He taxes her with being behind the times and espousing views held only by those from whom she has been doing her utmost to distance herself, a low blow to one who prides herself on representing the latest in upper class morality: Pour une jeune déesse, Vous êtes bien du bon temps Un tel emploi n’est bassesse Que chez les petites gens. (v. 124-27) Nevertheless, when seen from this angle, a new view of the matter emerges, one that in fact eliminates the existence of the problem she sees confronting her. However, the elimination of the problem comes at a price: she must sense with the spectator the comic incongruity that provokes our laughter when Mercure says: Lorsque dans un haut rang on a l’heur de paraître, Tout ce qu’on fait est toujours bel et bon ; En suivant ce qu’on peut être, Les choses changent de nom. (v. 128-31) In essence she must acknowledge the underlying hypocrisy characterizing the verbal authority of the powerful, which pits the bienséance of words, especially those used to cloak the questionable deeds of the mighty in a mantle of propriety, against the immorality of those same deeds. Dissatisfied with feeling that she is fostering Jupiter’s debauchery, La Nuit finds herself caught between her unwillingness to change viewpoint and her need to do so in order that she might view her actions from Mercure’s liberating perspective. She attempts to extricate herself from her dilemma through a verbal pirouette: “Sur de pareilles matières/ Vous en savez plus que moi.” (v. 132- 33) Mercure will not let her off so easily, however, for Carnival laughter grants no one immunity, not even pretty young goddesses. He reminds her that her reputation for fostering many a shady affair is widespread. They are in fact very much on an equal footing: “Et je crois, à parler à sentiments ouverts,/ Que nous ne nous en devons guères.” (v. 142-43) In a final bid to reinstate decorum and stem the Carnival momentum propelling the scene, La Nuit pleads against change: Laissons ces contrariétés, Et demeurons ce que nous sommes: N’apprêtons point à rire aux hommes En nous disant nos vérités. (v. 144-47) The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 101 However, even the will of a goddess cannot prevent change; as the Carnival spirit invests the scenic space, the gods will alter their identities, and men will laugh, for what Mercure is unveiling indeed constitutes the home truths of the mighty, which are always food for laughter. Accordingly, Mercure takes no heed of her words, but prepares to don his own disguise: Adieu: je vais là-bas, dans ma commission, Dépouiller promptement la forme de Mercure Pour y vêtir la figure Du valet d’Amphitryon. (v. 148-51) And so, on a carnivalesque note of contrast (“Bon jour, La Nuit”), the prologue concludes, and the up-ended world of the Carnival masquerade takes over the stage. (v. 154) Mercure descends to earth and, having renounced his prestigious job as the fast-paced messenger for one befitting someone who claims to be “las,” takes up the most sedentary (and lowly) of security jobs, guarding the door. As Dandrey clearly senses, however, Molière’s play does not plunge us directly into the upside down world of Carnival as did medieval farce. On the contrary, it situates the spectator on the periphery of this world. The stage, which figures the exterior of Amphitryon’s house, makes visual the delineation separating the world of Carnival justice from the everyday world of social inequities. The world where the powerful subjugate the powerless occupies the outside (visible to us), while inside (closed off from our view) is the world turned upside down, where women exercise far more power and enjoy a far more central role than they are allowed in the hierarchy of everyday life. It is the world of fecundity and feasting inherited from the Roman Saturnalia, where, before the play begins and at the play’s dead center (the middle of Act 2), the Carnival version of Amphitryon makes love to his wife, Alcmène, the catalyst of the whole adventure, and, in the final act, offers food and drink to all who would join him. The threshold is the boundary between these two opposing worlds and serves as the locus of the play’s action. It is the place where a man’s name is challenged in its authoritative status and stolen by comic masqueraders (Jupiter and Mercure) who disguise themselves as Alcmène’s husband and his servant and take over their privilege of entry. It is the divide where the King of Carnival exercises a temporary power, in the name of justice, to control entry to the carnivally-constituted space, thereby not only uncrowning the powerful of everyday life (be they masters or husbands), but also exerting pressure on the fearful, whose very fear allows the powerful an even greater power over them. Able to force both Sosie and Amphitryon to remain outside for the duration of the play, Mercure in essence excludes them from participation in the Carnival mindset. He condemns them to an Kathryn Willis Wolfe 102 incomplete perception of their own existence with regard to each other and to their wives, such that they sense the simultaneity of different aspects of their being as inexplicable or unjust, as the effects of being doubled, for they have been made - very literally - outsiders to a comprehensive view of their own actions as husbands or as master. The two wives, on the other hand, travel freely in and out of the Carnival space and, unlike their husbands, maintain an all-inclusive view of Amphitryon and Sosie. This holistic outlook represents a conceptual approach that is as characteristic of Carnival as contrast is to its method of exposition. It is a position that comprehends each pair of doubles as a unified whole, comprising both the good and the reprehensible qualities of the man. The wives affirm their holistic view not only through their words, but through their most basic of theatrical behaviors: by looking at the actors playing the roles of Jupiter, Amphitryon, Mercure, and Sosie - four visibly different men to the spectator’s eye - and treating them as but two men by virtue of their identical costumes, they affirm that in all cases these are their husbands. Seconding the King of Carnival in his subversive enterprise by thus validating the roles of the two masqueraders in the spectator’s eyes, Alcmène and Cléantis help provide the spectator with the alternative view, laying at the doorstep of Amphitryon and of Sosie both the good and the bad actions of the whole man, even as they are refracted into the separate actions of the man and his Carnival double on stage. For thanks to the masquerade effected by their costumes, Mercure and Jupiter are able to represent Amphitryon and Sosie not as the master and servant would have others see them, but from a different, less flattering viewpoint, one that emphasizes characteristics that, if not necessarily hidden from view under normal circumstances, nevertheless lay both men open to such revelation of their faults as only the comic perspective can provide. It is in this context that the theme of unintentional cuckoldry inherited from Plautus and Rotrou can be seen to join with the traditions of medieval farce by taking on a societal significance. The cuckoldry characteristic of farce transcends the woes of any particular individual in order to train the light of comic perception on the socio-legal status of husband, as one who exploits a selfperpetuating claim to power over a wife. Seen in this light, the husband stands as a functional barrier to society’s optimal growth, one richly deserving of comic exposure. Mercure’s long term goal will therefore be to exact Carnival justice on behalf of the play’s downtrodden characters, both servants and wives. He will work to ensure that all who are habitually silenced be given free voice, while in addition he will assure Sosie a more desirable fate in his role as The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 103 husband than that being experienced by his master, Amphitryon. All this he will accomplish by continuing to regulate time and space. He begins by constituting himself as Sosie’s double, claiming for himself the space within the house that Sosie should by rights have and thus setting into motion the effects of simultaneity, which will assure the divergence in perception differentiating Sosie and his master from their wives and engage the theme of unintentional cuckoldry. At the same time, he continues to tinker with sequential time by blocking Sosie’s entry, thereby lengthening Jupiter’s interlude with Alcmène and providing himself with the leisure to take over Sosie’s identity in the longest single scene in the entire play. Given the way in which he accomplishes the latter, Mercure may appear to be working against the Carnival grain, misusing a servant whose legitimate complaints of mistreatment at the hands of his master make him one of those most deserving to triumph in a world turned upside down. This is, however, to ignore certain ambivalent elements of the scene. While it is true that Sosie, who does not share the Carnival space or viewpoint in the way that unites the women and the gods, resists cooperating in this case of identity theft, it is his very resistance that forces Mercure to threaten him repeatedly with bastonnades. These are the traditional phallic weapons of Carnival, with their simultaneously positive and negative suggestions of procreative force and degrading abuse. Furthermore, Sosie’s initial failure to notice that Mercure resembles him not only places him in opposition to his wife in this regard, but allows him to suggest that another identity be associated with Mercure when he asks: “Quel diable d’homme est-ce ci? ” (v. 298) Making explicit the parallelism between Mercure and the familiar Carnival devils, long associated with the medieval mystery plays and granted special privileges to engage in otherwise unacceptable behavior at Carnival time, Molière suggests that Mercure’s subjugation of Sosie will ultimately prove positive in its outcome, as befits a Carnival uncrowning, for it is only by shouldering Sosie’s identity himself that Mercure can hope to liberate Sosie from the fear that silences him in the face of Amphitryon. That fear is a comic issue of considerable importance in itself. Sosie admits to abject cowardice, inviting comic treatment of his weakness while Molière further probes the means by which the powerful impose their authority at the expense of the weak and fearful. Sosie notes as the scene progresses that, “Près de moi, par la force, il est déjà Sosie; / Il pourrait bien encor l’être par la raison.” (486-87) Indeed, much of the scene revolves around the task of adding reason to the persuasive power of Mercure’s bastonnades, a task Mercure accomplishes by addressing the issue of what it means to be Sosie in a manner befitting the ambivalent Carnival character he is, triumphant yet willing to serve as a comic target as the need arises. Kathryn Willis Wolfe 104 The logic supporting Mercure’s claim to be Sosie proves early on to be little more than the application of a fund of knowledge concerning Sosie’s private life that only a god, a Carnival devil, or the U. S. government armed with the Patriot Act could acquire. Yet it is enough to make Mercure appear convincing to Sosie, such that Sosie begins to notice that Mercure resembles him in outward appearance, however illogical his conclusion in light of the two bodies facing each other on stage: “En effet, maintenant que je le considère,/ Je vois qu’il a de moi taille, mine, action.” (v. 472-73). Since Mercure’s “logic” offers nothing that argues more convincingly for the necessity of believing Mercure to be Sosie than do his bastonnades, Sosie’s willing acceptance of Mercure’s declarations lays open to laughter both the means by which those in power impose their rights over others, asserting their superior grasp of truth, and Sosie’s own claim to rationality. Once Mercure sets aside the means of the mighty and instead argues his case with carnival logic, however, explaining how he, the real Sosie, exhibited courage while hidden away in his tent, eating and drinking his way through the recent battle, he proves himself capable of providing overwhelmingly convincing proof of his claim, for Sosie is finally able to recognize himself in the Carnival characteristics that Mercure unveils: Cette preuve sans pareille En sa faveur conclut bien; Et l’on n’y peut dire rien, S’il n’était dans la bouteille. (v. 505-08) For the true Sosie, liberated from fear and thus freed from the grip of his cowardice, is one who is defined (in Rabelaisian fashion) in terms of the bodily actions that link him to those areas of human behavior most central to sustaining life: eating, drinking, and sex (this last coming into play later on in his scenes with Cléantis). In the end, Sosie maintains just enough skepticism to refuse to accept that he is not Sosie, “Car encore faut-il bien que je sois quelque chose.” (v. 512) He decides to put an end to all this foolery by entering the house, from which Mercure necessarily dissuades him with a final hail of blows. Mercure thus fails to supplant Sosie, but succeeds in constituting himself as the Carnival double with right of entry, for he threatens Sosie with a Carnival death should he attempt the door again, such deaths being limited to the Carnival moment and always offering the guarantee of resurrection at the end: Quand je ne serai plus Sosie, Sois-le, j’en demeure d’accord; Mais tant que je le suis, je te garantis mort, Si tu prends cette fantaisie. (v. 513-16) The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 105 Having chased away Sosie (who leaves muttering, “Laissons ce diable d’homme, et retournons au port”), Mercure has cleared the stage for Alcmène and Cléantis to make their appearance. (v. 524) Alcmène, it should be noted, holds a distinctive position in the constellation of the play’s characters. Not only is she the catalyst for the whole adventure, her beauty having lured Jupiter to earth before the play begins, but her relationship to Mercure is uniquely problematic for one who, as a wife, is a potential beneficiary of Carnival justice. Mercure’s Carnival disguise as Sosie’s double would place the King of Carnival in an untenably subordinate position should he come face to face with Alcmène, the lady of the house, at the same time that it would accentuate her higher rank and tend to make her a target of Carnival vengeance. Molière sweeps these problems aside by avoiding any exchange between Alcmène and Mercure, unlike Plautus, for whom Mercure serves a very different purpose. Consequently, Alcmène’s role functions to some extent independently of Mercure as the play progresses and thus deserves special attention, especially since it helps determine the way in which Mercure will control much of the subsequent action involving Cléantis and Sosie. From the outset Molière’s Jupiter - the male principle of fertility in the play - is in love with Alcmène and thus finds himself at a disadvantage, ironically almost as much a victim of the impersonation in progress as Amphitryon, for his relationship with Alcmène is not under his control. The Carnival disguise that assures the triumph of his impersonation of the husband so as to enjoy the favors of the wife is preventing him from being the object of Alcmène’s love, leaving him faced with a comic problem unknown to the Jupiters of Plautus or Rotrou, “un scrupule [qui] me gêne,” that harkens back to the Prologue’s focus on Jupiter in terms of his various masquerades. (v. 569) Since he cannot remove his disguise without risking repudiation by Alcmène, who believes she is with her newly-wed husband, he must try to convince her to seek the being behind the Carnival mask if he hopes to find assurance of a love for him that is independent of his role as Amphitryon: “Vous voyez un mari, vous voyez un amant,/ Mais l’amant seul me touche, à parler franchement,/ Et je sens, près de vous, que le mari le gêne.” (v. 590-92) This places Alcmène in the position of power, for it is her role to decide whether there is cause for making the distinction he seeks between the husband and last night’s lover and, if she determines there is, for preferring the latter to the former. While Alcmène may be naïve in her unawareness of a distinction between Amphitryon and his Carnival double that the spectator senses only too well, it is significant that her first appearance - as Sosie’s lantern in his opening scene - suggests a capacity to light up the darkness, as well as to Kathryn Willis Wolfe 106 burn with love. Alcmène holds up the light of another equally valid way of seeing for the spectator, a view that contrasts the daylight - “[le] jour” - in which she may make a legally public expression of her love with the darkness of nighttime to which Jupiter calls attention as the scene opens, the darkness of a world of private, illicit expressions of love. (v. 578) Her very naïveté in effect confers on her the Carnival role of the wise fool, who calls into question what people take for granted: it is Alcmène who verbalizes the holistic view in the face of the play’s doubled characters, recognizing that her mate’s public and private roles as husband and lover are bound up as one with her own legitimate rights as a wife. When Jupiter reveals the scrupule bothering him, begging that the designation he bears of époux not be to what he owes her favors, but rather to her ardeur for his person, she retorts, “C’est de ce nom pourtant que l’ardeur qui me brûle/ Tient le droit de paraître au jour.” (v. 577-78) Once again, everything hinges on a crucial word, in this case the “droit” granted to her passion. It is a word that casts the issue in legal terms, and indeed the play serves to a large degree as the trial of Amphitryon, in both of his guises. Alcmène’s power is considerable, for the way in which she deploys her holistic view precipitates much of the action that follows. When Jupiter’s departure is followed closely by Amphitryon’s arrival, it is her “Quoi? De retour si tôt? ” that sparks her husband’s ire: “[…] ce ‘Quoi ? si tôt de retour ? ’/ En ces occasions n’est guère le langage/ D’un cœur bien enflammé d’amour,” he declares, changing from her emphasis on spatial proximity to his own, less flattering focus on the temporal. (v. 857, 859-61) Alcmène, however, is no more willing to bow before his alternative view of the matter than she is before that of his Carnival double. She refuses to acknowledge any fault on her part and swells the dispute over how she phrased her welcome into a full-blown scène de ménage over Amphitryon’s whereabouts the night before, in which - in a comic reversal of the traditional wifely complaint - she does not so much berate him for being out all night, as for denying that he was very much at home. His resistance to her claims only spurs her to provide ever more convincing proofs of the veracity of her contentions. While Amphitryon is unable to deny the weight of her visible evidence, he nevertheless steadfastly refuses to accept the authoritativeness of any viewpoint on the situation other than his own, be it Alcmène’s or Sosie’s. In so doing, he forges his own punishment, for Alcmène’s words - intended to proclaim her innocence - imply what appears to him to be the confirmation of his own cuckoldry. If Amphitryon richly deserves what befalls him for treating Alcmène as he does, Jupiter shares in his double’s comic fate when he returns, anticipating “le doux plaisir de se raccommoder.” (v. 1201) Alcmène, at the The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 107 height of her power, now sits in judgment on her mate. Jupiter borrows a ploy from Rotrou and tries to dismiss the recent scène de ménage as but a “raillerie,” only to fail miserably where his predecessor succeeded: Alcmène takes offense at his word and accuses him of cruelty, unworthy of a lover and less forgivable than that of a jealous husband because it is “sans cause.” (v. 1271, 1292) Finding that he is actually losing ground to his rival, he attempts to counter his double’s new advantage by a confession (“Oui, vous avez raison, Alcmène, il se faut rendre: / Cette action, sans doute, est un crime odieux” ), followed by a second “aveu véritable” by which he cleverly attempts to shift the blame : “C’est l’époux qu’il vous faut regarder en coupable./ L’amant n’a point de part à ce transport brutal.” (v. 1297-98, 1304-06) However, he only contrives to make himself laughable by emphasizing his incapacity to improve matters for himself, for his distinction continues not to impress her: “Je ne distingue rien en celui qui m’offense.” (v. 1332) Try as he will to further his own aims, Jupiter only manages to fulfill his Carnival role and articulate decisively the nature of Amphitryon’s guilt as husband: “À son dur procédé l’époux s’est fait connaître,/ Et par le droit d’hymen il s’est cru tout permis.” (v. 1315-16) As Alcmène pronounces judgment, the full extent of the injustice done her by Amphitryon in both his guises - even that involving her unwittingly in the cuckoldry of Amphitryon by Jupiter - finds its expression: “Tous deux sont criminels, tous deux m’ont offensée/ Et tous deux me sont odieux.” (v. 1339-40) Jupiter has little choice but to shoulder the guilt of his rival and his own as one and, in a jewel of moliéresque double meaning reminiscent of Tartuffe’s confession of guilt before Orgon, who fails to penetrate the complete sense of his words, makes a full confession to Alcmène, even of his own adulterous guilt in duping her: “Un trop juste dépit contre moi vous anime/ Et tout ce grand courroux qu’ici vous étalez/ Ne me fait endurer qu’un tourment légitime.” (v. 1345-47) If, after his confession, he manages to win her forgiveness, his very victory serves as his well-deserved punishment. True to the holistic view, Alcmène forgives as she has condemned, leaving Jupiter to share the forgiveness equally with his double and never to receive the mark of preference he so desires. It is a defeat to which he admits before Amphitryon during the play’s closing scene: Je n’y vois pour ta flamme aucun lieu de murmure: Et c’est moi, dans cette aventure, Qui, tout dieu que je suis, dois être le jaloux. Alcmène est tout à toi, quelque soin qu’on emploie ; Et ce doit à tes yeux être un objet bien doux De voir que pour lui plaire il n’est point d’autre voie Kathryn Willis Wolfe 108 Que de paraître son époux, Que Jupiter, orné de sa gloire immortelle, Par lui-même n’a pu triompher de sa foi, Et que ce qu’il a reçu d’elle N’a par son cœur ardent été donne qu’à toi. (v. 1902-12) Jupiter remains, therefore, the prisoner of his disguise, a Carnival mask only, a being who has no independent identity in the presence of Alcmène, but whose existence is wholly predicated on what Amphitryon is, even as it is wholly dependent on the temporal and spatial characteristics of the Carnival masquerade in progress in order to function. For Jupiter comes on stage only to help reveal the true nature of Amphitryon in all the frailty of his rejection of egalitarianism in marriage. It is small wonder that the play will end with the promise of the birth of a single baby where in the Plautus and Rotrou versions, the birth of two babies, one from each father, constitutes a significant part of each play’s denouement. This tale is the comic revelation of Amphitryon’s iniquities; Jupiter is but a means to that end. However private this outcome may appear, Alcmène’s triumph over the two Amphitryons is a victory won in the public sphere, for it is carried out under the constant watchfulness of Cléantis, silently observing Alcmène’s three scenes in the company of her husband, represented first by Mercure and in the latter two scenes by Sosie himself. Cléantis merits special attention as a character, for she is Molière’s own creation, existing in neither of his predecessors’ versions of the play. It was the existence of Cléantis that permitted Molière to form two new sets of doubles in a play in which doubles abound: since Cléantis joins Alcmène to form a pair of wives, it follows that Sosie and Amphitryon now form a pair of husbands, making it possible for Molière to develop a more nuanced picture within this tale of unintentional cuckoldry by creating a series of paired scenes working out the parallelisms and contrasts that mark the relationships between each husband and wife grouping (the old married couple as opposed to the newlyweds). It is not difficult to judge how essential Molière considered his new character to be when exploiting the Amphitryon legend within the context of the theatrical tradition in which he worked. Cléantis figures in eleven scenes, constituting an onstage presence comparable to that of Amphitryon himself and half again as long as that of his wife, Alcmène. Only Sosie - the role played by Molière himself - is onstage more than his wife. So when Cléantis joins with her husband on the sidelines of the scenes involving Alcmène and Amphitryon/ Jupiter, this role as witnesses transforms the servants into a jury of conjugal peers, capable of pronouncing The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 109 Carnival judgment by doubling the scenes just past. Their judgment is twofold, first consciously approving the behavior just witnessed by an expressed intent to imitate it, but thereafter giving a fuller comic expression of Carnival truth by their very inability to replicate the scenes just witnessed, the parallelism established serving to draw into sharp focus the contrasts that in fact emerge. Thus following Alcmène’s first scene with Jupiter, Cléantis reads in his attempts to make the lover appear more appealing than the husband a delicious scène d’adieu amoureux that she despairs of reenacting: “O Ciel! que d’aimables caresses/ D’un époux ardemment chéri! / Et que mon traître de mari/ Est loin de toutes ces tendresses! ” (v. 622-25) Nevertheless, past deceptions on this count do not absolve her mate, and when Mercure-Sosie prepares to hurry away so as to release La Nuit from her stationary posting, claiming that duty to Amphitryon calls, she bars his path and coquettishly demands a minimum of amorous civility in his leave-taking: “Quoi? c’est ainsi que l’on me quitte? ” (v. 630) Choosing a path of action to contrast with that of Jupiter-the-lover, Mercure rebuffs Cléantis with a full panoply of traditional arguments guaranteed to loosen her tongue by stoking her justifiable resentment of Sosie: they are too old for such behavior; whatever her remaining allurements might be, he would make himself a laughing stock; and in any case after fifteen years of marriage, they have nothing left to say to each other that has not already been said. “Moins d’honneur, et plus de repos” is his motto since even cuckoldry is easier to put up with, for one who is characteristically las and searching for a place to rest his bottom, than being assommé (another form of bastonnade) by her continual complaints about his lack of gallantry toward her: “J’aime mieux un vice commode/ Qu’une fatiguante vertu.” (v. 676, 681-82) This is the vieux mari of farce speaking, ever a target for Carnival debasement by his rejection of the drive toward fertility. Even the conventionality of the arguments serves Molière, for in an age during which les bienséances were gaining in social importance, the full understanding, and thus acceptance, of the grotesque realism of Rabelais’s Carnival-inspired world was beginning to fade from the collective memory. By calling forth certain expectations regarding cuckoldry associated with farce, which he then rejects, Molière protects Cléantis’s reputation against accusations of immoral behavior from his contemporaries and thus strengthens her position. Unlike her sisters of medieval farce, whose intentional cuckoldry of their husbands serves as a provocation, seeking the deliberate rejection of the norms of marital behavior in order to protest the subservient position of women in marriage, Cléantis rejects collusion with Mercure the masquerader, who would willingly accept in Sosie’s name the Kathryn Willis Wolfe 110 Carnival chastisement of cuckoldry for his unacceptable treatment of his wife. Instead, she will restrict herself to a verbal retaliation since she rejects the idea of cuckoldry on principle: “Ah! que dans cette occasion,/ J’enrage d’être honnête femme ! ” she sputters as she brings Act I to a close. (v. 687- 88)Having prepared Cléantis to give full voice to her discontent as an unappreciated wife, Mercure leaves matters to run their course in Act 2, fully assured that he has set in motion a liberating encounter for the husband as well as for the wife. For when Cléantis doubles Alcmène’s scène de ménage, eventually accusing Sosie of having spurned her amorous advances the night before and having refused to take his place beside her in bed (the very opposite of the claim made by Alcmène before her husband), Sosie is able to sense an action that goes against the grain of his being: “Quoi? Je ne couchai point… […] Est-il possible? ” (v. 1136) Recognizing that this must have been the action of the self-permitted-entry-to-the-house, he suddenly realizes that his fate is far more enviable than that of Amphitryon, for he has emphatically not been cuckolded by his double. Smart enough not to follow Amphitryon’s disastrous lead in projecting onto another the responsibility for the husbandly behavior that so irks his wife, Sosie applauds his double’s actions as if they were his own.: “Vivat Sosie! […] Que je suis de moi satisfait! ” (v. 1142, 1144) This, of course, has the doubly beneficial effect of providing Cléantis a further occasion to air her discontent, while Sosie, who hastens to reassure her, basks in a joy that knows no bounds: Mon Dieu, tout doucement! Si je parois joyeux, Crois que j’en ai dans l’âme une raison très forte, Et que, sans y penser, je ne fis jamais mieux Que d’en user tantôt avec toi de la sorte. (v. 1149-52) Despite Cléantis’s well-founded skepticism that prompts her to accuse him of mocking her with such a statement, Sosie unveils a carnivalesque explanation that supports the claim, “Non je te parle avec franchise,” while avoiding the necessity of alluding to the existence of his double. (v. 1154) For Sosie argues his defense by weaving the Carnival themes of drinking and procreation into a line of reasoning that will justify his alter ego’s actions by showing that they tended in the same direction as Cléantis’s procreative interests: Les médecins disent, quand on est ivre, Que de sa femme on se doit abstenir, Et que dans cet état il ne peut provenir Que des enfants pesants et qui ne sauroient vivre. Vois, si mon cœur n’eût su de froideur se munir, Quels inconvénients auroient pu s’en ensuivre ! (v. 1160-65) The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 111 Attacking Sosie’s médecins as befits a character created by Molière, Cléantis affirms her superior comprehension of the supremacy of the procreative impulse, concluding thus: Non: je soutiens que cela conclut mal: Ces raisons sont raisons d’extravagantes têtes. Il n’est ni vin ni temps qui puisse être fatal A remplir le devoir de l’amour conjugal; Et les médecins sont des bêtes. (v. 1175-79) Thereupon she sums up the substance of her complaint against Sosie, assessing blame as she goes: “Ton excuse n’est point une excuse de mise; / Et je me veux venger tôt ou tard, entre nous,/ De l’air dont chaque jour je vois qu’on me méprise.” (v. 1183-85) Comic, however, in her very inability to carry through on the threat to avenge herself via cuckoldry (“Si je puis une fois pourtant/ Sur mon esprit gagner la chose…”), she settles for turning a cold shoulder toward Sosie when he suggests that they patch things up in imitation of Jupiter and Alcmène’s scene of reconciliation. (v. 1194-95) Sosie then sets into motion an eventual reconciliation - and one far greater than that won by Jupiter - by imitating his double, Mercure: pretending to revert to the role of the vieux mari of farce, he feigns indifference. As they exit the stage, bringing Act 2 to a close, Cléantis relents: “Va, va, traître, laisse-moi faire: / On se lasse parfois d’être femme de bien.” (v. 1437-38) Before that reconciliation can take effect, however, Mercure returns in Act 3 to help Sosie triumph over Amphitryon as the servant justified in his recriminations against his master. Once again occupying his sedentary post guarding the door, Mercure decides, “je vais égayer mon sérieux loisir/ A mettre Amphitryon hors de toute mesure.” (v. 1492-93) When Amphitryon knocks at the door and demands entry, the Carnival Sosie, liberated from the fear that plagues his everyday counterpart, claims not only that he does not recognize him, but affirms not to have “la moindre envie.” (v. 1503) He scolds Amphitryon for making so much noise, feigns ignorance as to what Amphitryon wants, and generally adopts a tone of such insolence that Amphitryon, not used to such treatment from his usually cringing servant, explodes: Attends, traître: avec un bâton Je vais là-haut me faire entendre, Et de bonne façon t’apprendre, A m’oser parler sur ce ton. (v. 1514-17) Yet try as he will, Amphitryon’s every attempt to cross the threshold is parried, and when he threatens future punishment (“Ah! Tu sauras, maraud, à ta confusion,/ Ce que c’est qu’un valet qui s’attaque à son maître”), Kathryn Willis Wolfe 112 Mercure brushes aside his very claim to being Amphitryon by accounting for it from a Carnival perspective, as the effect of drunkenness. (v. 1533-34) Wondering if the wine was old or new (“Le nouveau donne fort dans la tête,/ quand on le veut boire sans eau”), Mercure finally suggests that he simply move on (“Je respecte le vin: va-t’en, retire-toi,/ Et laisse Amphitryon dans les plaisirs qu’il goûte.”) (v. 1543-44, 1548-49) When the real Sosie returns moments later, accompanied by a band of witnesses able to attest that he has been occupied asking them to dinner on Amphitryon’s behalf (that is, Jupiter’s), Amphitryon upbraids him for his recent insolence in front of them all: […] il vient d’avoir l’audace De me fermer ma porte au nez, Et de joindre encor la menace A mille propos effrénés! (v. 1583-86) For the moment, Sosie senses only that Mercure’s actions will prove tantamount to having followed through on his murderous threat, for he groans: “Je suis mort.” (v. 1587) Undeterred by his recent misadventure and confirmed in his faulty judgment that Alcmène is unfaithful to him, Amphitryon decides to storm the door, causing Jupiter to show himself: “Quel bruit à descendre m’oblige? / Et qui frappe en maître où je suis? ” (v. 1615-16) Confronted by his Carnival double at the threshold, Amphitryon stands no chance. Not only is he less convincing than Jupiter when it is a question of proving that he is the real Amphitryon, but he finds that once Jupiter invites them all to dinner, even the usually faithful Sosie votes for his rival: “[…] ce mot termine/ Toute l’irrésolution: / Le véritable Amphitryon,” declares Sosie, “Est l’Amphitryon où l’on dîne.” (v. 1701-04) However, when Sosie makes to enter the house to partake of the Carnival feast, he is stopped once again by Mercure: “Arrête. Quoi! tu viens ici mettre ton nez,/ Impudent flaireur de cuisine? ” (v. 1746-47) Plead as he will, Sosie cannot soften Mercure’s hard line toward him: “Point de quartier,” declares Mercure, “immuable est la loi.” (v. 1779) However, Mercure’s frustrating behavior has positive carnivalesque consequences in that it finally prompts Sosie to exhibit a bravery heretofore unknown, expressing in words, if not in deeds, his sense of outrage at his double: “Que je te rosserais, si j’avais du courage,/ Double fils de putain, de trop d’orgueil enflé! ” (v. 1793-94) Mercure chases him off for his impertinence, forcing Sosie to abandon his hopes for a good meal in order to join “le malheureux Sosie/ Au malheureux Amphitryon.” (v. 1808-09) Yet as he does so, he clearly recognizes what it is that his double has done for him by acting without cowardice, for he declares to his master, “Frappez, battez, chargez, accablez-moi de coups,/ Tuez-moi dans votre courroux: / Vous ferez bien, je The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 113 le mérite,/ Et je n’en dirai pas un seul mot contre vous.” (v. 1848-51) Like Jupiter, but unlike Amphitryon, Sosie has accepted the responsibility for his double’s actions as well as for his own - not only in his role as husband, but now in his role as servant as well - and thus fittingly merits the triumph he is about to achieve as the play ends. As Amphitryon returns with Sosie and a band of armed men, bent on ousting his double by brute force, he encounters Cléantis on the threshold, just leaving the house. Gesturally expressing fear before the master of the house who then asks her, “Qui t’épouvante ainsi? / Quelle est la peur que je t’inspire? ” Cléantis - the character who ranks lowest in the household hierarchy (as both woman and servant) - heralds the start of the play’s denouement by reiterating the principal Carnival themes at stake in her final spoken line. (v. 1863-64) “Las! ” Cléantis replies, “vous êtes là-haut, et je vous vois ici.” (v. 1865) Expressing a fear not so much of physical violence as of logical inconsistency, a fear that targets the character whose rank and whose actions reveal him to be the most dangerous member of the household (the one who not only arrives armed to the teeth, but who expresses disdain when faced with proof of his wife’s innocence, claiming his right to conjugal honor to be superior to hers), Cléantis uses not abstract terms, but the traditional folkloric means of contrast: tangible references to bodily and topographic elements. Her use of the verb voir accentuates the visible nature of the inconsistency she brings to light, even as her conjunction (“et je vous vois ici”) affirms that we are in a world of time in which the simultaneous toys with the sequential, such that one body contrives to be in two places at once, both “up there” and “down here,” revealing the ambivalence so typical of Carnival truth. She says no more, but her role is far from finished. What she is granted the opportunity of realizing, upon seeing the two Amphitryons, is then extended to her perception of Sosie. Mercure appears moments later - still dressed as Sosie - to reveal the godly identities of the two husbands’ doubles and then, declaring himself “las de porter un visage si laid,” prepares to uncrown himself as King of Carnival (“Et je m’en vais au ciel, avec de l’ambroisie,/ M’en débarbouiller tout à fait.”) (v. 1883-85) As Jupiter prepares to replace Mercure onstage, Sosie pronounces the final judgment on Mercure the god and his masquerading identity (“Et je ne vis de ma vie/ Un dieu plus diable que toi”). (v. 1888-89) Cléantis, while silent, has every reason at this point to project as formidable a stage presence as her husband, for she is now privy to the realization that Mercure has at times been acting in Sosie’s name. It is at this moment that she finds ample reason to forgive Sosie and to reestablish the egalitarian complicity of the everyman couple that faces the world of the powerful as a team. Kathryn Willis Wolfe 114 She remains silent as the two rival faces of Amphitryon then square off, Jupiter first digging in the knife of his cuckoldry of Amphitryon even as he admits his failure as a rival before Alcmène’s love for her husband and then raising the specter of a questionable paternity even as he delivers the joyous carnival promise of future prosperity for Amphitryon, coupled with an impending birth. Yet her silence no more prevents Cléantis from communicating visually with the spectator than does Amphitryon, who presumably not only looks stunned and humiliated by Jupiter’s words, but is also furious and even marginally relieved that things are not worse - reactions that mitigate the trumpeting triumph of Jupiter’s lengthy speech and that Sosie sums up when he comments wryly, “Le seigneur Jupiter sait dorer la pilule.” (v. 1913) Throughout the scene, Cléantis is the only woman on stage, a fact that prevents her from fading into the background formed by Amphitryon’s men. Nor would there be any reason to assume that such was Molière’s intent in bringing her back at play’s end, simply because she has no further spoken lines. She is the character who brings both acts I and II to a close. There is no reason to suppose that her role is any less important at the play’s end, although it is her husband who has the final word in the play, just as he had the final word on Mercure. Thus, realizing what Sosie has endured at Mercure’s hands, she presumably makes a visual statement of forgiveness, taking her place by his side to form a united front, one that joins together in their triumph the two embodiments of society’s disenfranchised - the wife and the servant - and places them spatially in contrast to the solitary and defeated Amphitryon, for Alcmène is conspicuously absent from the proceedings. Alcmène’s absence and Cléantis’s silent presence accentuate the fact that we hear male voices only in the final scene. Indeed, what we are listening to here is in fact a male point of view: that of Amphitryon trapping himself within his own obstinate refusal to accept the validity of a viewpoint other than his own. Sosie’s final statement, “Sur telles affaires, toujours/ Le meilleur est de ne rien dire,” (v. 1942-43) , by drawing attention to the superior status of silence in such matters, places Jupiter’s verbiage in contrast to Alcmène’s visually and audibly rendered silence. It suggests that in the end, our understanding must give precedence to the alternative view. Jupiter would have it that the baby to be born is his, for it will be Hercules; Sosie only grants that it will be “un fils d’un très grand cœur,” opening up the possibility that the son will not be that of Jupiter, but of Amphitryon. (v. 1938) It is surely significant that in a story abounding in doubles, there is but one child to be born after the play’s end. Molière’s Alcmène has always considered that she has been dealing with one husband only, a rather fickle and changeable one to be sure, but one who is the indisputable The Carnival Logic of Molière’s Amphitryon 115 father of her child to be. Were Amphitryon able to forgive Alcmène by showing understanding of her viewpoint, his troubles would vanish, for Alcmène has long since forgiven him in both his roles, even if that of the justifiably jealous husband exists for her on a hypothetical plane only. As it is, he is condemned to a comic fate by virtue of his intransigence. Alcmène may be the only character never to become aware of the Carnival masquerade, but she serves a higher comic purpose by maintaining her holistic view to the end. It is she, the character who stands halfway between the downtrodden servants and the commanding master, who inflicts on Amphitryon the same treatment he inflicts on his subordinates when he accords authority to his view alone. He can resist Jupiter’s reflection of his other side, but there is no resisting the authority of Alcmène’s holistic view. In the best tradition of farce, he becomes at her hands not the dupeur dupé, but the silencer who has been silenced, one who once was deaf to the views of others, but now finds himself forced to submit to the will of another. Indeed, he must remain eternally mute on the subject of their recent quarrel for fear of losing Alcmène entirely and live on through the years of their marriage while suffering never-ending doubts as to her fidelity, although they have been self-inflicted, perpetrated on him by a being that is nothing more than another, admittedly kindlier, version of himself. Fear has passed from the lowly to the powerful, and even the play’s finale will not nullify Amphitryon’s present situation with regard to his wife. The Carnival masquerade will come to an end, but there will be no doubt left behind that Carnival has passed this way. WORKS CONSULTED Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1984. Molière. Œuvres complètes. Ed. Georges Couton. Paris: Gallimard, 1971. Dandrey, Patrick. Molière ou l’esthéthique du ridicule. Paris: Klincksieck, 2002. Rey-Flaud, Bernadette. Molière et la farce. Genève: Librairie Droz, 1996. Rey-Flaud, Henri. Le charivari: les rituels fondamentaux de la sexualité. Paris: Payot, 1985. Plaute. Amphitryon, L’Aululaire, Le Soldat fanfaron. Trad. J.-B. Levée. Ed. Marie- Dominique Porée-Rongier. Paris: Flammarion, 1991. Rotrou, Jean. Les Sosies. Ed. Damien Charron. Genève: Librairie Droz, 1980.