The Rugged Individualists of Henry De Montherlant

THE RUGGED INDIVIDUALISTS OF HENRY DE MONTHERLANT To PERUSE THE THEATER OF Henry de Montherlant is to encounter a number of characters who are among the most arresting in contemporary drama for their magnificence of stature and psychological complexity. Contained in forms which give evidence of a Greek and a French classical influence, their experience invariably involves a struggle of that intensity met in the hearts of the heroes of Euripides and Racine. Like these predecessors Montherlant creates drama where the most meaningful action takes place inside his protagonists. Besides their complicated interiors, however, the contemporary creations bear an exterior resemblance to the heroes of old, exteriors which are of account in summing up the nature of their tragedy. The face that they present to the world is that of the aristocrat. We have Aristotle's testimony regarding the uses to which Greek tragedians put illustrious men of great houses. What is interesting to consider is the presence of aristocratic heroes in Montherlant's works, especially in view of the dominance of naturalistic theory in twentieth-century drama. The triumph of ordinary man in our theater today and the ascendancy of the bourgeoisie in society have obscured the aristocrat from our view. If we come in contact with illustrious men bearing illustrious names we find them, with few exceptions, engaged in middle-class occupations. If discovered in castles at all, they are usually conducting middle class tourists through deserted halls maintained by admission fees. Montherlant's achievement is to awaken within us an awareness of what it means to be an aristocrat. He exhibits the extraordinary. And he reminds us that if there are no great heroes in our contemporary plays, it may well be because ordinary men perform no extraordinary deeds. He is sensitive to the unusual position in society which the aristocrat occupied in previous ages. When high social position was coupled with the sort of talent that made one a leader of men, the aristocrat found himself guiding the bulk of humanity by his counsel and actions. He existed as an individual in relation to a collective. Removed from the intercourse of common men, he was rendered a circle of insularity. It is in such solitude and in the privacy of their own minds that Montherlant's aristocrats make a discovery. They find that the exclusion formula works in more than one way. Separated from man by virtue of their social position, they soon experience another sort of isolation. Social detachment gives way to a detachment of the spirit as they come to 156 1970 MONTHERLANT'S INDIVIDUALISTS 157 realize that only their view of reality holds any meaning for them. The French dramatist prefaces his play Brac(Hiande with words (taken from another work, Service inutile) which could be spoken by any of his heroes: "Je n'ai que l'idee que je me fais de moi pour me soutenir sur les mers du neant." Ultimate reality resides within the individual. He is the locus of worth, authority, dignity, and will. Montherlant's heroes act under the impetus of an exclusive passion . which, while it affords them refuge from the incongruities of the life which surrounds them, finds no place in the popular imagination. Maintaining their insularity, they find themselves opposed to such collectives as society and the Church hierarchy and to such intangibles as the spirit of the times and "the human condition." They even discover themselves at odds with members of their own class and their own families. Their actions have a common cause: they are engaged in a rebellion-sometimes silent, sometimes explosive-to proclaim the sanctity of the individual as opposed to the tendencies and instincts of the masses. Montherlant does not hesitate to illuminate the whole man, exhibiting those traits of character which led to the erection of guillotines. But he ignores the makeup of his audience and suggests that the aristocrat's disdain for ordinary humanity may be deserved. His target is that which alarmed John Stuart Mill over a century ago: the dominant power among men which mediocrity has become and the threat such power poses to individuality. It has come to pass that the person of distinctive vision...