The Sense of an Ending: The Representation of Homosexuality in Brendan Behan's The Hostage

The Sense of an Ending: The Representation of Homosexuality in Brendan Behan's The Hostage ANN MARIE ADAMS Critics have long pondered the effectiveness of The Hostage's denouement. Brendan Behan obviously needed the secret policemen to enter the fray and cause the senseless death of the sacrificial Leslie, but why did he specifically use Rio Rita, Princess Grace, and Mulleady as an ironic deus ex machina? As Bert Cardullo notes,many critics see this constructed ending as "cheap" - "cheap in the sense that it suddenly negates the homosexual relationship between Grace and Rita, out of which the playwright has got much theatrical mileage, and cheap in the literal sense that it removes the need to hire extra actors to portray the police.'" While the economics of this recycling cannot be denied, it would do a disservice to the text to claim that the constructed ending "negates" Grace's and Rita's relationship. If anything, the chaotic close more clearly delineates ,Grace's and Rita's proclivities as well as lengthening the "mileage" the author got from this theme. Like many other "closet dramas" of its age, The Hostage, through its very use of homosexual characters, serves to reinforce many common tacit assumptions about homosexuality, as well as to foreground the nature of its practitioners. It may seem, at first, that Rio Rita, Princess Grace, and the unfortunate Mulleady don't really belong in Behan'sHostage. Ifone were to use the Gaelic version ofthe same play, An Giall, as a source, it could easily be argued that the characters are extraneous.' As Colbert Kearney has demonstrated, the figures of Colette, Ropeen, Kate, and Miss Gilchrist, as well as the three "aberrants," were all added later.3 But although the play, obviously, can exist without the denizens ofthe brothel, it isn't too hard to see that the playwright, in translating his own work, took the liberty of changing tone (going from a delicate tragedy to a bawdy satire) as well as reinforcing theme. The undesirables may not fit in An Giall, but they are,an integral part of the revised Hostage. If Behan meant to demonstrate the ridiculous nature of both the IRA and the British nationalists (and hence the folly of constructing such phantasmal Modern Drama, 40 (1997) 414 The Sense of an Ending causes), what better way to do this than to decry the proponents of nationalism? As Behan's texts show, Die-hards, such as Monsewer, the IRA officials (and, by implication, the British nationalists) live in fantasy worlds. Heady with thoughts of intrigue and heroism, they deny the mundane or what is real. Nowhere is this denial more evident than in the dilapidation of Monsewer's "house." The old man, intent on his bagpipes and blowsy rhetoric, cannot even see that his noble brood of soldiers are, in reality, homosexuals, pimps and prostitutes. Feeling so devoutly his high ideals, he cannot even realize that his worldly concerns (namely his wealth and allowance) are in disarray. As the play implies, life lived in abstraction, wedded to an ideal and severed from reality , leads to stagnation and degeneracy - a degeneracy literally manifest in the "brockel" Pat runs.4 Yet even though the brothel serves as a visual reminder of past follies, it is not merely a static symbol of regression. Although, as Cardullo rightly points out, many of the inhabitants (or captors of Leslie) "are hostages of the past, of a political program that has lost its urgency in a world threatened by economic depression on the one hand-and nuclear destruction on the other,"S many are relatively decent people stuck in a squalid situation. Meg, for all her grousing at Miss Gilchrist, is an affectionate and kind-hearted woman; Pat isn't without his good qualities either. Although the comment may be made in passing ("Well, as far as that's concerned, you'll be a lot safer here")," it is true that a "strong" and "hefty" girl like Teresa (ISS) is safer in the brothel than with religious men. As Miss Gilchrist's character shows, not all seminary students are intent on religion, nor on celibacy. The attractive girl'was in real danger from the...