Edward Bond's Dialectic: Irony and Dramatic Metaphors

Edward Bond's Dialectic: Irony and Dramatic Metaphors ROBERT L. TENER In directing the American premiere of Edward Bond's Bingo at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975, Jonathan Bolt staged one of Bond's special scenic images so powerfully that the audience was momentarily stunned. This scene, the presentation of a young woman gibbeted on two upright beams while an older couple enjoy their picnic lunch at the foot of the hanging hill, contains two of Bond's major dramatic metaphors: the archetypal image of conviviality often invested in eating and drinking, and the sacrificial image of an innocent human being punished by society. Both images are dramatic metaphors for Bond's social dialectic; both add visual and aural dimensions to the themes ofthe plays; and both, especially when combined, tighten the ironical tensions, allowing Bond to develop his plays by contradiction. With minimal suggestion to prevent total audience involvement as well as detachment, Bond establishes a visual image ofthe conventional good life with men and women eating or drinking or in some way enjoying life according to social and natural bonds. But embedded in that image either visually or aurally are elements to contradict the essential aspects of the shared conviviality and compassion. This interplay of scenic images ironically commenting on each other is a major aspect of Bond's dramatic style. Bond's technique oflaying bare the destructive relationship between human beings and the material culture which engulfs them reveals itself in his early play Saved (1<)65).' In the fourth scene Bond establishes familiar images suggesting a typical domestic tableau. In a dark living room, Mary, the mother, sets the table for Len; Pam, the daughter, prepares for a date; and Harry, the father, just sits. Visually the scene evokes a sense of the natural continuity of life through the family bond. Counterpointed with this impression, however, are specific visual and aural images which are mechanical. Pam turns on the television and, having trouble adjusting the picture, switches to another channel; the image and the sound of the television are jarring. Further, the 424 ROBERT L. TENER family's mechanical and socially detached actions wrench the situation into ironic juxtaposition with the initial scene of domesticity: Len just eats; Mary watches; Pam starts to make up her face; and Harry refuses to talk to his wife. "Slowly a baby starts to cry. It goes on crying without a break until the end of the scene. Nothing happens until it has cried a long while" (p. 30). Neglecting the baby, Pam continues with her makeup. Apparently she has as much trouble with the baby as she has with the television - but the latter is mechanical and can be adjusted or repaired. All ignore the baby in continuing their passive, selfish behavior. As a symbol of man's strength, his weakness, his compassion, the baby is rejected. Its insistent demands are ignored, its sound redefining the social limitations ofthe other characters: obviously the baby is not as important as the television to Pam. Irritated by the situation, Pam quarrels with Len and urges him to leave, but he says that he "ain'leavin' that kid" (p. 32). Harry adds that he is not getting involved. When Fred, Pam's date, comes to pick her up, Pam asks Mary ifthe baby can be left in Mary's room so that Pam and Fred can have her room free of interruptions. As they leave, Mary turns off the television and exits; Len stacks the dishes and says good night to Harry, who remains in the armchair. The scene ends with the baby's sobs dying "away to silence" (p. 34). The aural image vividly demonstrates that the baby is to be the focal point around which Bond creates specific scenes to reveal the disastrous effect of modem culture and its value system on individuals. It is an ironical device of great emotional power because Bond refuses to treat it in the conventional sentimental manner. Instead his technique reveals that the baby is just as much a thing as the television is.2 As the television reminds us, sound alone does not convey the sense of the baby's humanity. Like the noisy screen, the baby can only irritate with its strange distorted resonances. Yet the resulting irritation of Fred, Pam, Mary and Harry suggests that they have lost the capacity to share feelings, their natural compassion and morality. These qualities appear in another scenic image ofconviviality: the gang meet with Fred at the caft to celebrate Fred's release from prison, where he had been sent for his part in murdering the baby. The visual image hints at the good life of food, drink, and sex, the gang having been substituted for the family. Nevertheless, there is no convivial warmth inside the cafe. For Pam, it is like winter inside. Again, two sets of characters appear, and the ensuing dialogue reveals that the gang - Mike, Colin, Pete, Barry and Liz - will never get their tea or food, and that Pam will not find contentment. They are all empty of compassion and incapable of sharing. Pam quarrels with Len, urging him to leave her alone because she wants to pick up again with Fred; but just as Pam had rejected her baby, so Fred now rejects her. The scene rapidly develops the sounds of quarreling and irritation which emphasize the lack of good fellowship. The various confrontations and the sequence "of small visual images ... " clearly define the social situation.3 Pam Edward Bond's Dialectic demands rudely of Len, "Don't bloody sit there! Yer done enough 'arm!". When Fred blames Pam for starting a ruckus, Barry exclaims that she "wants throttlin'" (pp. 82-83). Once again most ofthe characters appear dehumanized scapegoats as the dialogue alters impressions created by the image of warm fellowship. Bond seems to be saying that even at the working-class level, people have been destroyed by the economic demands of society. They have become living ghosts. Because compassion has no value in their economic and social relationships, they have eliminated it from their lives to simplify their struggles.4 In Narrow Road to the Deep North (1968), Bond begins to use the pattern and its dialectic more subtly by counterpointing scenic objects and actions with dialogue and aural images.s The first example is developed in terms of five young priests - Kiro, Tola, Heigoo, Argi, and Breebree - coming down the road on a hot day. They are carrying a small ark with a pot on it. When they stop for a rest, Tola says that he·has "eamed a drink." Soon all are drinking, and a rich, earthy scene of merriment begins to emerge as Bond carefully controls the development of the scenic image. They open three bottles, apparently of wine, drink to the "sacred pot" (pp. 14- 15), and Tola and Breebree begin to playa version of hopscotch. As they mellow, the cluster of symbols for man's good nature merges with their religious overtones, each of the men being dressed in the yellow robes of a priest. However, both the social game and the religious order have rules: Argi points out to Tola that he does not know the rules ofhopscotch; Kiro adds that he has been in the seminary for two years and has not learned anything (p. 16). As their merriment and playfulness increase, they start to sing and dance and have a small festival. Soon they become boisterous and begin playing with the pot. The scene parallels the one in Saved where the gang play with the baby. In one impetuous moment, not knowing what to do with the pot, Kiro turns it upside down and sets it on his head. The visual image is comically sharp, but the aural image has already contributed ironical overtones to the scene of shared rest and relaxation. The priests do not know the rules of a child's game or of life or ofwisdom. As Bond has said, his plays are about the "quest for freedom ofone man."o But the priests - especially Kiro, who searches for enlightenment in order to be free - have not succeeded in their quests. In a series ofprecise comical visual images, Bond reveals through the sequence of the stuck pot, a real object, the inadequacies of their search, not because they are stupid, but because their religious institution has repressed their common sense. The scenic image presents a contest in rich Aristophanic style between Kiro and the pot. But the childish element ofgames is gone. Because Kiro could suffocate, the pot may win. The full wisdom ofthe five priests is brought to bear on the problem without results. Being sacred, the pot must not be broken. In effect, Kiro is throttled by the sacredness of the religious object as modem man is choked by the polluted air of industrial plants. ROBERT L. TENER Bond quickly intensifies the farcical and ironic elements which counterpoint the original scene offestivity by introducing Basho, who is being escorted by soldiers to the tyrant Shogo. Basho, the old priest-poet, asks Kiro ifhe has tried meditation, to ''Think small." To this excellent advice Basho adds that he cannot help Kiro because, as he says, "you still haven't learned anything. You live in darkness. (K1RO sobs.) You would have to make the pot think big, and that's definitely beyond your powers" (p. 2I). All follow Basho to the court of Shogo, where in a quick movement Shogo breaks the pot to release Kiro. Political acumen and pragmatism seem to have won over religious faith in saving a life. But there is no doubt that Kiro is the living scapegoat; it is self-evident that he serves a priesthood which would have sacrificed him instead of breaking a sacred relic. The last major event in the play involves a related scenic image which is developed in surrealistic terms focused again on a real object, Basho's poems. In a vivid sequence Bond dramatizes ironically the contrast between man's socializing and cooperative habits, used to support the trial and execution of Shogo the tyrant, and his artistic achievements, discarded. Onstage Kiro the innocentsearches for enlightenment; offstage Basho (the haiku poet-priest), the Commodore, Shogo, soldiers and a crowd of people interact. Kiro picks up a few sheets of Basho's poetry, and as he reads them out loud the sound of the trial comes over a loudspeaker. The aural image dominates for the moment with its two sets of contrasting spoken words. The voice of the Commodore repeats the charges against Shogo, accusing him of having five children murdered. Kiro reads a poem: "A feather falls from the sky I There are no birds here I The nests are broken and I The migration's over" (p. 55). Offstage Basho testifies against Shogo, explaining that Shogo's parents had abandoned him as a baby. They were peasants. While the political and religious leaders continue to condemn Shogo, the young searcher after wisdom reads another poem: "The soil was dry I The flower bent its petal mouth I To drink from the soil I The soil was still dry" (p. 55). Above his words comes the shout of the crowd, "Guilty!" (p. 56). In the aural image the sources and symbols of life-children, the land, birds, flowers- no longer have any meaning. They have died, gone, or dried up; Kiro has found wisdom but cannot recognize it. The reading of the two poems acquires ironical resonance from the shouted words of justice initiated by the new political leaders. In triumph the crowd marches onstage in a procession to the loud outcry ofthe Commodore that "The head ofthe city has paid for his sin. The city is purged.... Feed your eyes and rejoice!" (p. 56). But again the words, sounding victory over evil, are contradicted by the visual image as Shogo's naked body is brought in nailed to a large white placard carried on two poles. His body has been "hacked to pieces and loosely assembled upside down. The limbs have been nailed in roughly the right position, but the whole body is askew and the limbs don't meet the trunk. The headhangs down with the Edward Bond's Dialectic 427 mouth wide open. The genitals are intact" (p. 56). The crowd mills around this grotesquerie in a scene of apparent joy. The poignancy created by the two sheets of poetry has been replaced by the dissonance generated by the placard, symbol of the demonstrator, used as a misshapen cross for dehumanized man. The dialectical relationship of the images with its full implications of destructiveness is obvious. The Commodore and Basho are as unconcerned with the sources of life as Shogo was. The visual image reveals their loss of compassion and their inability to recognize moral parallels. Four years later Bond emphasized this point directly when he said in an interview: "In other words, the capacities that we've developed over the last few million years are no longer the right tools for our environment."7 The "right tools" for modern man are not, as Bond sees them, tenderness, compassion, or the like. The placard and its corpse - crudely assembled like the mechanical parody ofa man, recognizably human because its genitals are intact -comment fiercely about the relationship of modem man with his environment. The image is comparable to that of Agave - hers is the punishment of the god Dionysus in Euripides' The Bacchae - when she enters her native city covered with blood and triumphantly carrying on her thyrsus the head of her son Pentheus. The horror of both scenes lies in the characters' unconscious participation in actions which make them partly responsible for destroying the future by denying the value of compassion . By the time he was writing Lear (I97I), Bond had learned how to control fully the dialectical use of a few objects and sounds in developing his themes and their dramatic tensions.8 Act I , scene 6, for example, begins with certain items which quickly establish the situation. A wooden house is present upstage; there are steps to the front door, a well, and a bench with some bedding. No other realistic decor seems necessary. King Lear (now insane) and the Boy (an innocent) sit on the ground. Lear has lost his kingdom to his two daughters Bodice and Fontanelle. The Boy, the village gravedigger's son, is married to Cordelia (not Lear's daughter), who brings out three bowls of soup and sits down to eat with them. Although there is no festive image, the scene expresses compassion and sharing. Furthermore, the sensory cluster suggests continuity and peace, a naturarsense of goodness, with its focal elements ofthe well (as a source of life), the door (as an entrance to domestic existence), and the bench (as a mark of repose). In this context the Boy explains how he found their drinking well. Digging his father's grave, an act whose verbal reference suggests that life is dependent upon death, he struck water. At that point he and his wife decided to remain there to farm the land and to lead a simple, pastoral life. A few minutes later, after Lear and the Boy leave the stage, Warrington arrives, a former nobleman and officer on King Lear's side. He has survived being tortured by Bodice, Fontanelle and their soldiers, but his bloody appearance upsets the wife, who calls him a beggar, a scoundrel, a filthy old ROBERT L. TENER man. Frightened by her outburst, Warrington hides in the well. When the Boy comes back onstage, he comforts his wife. Providing an ironical counterpoise to these stage events, however, the insane Lear describes the giant who wants to eat the dragon that has grabbed a carving knife, and his daughters who have turned the dog "out of its kennel because it got fond of its sack" (p. 19). He adds that they "empty their prisons and feed the men to the dead in their graveyards" (p. 20). His words create a powerful aural image in contrast to the domestic, pastoral calmness of the visual scene. Bond projects the distortion visually: while all sleep, Warrington climbs out ofthe well and attacks Lear. As a consequence, the king who had built a wall to protect his people becomes a victim, not only ofhis daughters but also of those whom his daughters have tortured. The dream ofhelping his people, that source of life identified with Lear, has turned into a frightening parody. The political institution, symbolized by the protective wall, has led men to deny their goodness and to contaminate their own sources of life. When Bond wrote Bingo (1973), he created social images which allow continuous questioning of illusions and conventions, and reflect dehumanization with intense power.9 One of his most moving scenes, for example, begins with the careful description ofa hanging sequence: "Hill. A pleasant warm day. Slight fresh wind" (p. 20). Two seventeenth-century laborers, Joan and Jerome, enter, "sit on the ground, unpack their lunch and eat" (p. 21). Joan shares her food with Jerome but resists when he "puts his arm round her waist" (p. 21). She uncorks a bottle and both drink. Then she takes some crumbs that have fallen down her bodice and "feeds the birds" (p. 21). The visual cluster images harmony, shared experiences, feminine modesty, desire, and the woman's intimate relationship with nature, the season and the birds. The mood is expansive. Joan and Jerome appear to embody the conventional state of pastoral harmony, give or take a little for obvious idealization. In contrast to this delicate generative image, however, two others occupy the stage: one visual, the young woman gibbeted from two short beams on the hill with a sack around her hips and ankles; and the other aural, Joan and Jerome's language and ideas. The preceding dramatic action as well as Bond's description of the young woman reveal her to be the scapegoat of religious, moral, political and economic forces in her society. The death of her parents and her consequent poverty have driven her from her parish town without a pass; the laws against vagabonds and beggars disallow her a place in Stratford and result in her being whipped; and the laws against arson and fornication deny her the sympathy of other people and result in her hanging. Through Combe, the wealthy landowner who sits on the bench ofjustice, society takes away the rights it had granted the young woman and orders her death. The relationship and image reflect the view of social morality which Bond has stated in the introduction to the play: Edward Bond's Dialectic 429 We have no natural rights, only rights granted and protected by money. Money provides food, shelter, security. education, entertainment, the ground we walk on, the air we breathe, the bed we lie in. People come to thinkofthese things as products ofmoney. not of the earth or human relationships. .. . To get money you must behave like money. I don't mean only that money creates certain attitudes or traits in people, it/orees certain behaviour on them. (p. xiii) The scene begins with Bond's description of the young woman: "She has been dead one day. The/ace is grey, the eyes closed and the hair has become whispy" (p. 20). Joan and Jerome look at her for a few moments, and Joan says that "they" (society's agents) should have burned her on a "bonfire, for lightin' fires. Or starve her in a cage for beggary" (p. 21). The irony intensifies a few minutes later when Joan, image of pastoral harmony, concludes: "How the wicked disguise themselves. Her could a bunt the town t'death" (p. 22). This counterpointing exposes the effects of social institutions which, according to Bond, have destroyed man's natural morality and relationship with nature, and substituted for them a morality defined by those in power.W Both the young woman and Joan are innocent victims, one dead, the other having lost her capacity to empathize with another person. The visual image reflects both the subtitle, "Scenes of money and death," and Bond's view that characterization ought to reveal social roles rather than psychological identities." A related scenic cluster appears in the sequence at the Golden Cross, where Shakespeare and Ben Jonson drink together. The name, more than any visual detail, indicates that the Golden Cross is an inn; and the lack of concrete particulars makes the two characters seem to function 'as dramatic objects or metaphors, not as living persons with psychological density. Through his dialectic, Bond controls the spectator's emotional and rational responses to the impact economics has on artists. The inn is a traditional symbol of hospitality, economics, and man's dependence on the land. But the unsubstantial aspects of the Golden Cross de-emphasize hospitality, suggesting that its aura is more illusion than reality. This setting allows the economic relationship of the two characters to take on an ambivalent cast. The scenic image, a "large open fire between" the tables, "Burning wood. Night. Lamps" (p. 29), suggests warmth, shelter, conviviality. One is not surprised to see two of England's greatest dramatic artists drinking and sharing conversation; the scene promises great delight. Two professionals share a few moments: one sees man and nature as mutually, harmoniously dependent on each other; the second views man as the creator of his own evil through greed. Both have been traditionally idealized, even institutionalized, as men of great compassion and wisdom by critics, scholars and patrons ofdrama. ConsequentIy , the image has ironical nuances: Bond uses aspects of dramatic history fictionally to comment on socio-economic relationships. As great artists, 430 ROBERT L. TENER Shakespeare and Jonson obviously represent the highest achievements of drama in the English-speaking world. Yet their dialogue creates discord with the visual impression, dissonance reinforced a few minutes later with the entrance of the Son, Wally, Jerome, and Joan, who have been resisting Combe's men. The two groups of characters not only represent disengaged artists and desperate rebels, but symbolize the effects of society's economic institutions and processes. The conversation of Shakespeare and Jonson places their fictive social and economic relationships ironically within the context of their historically real aesthetic or humanistic concerns. Hearing that the Globe has burned down, Shakespeare responds to the financial loss; he equates the event with the purchase of his home, when the former owner was poisoned by his son and his father wasrobbed by his mother's side of the family: "That was property too" (p. 29). This kind of dialogue, which associates dramatic history with money and violence, clearly redefines the two characters in economic, social and destructive terms. Their humanism debased, their writings or allusions to their works have crystallized their social limitations. Like Joan, Lear, Kiro, or Pam, Shakespeare and Jonson are living caricatures. Bond adds to the complexity of the scenic image by introducing the conversation ofWally and the others who have entered the inn. Wally tells them to "Git the mud off yo'" (p. 34), because a cleanup will show what they have been up to in fighting Combe's men. The Son blames the rich for "plunderin' the earth. Think on the poor trees an' grass an' beasts, all neglect an' stood in . the absence a god" (p. 35). Juxtaposed with the scene between Jonson and Shakespeare, their dialogue reveals that they are also victims ofCombe's desire to enclose the common land (nature) in order to increase his income through more efficient farming methods. The initial scenic image of conViviality and warmth between great artists has been drastically modified; the transformation implies that the kinds ofideals traditionally associated with pastoral nature have become shadows to a reality defined by exploitation and greed. The gap between the two conditions suggests a shift in human values from an earlier age when people shared simpler and less destructive relationships with one another and their natural environment. In none of Bond's earlier plays does that gap appear as clearly as it does in The Fool (1975).12 The subtitle, "Scenes of Bread and Love," anticipates the dialectical pattern ofscenes in which images ofbread (simple natural goodness, warmth, love, sharing) alternate with images of destruction by economic and social forces beyond the control of ordinary men. With scene after scene Bond's dramatic images evolve not in psychological or closely developed chronological sequences, but in set episodes often separated by long periods of time. This pattern reveals how the greedy interests ofthe upperclass destroy the balance of nature and the creative spirit of Clare, a historical early-nineteenthcentury English poet of rural antecedents. Edward Bond's Dialectic 431 Although the dialectic controls every scene in the play, being especially important in the poetry-boxing episode, it emerges immediately in the first scene with effects that carry over to scenes 2, 3 and 4. The major image of poetry and boxing develops in scene 5, and its consequences extend through the next three scenes. The central conflict is projected through two sets of characters, the wealthy and the poor. Within this basic frame, however, some are historical, some fictional; some are poets, some prizefighters. The Mummers' episode, beginning the play, establishes the major motifs and metaphors. Bond informs us that it is a winter evening during the Christmas season in front of Lord Milton's home. The world of nature seems generous, and man shares with small animals. Within this ambiance the St. George Mummers appear to entertain Lord Milton and his guests, who form a second audience watching a play within a play. The seasonal references establish the aura of good-fellowship in a religious-festival context, but the Mummers' play identifies the important motif of fighting: Clare, who plays St. George, the people's. champion, is wounded and killed by Colonel Bullslasher. After singing a song for God to send peace to "Merry England" (p. 5), the Mummers come to an ironical close with The Wren song, a ballad about the simple joys of hunting the wren, king ofthe birds caught in the furze. The song emphasizes the poverty of the Mummers and establishes the motif of a natural world disrupted by men. From this point on, the play's dialogue incorporates many references to animals and hunting which echo The Wren song. At the end the Mummers ask for food and drink. The qualities of the season - associated with medieval and Elizabethan England - are undermined by both the aural images from the song and the visual image ofLord Milton and his wealthy guests. The two sets of characters and the season are closely related through the Parson, whose social role as religious representative supports the establishment. His only comment about the mumming is that the old ways must go as England has now entered the new iron age. With these words a sense of economic change and decay encroaches upon the green world and its social festivity. Further sharpening the dialectical contrast, a conversation between Lord Milton and the Parson allows that war has helped make England prosperous, but because prices are low, wages must also drop. Lord Milton's comment that "Civilization costs money ... " (p. 6) arouses great dissatisfaction in Darkie, one of the Mummers. The scene ends with most ofthe Mummers going to the kitchen at the rear ofthe house for food and drink. At this point Bond introduces a love relationship between Clare and Patty, Darkie's sister. After allowing Clare to fondle her breasts for a few moments, she leaves him to join the others in the kitchen. Left alone, Clare talks for a while with the maid Mary, who has appeared for a second time. Infatuated by romantic, spontaneous love for her, Clare seems to forget Patty and follows Mary into Lord Milton's home. With visual and aural images the scene finally 432 ROBERT L. TENER seems to imply that festive, convivial eating, drinking and loving have soured. In the next three scenes Bond develops the romantic relationship between Clare and Mary, as well as the poverty and anger of the commoners who have been denied the right to poach in Lord Milton's woods. Upon a show of rebellion, some of the commoners are jailed and Darkie is sentenced to be executed. Years pass, the exact number unimportant because there is no psychological extension of motives in the major characters. Clare is married to Patty and has children (an unnatural marriage); he has also published a volume of poetry and acquired a patron, Mrs Emmerson, who wants to introduce him to those who would support him financially, especially to her friend the Admiral. The sening for this introduction is Hyde Park, a formal man-made and hence slightly distorted arrangement of nature. Both Mrs Emmerson and the Admiral are to be Clare's backers. In an expansive mood she sets the ambiance of the scene by gushing about the pastoral setting, the grass, the trees, the wings ofinspiration. Simultaneously a visual and aural image of equal importance is created, situated althe same time and place, as part ofthe dialectic. In the same area two prizefighters - Porter, a black man and Jackson, an Irishman - are getting ready to fight while their backers lay bets on the winner. The fight scene suggests a masque or play within a play paralleling the Mummers' entertainment and providing an ironic commentary on the total sequence of events: the conversation focuses on fighting, jabbing, cutting. As Clare has his poet's corner in Hyde Park, so they have their neutral corner. But Bond inserts a new visual image in the poet's corner by introducing Charles and Mary Lamb, thereby supplying two brother artists to parallel the boxers. Clare wants to write the truth about the upper classes' explOitation of common people, and Lamb says that truth is not "governed by the laws of supply and demand" (p. 39). Despite Clare's rural and natural simplicity and Lamb's idealism, however, the two major visual metaphors reveal that the economics of an event controls it. Increasingly animal terms and allusions in the scene begin to affect the aural images and reinforce a sense of growing estrangement between human beings and the world of nature. These references connect the visual images, as both sets of backers intend to profit: to make money from the boxers or gain status through the poet, to win with one and to discard the other. The two poets and the two boxers embody ironically similar consequences: the historical pair represent man in his intellectual, creative role; the fictive pair represent man in his physical, aggressive role. One poet has already been discarded and the other will be; one boxer is to lose and the other will sometime in the future. Both sets of visual images are related through the Admiral's response. Though he is interested as a benefactor in Clare's poetry, provided that a Christian may read it with profit, simultaneously he admires the Greek torso of Porter, the black boxer. Visually and aurally Bond relates boxing/poetry to man's greedy self-interest. '3 The theme of both situations is the same: who Edward Bond's Dialectic 433 controls the beautiful and natural self-expression of the artist/fighter? The Admiral says, "Polite society" (p. 43), and aural images sharpen the irony; "Polite society" only exploits its artists and fighters. The artist/fighter writes or performs for those who can afford to attend an event, not for the truth or love of the act. Shakespeare laments this reality in Bingo: "I wanted to meet some god by the river. ... Hear simple things that move mountains and stop the blood before it hits the earth" (p. 41); and Lamb's words give it bitter impact: in denying poetry its truth, one is "Spitting on god's mask" (p. 44). In The Fool Bond redefines the consequences of greedy interests in making Mary Lamb say that violence makes her ill and that her vegetables have a bad odor: for her the organic world is decaying. He also informs us that she has been mentally ill and lost contact with the reality of econontic oppressors. The reference suggests that the same will happen to Clare and Jackson. In the end, therefore, what the Mummers' scene did for the first half of the play, the poetry-and-boxing scene does for the second half. Through its economic and social institutions society destroys both its poets and its beautiful strong men, warping their relationship with nature. The dramatic fabric of the play reveals Bond's ability to work with and control auralimages: for example, the references to animals, and the seemingly illogical utterances of Mary Lamb or Clare. (The latter both qualify as specific kinds offools, perhaps the only sane people in a frightening and unreal world.) In addition Bond has extended his use of visual images, creating plays within a play to enhance parodic and ironic meaning. Whereas before a baby, a television, a pot, a cross, a wall, or a well were used as focal points, now for the first time drama itself serves as an ironical device to comment on the larger play. Bond's scenic images from Saved through The Fool depend on two sets of characters, one often a historical figure, the others fictional. They rely as well on intimate association with organic nature, the later plays stressing anirnallife and simple food like bread; on specific visual objects functioning as focal points; and on an ambiance of shared social warmth. But these images occur in discordant juxtaposition with the dialogue and with other aural images, and the total effect underntines harmonious relationships between man and nature. Bond's plays seem to present nature not only as independent of men, but also as intimately related to them, their worth and status. They stress the link between human life and organic nature, emphasizing man's dealings with the earth that nourishes him. Violent and ironic, they reveal Bond's view that man today "cannot function" biologically as he was meant to: The human being today is always in astate oftension and ofbeing scared and frightened, and is therefore aggressive. And the sort of political community we have is based on utilizing this aggression. It's got nothing to do with the world of nature at all, where aggression functions in a protective way. A competitive society must destroy itself. 434 ROBERT L. TENER There is no alternative, because this is the whole dialectic of violence - ] threaten you, you threaten me, and finally you have to carry out your threats, otherwise there is no credence behind them. 14 In that world, as Bond shows through his plays, things occupy the landscape: a television, a placard, a well, a wall, a cross, a box of unsold books of poetry. NOT ES I All references to Saved come from: Edward Bond, Saved (New York, 1966). 2 See Peter Holland. "Brecht, Bond, Gaskill, and the Practice of Political Theatre," Theatre Quarterly, 8 (Summer 1978), 29. 3 Edward Bond (Interviewed by the Editors), "Drama and the Dialectics of Violence ," Theatre Quarterly, 2 (Jan.-Mar. 1972),6. 4 Bond, "Drama and the Dialectics," 8. 5 All references to Narrow Road to the Deep North come from: Edward Bond, Narrow Road to the Deep North (New York, 1969). 6 Bond quoted in Arthur Arnold, "Lines of Development in Bond's Play," Theatre Quarterly, 2 (Jan.- Mar. 1972), 17. 7 Bond, "Drama and the Dialectics," 9. 8 All references to Lear come from: Edward Bond, Lear (London, 1972). 9 All references to Bingo come from: Edward Bond, Bingo and The Sea (New York, 1975). 10 Edward Bond's Preface to Lear, p. xi. I I Edward Bond, "On Brecht: a Letter to Peter Holland," Theatre Quarterly, 8 (Summer 1978), 34. 12 All references to The Fool come from: Edward Bond, The Fool and We Come to the River (London, 1976). 13 Edward Bond, "Letter to Louis Scheeder," in Malcolm Hay and Philip Roberts, Edward Bond: A Companion to the Plays (London, 1978), p. 65. See his comments about Scene Five. 14 Bond, "Drama and the Dialectics," 9. ...