A "Laingian" Reading of Pirandello's Henry IV

A "Laingian" Reading of Pirandello's Henry IV MICHAEL PATTERSON It is not difficult to recognize that in the figure of the Doctor in Henry IV Pirandello is satirizing the mechanistic attitudes of many psychiatrists of his day - attitudes largely derived from a crude application ofFreudian theory: that an instantaneous psychic cure might be effected by a dramatic reliving of a traumatic experience. Admittedly, Pirandello is too skilled a playwright to reduce the Doctor to a mere satirical figure: though essentially mechanistic in his perception of the human mind, the Doctor has a playful, impish quality. After all, his forename is Dionisio, and his introductory stage direction refers to his "impudent, rubicund satyr's face" I • He has indeed something of the anarchic quality ofthe traditional "mad scientist," more a Frankenstein than his robot. Nevertheless, like his namesake in the commedia dell'arte, the Doctor is learned but stupid; he explains by mystifying, using bombastic jargon like "a certain analogical elasticity, absolutely characteristic of systematised madness " (p. 35; MN, 67). While purporting concern for his "patient," he treats him like a machine: "We can hope to restore him to his senses, like a watch which has stopped at a certain time" (p. 37; MN, 68)2, and he subjects him to a terrible shock - an only slightly more sophisticated version of electroconvulsive therapy. What is not immediately apparent, however, is that Pirandello not only makes a negative statement about the Doctor's ineptitude, but also poses a positive alternative in the understanding of mental illness. No doubt primarily because of his sensitive and engaged attempts to comprehend and cope with his wife's schizophrenia, Pirandello shows himself to be several decades in advance of the psychiatric thinking of his time. Put simply, Henry IV is more than good theatre and good philosophy; it is good psychology as well.3 To show how significantly Pirandello anticipated progressive developments in psycniatric thinking, I shall refer to some of the central ideas of that MICHAEL PATTERSON figure-head of modern, non-mechanistic psychiatry, R.D. Laing.4 That is not to say that a full description or even a fair summary of his work will be embarked on here, nor will due credit be given to others like A. Esterson who have worked along lines similar to Laing's. Further, one must not overlook the fact that Laing's ideas, while novel to European psychiatry, have been at least intuitively understood by many societies throughout history. What little we know of the former existence of the nobleman now known only as Henry IV suggests that he is a case ofwhat Laing terms "engulfment": In this the individual dreads relatedness as such, with anyone or anything or, indeed, even with himself, because his uncertainty about the stability of his autonomy lays him open to the dread lest in any relationship he will lose his autonomy and identity.... The main manoeuvre used to preserve identity under pressure from the dread of engulfment is isolation.5 It is not by chance that we never learn the real name of "Henry IV." It is Pirandello's sign that he has secured a clear identity only since his "madness." Let us remind ourselves of this anonymity by calling him the Nobleman. The only information we have about the Nobleman's former life is given by the not entirely trustworthy witnesses Donna Matilda and Belcredi. From them we learn ofthe intensity ofthe Nobleman's love for Matilda, which she feels to be dangerous, "Because he wasn't like the others" (p. 17; MN, 32). Her rejection of him already seemed to have induced classic neurotic symptoms of detachment from the self: I'm not saying he was pretending to be excited. On the contrary, as a matter offact. The truth is, he was often over-excited. But I would have sworn, doctor, that he would suddenly catch himself being excited, in the very act of it. And I think that must have happened even at his most spontaneous moments. I'd go further. I'm sure it made him unhappy. He used to have the funniest outbursts oftemper against himselfsometimes!... [T]he sudden sense that he was playing a...