Shakespeare's Humiliated B Men: Caliban, Malvolio and Parolles

Every student knows that Shakespeare's tragedies deal with individuals who are noble by birth and who generally act nobly as well; each has a “tragic flaw” nevertheless, which significantly contributes to his demise. Lear, a good man, makes the mistake of thinking others, specifically his two elder daughters, are as decent as he is. Othello blindly trusts Iago and loses his ability to come up with alternate explanations of what is happening around him.  Hamlet is by far the most intelligent person among the characters in the eponymous play—His nearly supermundane intelligence paralyzes him; he sees the alternatives of a possible action at once, and is “tragically” unable to choose one. These are but a few examples.

Shakespeare’s noble characters, his A-men, as it were, suffer a great deal and often die, but they are rarely humiliated.  The great exception is Lear, whom age and neglect drive mad.  There is a difference here, however: as audiences witness a once great man reduced to the state of a beggar: it’s all tears and no laughs.  Not so with his B-men.  (I define Shakespeare’s B-men as those of lesser rank who have a comic flaw: vanity. They are humiliated for laughs.  But there is more to it than that, as we shall see. First, some pertinent background information.

Empathy, The Globe, and the Groundlings

Shakespeare’s degree of empathy is astounding.  The creator of the most vividly drawn characters in literature, he seems to identify not so much with any one of them, but with all of them simultaneously.  Tout savoir, c’est tout pardoner, as the famous French saying goes; Shakespeare comes very close to that tout savoir.  He is like nature; his characters judge themselves and each other, but nature and Shakespeare, above them all, do not.

This is in stark contrast to the zeitgeist of the times. There was a lot of violence and a lot of cruelty in Elizabethan England.  Although judicial torture was officially banned, exceptions occurred, notably in the case of the innocent Edmund Campion, convicted of treason, tortured and publicly executed in an exceptionally brutal manner.  There was no such concept as the proscription of cruel and unusual punishment in those days. For instance, the gentle Samuel Pepys, after witnessing the brutal public execution of a general convicted of treason, wrote the following in his diary entry of October 13, 1660:

To my Lord’s in the morning, where I met with Captain Cuttance, but my Lord being up, I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.

Anyone who evinced such cold indifference to unspeakable suffering would be justly called a monster today.  Empathy as we know it today, however poorly we might put it into practice, was not a favored emotion in Shakespeare’s England.

Directly before the stage of the Globe Theatre, where most of Shakespeare's plays were performed, was an area reserved for the so-called groundlings.  They were rowdy, uneducated, and poor; a motley group who paid one English penny to stand in front of the stage during a performance.  Plays had become a major form of entertainment for members of all social classes; sometimes 500 groundlings would fill to overcapacity the standing-room area.

The lives of lower-class persons were difficult; no doubt that members of the upper class were often cruel to them, and they were no doubt often cruel to each other as well. It is safe to surmise that they were frequently subject to the emotion of schadenfreude, delight in another’s misfortune.  C and D men and women themselves, we can imagine their delight as they saw a vain B-man being humiliated before their eyes, and thus brought down to their level or even lower. It must have been a good vicarious feeling of not being the lowest of the low—at least while the play lasted.

Shakespeare, the quintessential man of theater, to Milton’s disgust, wanted his plays to be successful among all members of society.  He also had a great sense of humor; the B-men’s humiliations provide great comedy.  But they are much more than that; Shakespeare treats his B-men with empathy.  One of the many delights of Shakespeare is his objectivity; even many of his minor characters are portrayed with an uncanny psychological depth.  In the case of the three humiliated B-men we shall now discuss, we see what neither the groundlings nor what the characters of the play see: the humanity of the humiliated.  Shakespeare neither idealizes nor demonizes these minor characters. When we judge others harshly, we always overlook their humanity; Shakespeare, like nature, was incapable of such superficiality. His B-men transcend their humiliations in various ways and to varying degrees, as we shall now see.

Caliban

Of the three humiliated secondary characters under discussion, Caliban is perhaps the most interesting.  He is the only one of the three who undergoes a transformation.  In fact, he is the only person in The Tempest to significantly change during the course of the play, with the possible exception of Alonso, who has a change of heart with the help of Prospero’s magic.  Alonso’s transformation is sudden; Caliban's occurs slowly and we witness it in detail.

Although unaware of this at the beginning, he is burdened by his heritage, the source of his inferiority.  His mother was an evil witch, Sycorax, and his father was a minor devil, Setebos.  Caliban is the issue of their congress, most likely during a witches sabbath.  The pair, deformed by evil, pass on their deformities to their son.  He appears to be half man, half beast; he is called "monster" by Trinculo and Stefano, two hapless low-lifes in the play.

Sycorax, banned from her native Algiers to the island on which the play takes place, gives birth to Caliban on the island, and dies soon thereafter.  He has lived like a beast, but an intelligent one, without language.  Prospero, banned from Milan after his brother usurped his throne, arrives on the island with his toddler daughter, Miranda, whom he adores.

Twelve years have passed before the play begins. Prospero, through his benign sorcery, arranges a shipwreck; Alonso and his entourage had been traveling from Tunis, returning home to Naples after the marriage of his daughter, Claribel, at Tunis.  Prospero will use his magic to achieve a reconciliation between Alonzo and him, and seal the new peace with the marriage of his daughter with Alonzo’s son, Ferdinand.

Prospero forgives his peers, but remains hostile and unforgiving to Caliban throughout. 

Shakespeare loved symmetry, and often created parallel subplots and parallel characters. In The Tempest, for instance, both Alonzo and Prospero have jealous brothers.  Another duo is a pair of contrasts, Ariel, a spirit, a thing of air, and Caliban,  a creature of earth.  Both were present on the island before Prospero’s arrival.  Ariel had been imprisoned in a cloven pine for refusing to carry out Sycorax’s evil commands. Prospero frees him and requires that Ariel serve him until his goal is accomplished, the marriage of his daughter and his return to Milan as Duke. In contrast to Ariel's durance, Prospero has imprisoned Caliban in a rock. A leafy prison had been Ariel’s, a hard, earthly prison for Caliban; Shakespeare uses this device as a concrete illustration of their different natures.

What was Caliban’s crime?  When Miranda and Prospero first arrived, Prospero took kindly to Caliban. The latter confirms this:

Thou strok’st me and made much of me, wouldst give me

Water with berries in’t, and teach me how

To name the bigger light and how the less

That burn by day and night.  And then I loved thee

And showed thee all the qualities o’th’ isle:

The fresh spring, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.

--1.2, lines 113-118

Caliban will pass through four stages until he reaches what I call “low-caste enlightenment.” In the first stage, before the arrival of Miranda and Prospero, he lived in harmony with nature.  He had no idea that he was a “self”—he had no language; he also had no idea that he was deformed, until he was able to contrast himself with those who were fully human.  This stage continues after his contact with civilization, since Prospero, as the above lines indicate, took kindly to him and educated him.  He was part of a loving family for the first time in his life.

Stage ll begins with Prospero’s rejection, who now considers him to be a “poisonous slave, got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam.”  --1.2 lines 119-120. What is the cause of this severity?  Prospero explains the change as follows:

                                                  Thou most lying slave,

Whom stripes may move, not kindness. I have used thee,

Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee

In mine own cell till thou didst seek to violate

The honor of my child.

--1.2, 144-148

Prospero is being unjust here, and Shakespeare subtly indicates why this is so.  Caliban, a child of nature and now a man of nature, gives in to his sexual desires as naturally as a bird or a bee does.  There is no indication that Prospero ever inculcated in Caliban his views of sexual morality.  I think the former viewed the latter as a humanoid, who, as a beast, would not be attracted to his daughter.  This was a mistake, which was compounded by the fact that the former Duke of Milan lodged Caliban in his cell and left his daughter and him alone from time to time.  Shakespeare gives further reasons for Prospero’s fury.  He is very much opposed to premarital sex.  He later warns Ferdinand, soon to be Miranda’s husband:

If thou dost break her virgin-knot before

All sanctimonious ceremonies may

With full and holy rite be ministered,

No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall

To make this contract grow, but barren hate,

Sour-eyed disdain, and discord shall bestrew

With union of your bed with weeds so loathly

That you shall hate it both.

--4.1, lines 15-22

Prospero views premarital sex to be contrary to cosmic law.  This view, combined with Caliban’s animalistic innocence, proved to be a toxic combination.

During Stage ll, the exile of Caliban from paradise, he gives Prospero as good as he gets.  When Prospero mentions Caliban's attempted assault, the latter replies defiantly: Oh, ho! Oh, ho! Would’t had been done!/Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else/This isle with Calibans! --1.2, 149-151. 

He is not repentant. He accuses Prospero of stealing what is rightfully his: This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak’st from me—1.2, lines 151-152.

He considers himself to be the equal of Prospero, the only difference in Caliban's mind is that one has magical powers which enable him to dominate, while the other, unlike Ariel, has none.

Prospero punishes Caliban for his defiance with great severity:

For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,

Side-stiches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins

Shall forth at vast of night that they may work

All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinched

As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging

Than bees that made ‘em.

--1:2, lines 125-130.

This sets the stage for Caliban’s humiliation, which occurs in the second scene  of the second act.

Caliban begins the scene in a debilitated state, having been weakened by Prospero’s torments:

Their pricks at my footfall; sometimes am I

All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues

Do hiss me into madness.

--2.2, lines 12-14

Prospero has cast a spell on most of the shipwrecked travelers; they sleep until Prospero awakes them at the end of the play. Trinculo, Alonso’s drunken jester, and Stefano, Alonso’s drunken butler, are too insignificant to have been hypnotized, and explore the island.  The encounter between these two ‘low-lifes’ and Caliban is one of Shakespeare’s greatest comic scenes. 

Caliban mistakes Trinculo for one of the spirits sent by Prospero to torment him:

Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me

For bringing wood in slowly.  I’ll fall flat

Perchance he will not mind me.

                           
--2:2, lines 15-17

I will now quote from my 2015 essay, Caliban Explained, which can be accessed on my blog:

 As a result of Prospero's severe punishments, we begin the scene with Caliban in a state close to madness, which partially excuses his subsequent behavior.  A second exculpatory factor is that Caliban has never seen any other humans except Miranda and Prospero; it is not surprising that Caliban would mistake the ridiculous duo of Trinculo and Stephano as being god-like, since Prospero had been the god, as it   were, of his youth.  Another factor that leads to Caliban's   pathetic lack of judgment is that Stephano plies him with alcohol; this is his first encounter with the liquid which   has been a major cause of unseemly behavior since time immemorial. The drunken Caliban acts like an idiot, and   we're not surprised.  All these, however, are secondary causes; the root cause of Caliban's self-abasement is rage, which distorts his judgment.   His physical torment and mental anguish, for which he believes,  with some reason, that Prospero is responsible, have broken his spirit.  He is now hell-bent on the removal of the source of his torment; his passion now is to revenge himself by seeing to it that   Prospero is murdered.

 This desire is as irrational as it is immoral.  Previously,   when Prospero verbally abused him, Caliban, despite the    threat of torment, gave Prospero as good as he got.  Now   he is willing to be the most debased slave imaginable,   provided that Stephano follows his will and murders   Prospero.  (Note that even here Caliban's intelligence is   not  completely impaired; he quickly realizes that the   jester, Trinculo, is indeed a fool and commences to   worship   only Stephano, the less ridiculous member of this   ridiculous pair.)

 I would like to call attention to the imagery of Caliban's   self-abasement.  One of the starkest demonstrations of   social inferiority occurs when a man kisses another man's   foot.  One would think that kneeling before Stephano   would be enough for him;  Caliban, however, offers to kiss   Stephano's foot not once, but four times:

I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island;
And I will kiss thy foot.  I prithee be my god.
                                                      --2:2, lines 45-46

I'll kiss thy foot.  I'll swear myself thy subject.
                                                 (same scene, line 149)

How does thy honor?  Let me lick thy shoe.
                                                --3:2, line 24)

 And finally:

Do that good mischief which may make this island
Thine own forever, and I, thy Caliban,
For aye thy footlicker.
                                 --4:1, lines 252-254

 The monster seeks disgrace too much. This very striking   and very consistent imagery of self-abasement indicates   that Caliban is now, to use a modern term, mentally ill.   Once again, Shakespeare anticipates psychological   discoveries that were to come centuries later.  We would   now call Caliban a masochist; underlying masochism, as   psychologists assert, is anger.  Caliban can't handle his   rage; he eliminates himself, as it were, by becoming   Stephano's 'footlicker'. He 'solves' his dilemma through   fantasy--he imagines Stephano to be the god that will   accomplish what the broken Caliban desires but cannot do   himself. Caliban reduces his anxiety by projecting his   rage onto Stephano; he eliminates his own self by creating   an imaginary ideal self who will do his will.  The prescient   Shakespeare knew full well what we know now: masochism   is much more about control than it is about abasement.
 
That Stephano, a god only in Caliban's fantasies, has   become the latter's ideal self is readily apparent. Caliban,   who had thought of himself as the rightful king of the   island, now wants Stephano to reign in his place. Caliban,   who is sexually attracted to Miranda and had wanted to   create Calibans with her, now wants his new god to have   her: 

Ay, lord.  She will become thy bed, I warrant,/And bring thee forth brave brood.  
                                    --3:1, lines 104-105

 When Stephano seemingly agrees to murder Prospero,   Caliban is deliriously triumphant:

No more dams I'll make for fish,
     Not fetch in firing
     At requiring,
Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish,
       'Ban, 'Ban, Ca-Caliban
       Has a new master: get a new man,
Freedom, high-day! high-day, freedom!  Freedom, high-day, freedom!
                                                    --3:1, lines 176-184

 Freedom?  Exchanging  servitude for abject slavery is   hardly liberation.  Poor Caliban!

                        from Caliban Explained by Thomas Dorsett

This is the third stage in Caliban’s development, characterized by raging masochism.  The beast-man has been broken by the spirit- demons who have been tormenting him; his sense of self is further weakened by alcohol.  He no longer has agency; he has to bow down and worship someone in order to induce the latter to carry out his will.  This is a classic case of “identification with the aggressor” except for the fact that Shakespeare anticipated this condition several centuries in advance.

The plot to murder Propsero is thwarted by the invisible Ariel who has overheard Caliban’s machinations.  In another comic scene, Trinculo and Stefano, much to the determined Caliban’s dismay, are sidetracked by fancy clothing hanging on trees; these decoys were magically placed by Ariel on the trees to divert them.  Prospero, aware now of this vian attempt on his life, is furious.  The following stage direction occurs at this point in the play:

A noise of hunters heard.  Enter diverse Spirits in shape of dogs and hounds, hunting them about.  Prospero and Ariel setting them on.

This breaks Caliban even more; when Prospero calls off these hounds of hell at the end of the play, we find Caliban at stage four, which I call the stage of his “low-caste enlightenment."  Caliban now accepts his B-status.  He no longer considers himself to belong to the upper caste.  He no longer rebels against his fate. 

It is interesting that Prospero still accepts responsibility for Caliban, although he continues to treat him with harshness. He addresses Alonso, in whose employ are Tricnulo and Stfano:

Two of these fellows you

Must know and own; this thing of darkness I

Acknowledge mine.

--5:1, lines 276-278

A reconciliation might be in the works, but not the kind Caliban had wanted in the beginning; if it occurs, it will be between a master and an inferior. Prospero advised Caliban to seek his pardon.  Caliban replies:

Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter

And seek for grace.  What a thrice double-ass

Was I to take this drunkard for a god

And worship this dull fool.

--5:1, lines 296-299

Caliban cannot be tricked again.  His intelligence is intact.  He has learned his lesson.

The groundlings in the audience have had their laughs; they must have been delighted to witness the comeuppance of someone who by appearance at least is lower even than they.  Schadenfreude, pure and simple.  Yet for more subtler readers of Shakespeare, Caliban's transformation is remarkable.  He has, in the words of the Shaker hymn, "come down to where he ought to be."  Is it fair?  No.  But it is his destiny, a destiny against which he no longer struggles. Just as Camus envisioned Sisyphus as being content with his lot, one can imagine Caliban being happier now and at peace.  It is the happiness of low-caste enlightenment.  He is a B-man now and he knows and accepts his second-class status; his servitude will continue, but his humiliations are over.

Malvolio

Of the three humiliated B-men discussed in this essay, Malvolio, (from the Italian Malvoglio, evil-willed in the sense of being cantankerous), is the least sympathetic of the three.  He is arrogant, condescending, humorless, mean, and, as if that weren’t enough, not very bright as well.  In the groundling-sense, he deserves to be humiliated.  In the noble-sense, he indeed deserves to be taken down, but perhaps not so cruelly. There is room for at least some compassion and empathy for Malvolio, as we shall see.

We first encounter Malvolio in the company of the witty Clown and the shrewd “waiting gentlewoman to Olivia”. Maria, and Olivia, to whom Malvolio serves as steward. The Clown and Maria have been exchanging witticisms as Olivia and Malvolio enter.  Olivia proves herself to be as clever in her ripostes as the others. 

Clown  Good madonna why mourn’st thou?

Olivia  Good fool, for my brother’s death.

Clown  I think his soul is in hell, Madonna.

Olivia  I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

Clown  The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your bother's soul, being in heaven.  Take away the fool, gentlemen.

--1:5, lines 59-64

Shakespeare here establishes Olivia’s winsome nature.  She is in deep mourning, yet does not get angry; her sense of humor remains intact.  She is also moved by what the fool says, and turns to Malvolio:

Olivio: What think you of this fool, Malvolio?  Doth he not mend?

Malvolio Yes, and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him.  Infirmity that decays the wise doth ever make the better fool.

--!:5, lines 65-70

Shakespere here establishes Malvolio’s character as well: this is a bitter, vicious response, completely out of line with the witty and light dialogue of the others.  Another important factor here: Malvolio misunderstands Olivia, an indication of his decidedly unsharp wit. Olivia uses the word “mend” to indicate that the fool is improving. Malvolio hears what he wants to here: the fool is getting worse.

To Malvolio’s reply to Olivia quoted above, the Fool responds with witty sarcasm;

God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly.  Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox, but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.

--1:5, lines 70-74

This results in the following exchange between Olivia and Malvolio, which contrasts Malvolio’s sour and Olivia’s sweet disposition:

Olivia:  How say you to that Malvolio?

Malvolio: I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal  I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone.  Look you now, he’s out of his guad already.  Unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged.  I protest I take these wise men that crow so at these set kind of fools no better than the fools’ zanies.

Olivia: Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite.  To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon bullets.  There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.

--1:5, lines 75-87

Olivia is saying, in effect: “Lighen up, Malvolio!” But Malvolio can’t lighten up. Why?

I imagine that Malvolio has few, if any, friends.  His long-term isolation has resulted in a deep sense of inadequacy. He overcompensates his feelings of inferiority by imagining himself morally superior to those around him.  He is a Puritan’s Puritan; he lacks the ability to mix in with ordinary folk.  He also imagines that he is noble and deserves to be recognized as such.

Malvolio is furious that he has no power.  When Malvolio requests the clown, Sir toby and Sir Andrew to keep the noise down, they ignore him.  His rude treatment of them, however, rankles.

Maria, to the delight of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, two dissolute royals, devises a plan to humiliate Malvolio.  She knows his personality well, and thus knows well how to bring him down.  She writes a letter in Olivia’s hand, which implies that Olivia is in love with him.  He is instructed to wear cross-gartered yellow stockings and to simply smile and not say a word when Olivia and he meet.  (We discover later that Maria knew that Olivia hates the color yellow).

Sir Toby and Sir Andrew hide, waiting for Malvolio to find the letter.  They overhear him “practicing behavior to his own shadow.”  He pretends to be Count Malvolio, the husband of Olivia—The astute Maria knew his weaknesses well. She includes in her letter the following lines, perhaps the most famous of the play: “In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness.  Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”--3:1, lines 125-128

Malvolio in his vanity does not comprehend the irony behind these words.  Maria is letting him know that he deserves no greatness at all.

3.4 is the scene of Mavolio’s humiliation.  Olivia, awaiting the arrival of Orsino, the Duke of Illryia, wonders, “How shall I feast him?”  She continues: “—Where’s Malvolio?  He is sad and civil, /And suits well for a servant with my fortunes/Where is Malvolio?” (3.4 lines 5-7).  She wants to see him, known for his sober advice, to still her worry.  A sober Malvolio, however, is not forthcoming.  Maria warns Olivia that Malvolio has been acting very strangely, as if he were possessed.

What follows is hilarious.  Malvolio arrives in a ridiculous outfit and continues to bat his eyes, while he gives Olivia precocious glances, like an infatuated inarticulate teen. Olivia thinks he has gone mad, and leaves to attend to something else. Malvolio still doesn’t understand that he's been tricked. He still believes Olivia loves him.

The letter also instructed him to be rude: “Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants, let thy tongue tang with arguments of state, put thyself into the trick of singularity.” This enables Malvolio to show his true nature: he belittles everyone, and not in a humorous way.  Sir Toby, after Malvolio leaves, says, “Come, we’ll have him in a dark room and bound…”

This is perhaps carrying the joke too far, but that is how madmen were treated in those days. Shakespeare allows not only the groundlings, but every member of the audience to laugh and indulge in schadenfreude, for we can have little sympathy for the obnoxious and belligerent steward.

In 4.2 Malvolio’s humiliation continues.  He is in chains in a dark room.  The clown pretends to be a magistrate, and teases him unmercifully in a comic scene. Malvolio relates his abuse to the clown who he thinks is a magistrate: Sir Topaz, never was man thus wronged” (line 25). In line 82, Malvolio says “Fool, there was never man so notoriously abused,” and finally in line 86 “They have propertied me, keep me in darkness, send ministers to me—assess—and do all they can to face me out of my wits.”

"They have propertied me," that is, treated me as property, debased me into a thing—this is something no one deserves, not even Malvolio.  Once again, Shakespeare shows sympathy for a person for whom no one else feels pity—at least in this scene.  He sees beyond the blindspots of his characters.  Malvolio is a vain lout, no doubt about that, but his degree of suffering puts our schadenfreude into question. 

The resolution comes in 5:1.  Malvolio has been freed and is brought before Olivia. He complains to her, “Madam, you have done me wrong, notorious wrong” Yes, Malvolio has been wronged, not by the kind Olivia.  She immediately recognizes the handwriting of the letter to be that of Maria.  Malvolio’s humiliation is now complete.

What does Olivia say? “Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee!” --5:1, line 157

She does not laugh or even smile.  She reacts with pity and compassion, in accordance with her nature. She is on a morally higher level than that of the B-level conspirators. (As we have seen, Prospero's fury prevents him from pitying Caliban; the loving Olivia knows Malvolio's faults well, but does not judge him.  Wise and kind, she is tout savior, c'est tout pardonner incarnate). 

Malvolio leaves in a rage, addressing his tormentors with the following words, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you” line 364.

Malvolio is incapable of a variation on Caliban’s  "I'll be wise hereafter, and seek for grace.What a thrice double-ass was I..."  What a thrice double ass is Malvolio!  His ego is too fragile and his vanity is too strong and his downfall too complete.  But Twelfth Night is a comedy; Orsino, Olivia, Sebastian and Viola will share a very happy ending; there is, however, a hint, just a hint, of a resolution for Malvolio as well. After Olivia expresses her empathy and pity for Malvolio, Orisno says to an attendant: "Pursue him and entreat him to a peace” (line 166).  Shakespeare's profound attention to detail amazes: notice Orsino asks the attendant to entreat him to a peace, not simply to peace.  Malvolio is not going to attain the peace he had wanted.  He will have to give up his vain and exalted view of himself; he will have to “come down to where he ought to be”; he will have to accept his B-man status and accept gratefully whatever crutches his new humility can provide for his figuratively broken limbs.  This change will be hard for someone as petty and proud as Malvolio, but it is possible. He does have the support of his lady and new lord which can prove significant.  Shakespeare leaves his future in doubt, for unlike that of the A-people, the future of a B-man is as not important to the resolution of the play. 

Can people change?  Even a person with the character flaws of a Malvolio?  Opinions will differ--provided that one evinces an interest in a B-man's fate--for how one sees Malvolio’s future depends on how one sees oneself.

Parolles

All's Well that Ends Well is not among Shakespeare's most popular play, but I have a fondness for it, nevertheless.  In the play, Helena, ward to the Countess Rousillion, is not high-born, but possesses inner royalty to the highest degree.  She represents feminine wisdom, an intuition unmatched by anyone else in the play.  She cures the King of what he thought was an incurable disease; she requests that as a reward she would be able to choose any man to be her husband.  Her wish is granted; she chooses Bertram, the son of Countess Rousillion.  Older persons in the play, such as the king and the Countess of Rousillion, have, due to the wisdom that comes with age, no problem in recognizing Helena's astonishing nobility; they bless the marriage. Bertram, a callow youth, recoils at the prospect of marriage with Helena.  She is low-born, and not worthy of him--so he thinks.  He is forced into marriage, but thereupon goes off to war without consummating it.  He vows, a vow in keeping with the fairy-tale nature of much of the plot, that he will take on the role of husband once she gets the family ring off his finger and he impregnates her--which, in Bertram's view, has a zero chance of becoming reality. With much contrivance, this comes to pass and all does indeed end well.

Helena's mystic wisdom enables her to see what no one else sees: Bertram, a noble youth whose actions are abominable, will eventually become a noble man, worthy of her. Helena's wisdom is innate; Bertram must become wise through experience.  He gains this experience as a valiant soldier; he finally realizes Helena's worth at the end of the play, and all ends happily.

Parolles, a foppish courtier and companion to Bertram, is all words and no action.  Bertram at the beginning lacks the ability to see through him and is taken in by his words.  Bertram, who witnesses Parolles's humiliation, realizes at last that Parolles is a fool; this sudden realization is paralleled by Bertam's sudden realization at the end of the play that Helena is a very good match indeed.

Helena, in keeping with her wise nature, sees through Parolles from the very beginning. She lighly mocks him for being a coward, "You go so much backward when you fight," --1.1, line 187.

Lefeu, a French lord who is an old, experienced soldier, sees through him as well: he refers to Parolles with one of my favorite Shakesperian put-downs: "There is no kernel in that light nut." Later on, Lefeu addresses the kernelless nut with the following words:

Go to, sir: you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate.  You are a vagabond and no true traveler. You are more saucy with lords and honorable personages that the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry.  You are not worth another word, else I'd call you knave.  I leave you.

--2.3, lines 247-252 

After Lefeu exits, Parolles says the following words to himself: "Good, very good.  It is so, then.  Good, very good. Let it be concealed awhile."

--2.3, lines 253-254

Here we see that Parolles's self-assessment is significantly different from those of Calaban and Malvolio.  In the latter two cases, both characters think that they are, or at least potentially are, alpha males; their humiliations reveal their inferior status.  Parolles, in contrast, knows he's a B-man from the beginning.  He enjoys being at court and knows that the only reason he is permitted there is by pretending to be an A-man.  He is a mouth-hero, a coward, an inveterate liar. That the inexperienced Bertram thinks he is what he says he is satisfies Parolles's vanity--at least for a while.

Parolles's humiliation occurs in the fourth act in a scene which, if acted  well, is as hilarious and as cringeworthy as the humiliations of Caliban and Malvolio.  The soldiers, tired of Parolles's egotism and lies, plot his comeuppance.  They will gather together a band of allied soldiers, none of whom Parolles knows, and surprise him.  They decide to speak a made-up language; one of the soldiers will act as a translator.

They capture the unsuspecting braggart and put a hood over his head. Shakespeare has a lot of linguistic fun throughout this scene:

First Lord Dumane: Thoca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.
All: Cargo, cargo, cargo, villianda par cargo.
(They seize Parolles and blindfold him.)
Parolles: Oh, ransom, ransom! Do not hide mine eyes.
First soldier: Boskos thromuldo boskos.
Parolles: I know you are the Moscows' regiment,
And I shall lose my life for want of language,
If there be here German or Dane, Low Dutch,
Italian, or French, let him speak to me.
I'll discover that which shall undo the Florentine.
First soldier: Boskos vauvado.  I understand thee and can speak their tongue.  Kerelybonto. Sir, betake thee to thy faith, for seventeen poniards are at the bosom.

--4:1, lines 60-71


I included Parolles's reply here as an indication of the subtlety of Shakesperian characterization.  Parolles, whose name is derived from parole, the French word for word, is the quintessential courtier.  That he is intelligent is evinced by the fact that he is multilingual. Although clever cowards could thrive at court, they come up short on a battlefield.

The translator threatens him with death if he doesn't reveal all that he knows. They send for Bertram.  When he arrives, he remains silent; Parolles is unaware of his presence.  The petrified courtier blabbers out top-secret details about the army. As one might expect, he is eventually asked what he thinks of Bertram to whom he has been an apparently faithful companion.  

Parolle's replies: "....for I knew the young Count to be a dangerous and lascivious boy who is a whale to virginity and devours all the fry it finds."

 --4:1, lines 211-213

This is basically true, but Bertram is understandably furious.  Parlloes the courtier just can't stop talking and gives his captors a lot more denunciation than requested:

"He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister.  For rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus.  He professes not keeping of oaths; in breaking 'em he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie...etc." 

--4:3 lines 241-244.

After Parolles begs and grovels for his life, his hood is removed; he is confronted by Bertram, his only "friend" and patron, whom he has just vilely denounced.  They all mock the "good captain."

If this were a Russian play, Parolles would perhaps hang his head in shame, say nothing, and exit.  Later on, Bertram might have been informed of Parolles's suicide, which would pass with little comment.  But this is not a Russian play: Parolles replies with the following words: "Who cannot be crushed with a plot?"

After everyone leaves, the disgraced courtier says the following remarkable soliloquy:

Yet I am thankful.  If my heart were great
'Twould burst at this.  Captain I'll be no more,
But I will eat, and drink, and sleep as soft
As captain shall.  Simply the thing I am
Shall make me live.  Who know himself a braggart,
Let him fear this: for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust sword, cool blushes, and Parolles live
Safest in shame.  Being fooled, by fool'ry thrive;
There's place and means for every man alive.

--4:3, lines 313-322

As stated previously, All's Well That Ends Well is not counted among Shakespeare's best plays.  There are no speeches that match the eloquence of those in his better-known masterworks.  For me, however, Parolles's speech quoted above stands out.  Sometimes Shakespeare's soliloquies remind me of operatic arias; if this speech had been written to music, I would call it "The Greatest Humiliated B-Man's Aria of All Time." Despite his humiliation, Parolles believes--correctly, I think--that he has a right to live, a right valid as anyone else's.  He has no vanity, he has no desires.  Although he played the egotist, it was really a game.  Now that that game is over, all isn't over; the game of life continues.  He does not suffer  from failure; he is, and always was, beyond ambition.

I remember reading about Buddhist nuns who were forced into prostitution, yet managed, as true Buddhists, to preserve their equanimity.  Parolles is a little like that; nature has put him in a vile place, yet he vows to make the best of it, even enjoy it, as the following words he says to himself indicate: "Being fooled, by fool'ry thrive; There's place for every man alive."

Parolles might be a windbag and a coward, but he is a wise windbag and a noble coward. Life is more important to him than is his reputation.  He, too, is an example of low-caste enlightenment.

Lefeu, noticing that Parolles's boasting is a thing of the past, takes him in as a servant.  All ends as well as can be expected for a humiliated B-man.

Conclusion

Groundlings--and other spectators as well--cannot help but find the humiliations of Calaban, Malovio and Parolles to be funny, often hilariously so.  There is, however, a cringeworthy element as well: no one deserves to be humiliated to such a degree. Shakespeare in his comic and cosmic wisdom invites us to go beyond schadenfreude.  We see three men who have done wrong, yet who have been done wrong as well.  Caliban becomes wiser; his sufferings forced him to give up his ambitions and accept himself for who he is, or better: he accepts the role that fate has given him. Malvolio's ridiculous and vain desire to be great is crushed; we pity him and hope and trust that the goodness of Olivia and Sebastain will eventually make his life bearable.  Parolles's wisdom is even greater than Caliban's: he seems to know that "all the world's a stage and men and woman merely players."  (Note, "merely" means "entirely" in Elizabethan English).  He accepts the diminished role fate gives him after he has been found out.  He also intends to thrive in that role.  He even seems to surmise that the self is an illusion. What more can be expected of any man?

Before Parolles is captured, the First Lord Dumaine says the  following aside: "Is it possible he should know what he is and be that he is?"--4:1, line 40-41.  Parolles is proof that this is indeed possible.  He can't help who he is; his wise choice is to accept and to continue to be that which he is.

Some are not born great.  Some do not achieve greatness.  Some do not have greatness thrust upon them. Yet all have the greatest gift of all: consciousness, conscious life. This is Parolles's unspoken credo.

Shakespeare delights, yet teaches as well: if you are a B-person, give up your vanity and accept yourself for who you are, and if you're humiliated, survive it and learn from it.    Grass is as good as redwoods.  The Prosperos and Bertrams of the world do not believe this and will continue to look up to the redwoods and down at the grass.  Smile, nevertheless, and remember one more thing: life is fair--but only on the very grandest scale.

“

Second New Year's Message, January 14, 2018

Now that the War On Christmas, imagined by Fox News and its premier viewer. Donald Trump,  is over for another year; now that their attempt at imagining that a combination of Christianity and Capitalism has turned the nation into one huge department store  called Goys R Us; now that a blast of arctic weather has kept many indoors for a while, some of whom might have more time for reflection, it is time to turn our attention once again to figurative blasts of arctic weather that are responsible for much of  our nation's current chilly malaise, a self-inflicted case of inner global cooling.

This article assumes that you have long since figured out that Trump is a flaming narcissist; that he is incompetent; unfit for office; a barely literate person (un)leading the most powerful nation on earth during these best and worst of times, a present full of promise, yet fraught with ever-present danger, and that, for our country's sake and for the sake of the world,  he should never have left the unreality of Reality TV, the audience of which formed a significant base of his supporters--most of whom alas! continue to think he's the best thing to come their way since Fox News, prayer, and automatic weapons.

Someone recently told me that while the wound Trump has already inflicted on our country and on the free world is deep, there will be a recovery, a time of healing, which, let's hope, begins with the November 2018 mid-term elections.  Let's hope that's true, I replied; deep wounds, however, leave deep scars. I am still cautiously optimistic; I believe a lot of healthy tissue will remain. The body politic might limp for a while, but will walk on in reasonable health--provided that we wake up, that is, and see to it that it gets the care that it and we, the people, need.

Two serious threats to our well-being will be discussed here, one of which, let us hope, will not last, the other one, more insidious, has already caused considerable damage.  The first is Trump's attempts to weaken the checks and balances, which are mainstays of democracy; the other is unregulated capitalism, which Trump indeed fosters, but has been wreaking its slow havoc for many years.

First Threat: Undermining Checks and Balances

When Americans of my generation (I'm in my eighth decade) studied the American Revolution in high school, we learned the catchphrase, "Taxation without representation is tyranny," just as we had memorized, in another context, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," doggerel we had committed to memory several grades earlier.  The taxation slogan, popular during the Revolutionary War, indicates a major and valid concern of the Founding Fathers. best expressed by a great president four score and seven years later, the hope that "the government of the people, by the people and of the people shall not perish from this earth."  It was a new and glorious adventure, since just about the entire world was under autocratic rule at that time.  George Washington was to be our president, not our king.  In order to help assure that the government of the new country would never devolve into one headed by a  tyrant, we elected a paper king, as it were, the Constitution; we would be ruled by laws, not by the unelected; Louis IV's "L'État, c'est moi," ("the State is I"),  had become the Founding Fathers' "The State is us,'' "L'État, c'est nous").  A key principle of the Constitution is the establishment of checks and balances as essential safeguards of freedom.  Of utmost importance here is the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech and the freedom of the press.  Tyrants and these two freedoms mix as well as mashed potatoes and motor oil; history provides many examples of figurative versions of this very unsavory dish, which has poisoned the well-being of countless millions.  Equally important as the First Amendment is the separation of powers, enshrined in the Constitution as well.  The three branches of government, the executive, the legislative and the judiciary each have their essential functions and, as long as their continued function remains a national priority, they will remain alembics through which no despot can hope to pass.

Although I am cautiously optimistic that our institutions will survive Trump, they are indeed under threat, perhaps as never before.  In Trump's Orwellian world, real news is called fake news and vice versa.  Any report that is critical of him, which is now just about all objective reporting, is deemed mendacious.  It's even worse than that.  The First Amendment assures that everyone has the right to speak her mind, which means, since we are all human and fallible, every individual she or he can be wrong.  The Amendment implies that a free and honest debate should separate the wheat from the chaff.  Alas, a lot of chaff passes for wheat these days.  The degree of polarization of our society today is very sad indeed; we tend to argue at each other, rather than debate with each other. Worse, many of us get our news from unreliable sources, inaccuracies at best and lies at worst that not only apply no pins to our ignorant bubbles, but provide us with a soapy dopey goo with which we continue to increase them.

The weakening of First Amendment rights is, sad to write, not the only problem. Insidious attacks on the separation of powers have become more overt during the Trump administration as well. It has long since been well known to the more astute observes among us that Trump possesses the traits of a narcissist to an alarming degree.  A statement by Michael Wolff, the author of the Trump exposé, Fire and Fury, indicates a severe character flaw in the president.  He can't abide playing second fiddle to anyone.  It's all about him. This prevents him from surrounding himself with first-rate minds which can guide and challenge him. He is instead advised by relatives, by the callow Hope Hicks, and by that obnoxious young sycophant-bull dog, Stephen Miller.  What's worse, he's playing on a toy fiddle without ever having taken lessons.  He doesn't read, is only semi-literate, has little political knowledge and almost no desire to learn--and thinks he's "like, really smart"--"a stable genius."  If these flaws weren't enough, he also shamelessly and openly displays our national shame, racism.

It's not surprising then to discover that he doesn't know how politics works and tends toward authoritarian rule, a government  of Trump, by Trump and for Trump.  He  doesn't understand, or at least refuses to abide by, the separation of powers doctrine. Our Kiddie King Louie actually said this: "I have an absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department."  He was furious when Jeffrey Sessions recused himself for having lied to Congress about meetings with Russians.  Trump, I think, really believes that the primary duty of the Attorney General is to protect him, and not to serve the American people.  Currently, a group of politicians who are putting their own need for power above country, are doing their best to undermine the independence and integrity of Robert Mueller, who is in charge of the investigation into Russian collusion and into Trump-family financial shenanigans.

Second Threat: No Checks and Skewed Balances

The Constitution protects individual freedoms but does not assure freedoms from want.  The Constitution predates the rise of industrial capitalism; threats to inequality hardly kept Thomas Jefferson up at night, who, like so many of the elite of his day, "owned" slaves. The underside of capitalism, immortalized by Dickens, was yet to come.  A good analogy is the exposure of Northern Hemisphere songbirds to cats.  These birds did not co-evolve with cats, who were brought over from Europe; the former possess little defenses against the latter.  Everyone who lets his cat out should place a bell around its neck as a little minatory tocsin; if birds and cats had evolved together, Northern Hemisphere birds wouldn't need such a warning; with the help of visual, aural, and olfactory clues, they would naturally be as leery of cats as antelope are of lions.

Great Britain has come a long way from Dickensonian sqaulor, the United States not so much.  What are some of the checks and balances to the inequality which are inevitable byproducts of unregulated capitalism?  I suggest a few: the right to work at a living wage when work is available, adequate social support when it is not; the right to affordable health care; the right to adequate housing, the right to a safe environment and access to affordable education. Most Western countries have come a long way to realizing these goals; why do we, the richest country in the world, continue to be outliers?

Capitalism is the engine of wealth. fuel by expertise and innovation.  It tends to view workers as things, however, and people are not things. 

The threats to democracy by the increasing inequality fostered by the current regime is truly alarming.  Trump promised to "drain the swamp"; he lied, of course, and packed the swamp with ribbeting oligarchs.

I am cautiously optimistic that we can heal our serious Trumpian wounds, bear our deep Trumpian scars, and get back on a straighter and narrower path, but only if enough citizens resist and become politically active.  If we are unable to defeat the kleptocrats in next yea'rs mid-term elections, for instance, we will continue to be exploited by the government we deserve.  

New Year's Message, January 1. 2018

In the Northern Hemisphere, where I live, New Year's arrives shortly after the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year.  Two holidays around that time of year, Hanukkah and Christmas, attempt to mitigate the darkness outside with light, the menorah having a prominent place in Jewish homes, and Christmas decorations in Christian and secular ones. Darkness within the human heart is, of course, the more significant problem; the long nights of winter are much more benign than dark nights of the soul.

As a nation, we are, as it were, somewhere between Thanksgiving, which occurs on the fourth Thursday of November, and the winter solstice; our nation's light, here and around the world, is decreasing, no doubt about that.  In any nation's future, the renewal of a more democratic and just spring is not inevitable; it will take a lot of hard work during days of severe weather.

It is becoming increasingly evident that the current bout of climate change is caused by our president and his enablers.

Neither Millard Fillmore nor Franklin Pierce, whom Walt Whitman excoriated for policies that helped bring on our country's greatest crisis, the Civil War, can still be considered the worst American presidents in history; that dubious distinction already belongs to Donald Trump.

He is weakening the country on all fronts.  Our allies have painfully come to the conclusion that the United States is a country in retreat.  By withdrawing support for the Trans Pacific Partnership that fostered economic ties between eleven nations, for instance, Trump has given China the opportunity to step in and take the lead.

On the domestic front, everything he has been doing serves to increase inequality, both in the economic and social senses of that word--the recently passed tax legislation is a good example of the former, while his demonizing of black athletes who protest against injustice is a good example of the latter. His attacks on journalists who report things he doesn't like, designating their reporting as "fake news" is another example of national damage.  The list goes on.

The most important institutions which enable democracy to thrive, namely, a free press and a system of independent checks and balances, are under attack, let there be no doubt about that.

Recently, a conservative commentator mocked the response of some Democrats to the very regressive tax reform that has recently become law. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader of the House of Representatives, for instance, referred to it as "Armageddon."  The commentator found reactions such as hers to be wild exaggerations; he is right for the wrong reason.  Damage will hardly be noticeable at first.  Inequality will continue to increase, but that tendency has already been the norm for decades.  When a country as great and as powerful as the United States begins to decline, there are many buffers to make that decline bearable for many--at first.  A middle-class family, for instance,will still be able to take the occasional vacation; modern versions of the Brady Family will still be able to watch favorite shows on cable, etc., while the price of higher education for their children gradually becomes more and more unaffordable. Bridges in need of repair will continue to function--until they don't.  Members of poorer families are already used to the fact that  public transportation is dismal, and will hardly notice when the bus that takes them to work becomes somewhat less dependable.  Decline tends to proceed by whimpers and not by bangs.

An insidious decline is all the more dangerous, however, since by the time it elicits effective opposition, it may be too late.  Once you start descending a mountain, the easiest thing to do is to continue your descent; it takes  a lot of determination to stop, turn around, and begin heading up again. Democracy cannot be taken for granted; it is fragile, like an aging father who needs ongoing medical care.  In democracy's case, however, every one of us is the doctor.  Too many, far too many of us are practicing quack medicine.

We need to turn off our TVs and join the resistance.  Democracy in the United States has no future.  If that statement proves to be fake news, and I am cautiously optimistic that our descent will be limited, perhaps even reversed; if the future indeed proves to be brighter, however, it will be the result of a significant segment of the population standing up for and fighting for truth.