Download gaps identified between aspiration and reality by the

International Journal on English Language and Literature
ISSN 2321 – 8584
Volume 1, Issue 1
GAPS IDENTIFIED BETWEEN ASPIRATION AND REALITY BY
THE CHARACTERS OF CLIFFORD ODETS IN THE PLAYS
“AWAKE AND SING!” AND “PARADISE LOST”
Mrs. G.Visalam1, Dr. P.Kulalmolial2
Research Scholar, Department of English, Queen Mary’s College, Chennai – 600 004, India,
2
Associate Professor and Head, Department of English, Queen Mary’s College, Chennai – 4, India,
[email protected]
1
ABSTRACT: - This article focuses on the two plays, “Awake and Sing!” and “Paradise Lost” written
by an American playwright named Clifford Odets. The article identified the gap between aspiration
and reality of the American middle class society during 1930s. This article as well depicts the deflated
dreams and the issues faced by middle class people on a day-to-day basis; their depression levels and
their inability to achieve success in life have been deeply analyzed.
Key Words: - Aspiration, Reality, Middle Class Society, Deflated Dreams, Depression, Tragedy
1 INTRODUCTION
Drama lacked its strength because of poor quality projections in the early 1930s and was far from
reality. In the later half of1930s the drama focused on the economic, political, and social issues of the
day and becoming more polemic than literary. Tragedy, which is a show of human worth, had been
replaced by the depiction of twentieth century life. This life is often controlled by materialistic forces
that lacked any aspiration towards the high ideals demanded by tragedy.
A theatre by name “Group Theatre” was formed by a set of playwrights in the motive of playing their
own plays as movies in that theatre. One of the founder member of the group theatre was Clifford
Odets who was affected by one of the worst depression. The statements made by Clifford Odets were
heard between the sophisticated and capitalistic enterprise of the New York commercial theatre.
Odets recognized that society was not solely to be blamed for the failure and suffering of the world
during that period of the century. His plays laid bare anguish and his anger at a spoiled civilization with
rotten values infected the entire society within its reach. His despair maintained a precarious balance
with his persistent idealism, giving rise to desperate need for affirmation. Odets’ despair was captured
in his realistic portrayal of the tenement and the beleaguered family that later rendered in a dramatic
idiom. He had enough confidence in himself to write from his own experience. He was also a poet, and
when the subjective and the objective perspectives merged artistically, Odets’ vision transcended
reality, making of his struggle a powerful version of America’s wider dilemma. In his best plays Odets
succeeded in fusing the contemporary with the poetic, realistic dialogue with symbolic force, anger and
despair with warmth, tenderness, and compassion, to forge a unique and remarkable dramatic idiom.
Clifford Odets, in many of his plays deals with human aspirations and how dreams of the people are
shattered by various factors. As Odets had said,
“I believe in the vast potentialities of mankind. But I see everywhere a wide disparity between what
they can be and what they are” [4].
2 AWAKE AND SING!
The play “Awake and Sing” was opened for public viewing at the Belasco Theatre on February 19,
1935. All the characters of this play struggle for life amidst petty conditions. The play criticizes the
economic structure as it traps people into a treadmill of hopelessness. The playwright examines the
relationships, ambitions and disappointments of a struggling Jewish working class family, named
Bergers.
The characters defined in this play were described largely in terms of their personal aspirations. They
were suspended between the past and the future. The characters’ ambitions were shattered either by
their financial weakness or their own inner spiritual debility. The Bergers, who represent in many way
a typical American family of the 1930’s, are of the working class and are struggling to rise above this
status. The Bergers family was a well known predominant family at those times that have migrated
from Dierdorf, Germany in the late 1850s.
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Ralph, a romantic and naïve dreamer works as a clerk and wants some promotion. Hennie, the
beautiful, self-reliant daughter has many admirers. One of the characters is Schlosser the janitor, whose
wife has deserted him and has his young son with him. The other man is Moe Axelrod, a boarder in the
Berger household, who has lost a leg in the war. The father character named Myron , lives always in
the past and the mother character named Bessie is a strong-willed, dominating lady whose main
concern is to preserve the respectability of the family. When she discovers that Hennie is pregnant, she
gets her married to Sam FeinSchreiber, a lonely, sensitive man who is made to think that the child is
his.
Ralph is shocked when he finds out what his mother has done. He is not able to accept that his
grandfather Jacob, a Marxist idealist has not prevented it. Uncle Morty, a shrewd Businessman, a cynic
completes the family picture. Hennie leaves her husband and child and runs to Cuba with Moe
Axelrod. Ralph becomes a new man spiritually; When Jacob who is a beneficiary of his insurance
policy commits suicide.
This - - I tell you - - Do! Do what is in your heart and carry in yourself a revolution. But you should
act. Not like me. A man who had golden opportunities but drank instead a glass of tea [1].
Uncle Morty is a businessman who is insulted against any tender emotions. But he is a victim of the
capitalist system. Moe Axelrod is another successful businessman who has lost his leg in the war. Both
of these successful characters are deformed either into spiritually and emotionally or into physically
and emotionally. One has to make compromise in order to succeed in a capitalist system. Each is
warped and crippled in his own way and has made the adjustment within himself to attain success.
Ralph and Hennie represent the younger generation. They try to break the fetters of sordid realities
created by their parents. But strangely, winning own struggle creates an uncomfortable situation for the
next generation. Hennie creates a very sordid situation for her child and husband. The child abandoned
by her mother grows up to be a chorus girl.
Hennie’s childhood was quite comfortable. Bessie, the mother, was full of concern for the family. She
was not a dreamer. She is concerned about the respectability. Hennie, on the other hand, lacks
understanding. Bessie’s dominating character has robbed Myron of his individuality.
The father Myron is an interesting character. He is one who cannot admit defeat. He lives in the past.
He does not lose heart. He spends money on various gambling stints. Moe asks him if he still believes
in Santa Claus. Life has been a fake for him. Frustration has become a part of his life.
3 SALIENT POINTS IDENTIFIED IN “AWAKE AND SING!”
Odets’ characters live through the articulation and deflation of their dreams. If the possibility of
advancement is unlikely, the Berger family has certainly not accepted it. Myron has been beaten down
by the system and by the Bessie, his wife. He is the first man in a series of weak husbands in Odets’
work. Like other Odets, dreamers, this man cannot claim to have been ruined by the depression, for he
was the failure before the depression hit and still is. He is, however neither bitter nor even much
depressed about his failure, as he lives in the glorious past. He presents a clear contrast to the Jewish
literary characters of this period who express great bitterness about America’s failure to redeem their
personal lives. Myron is neither respected by his wife nor his children. He is only a dreamer and he
cannot act and take charge of difficult situation. He does not contemplate a financially secured future to
be ensured by winning a lottery ticket. In Act one he even wins a few dollars in lottery.
Jacob, Bessie’s father, is also a dreamer, but he dreams of Marxist society. He too is an ineffectual
man. He stays with his daughter’s family and is not working. He was once a barber and still gives
haircut to his son, who occasionally visits him. He is given any respect by his children as he has not
done anything for the family. His major function in the house is to take out the dog. His only pleasure
is preaching Marxist dreams and hearing Caruso records of Utopia. Odets suggest that Jacob’s political
visions of a more perfect society can only exists in his mind’s eye, but not in the real world. Bessie
deflates his dreams. When she is enraged by his father’s activity, she breaks his records, his only
entertainment. She symbolically puts an end to his dream.
If Jacob and Myron are useless, Ralph seems to be continuing the same pattern into the third
generation. He is not capable of handling his own affairs. Ralph also dreams like his grandfather,
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Jacob, but his dreams have no political color. He is in love with an orphan girl, Blanche, who stays in
her Aunt’s house. He hopes that in marrying his girl friend, he can transcend the petty lifestyle of the
Berger household. Jacob opposes this match, arguing that marriage will ruin Ralph’s dream of escape,
that women are “death to men’s souls”. Despite the opposition, Ralph is determined to marry her. In
Act two, Scene two, Ralph tells his father:
“when I was a kid I lay awake at nights and heard the sounds of trains . . . for away lone some sounds.
. . boats going up and down the river. I used to think of all kinds of things I wanted to do” [5].
Later Jacob commits suicide but leaves his insurance money to Ralph. When Bessie persuades him to
“go out and change the world”, Ralph replies:
Life’s different in my head. Gimmie the earth in two hands. I’m strong. There … hear him? The air
mail off to Boston. Day or not, he flies away, a job to do. That’s us and its no time to die [5].
All these characters seem to be paralyzed by their dreams. Ralph cannot change the world because, like
Jacob’s his dreams are in his head. He is very emotional and promising in his love, but really he is a
coward who cannot face the reality. He is unable to help his girl friend when she is forced to leave her
aunt’s house. When Ralph calls her back and finds out that she is leaving, he can only cry on Jacob’s
shoulder. He disconnects the phone when Blanche calls him up. At this point it is clear that Ralph, like
his father, will forever remain trapped in the mundane life of his family.
Bessie on one level is the most realistic character in the play. She is the decision maker and the force
that holds the family together because the situations around her are ineffectual. She is the centrifugal
force.
Hennie, Bessie’s daughter has actually had a much pleasanter existence than a girl in her circumstances
might be expected to have. Hennie becomes pregnant, she is not aware of the person’s name and
address: the person who has been responsible for her condition. In order to hide this truth, her mother,
who believes in respectability, forces her to marry Sam Feinschreiber. He is a delicate hypersensitive
man. She wants to be comfortable physically and materially. Thus in the end she leaves her family in
order to find an easier life with Moe, a man whom she does not love either. She cannot strive towards
the new world, so she strives towards the only hopeful goal within her reach.
Odets, in this play achieves the highest level of social dynamism. Each one wants something
desperately and each is thwarted in his quest. One sees hope in the conclusion of the play with a better
aftertaste. What happens to Hennie is almost a metaphorical commentary on what happens to mankind
in the social situation:
Moe
: Nobody knows, but you do it and find out when you’re scared the answer’s zero.
Hennie : You’re hurting my arm [6].
Hennnie’s whole life has been one of the uncertainty, regret and compromise. She has no Control over
the circumstances which have been hurting her.
There is utter lack of luxuries in the Berger household. Man is frail and there is no future for him.
Ralph comments on seeing Myron paring the apple:
When I look at him, I’m sad. Let me die like a dog, if I can’t get more from life. [6].
The question posed before us is whether the succeeding generations will get more from life. There is no
call for action. The play’s title seems ironic. The audience is left pondering, not shouting.
4 PARADISE LOST
Paradise lost was designed by Clifford Odets in 1935 in which “The hero … is the entire American
middle class of liberal tendency” [3]. Odets felt that people had lost their sanity. People yearned for
things they didn’t need or want. They seemed to be moving around struggling over mirages. This play
reflects the dreamlike unreality prevalent in the society.
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Leo is somewhat vague and idealistic partner of Sam Katz. Together they run a small business
manufacturing handbags. Sam makes the bags designed by Leo. He has been cheating Leo. He
proposes to his partner to engage a gangster to burn their business down as they can claim insurance
money. Leo’s son Ben dies in a hurl of police bullets; another son, Julie, is dying, while a daughter,
Pearl, abandoned by her lover plays the piano. Everywhere there is evidence of decay and collapse. The
characters betray themselves for money. Dreams lead them away from a real world of human need.
The politician fails to meet the demands of the people. Odets exhorts us to give up the world of fantasy,
a world in which “in the end nothing ids real. Nothing is left but our memory of life”.
The Gordons are a collection of types, most of them with idiosyncrasies. They reflect familiar attitudes
or middle class values. Each one has his own weakness and together they represent that class in decay.
The family is already on a middle class level. There are threats to the family peace: Capitalist greed,
political corruption and long-reaching effects of the depression. Sam Smiley sums up the play’s theme:
“Each individual must struggle to achieve a full life amidst the dire conditions brought on by the social
dislocation of the time, and the struggle for betterment is hopeless unless individuals awaken to reality
and join all other workers to arrange life so that dollar bills do not have such almighty importance” [2].
The Gordon household is not a very rich household. Leo, the head of the family, is a liberal, middleclass business man who owns a handbag factory in partnership with his neighbor Sam Katz, a greedy,
corrupt capitalist. Sam Katz wants to run the business. Sam advises Leo to leave the business in his
hands. Leo is totally unaware of his business dealings. Leo is shocked at the way Sam exploits the
poor. He is totally ignorant of the fact that his workers are less paid and his partner is cheating him in
money matters. He remains puzzled by the collapse of the economy, moral values and human
commitment.
Leo, though the moral spokesman in the play is considered a foolish man by his wife Clara. He
resembles Myron in his foolishness and lack of foresight, but he is the undisputed head of the family.
He does not allow his dreams to turn him away from the realities of the present for the nostalgia of the
past.
Like the Bergers, the Gordons too have high hopes for their children. These hopes are thwarted. Ben,
the eldest has been a successful athlete but as an individual he is a wastrel. He is friendly with
gangsters. Pearl dreams of her piano debut which will never take place now as her family has no money
to sponsor her. Julie, the younger one, has talent for business, but does not have money. All the Gordon
children are dreamers. They are different from Ralph and Hennie by their awareness of the futility of
their dreams - - dreams cannot lead one away from reality. Gus, the family friend dreams and lives in
the past.
“The way I see it there’s two kinds of men; there is the true man and the dream. We’re only the dream
yes … the dream. Those don’t make much sense don’t it?” [2].
In reality Gus does not get job and he is not treated well by his daughter Libby. The touching scene is,
when the Gordons come to a financial crisis, he sells his lifelong collection of stamps to help them.
Though financial help may be nothing to them, yet, it shows his helping tendency. Leo loses all his
money as Sam Katz cheats him. Sam goes to the extent of bringing a man to arrange a fire accident in
his industry so that they can get insurance money.
Clara, Leo’s wife is a realistic woman, but without hard edges. She has achieved the respectability that
Bessie longs for and has the leisure to socialize and play. Julie, is a bank clerk who has dealings of the
stock market in his hand. But is slowly dying of sleeping sickness. His dream of success is shattered by
his sickness. Hence whatever success he achieves is imaginary. His brother, Ben, is a former Olympic
champion and godlike statue of his dominates the stage. In the past he was the embodiment of youth,
good looks and physical prowess. He added many medals to his credit. But at present he has no job. He
is a broken man. He is married and cannot even support his family.
He seems inescapable of making a living. His heart problems force him to end his athletic career. He
becomes a prey to his gangster friend Kewpie to make money in an illegal way. He depends on him for
financial help. Ben is deeply hurt or rather frustrated with life. He even decides to end his life, when he
discovers that his wife is almost like a whore. She has an affair with Kewpie and is paid for it.
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Ben identifies with the images of flight and water as an escape from earthly reality. Ultimately Ben will
realize his dream only in his death. He gives his medal to his dying brother Julie. This symbolically
prefigures his death soon after.
Pearl, his sister too lives in a world of dreams. A gifted pianist, she spends most of her time playing on
it. Her romantic dreams are shattered as her boy friend, Felix leaves for New York for better
opportunities. He is also a musician. At the end, Leo tells her that he will be forced to sell her piano
due to their family situation. Like Moe, Kewpie is a survivor because he has no real ideals or poetic
temperance. On the surface level, Kewpie seems harder than Moe, but he is not villainous.
Pike, the furnace man is the voice of social criticism. He dispenses Marxian philosophy in an articulate
manner. He explodes at a local politician: “I’, what they call one hundred percent American. My
ancestors didn’t come over on the May flower. They missed that one, but they came over on the next
ferry” [5]. Pike clearly sees that the promise of America is dying. He is not satisfied with a system that
allows men to starve to death and makes wars that kill young boys.
Odets’ Marxist stand might have softened but not his pacifisms. Pike again becomes a spokesman for
this: “who are we, Mr. Gordon? If we remain silent while they make the next war - - who then are we
with our silence?” People have been forced to lead miserable lives. “We lived and hoped. We lived on
garbage dumps” [6]. He has lost his two sons in the war. People are made fools of and they gain
nothing. That is the American idealism. But he has no answer or solution to the problem.
The intruder into the lives of the middle class family is identified by Pike. The middle class enemy is:
“The system, breeds wars like a bitch breeding pups! breeds poverty degrades men to sentimental
gibbering’ idiots …” [2].
Leo, Clara and the dying Julie, stare at the statue of Ben. Ben has been killed in a police shoot out. The
house and the belongings have one to pay the debts. Clara cries and Julie mutters incoherently.
There is more to life than this! Everywhere now men are rising from their sleep. Men, men are
understanding the bitter black total of their lives” [2]. Leo’s calls appear to be weak.
5 SALIENT POINTS IDENTIFIED IN “PARADISE LOST”
The play affirms Odets’ belief in an optimistic, affirmative rejection of determinism and what Clurman
calls the “nihilism of the cynical hobo”. An individual has to struggle against overwhelming forces.
Some feel that Odets’ view of the middle class character was full of prejudice. Edith Isaacs comments:
“They are the dregs of the social system, money-loving, money-starved capitalists who have gone
rotten through spinelessness and the frustration of their own golden lodgings. No revolution would help
them” [2].
Each of the members of the Gordon household represents a middle class value and the steady decline of
these false values during the 1930’s. The play reflects one of the most pervasive social upheavals to
occur in the states during its history.
6 COMMON ISSUES IDENTIFIED IN “AWAKE AND SING!” AND “PARADISE
LOST”
The end of “Paradise lost”, like the end of “Awake and Sing!”, demonstrates Odets’ hope, rather than
his belief, in human possibilities and his perception that people continue to believe and persevere in the
face of extreme adversity.
Dreams are shattered when they come in contact with reality. In “Awake and Sing!”. The characters’
aspirations are never fulfilled. They talk but do not act. Ralph’s grandfather preaches Marxist ideals
and buys a number of books but does not read even one. Moe also has romantic visions of war. Thus he
joined war but came back with an amputated leg. He also has the romantic vision to run away with a
married girl Hennie. We are not told how much he enjoyed. There is no sense of fulfillment of his
dreams. Ralph’s speech is also undercut by the implication that he has merely replaced one romantic
aspiration with another, as he wants to lead an independent life. Hennie deliberately abandons her child
to go away with Moe, her lover. She prefers to be with the racketeer rather than an honest husband. At
the end of the play the older generation finds itself deprived of everything. Odets concludes with stage
directions again referring to the sound of the airplane, re-emphasizing that the character’s dreams are
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far away and will not be fulfilled. The characters live in a world of dreams but their dreams are
deflated.
All the characters are passive dreamers and they cannot activate any of their notions. In these two
plays, the whole atmosphere is dominated by sympathetic but weak and harmless people incapable of
confronting this kind of emotional and physical violence. Though Moe Axelrod is financially
successful, he is searching, as ultimately most Odets’ characters are searching for a sense of family- - a
home.
All the characters dream of the impossible. Moe yearns for something he never had. Though he runs
away with Hennie, she is not the answer to his dream. Hennie is not satisfied with her own life.
Bessie’s desire to maintain the respectability of her family seems to override her maternal instincts. She
does not claim to be a loving mother. Ralph is like father in his inactiveness to face difficult situations.
Hennie has taken after her mother. Ralph gives an emotional speech but his emotions are manifested in
his actions. He just dreams. Odets endows his characters with his resilient strain of aspiration. He is
aware of his characters’ inability to act.
“Awake and Sing!” presents the story of Ralph Berger as he wants to obtain release from his obsession
with a purely personal rebellion against poverty. Odets brought to life the class struggle.
In “Paradise Lost”, the Gordons are unable to face the general economic collapse. They are confused
by the political situation in Europe. Odets’ plays reflect the characters’ longing for a better life. They
are entrapped by their financial position. They are not given a chance to fulfill their dreams. Their
dreams do not have motivational value.
Odets’ characters are too weak to change the world. The gap between aspiration and reality is not
bridged. Their dreams, longings and hopes are timeless. Their despair and frustration are dramatized
better than their future hope. One of the character says, “The way I see it, there’s two kinds of men –
the real ones and the dream. We’re just the dream” [2]. In “Paradise Lost”, the middle class people
accept defeat though they are “dream men”. In the ‘real’ world they face despair and frustration but in
their ‘dreamy’ future world, they anticipated success. In talking about “Success” Jacob is right in
saying that millions suffer from dreams, as in reality they are not able to attain it.
Ralphs, Hennies, Leos can do no more than just survive in their depressed society. Altogether “Awake
and Sing!” and “Paradise Lost” allegedly present close investigations of the American middle class
society jolted the entire nation with financial disaster.
7 CONCLUSION
Man lives in a world of dreams. Dreams activated become aspirations, but many factors prevent these
transformations. As we have seen in these two plays, life is in shambles as the characters are not able to
fulfill their dreams and this deflated dreams result in problems that cause depression and tragedy.
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accessed on: 04-07-2012.
Clay Reynolds, Stage left: the development of the American social drama in the thirties,
Whitston Pub. Co., 1986, ISBN No.: 0878753117, 9780878753116
Gerald Clifford Weales. “Odets, the playwright”. Methuen Publishers, 1985
Miller, Gabriel. “Clifford Odets”. The Continuum Publishing Company: New York, 1989,
ISBN No.: 0804426325, 9780804426329.
Odets Clifford. “Waiting for Lefty and other plays”. Grove Press, 1939. ISBN No.:
0802132200, 9780802132208
Odets Clifford. “Six plays of Clifford Odets”. Grove Press, 1966
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