Literature Houndz: A Level Ideas: My Boy Jack” ………..Pro Patria Mori? An anti war play that features a fervently warmongering central character

My Boy Jack” ………..Pro Patria Mori?

An anti war play that features a fervently warmongering central character

The strident anti-war message of trench poets such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, as Andrew Motion recognises, has “settled in the public mind at an extraordinary depth” (The Guardian, 9 July 2016)[1], their vivid accounts now accepted as empirical truth, or, “history by proxy” (Santanu Das, The British Library, 7 Feb 2014)[2]. Prose, however, is a different matter. Robert Graves’ autobiographical account, “Goodbye To All That” and Remarque’s “All Quiet On The Western Front”, appeared some ten years after the conflict, and muddied the waters. Ostensibly representing factual, eye-witness experiences, these novels were revealed as being poetic, emotional “truth” rather than fact-driven. R. C. Sherriff’s play, “Journey’s End” while being realistic in its depiction of relationships and physical conditions, is entirely fictional.

In the 1960’s, society’s attitudes to the First World War changed to match the zeitgeist. Duty had become a tired concept. Echoing the emergence of CND and the peace movement, the anti-war play “Oh, What A Lovely War” (1959) was enthusiastically received as a modern statement attacking imperialism, patriarchy and hegemony. Its academic counterpart, Alan Clark’s Great War study, “The Donkeys” (1962), condemned the military, giving fresh impetus to the notion that upper class “red tab” officers placed little value on the physical health of soldiers, let alone their emotional well-being. This was an affirmation of the blame-trope initiated by the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon, who claimed that generals toddled off to die – “in bed”.

A Veneer of Confidence and Patriotism

Trench poetry and battle memoirs tend to address the horrors of war head on, graphically depicting horrors both physical and emotional. However, David Haig’s play “My Boy Jack” (1997), set initially in 1914, features a central character who not only supports the war, but is uncompromisingly nationalistic and celebrates rather than mourns the sacrifice of soldiers. Unlike other Great War texts, “My Boy Jack” subverts the genre; it spotlights and seems to celebrate jingoistic fervour. However, this is only a device which ultimately reveals the fragility that underlies the shallow veneer of confidence and patriotism.

Through a real life event, the play exposes the fallacies behind the early enthusiasm for the war. Rudyard Kipling, being one of the most famous writers of the day, was able to exert his considerable political influence to ensure that his teenage son John, who could barely see without his spectacles, should “do his duty” and join up as a commissioned officer in the army. Believing that it is truly noble to die for one’s country, Kipling, initially at least, validates his idealism by sending his only son to war. Tragically, John is killed during his first action. The play details the conflict this causes, both in the Kipling family and also within Kipling’s own fixed mindset.

“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory The old lie…” (Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen)

David Haig’s tragic representation of Kipling’s pride in John’s sacrifice is difficult enough to accept, but read with Wilfred Owen’s anonymous but heartfelt plea in mind it becomes even more challenging.

This is because, As Andrew Motion would argue, the irony of “Dulce et Decorum Est” has become an accepted benchmark for society’s attitudes. Haig enables his audience to grasp the unfolding tragedy of war by presenting, straightforwardly, Kipling’s wilfully naïve ignorance of its imminence.

Despite being largely objective, Haig’s presentation of Kipling’s enthusiastic jingoism manages to imply that the writer represses deep, hidden doubts and that his confident belligerence masks uncertainty. When nervously justifying his enthusiasm for his son gaining a commission, Haig, using ellipsis, suggests that Kipling doubts are surfacing:

“What’s the matter?...Nothing….We’re fine…Why are you upset….we’re not…” (MBJ Act 1 Sc1 p.8)

Haig, who took the part of Kipling in his own play when it opened in 1997, captured these inherent contradictions completely; one review stated that “Haig is superb at revealing Kipling’s inner turmoil.” (SFGate, 19 April 2008)[3]

Family Tensions

Kipling’s patriarchal dominance at the head of his family is threatened and undermined by Haig’s use of dialogue regarding his determination that his son John should go to war. Haig exposes the tensions that arise when an otherwise dutiful Edwardian wife faces the possibility of losing her son.

CARRIE (John’s mother): You want. KIPLING: For his sake. MOTHER: No, it’s for your sake. (MBJ, Act 1 Scene 1 Page 10)

While Kipling steadfastly holds to his belief that John’s military involvement is vital in preserving the empire, his wife and daughter fear for the life of their son and brother. The integrity of their heartfelt response subtly diminishes Kipling’s position. Haig highlights the emotional intelligence of Kipling’s wife Carrie and his daughter Elsie.

A similar moment of family tension undermines Kipling’s resolute support of the British Empire as “benevolent and responsible” (MBJ Act1 Sc 5 p.30). Elsie notes, with perhaps the benefit of a post-empire political perspective, “and to make money” (p.30 ibid.) Haig gives this perceptive, assertive and, for 1914, almost treasonous comment to an articulate young woman. Elsie questions her brother’s apparent nationalism:

JOHN: “I do give a damn about Empire” ELSIE: “No you don’t. You’ve said you don’t”. (MBJ, Act 1 Scene 5 p.31)

The power of these appeals suggests some reflection by Kipling:

RUDYARD: (quietly) There is a price that we have to pay (MBJ ibid.)

Here, Haig’s stage direction implies that Kipling’s commitment to the cause is, perhaps, weakening. Elsie’s sharp tone contrasts starkly with her father’s high-flown rhetoric; Haig suggests that the father’s views are less valid than his daughter’s.

By foregrounding Kipling’s pre-war certainties and then gradually uncovering their inherent contradictions, Haig’s writing skilfully reveals the frailties and contradictions of the writer’s zeal. Ironically, the hollowness of the nation’s fervour for war is embodied in its most vocal supporter.

Popular Culture

Haig associates Kipling with the important role played by the popular culture of the time. Kipling himself was a hugely popular and influential writer, but Haig shows how he was in turn affected by popular patriotic music-hall songs of the period. The play opens with Kipling singing a banal popular love song while, incongruously, telling his son that ‘pince-nez give a man gravity and seriousness’- an ‘overall impression’ of maturity. Ironically, this is undercut at Jack’s interview for a commission:

OFFICER: Right, spectacles off…

JACK: It’s pince-nez, actually. (MBJ, Act 1, Scene 2, l.16)

Haig later presents a scene in a mass meeting, with Kipling making a speech encouraging young men to “join up”. This is also a theatrical performance, in which Kipling employs a range of rhetorical devices to hammer his point home. Repetition and hyperbole combine to create an unreal but frightening scenario, fully emphasised by Kipling’s passionate delivery:

“When the ashes of our burnt out homes are cold- what then?” (MBJ Act 1 Scene 5 p.25)

Haig’s tight juxtaposition of artifice and grim reality represents the growing contradictions in Kipling. His performance in the meeting hall, full of superficial enthusiasm, suggests that war is a matter of image and theatricality, not pain and death. His bullish certainty only serves to set up the audience for the tragedy to follow.

Combat Fatigue

As Kipling’s viewpoint is central to the play, the reality of the fighting in “My Boy Jack” must be presented indirectly because his son John Kipling is never able to tell of his experiences. The Kiplings search relentlessly and obsessively for their son’s remains. Haig presents the hideous and terrifying aspects of war via an eye witness account given by one soldier of many that Kipling questions:

BOWE: “I see the gas creepin’ toward me, like somethin’ livin’…there’s a body…” (MBJ Act 2 Sc 3 p.70)

When presenting Bowe’s personal account of the day that John Kipling dies, Haig repeats his use of ellipsis to give the soldier’s account a fragmented, nervous and highly emotional tone. Bowe here, in an emotional and agitated state, surely represents those deeply traumatised by their war experiences.

“My Boy Jack” goes on to reveal both the terrible effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and the scant importance it was accorded at the time. Bowe is deeply traumatised by recalling this memory, but once he has given his pitiful description of John’s death, Kipling dismisses him. Haig here suggest that Kipling shared a common contemporary view; that shell shock was transitory, and not the serious, long term emotional condition that society now, fortunately, recognises. Kipling’s lack of care or awareness of Bowe’s suffering suggests that his own, selfish agenda has overtaken that of the soldiers that suffered- including his own son, and diminishes his position to a modern audience.

Final Realisation

“My Boy Jack”, then, shares its anti-war message with earlier, more direct texts, but does so obliquely. The central character may be nationalistic, badly informed and fully supportive of the war, but through the craft of the writer, the reader is able to sense that doubt and insecurity lurks beneath Kipling’s unquestioning confidence. It is his unwavering certainty that, to a modern audience, renders his motives deeply questionable.

Kipling’s firm conviction was to soften with age. Haig concludes his play by looking forward to 1933, many years after John’s death, by which time Kipling’s attitude has finally changed. He no longer finds meaning in his son’s sacrifice. He had in fact begun this journey just a year after the war had finished; In 1919 Kipling had published “Epitaphs to War” in which he wrote:

“If any question why we died Tell them- because our fathers lied…”

Eventually, as an old man, listening to a radio broadcast detailing the rise of Nazi Germany, Kipling comes to realise that the Great War had failed to be the “war that ends all war” and that his son’s death had possibly been futile:

“For nothing, for nothing, for nothing…” (MBJ Act 2 Sc5 p.87).

Literature Houndz: A Level Ideas

Saturday, 28 December 2024

My Boy Jack” ………..Pro Patria Mori? An anti war play that features a fervently warmongering central character

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