Homework: An Exciting Title

The Devil’s Fight for Freedom: A Response to The Devil's Disciple

The introduction to Richard Dudgeon’s character begins long before he enters onstage. His mother, a Puritanical prude, calls him “wicked, dissolute, godless,” which seems an unnaturally strong description for her own son. Dick too has seemingly appointed himself Devil’s Disciple, proclaiming: “I knew from the first that that Devil was my natural master and captain and friend. I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only through fear. I prayed secretly to him; and he comforted me, and saved me from having my spirit broken in this house of children’s tears. I promised him my soul, and swore an oath that I would stand up for him in this world and stand by him in the next.”

At first, such a statement is incongruous and absurd. It makes no sense for a human to appoint himself a follower of Satan in a time when the American Christian climate would have forbade it. However, Dick’s meaning becomes more apparent when taken in a larger context. The play itself is set in colonial America in the Revolutionary era. Principle and tradition of the British loyalists was set against the outcry of the increasingly politically isolated American. In this light, the relationship between Dick and his cantankerous mother is not only privately dysfunctional, but represents the conflict between America and Britain at large.

Mrs. Dudgeon is self-righteous hypocrite; she adheres to the old ways of the Old World. She claims to uphold honour, purity, and tradition, and prides herself on the fact that she married Dick’ father out of duty, denying her self and her love for his brother. Her renunciation has given her fuel for her spiritual fire; she is a martyr in an unjust situation: “I do think this is very hard on me.” Her religion has impregnated all her life, and therefore it would not be unfair to the interpretation of the text to extend this to the political climate. Mrs. Dudgeon is Britain, the old, dying British Empire which fears losing control of its colonies, or son and husband, to new-fangled ideas. She laments that her husband, “instead of staying home where his duty was, with his own family, goes after [his brother].” While Mr. Dudgeon is physically removed from his wife, he witnesses his brother’s hanging, meets up with his estranged son, and changes his will—a radical shift in character.

Dick, declared an apostate, is therefore not so much a spiritual deviant, but rather the personification of America. He is a “lost sinner” only in the fact that he has parted from the established political ways of Britain. His worship of the devil then is not so much actual spiritual immorality, but a dedication to his country. Seen from such a perspective, his challenge to his family seems less out of place: “How many of you will stay with me; run up the American flag on the devil’s house; and make a fight for freedom? Ha ha! Long live the devil.” In other words, long live America.

English Pub Culture: A Mark of the Past

A stroll around the cobble-stoned streets of York will reveal a multitude of quaint pubs, named everything from the normal (The Cross Keys), to the fairytale inspired (The Golden Slipper) to the just plain strange (The Three-Legged Mare). Pub culture, in fact, is such a prevalent part of English culture that I feel the need to reach for a metaphor: if England were Cyrano de Bergerac, pub culture would be its proudly prominent nose—a bit of an eyesore, but generally considered quite good to have. Pub culture has had a long and valued history in England. Ale has been served to British inhabitants since the Bronze Age, and gin entered the country via the Dutch in the eighteenth century. However, it was not the natives, but the Romans who would be the first to establish inns, or tabernae, as they were known. In Rome, it was common practice to hang vine leaves outside the door, signifying the selling of wine inside. Once this was tradition was transplanted to European, specifically English soil, it was discovered that vine leaves were in short supply. The vines were then switched out for small evergreen bushes, signifying, “Come hither for a pint of ale.”
With the building of roads across England, it became necessary to have places of respite—public houses which provided food, shelter, and a hearty drink. When the Romans withdrew from the rainy isle, the Anglo-Saxons took over their business and established alehouses in domestic dwellings. The beginnings of the modern pub lie in these alehouses, wherein the locals could have a drink and gossip about their days. The alehouse provided a place for the hard-working farm labourers to take a moment and enjoy a drink before going off to bed. By 965, alehouses had become so popular that King Edgar decreed there should be no more than one per village. Inns and pubs were so common by the twelfth century that it was necessary to name them, and with the names came pub signs, as most of the people were still illiterate. By an official act, King Richard II made it compulsory for inns and pubs to display signs in order that the official Ale Taster could find them more easily.

Pubs had almost become the focal point of the community. Samuel Pepys’s writings describe the pub as the heart of England, and he may very well have been right. Of course, pub culture did not come without its fare share of disapprovers. The temperance movements spoke out against the evils of gin and the loud and unruly drinking dens (described by Charles Dickens in Sketches of Boz), and attempted to shut down or at least diminish the proliferating beer and winehouses in the larger cities. The many Beer and Gin Acts passed during this time would be the predecessors of the modern debate over alcohol moderation in England. I was interested to find the correlations between the past and the present when I read a newspaper article about the worry over rising levels of alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom. The article outlined how the government was debating whether or not to raise taxes on alcohol in order to control its availability to young people. This proposition has been met with opposition; the locals of pubs claim that taxes would only punish the wrong people—namely, themselves—and would do little to stop excessive drinking among today’s youth.

As for myself, I have had nothing but good experiences in the pub. Unlike smoky dance floors or overcrowded student unions, the pubs provide a cozy atmosphere for the regulars and an assorted group of students. The atmosphere and crowd of the pub depends entirely on its traditions. The Brigadier Gerard catered to an older, more staid crowd. Quiz night consisted of general information questions, with the elderly pub owner (or landlord, as they were traditionally called) calling out the questions, only interrupted by the occasional drinking song emanating from a corner. (A woman was having a concert of her own and repeated the first line of the chorus until someone from the other side of the room raised their voices and told her to “Shut up.”) The Independent, off Haxby, sees a younger crowd. I, along with a few of my fellow students, signed up for their quiz night on Monday, only to find ourselves completely stumped by questions pertaining to British music from the eighties. One of the best and most innovative experiences I have had in a pub was its appropriation as a tool for Christian fellowship. Though historically condemned as a place of immorality, my friends from church took me to the Old Starry Inn as a way to introduce themselves.

Pubs have not lost any of their charm with the years, but rather new sources of entertainment have arisen to satisfy the public. They used to be places of congregation for hard-working farmers and merchants, bringing the salt of the earth together after a day’s labour. Most of today’s generation does not work in agriculture, and the pub no longer seems a necessary watering-hole. The discoteque has distracted the younger generation; bars have stolen drinking clients; cinemas and theatres are inexpensive and entertaining enough to draw the masses. The pub, however, is an unchanging fixture of the British countryside, a bastion of historical importance to the layman. With its polished oak counters and green booths, the pub cannot offer bright lights or fast entertainment. It offers what it has offered for generations—good food and drink, good company, and a place to rest your feet.