SOURCE: Harmon, Maurice. “Richard Rowan, His Own Scapegoat.” James Joyce Quarterly 3, no. 1 (fall 1965): 34-40.

[In the following essay, Harmon examines the main character in Exiles.]

In James Joyce's Exiles it is easy to see Richard Rowan as a dominating figure. In scene after scene his probing, inquisatorial mind exposes the other characters in a merciless manner. And it is true that in the process he shows superior courage and integrity. But a highminded, dominating Richard, similar to the Stephen Dedalus of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is only part of the full characterization. Exiles does more than unmask Richard's associates and has another purpose besides that of showing the rebel-artist transcending orthodoxies and conventions in the name of art. Richard, too, is unmasked. The play moves steadily towards the climax in Act II in which he admits to ignoble motives behind his determination to have the truth made clear. The truth of his own deeper self is revealed and he becomes more tolerable as a human being. It is as if, in Yeatsian terminology, the stony face of the detached intellectual were the mask of an anti-self behind which lies a more timid, doubting self.

Initially, Richard does appear as the unattractively dominating figure. In the opening scene with Beatrice Justice he is irresistibly analytical and coldly probes into her character, forcing her to admit to cowardice and timidity. Even when she speaks of her convalescent state, caused in some part by his elopement with Bertha, he pronounces judgment:

You were drawn to him as your mind was drawn towards mine. You held back from him. From me, too, in a different way. You cannot give yourself freely and wholly.¹

It is a one-sided scene. The balance of power is so unevenly distributed that it does more than display Richard's mental and moral superiority. The triumph of his almost brutal cross-examination is tainted by what it shows of his nature. His proud freedom of thought and action is not enhanced by the exaction of such petty victories. One begins to suspect that his need to probe beneath appearances in others is compulsive and directed as much towards himself as towards his friends. “Do you think I have acted towards you badly?” he asks Beatrice. “No? Or towards anyone?” And he wonders what she would say were she to discover that what he writes may be “cruel” to her. (p. 18)

The scene prepares for his later unmasking. His behavior flaunts an ambivalent self-confidence, for behind it lurks self-doubt and inner conflict. He provides one obliquely explanatory statement that only subsequent action makes clear. To Beatrice's timid plea that it is difficult to give oneself wholly and freely and be happy, he replies that happiness may not be the ultimate in human achievement. It is for all its vagueness a clue to much of the play's action which is not concerned with commonplaces of triangular relationships or with romantic fulfillments but with the working of Richard's drama of conscience. Only at the end can we determine what it is that for Richard is deeper and more satisfying than happiness.

The return to Ireland has confronted him with problems that are not new in his experience but that have to be met in the light of the changes in his outlook that the intervening nine years have brought. In the past he had acted confidently in the name of artistic freedom, but now those youthful principles seem less compelling. Consequently, his outward behavior, while in accordance with the old image of him as arrogant rebel, is inwardly undermined by maturer considerations and doubts. It is the new Richard who says to Bertha, in one of his questions that go inward as well as outward, “Who am I that I should call myself master of your heart or of any woman's?” (p. 75)

Having come back to Ireland, he is once again made keenly aware of his mother's unbending opposition to his way of life. His decision to leave Ireland in rejection of the conventional moralities in order to achieve liberty of thought and action had been made in the face of her stern disapproval. His return to her deathbed reminds him once more of the moral rigor of her attitude and causes him to re-examine his actions. In the past he had the courage to resist his mother because he believed in what he was doing, but now in the scene with Beatrice he confesses that he is suffering:

O, if you knew how I am suffering at this moment! For your case, too. But suffering most of all for my own. With bitter force. And how I pray that I may be granted again my dead mother's hardness of heart! For some help, within me or without, I must find. And find it I will.

(p. 22)

“Again” is an important word here. It points to the fact that he is facing another trial, one for which he will need similar courage. In the past he had sufficient resilience and toughness to make a decision and stand by it no matter what the consequences in family relationships or personal trial. Now, called upon again for hardness of spirit, he suffers.

The immediate cause is Robert Hand's seductive advances to Bertha and the issues raised thereby for Richard. Having faced his mother's disapproval in the name of personal liberty, he now has to risk losing Bertha for the same reason. In honesty, he has to grant freedom outside of himself and his own needs, whereas formerly he had acted in his own interests and demanded Bertha's allegiance. The granting to her of freedom of decision and action threatens the security of their love and his own peace of mind. For not only does he feel bound in honor to allow her complete liberty, but he foresees her inability to appreciate the integrity of a husband who not only refuses to shield her from a rival but even encourages her to risk seduction. He is torn between his love for and need of Bertha and his rational decision to grant her the right to find love apart from him. It is understandable that he should feel the need for his mother's toughness.

For the moment he is in control. He has encouraged Bertha to let Robert reveal his love and has had her complete confidence. Thus in the following scene Robert woos and kisses Bertha and is interrupted by Richard's entrance. A temptation scene ensues, with Robert holding out to Richard the attraction of a chair of romance literature in Dublin and life among his own people. But the motives are not disinterested; Robert's arranged interview for Richard with the vice-chancellor of the university coincides with his own assignation with Bertha. His protestations of loyalty are weakened by the mixture of motives. “I will fight for you still,” he tells Richard, because I have faith in you, the faith of a disciple in his master.” But Richard replies that there is a faith still stronger—“The faith of a master in the disciple who will betray him.” (p. 44) Robert, in other words, is essential to Richard; he needs a Judas. The idea is only stated here but it is clear that Richard intends to use Robert. Permitting and abetting his advances to Bertha is only part of a larger design. As the dominant force in the lives of all these characters, Richard makes them move in accordance with his wishes. For Robert he has selected the part of Judas, but he is himself an accomplice in his own bertyal. Propelled by his self-involving drive, the play plunges into the darker areas of human behavior. The process is purgational, a ritual sacrifice in which Richard will descend into ignominy as into a necessary, redemptive death. To enter into a new relationship with Bertha, he has to demonstrate his baseness; he has to sacrifice the old Richard to give life to the new. He has to destroy his old relationship with Bertha, by destroying the image of himself on which it was founded, in order to create a new relationship. Her infidelity, real or imagined, will be a necessary part of his redemption. At the moment we can only infer a larger plan behind his cryptic comment on the faith of a master in his betrayer.

Part of that plan is made clear in a transition scene with Richard's son, Archie, to whom he offers the philosophical truth that what you voluntarily give away cannot be stolen from you. “It is yours then for ever when you have given it.” (p. 47) Instead of resisting Robert's threat, he offers Bertha freely to him. As a defensive tactic, this has considerable justification and one can admire the quality of the detachment that can formulate it. But again the issue is not as one-sided as Richard pretends. In the scene in which he questions Bertha closely as to the manner and extent of Robert's advances, very much in the manner of an Othello with his Iago, he tries on the surface to maintain his calm but his inner agitation is visible:

A liar, a thief, and a fool! Quite clear! A common thief! What else? With a harsh laugh. My great friend! A patriot too! A thief—nothing else! He halts, thrusting his hands into his pockets. But a fool also!

(p. 51)

He has the satisfaction of proving Robert “a liar, a thief, and a fool!” and his anger seems to be derived not from conventional feelings of outrage, but from a noble sense of violated principles. It is, he protests, not the proposed infidelity he dislikes but the manner in which it is being arranged; not the seduction but the secrecy. He regards it as a violation of that liberty of action for which he has lived. It is therefore an insult to his pride. He proposes to Bertha that she bring the matter out in the open, that she accept the freedom he now thrusts upon her, that Robert be encouraged to come openly and not like a thief in the night.

One can appreciate Bertha's inability to understand this response. Denied the consolation of his protection, she can only suspect the integrity of his love. In fact, despite his denials, she has reason to be suspicious. The motives for his present behavior are not all on the surface; his explanation for his attitude does not include more hidden causes. These are related to his psychological need for violation. He must have his Judas and therefore, using Bertha as a decoy, he professes to act in the name of liberty. What he really wants is self-abasement. He desires to be violated and needs her guilt in order to experience his own; he wills and permits his betrayal.

Both the rational and the psychological justifications are present in Act II, which carries the play to its climax, brings about Richard's confession, and allows Bertha and Robert their assignation. Initially, Richard advocates an avoidance of secrecy. To Robert's surprise and relief he comes, not as an avenging husband, but as a pained observer expressing his abhorrence of the unworthy methods: “No, no. Not in such a way—like thieves—at night … No, Robert, that is not for people like us.” (p. 61) Faced with what he sees as timidity, Robert asserts his right to love Bertha as part of the natural law which decrees possession. He urges the claims of passion and, ironically, evokes for Richard the language of their youth. It was on the basis of those claims that Richard himself had run off with Bertha. But he can act no longer in the name of passion. He is the maturer man no longer motivated or deceived by the postures of youth and this realization sets him apart. He is motivated now by an adult assessment of his own character and his own principles. He will shortly pronounce judgment on himself and will face the future from the vantage point of this recognition of the impurity of his own motives. Consistently demanding truth from the others, he does not evade its demands upon himself. It is important to note his change of tone and attitude in this scene. He is no longer arrogant and self-assertive; the bluster has gone. It is Robert Hand who dominates; he asks the questions; he issues the challenge. Richard admits to weakness, acts timidly, and is in doubt.

Faced with Robert's customary view of him as strong, he says “I am weak” (p. 62). He speaks of a more important law than that of passion and possession—“To wish her well.” (p. 63) It is the maturer Richard talking. The rights of romantic passion are being placed in perspective as he draws closer and closer to the main cause of his suffering, the real explanation for his present behavior. In the early days, he and Bertha were passionately drawn to each other but not now. His decision to grant her freedom recognizes that alteration. It lies behind the question he addresses to Robert:

Have you the luminous certitude that yours is the brain in contact with which she must think and understand and that yours is the body in contact with which her body must feel? Have you this certitude in yourself?

(p. 63)

Once he and Bertha had this certitude; it was a justification for their relationship. If she and Robert have it now, then it is Richard's duty to accept that as a fact and act accordingly.

But it is not as simple now as it had been then. Richard's present suffering is increased by doubt as to the valdity of that claim and that demand. To Bertha's innocence he had brought his experience; to her fidelity he had brought his infidelity. Ostensibly, his motives had been sincere—“I tried to give her a new life” (p. 67)—but now he questions the value of that offering:

Is it worth what I have taken from her—her girlhood, her laughter, her young beauty, the hopes of her young heart?

(p. 67)

Where Robert is short-slightedly lost in the claims of love and passion, as Richard once had been, Richard calculates the effect of time and change upon those claims:

How will it be when you turn against her and against me; when her beauty, or what seems so to you now, wearies you and my affection for you seems false and odious?

(p. 68)

The impermanence of life and the transience of youth and beauty cause him to question the presumptuous certainty of his claim upon Bertha; his offer of freedom to her now is caused in part by his fear of a future day of reckoning and of possible regret:

But that I will reproach myself then for having taken all for myself because I would not suffer her to give to another what was hers and not mine to give, because I accepted from her her loyalty and made her life poorer in love. That is my fear. That I stand between her and any moments of life that should be hers, between her and you, between her and anyone, between her and anything. I will not do it. I cannot and I will not.

(p. 69)

Having spoken honestly of his fears and motives, Richard drives on further to admit an even deeper cause of action. Part of the visible image is the honorable concern for Bertha's freedom of choice and his decision to allow her equal opportunity for fulfillment; now, too, he has spoken convincingly of his feeling of doubt as to the justice of his claims upon her for nine years. There is also the hidden motivation. Under its thrust he repudiates the nobility of that public image and undermines the honesty of his desire to shun secrecy. In fact, what he has wanted and still wants is shameful:

That is what I must tell you too. Because in the very core of my ignoble heart I longed to be betrayed by you and by her—in the dark, in the night—secretly, meanly, craftily. By you, my best friend, and by her. I longed for that passionately and ignobly, to be dishonored for ever in love and in lust, to be. … To be forever a shameful creature and to build up my soul again out of the ruins of its shame.

(p. 70)

This confession marks the play's climax and accounts for its compulsive confessional action. In scene after scene there has been an unmasking of character with Richard as the dominant force impelling the others towards self-exposure. But he has not been immune to the thrust of this action; it propels him also into the heart of the unconscious to a recognition of dark forces urging him to action and decision. The inclusive and honest view of himself defines a Richard other than the detached, unfeeling man of great personal integrity and principle. It does not detract from one's estimation of his value. He merges as more human, more visibly concerned with others, more united with the ordinary individual because more understanding of human complexity and weakness. It is this new Richard who can say to Robert, referring to the scene in which he had discovered him with Bertha,

I told you that when I saw your eyes this afternoon I felt sad. Your humility and confusion, I felt, united you to me in brotherhood … At that moment I felt our whole life together in the past, and I longed to put my arm around your neck.”

(p. 69)

Act III validates this view of him. Despite Bertha's protestation of fidelity, despite Robert's assurances that he did not possess her, Richard prefers to be in doubt. The luminous certainty of his earlier association with Bertha is darkened forever. Actually it no longer satisfies him. Happiness has been superseded by something more valuable. “You will tell me,” he says to her, when she insists that she has been faithful. “But I will never know. Never in this world.” (p. 102) Bertha makes the obvious reply that if he loved her, he would believe her. To which he says “I did not make myself. I am what I am.” (p. 103) Few statements in modern drama have caused as much bafflement as this. An identification with Jesus seems obvious and is in keeping with the reference to the disciple who betrays. But what of the tone of the statement? Surely it is not arrogant? Richard speaks humbly. He has admitted his shameful, ignoble desires. Being the man he is, they are an inescapable part of him. For him, whether he like it or not, love is no longer unmixed with betrayal. He will always have his Judas, even if he has to invent him. In his final scene with Bertha he is confident of her ability to accept him as he is, just as she had accepted him for what he was in the past.

It is not in the darkness of belief that I desire you. But in restless living wounding doubt. To hold you by no bonds, even of love, to be united with you in body and soul in utter nakedness—for this I longed.

(p. 112)

If he has had confidence in the friend who betrayed him, he has much greater confidence in the wife who “made him a man.” (p. 100) If his certainty of her love is no longer luminous, it is more consciously committed and suits the new Richard.

In its main outlines Richard's transformation is similar to that experienced by Stephen Dedalus between his appearance in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and his reappearance in Ulysses. Like Stephen, Richard progresses from proud, introspective intellectuality to humility and human sympathy. In his final state he, too, might be seen as ready for the educational encounter with Leopold Bloom and what he represents of warm and viable humanity. Here, within the short and uncongenial compass of a three-act play, Joyce renders the emergence of the maturer, more adaptable figure from the restricting contours of his earlier, youthful self.

Note

1. (New York, 1961), p. 22. All references are to this text.