[In the following essay, Kern compares Falstaff with the archetypal trickster figure.]

Carl Jung defined the trickster figure as a “‘psychologem’, an archetypal psychic structure of extreme antiquity …, a faithful reflection of an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that hardly left the animal level.”¹ He did so in a commentary, made upon request, to a study of the North-American Trickster by the anthropologist, Paul Radin. Radin had discovered this figure “in clearly recognizable form among the simplest aboriginal tribes and among the complex (xxiii).” But he also recognized its analogues in the literatures of ancient Greece, China, Japan, and the Semitic world, adding that “many of the Trickster's traits are perpetuated in the figure of the medieval jester and have survived up to the present day in the Punch-and-Judy plays and in the clown (xxiii).” The American-Indian Trickster, forever shifting his countenance from animal to human, even male to female, appears in the tales retold by Radin as both stupid and clever, rebelliously immoral or simply amoral, primitive as well as shrewd. He plays outrageous tricks on all those he encounters and is outwitted as often as he boasts of outwitting others, until, at the end of his life, he becomes aware of the purpose for which he has been sent to Earth by Earthmaker and, in a wild triumph of the imagination, turns the world upside down: killing all those who have suppressed his people, indulging copiously in rich food, and ascending to heaven. (52) On reading Radin's account and his collection of Trickster tales, Jung also recalled similar figures belonging to the European Middle Ages as well as to Greek and Roman antiquity. He believed the Trickster to be an avatar not only of the Greek god Hermes known as the thief but also of the still more ancient god Mercurius, “a daemonic being resurrected from primitive times.”² Such characters share with Trickster traits that make them semi-divine, semi-human, semi-animal. Like him, they are capable of assuming various shapes and disguises and perpetually indulge in play-acting in their fondness for sly jokes and malicious pranks. What intrigued the psychoanalyst above all was the figure's inherent ambivalence: its perpetual wavering between good and evil that made him resemble the Christian “devil,” described by the Middle Ages as simia dei, the Ape of God, “the simpleton who cheats and is cheated in turn.” The activities of the North-American Trickster evoked for Jung the mood of Carnival as it was known to the medieval Church with its reversal of hierarchic order—a mood still prevailing in carnivalesque celebrations of the student societies known to him. (One might add that this mood also still prevails during carnivalesque festivities in some European as well as South-American countries.)

During medieval celebrations such trickster figures—joyously rebellious and amoral to the point of transgressing all social and religious laws—established a momentary utopia, as they abased the mighty and elevated the meek, thereby annulling all established hierarchy in a sort of fantasy triumph. Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles (He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree) was a refrain that echoed through cathedrals on such festive occasions, as, under the leadership of the trickster, the powerful clergy were removed from their high seats and their places taken by the humble and the poor.³ Such a comic act of justice was filled with ambivalence. While it travestied sacred language and texts, it seemed to derive its inspiration from the Scriptures. While it brought about a higher justice, it defied prevailing laws and authority. The laughter it elicited was, as a consequence, either condemned or found liberating and those responsible for it considered either saints or sinners.

However, such ambivalent trickster figures are clearly not restricted to mythology and popular celebrations. They have appeared over and over again and in various guise in animal epics such as Reynard the Fox, as picaros in such picaresque tales as those of Tyll Eulenspiegel, and we can even recognize them in the novels of such modern authors as Thomas Mann, Günter Grass, and John Kennedy Toole—to mention but a few. They are usually endowed with ravenous appetites for food and—sometimes—sex. Their genius for plotting and scheming seems inexhaustible, and it is displayed either for the sheer fun of it, for exclusively selfish purposes, or in the service of others, that is, in the very sense of the deposuit potentes and of comic justice. The universal and profound appeal of such justice—at least in the realm of the imagination—is illustrated, I believe, by the popularity of Robin Hood and the glorification of trickster-outlaws in such national anthems as Australia's “Waltzing Mathilda” and Holland's “Piet Hein”—the Dutch pirate who stole the Spanish silver fleet. In Thomas Mann's The Holy Sinner, the trickster is not only redeemed through art but also beatified within the fictional world the author has created.

Should Falstaff be considered as belonging to the brotherhood of such tricksters? In Shakespeare's Festive Comedy, C. L. Barber paved the way for such inclusion when he observed that in creating the Falstaff comedy the playwright “fused two main saturnalian traditions, the clowning customary on the stage and the folly customary on holiday, and produced something unprecedented (194).” Barber likened Falstaff to a Lord of Misrule who—at first with Prince Hal's fullest consent and later in pitiable contrast to him—wanted all year to be “playing holidays.” In Barber's view Falstaff seems to assume at the time of his ultimate disgrace the role of the scapegoat of saturnalian rituals, that of a Mardi Gras who, after having presided over a revel is turned on by his followers, “tried in some sort of court, convicted of sins notorious in the village during the last year, and burned or buried in effigy to signify a new start (206).” In fact, Barber came to the conclusion that “by turning on Falstaff as a scapegoat, as the villagers turned on their Mardi Gras, the prince can free himself from the sins, the ‘bad luck’, of Richard's reign and of his father's reign, to become a king in whom chivalry and a sense of divine ordination are restored (207).” While Barber did not refer to Falstaff as a trickster, he nevertheless linked him to ritual festivities as well as to stage tradition, both natural arenas for that ancient figure. Barber failed to recognize in Falstaff, however, those very traits of ambiguity that we have seen to be essential to the ancient as well as the modern trickster.

Interestingly enough, these traits were observed by Roy Battenhouse in an indisputably brilliant essay “Falstaff as Parodist and Perhaps Holy Fool.”⁴ Battenhouse complained that those “critics who have seen in Falstaff a Lord of Misrule may be correct, except for their own inadequate understanding of the role's implications (34-5).” Yet as Battenhouse deplores that the “implications hidden under Shakespeare's biblical echoes have been sadly neglected by commentators” and as he uses his intimate familiarity with the Scriptures to highlight these echoes, he, inadvertently, also portrays Falstaff as the Holy Sinner, the trickster who, in the spirit of the deposuit potentes is the redeemer defiled and ultimately redeemed. In his detailed analysis of I Henry IV, Battenhouse speaks of Falstaff's many good offices under comic guise (45) and, going beyond the moment of Prince Hal's rejection of him, makes reference to Mistress Quickly's report of Falstaff's death in Henry V (II. 3) and her belief that Falstaff is surely not in hell but in Arthur's (Battenhouse reads: “Abraham's”) bosom. In the critic's words,

It is Falstaff who has been practicing the true sense of Ephesians v: redeeming time through manifest “unfruteful workes of darknes.” … Prince Hal's purpose has been but a counterfeit redeeming, reductively political, which Falstaff redeems in the sense of reestimates, re-evaluates.

(47)

Seen in this light, Falstaff, rather than merely serving as the scapegoat upon whose back are loaded the sins of Prince Hal, acquires instead the ambivalence of the American-Indian Trickster, redeeming and redeemed, martyred and ultimately ascending into the heavens. The subtle biblical allusions Battenhouse discovered and uncovered within the play fit with such ease the trickster pattern in all its ramifications that it would be wrong to ignore its theatrical and carnivalesque tradition that was known to Shakespeare as well. We should not see Falstaff exclusively, therefore, in the noble light that Battenhouse sheds upon him. The playwright fused in him, indeed, “customary stage clowning and saturnalian holiday folly,” as Barber maintained, and their traces are the more easily recognizable because their fusion was not as unprecedented as that critic believed it to be. Since Shakespeare brilliantly manipulated and transcended tradition, our admiration for his originality can only be enhanced by our awareness of this.

A quick comparison of Falstaff with a comic figure of one of Molière's comedies, the servant Scapin of Les Fourberies de Scapin (roughly translatable as Scapin the Trickster) may throw some light on the trickster's theatrical tradition. Mere servant though he is, Scapin is truly the comedy's protagonist, its Lord of Misrule, an ambivalent trickster responsible for all its absurdly merry and carnivalesque happenings and activities. In his untiring and devoted attempts to help his young master to obtain from his father—as rich, stingy, and authoritarian as tradition decrees—permission to marry the girl he has already married and the money he needs to take care of her, Scapin lies, tricks, steals, disguises himself and others, invents and stages plots, and succeeds in outwitting the old man—only to learn that all would have been well (indeed better), had he done nothing. Alfred Harbage's remark about Falstaff (quoted by Battenhouse) needs only minor alterations to be applicable to Scapin:

Falstaff is the least effective wrongdoer that ever lived. He's a thief whose booty is taken from him, a liar who is never believed, a drunkard who is never befuddled, a bully who is not feared.

(33)

What complicates Scapin's position is the fact that Molière's comedy has not one but two pairs of lovers and, consequently, two old fathers whose problems must be solved by our trickster so that—with some assistance from another servant—he plunges with incredible speed from adventure into new adventure until he is ultimately outwitted and scapegoated—and yet resurrected in some comic way. His inventiveness, his shrewdness, his struggles in the medieval spirit of the comic deposuit potentes against powerful and overbearing fathers are ultimately to no avail because, to the surprise of all, the fathers' wishes are shown to have coincided all along with their sons' seemingly illicit desires. But because all problems are finally solved by sheer lucky coincidence, Scapin the indefatigable and witty strategist and manipulator proves not only superfluous but even finds himself threatened by those very authorities that he had so “successfully” tricked. He is temporarily spared the wrath of father G. only because it is rumored that he has been killed by a falling brick and, though “revived” just in time for the wedding feast, he can attend it only on “his deathbed,” incapable of partaking of food and drink and threatened to be killed unless he promises to die. Yet his wit cannot be vanquished, and he manages to mock the two fathers, even while asking for their “forgiveness” as he anticipates his “demise.”

Not unlike Prince Hal's fat companion, Scapin prides himself above all on his wit:

Well to tell you the truth, there isn't much I can't manage when I'm put to it. There's no doubt about it. I've quite a gift for smart ideas and ingenious little dodges. Of course, those who can't appreciate them call 'em shady, but, boasting apart, there are not many fellows to equal yours truly when it comes down to scheming or something that needs a little manipulation.

(66)⁵

His bragging is obviously restricted to the civilian milieu wherein he dwells, and his fancy cannot roam on battlefields or indulge in the heroic fantasies of the traditional braggart soldier (so popular that a special mask existed for him in the commedia dell'arte) that Falstaff resembles.

Scoundrel that he is, Scapin has his differences with the law, as he delicately admits to his fellow servant, and blames it all on “the way things are being done nowadays” (67). Yet, his cheating being done on a smaller scale than that of Falstaff—who robs, and is robbed of his booty by Prince Hal himself—Scapin does not have to be bailed out by a future king. It is only within the world of his young masters—actually vis-a-vis their fathers—that he applies his skills of extorting, snatching up purses, inventing blackmailing brothers of injured young ladies and Turkish kidnappers, and making sport of those who take themselves too seriously. His labors are both strenuous and hilarious, as this sample of his getting money from father G. might indicate:

G.
Four hundred guineas, you said?
SCAPIN.
Five hundred. …
G.
Here Scapin … (Takes the purse from his pocket and offers it to Scapin) Take it! Off you go and ransom my son!
SCAPIN.
(Holding his hand out) Very good, sir.
G.
(Keeping his purse, though making as if to give it to Scapin) And tell that Turk he's a scoundrel!
SCAPIN.
(Still holding his hand out) Right!. …
G.
(Putting his purse back in his pocket and moving off) And now go get my son back!
SCAPIN.
(Running after him). Heh, master!. … Where's the money?
G.
Didn't I give it to you? … Ah! It's the grief that makes me do that! I don't know what I'm doing.

(92-3)

Yet for all his loyalty to his young master, Scapin cheats him as readily as Falstaff betrays Prince Hal. Just as Falstaff may grumble behind the Prince's back that he is “a Jack, a sneak-up” whom he threatens to cudgel like a dog, so Scapin will engage in treachery, especially where food, drink, or valuables are concerned. Finding himself accused by young Leander of a misdeed as yet undefined, Scapin—whose conscience is never quite clear—confesses: “I and a few friends drank that small quartern cask of Spanish wine someone gave you a few days ago. It was I who made the hole in the cask and poured water on the floor to make you think the wine had run out (80).” And as soon as he realizes that this is not the misdeed for which he was meant to be reprehended, he rashly confesses to another: “I confess that one evening about three weeks ago you sent me with a watch to the young … girl you are in love with and I came home with my clothes torn and my face covered with blood and I told you I'd been beaten and robbed. It was me, master—I'd kept the watch for myself (80)!”

But his consummate artistry as a trickster who also authors, directs, and acts in intricate plots is displayed above all in a scene in which he coaches the second young man, Octavio, to face up boldly to the return of his father, the very thought of whom makes the youth tremble. As he rehearses Octavio, it is, of course, Scapin who assumes the part of the father:

SCAPIN.
Well, unless you stand firm from the outset he'll take advantage … to treat you like a child. Come, try to pull yourself together. Make up your mind to answer him firmly whatever he says to you.
O.
I'll do what I can.
SCAPIN.
We had better practice a little to get you used to the idea. We'll put you through your part and see how you get on. Come now, a resolute air, head up, firm glance.
O.
Like this?
SCAPIN.
A bit more yet.
O.
That it?
SCAPIN.
Right. Now imagine I am your father coming in. Answer me boldly as if I were he. ‘Now, you scoundrelly good for nothing! You disgrace to a decent father! How dare you come near me after what you have done while I have been away? Is this what I get for all I've done for you, you dog! Is this the way you obey me? Is this how you show your respect for me?’—Come on, now—‘You have the audacity, you rascal, to tie yourself up without your father's consent. … Answer me you rogue, answer me! Let's hear what you have to say for yourself?’
What the devil—you seem completely nonplussed!
O.
Yes—you sound so much like my father.
SCAPIN.
Well, that's the very reason why you mustn't stand there like an idiot …
O.
I'll be more determined this time. I'll put a bold face on it.
SCAPIN.
Sure?
O.
Certain.
SCAPIN.
That's good, for here comes your father!
O.
Heavens! I'm done for! (Runs off)

(71-2)

One cannot but be aware of the theatrical analogies between this scene and II, iv of I Henry IV, wherein Falstaff, playing the part of the King, sets our to coach Prince Hal for the arrival of his father. Both scenes represent theater within theater. In Molière's play it is Scapin who directs, criticizes, or praises O.'s acting. In Shakespeare's, it is Mistress Quickly who comments on Falstaff's demeanor when he acts the King. Yet in Molière's work the son remains the frightened creature that comedy bids him be, while Prince Hal quickly switches roles with Falstaff and, as the King, chides Falstaff-Prince for leading his son astray. Shakespeare's scene, with its double irony and brilliant dialogue, assumes subtleties and complexities that are not present in Molière's comedy and that have given rise to numerous interpretations. For our discussion it is immaterial, however, to choose between those critics who—as Barber suggests—believe that Hal's attitude here already foreshadows his future repudiation and scapegoating of Falstaff and those who think—like Battenhouse—that Hal, true son of his father, fails to see here or anywhere the deep-felt truths Falstaff tries to convey to him under the guise of the clown. What is relevant to us is the obvious existence of theatrical patterns that, both in their similarities and their dissimilarities, attest to a theatrical trickster tradition of which Shakespeare as well as Molière partook. Shakespeare was not known in France when Molière staged his comedy in 1671. But Italy may well have been their common inspiration. Molière's Scapin clearly took his name from the Italian commedia dell'arte mask Scappino, so well known that Callot included him in his famous sketches. In preserving the character's trickster ambivalence, the French playwright stressed above all his light-hearted laughter tinged with only the vaguest hue of suffering. Shakespearean genius made the ambivalent figure fit his own more profound and complex dramatic ambitions.

Notes

1. Paul Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American-Indian Mythology, with Commentaries by Karl Kerenyi and C. G. Jung (London: Rutledge & Kegan Paul, 1956), p. 260.

2. Edith Kern, The Absolute Comic (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 121.

3. C. L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton U. Press, 1959), p. 195.

4. Roy Battenhouse, “Falstaff as Parodist and Perhaps Holy Fool,” PMLA, 90 (1975), 32-52.

5. Molière, “The Scoundrel Scapin” in The Miser and Other Plays, John Wood, tr. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1953).