"Help, help, I'm being repressed!": Satire in Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Frequently ranked as one of the best comedies of all time, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is undeniable comedic genius. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a series of comedic sketches which parody the legend of King Arthur's journey to the Holy Grail. During his travels King Arthur encounters two peasants, one of whom is named Dennis, who spout anarcho-syndicalist ideology in resistance to Arthur's repression of their freedom by being king.

The most obvious technique of satire used in this Monty Python sketch is parody. The legend of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail is quite well known, and through costumes and setting they are able to recreate it. The comedy of the parody comes from the less than perfect recreation of King Arthur-rather than actually riding a horse Arthur gallops about while his servant bangs coconuts together to mimic hoofbeats. Instead of working the peasants sit in the mud and slap it about in an exaggeration of the actual menial work done by 10th century peasants. 
The skit also relies on hyperbole. As Arthur attempts to find out who lives in the neighboring castle, the peasants object to his superior attitude and reject his right to call himself king:

King Arthur: Well, I am king.

Dennis: Oh, king eh? Very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever gonna be any progress...

The language here exaggerates the loquacity of the peasant in order to make fun of the unnecessary complexity of language in progressive thought.

Monty Python uses situational irony to as a tool of satire in this skit. In a scene in which a king encounters peasants the audience may expect respectful and deferential treatment from the peasants. Instead, Dennis and the peasant woman are downright rude and challenge everything the Arthur says with anarcho-syndicalist rejections of authority.

Finally, this Monty Python skit is satirical because it uses these tools of comedy in order to comment on a larger aspect of society. The dialogue between Arthur and the peasants shows a power dynamic between leaders and citizens which bring up the degree of autonomy that people should have from the government. When Arthur shakes Dennis he screams, "Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!" The skit criticizes an over use of power by leaders and questions what determines the authority of leaders at all. When asked why he is the king, Arthur says the Lady of Lake gave him Excalibur, to which Dennis replies, "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government." Although placed in a historical context, Monty Python and the Holy Grail's skit criticizes the same power relations between the government and the governed that existed during it's 1975 release and continue to exist to this day.

Smeagol Meets Sethe

Although The Lord of the Rings and Beloved look like two completely different books -- and they are -- I’ve found a lot of similarities between the two. Obviously, Morrison’s novel deals with very real issues and is grounded in a lot more truth than Tolkien’s magic-filled fantasy. But, perhaps The Lord of the Rings, despite taking place in an entirely different universe, encompasses some of the same issues as Beloved.

At its core, the ring seeks to control. First its user, then the rest of the world; the ring will not stop until it dominates everything. Unable to resist the temptation of power that comes with the ring, mankind is unable to destroy it. Even hobbits, one of the purest and wholesome species in Middle Earth, have trouble fighting the ring. Like a sickness, it festers in its user, stripping away their humanity. Smeagol, once a carefree hobbit, became something else when he found the ring. As a result of the rings power, Smeagol killed his friend, ate raw fish, and isolated himself from everyone. Smeagol eventually took on the name Gollum, marking the ring’s success in replacing Smeagol’s identity.

I think this situation is akin to Sethe and Paul D’s. Although the power dynamic is slightly different, their lifelong struggle with slavery and its ramifications are not too different from Smeagol and his ring’s. Slavery, like the ring, has taken Sethe and Paul D’s identity and humanity. Even after its abolishment, slavery takes its toll (at the time Beloved takes place and now). Sethe wishes she was crazy and Paul D relies on his tobacco tin more than his heart. Americans, then and now, struggle to end racism and sacrifice the power that accompanies it.

Personality Conflict

The character of Raymond in Albert Camus' novel The Stranger is quickly developed in part one as a dominating coward. The way Raymond wants the world to view him is as a pimp and powerful, especially regarding women. However, he is not necessarily a cruel person and has moments when he shows weakness and an unwillingness to harm. When Meursault and Raymond are discussing a fight Raymond got into Raymond says “I was about to help him up but he started kicking me from there on the ground” (29). While the other man instigated the fight, Raymond only fought back when his honor was being questioned. Even then, he only hurt hurt the man bad enough to end the fight. Later, the police show up at Raymond’s house after he beats his mistress while saying, “You used me, you used me” (35). The reason Raymond appears to hurt people is when he is either feeling cheated of something or he is being questioned and becomes defensive.

This reaction could be a result of societal pressures put on men to appear powerful and dominating or maybe results of parental teaching. However, he actually openly defies authority when the police knock on Raymond’s door to question him about hitting the girl. He opens the door with a cigarette and when the policeman tells him to stop smoking it he ignores him and continues to smoke until the cigarette is smacked out of his mouth. Though almost immediately after being hit he becomes meek and asks if he can pick up the cigarette. These two contradictory personality traits illustrate the internal struggle of Raymond to appear powerful while actually being submissive.

A similar pattern is seen in Meursault though less obvious and open. When questioned by his boss about taking leave for his mother’s funeral and the director about placing his mom in the home he quickly becomes defensive. He feels the need to constantly justify his actions and choices. However, he also wants avoid confrontation, for example, when Raymond is beating up the girls and Marie asks Meursault to get the police he says that he “didn’t like cops” (36). There are other examples of Meursault appearing to have a lack of opinion in situations when he could be questioned for having one. While this level of defensiveness is much less present than Raymond’s, Meursault still feels the need to prove himself.

When in Rome...

Words can hardly describe my love for "Roman Fever" by Edith Wharton. This story, this little slice of fictitious cake, consists of nothing but the purest drama a lover of literature can find. Reading this story is like listening in on the greatest wine mom gossip you've ever listened in on. Reading this story is like drinking the concentrated juice of the juiciest scoop that the guy who's got the dirt on everyone ever dished out. "Roman Fever" is like manifesting the very concept of "guilty pleasures" into a short snippet of great literature. It's the ultimate 411 to end all other 411's. It's enough to make any half-decent scuttlebutt tear up with pure, unadulterated joy. Simply put, "Roman Fever" is the hottest goss to ever grace the canon of short American literature.

From the very start, you can tell that this dirt is gonna be good. The story begins with two women, Slade and Ansley, who see one another "through the wrong end of her little telescope," as the author says. It's clear that each entirely misinterprets the other. By the end of the story, we find out that: a) Slade's husband cheated on her with Ansley, b) Slade wrote the letter that set up Ansley's date with her husband, with the intention of Ansley getting sick from the cold, and c) that by doing so, Slade inadvertently arranged the conception of Barbara, Ansley's daughter that she's so envious of.

Like I said - some super high quality dirt.

When I read the story for a second time, I was amazed by the hints Wharton left for the reader. In the beginning of part II, Slade says, "I always wanted a brilliant daughter... and never quite understood why I got an angel instead," to which Ansley responds, "Babs is an angel too." This is our first hint that Barbara and Jenny (Slade's daughter) shared the same father.

The second big hint to Barbara's parentage is when Slade recounts that "...you were married to Horace Ansley two months afterward [after the affair with Slade's husband] ...As soon as you could get out of bed your mother rushed you off to Florence and married you." This is implying that Ansley's mother was in a hurry for her to get married because she was already pregnant with Barbara.

The beauty of this story is that in the beginning, it seems that Slade has all the information. She has the upper hand when she reveals to Ansley that she wrote the letter Ansley believed to be from Delphin. However, Ansley soon reveals that she in fact is the one with more information. The power dynamic slowly but very decidedly shifts from one woman to another. Because of the hints Wharton worked into her dialogue, the reader guesses what Ansley is withholding from Slade (namely, that Barbara is Delphin's daughter) before Slade ever finds out. This creates an interesting situation where Slade thinks that she is in power when both Ansley and the reader know that the opposite is true.

"Roman Fever" is ripe with irony of all sorts. Wharton creates dramatic irony when she allows the reader to guess at the secret of Barbara's parentage, although the most ironic element is the fact that Slade accidentally enabled the affair that she wanted to end and caused the conception of the girl she's so envious of.

Ansley obviously follows that age old saying: When in Rome, do it in the Colosseum. 

It's Difficult to Admit the Truth

In times that seem so progressive, such as 2014, admitting that horrible distinctions existed (and continue to exist) in the world is a brave feat. We all know that women couldn’t own property for many years; we all know they did not attain the right to vote until the 1920s. We think our society is near perfect and that everything is okay because we’re equal in the political sense. But it’s still hard to admit the truth about the long-prevailing societal labels placed upon our ancestors and even, to some extent, ourselves.

In the passage “Shakespeare’s Sister,” Virginia Woolf describes what a female literary genius in the Elizabethan era would look like. One key thing that Woolf mentions keeps her from becoming a renowned author is that she is “the property of her husband.” Also, she mentions that her family places great pressure upon her to conform to the societal roles as a mother and caretaker for her husband, thus giving her no freedom to write without being ridiculed or punished.

This hypothetical situation may seem extreme to us now (Women as property? Excuse me?), but when we look deeper into the phenomenon, we must hold our noses and admit that this situation was a true one. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, written in 1899, a husband, Leonce, is mentioned as looking at his wife Edna in the same way that one looks at “a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage.” Although the author’s reference is metaphorical, it reveals an ugly truth about society’s progression.

Women achieved the right to own property, they attained suffrage rights, they advocated for the passage of Title IX, we’ve gone through multiple waves of feminism, but the view of women as property, although diminishing in obviousness, continues to remain, woven deeply into the constructs of society. We won’t admit it, though. We won’t admit that women were viewed as property back then, and we won’t admit that the view continues to exist in a less-obvious manner in the world today. Why do we still use the term “trophy wife?” If we seek to find an answer to the question, we may be forced to admit the truth. This awful view of women has not gone away, and without tremendous effort, it never will. :(

Common Themes

The passage “Experiences in a Concentration Camp” from Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl shares many of the same topics and motifs as King Lear. The theme of power is the first to come to mind, most likely because it seems to be very prominent between the two. The topics of weak men and suffering, however, are also present.

On page 32 in the passage, Frankl describes how a colleague of his sneaks into his “block” and gives advice on how to survive: “If you want to stay alive, there is only one way: look fit for work. If you even limp, because, let us say, you have a small blister on your heel, and an SS man spots this, he will wave you aside and the next day you are sure to be gassed.” This not only relates to the motif of weak men, it also falls under the category of appearance vs. reality. The prisoners are disguising their suffering and pain in order to stay alive.

This leads me to the next theme: suffering. As mentioned in previous posts, Frankl describes how mental pain can be more scarring than physical pain: “At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most…it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all” (36). Lear is also forced to endure a form of mental suffering after his daughters’ betrayal and loss of power.

There are obviously many more thematic links between these two stories, but I thought that these were some of the most dominant.

Animalism and Agony

So as we've been reading King Lear, we've grown accustomed to the many references to the animalistic lifestyle of the impoverished characters, whether they be disguised or legitimately stripped of any dignity or possessions. We've also watched as Lear himself descends, particularly during the storm of Act III, into an agonized mental tempest, supporting the theme from throughout the play that mental anguish is worse than its physical counterpart.

And then we read about the Holocaust.

Um.

As captivating and disturbing as Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is, at first I had no idea how it was going to "expand the conversation" for our understanding of Shakespeare's tragedy. I'm sure in both instances people lost eyes, but that isn't particularly profound or fun to think about; it's just gross.

However, then I arrived at this line: "At such a moment it is not physical pain which hurts the most...it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all" (Frankl 36).

Although not in Shakespearean English, it's as if the words could have come from Lear's mouth. He felt betrayed by his daughters and, stripped of any sort of power, it is the injustice he feels that gives him such mental despair, overshadowing his homelessness in the midst of a horrendous storm. Frankl, having been beaten for no reason by a guard, feels the mental destruction of a complete loss of agency and humanity more pronouncedly than he feels the physical pain of the beating.

Frankl continues to describe working conditions, and how the workers resembled "only vaguely...a human form," and how they were instructed as one might "call a domestic animal back to its job" (36). In his experience, he had been stripped down to an animal-like form and was being treated as such, and from this experience he drew the realization that "[t]he most painful part of the beatings is the insult which they imply" (36). It is the mental agony of having been stripped of all humanity and agency that is the most painful. Lear, in the storm, reaches a similar conclusion, as does Edgar, who, disguised as Poor Tom, discovers that if his mind is free of trouble, then being stripped of everything and treated as an animal is less painful than being a supposed king and having no power or respect.

All in all, Frankl's realizations about humanity, dignity, and mental struggle reflect many of the character struggles in King Lear. Now if only there was a way to tell Lear to emotionally disconnect, because that seemed to work for the members of the concentration camp. But that's someone else's discussion.

Am I abusing my dog?

When we were discussing Benjamin's thoughts about binaries I thought of the relationships in my life that I value, and whether or not they were a harmful binary. I thought about my relationship with my parents, which is definitely questionable, but that is an entirely different post. I thought about my relationships with my friends, which for the most part I think we at least try to mutually recognize each other. But then I thought about somebody who is very valuable to me, and yet is probably the worst relationship I have, by Benjamin's standards. That somebody is my dog, Tucker. He is a 3-4 year old borador whom I love very much.

Maybe our relationships with our pets do not have to follow the same standards as our relationships with people. Obviously, since I am not a vegetarian, I can't really preach too much about animal rights. However, sitting here with Tucker at my feet, I can't help but think I'm mistreating him when I don't think of him as an equal. Even though an owner/pet relationship already suggests a domination in the name, I think it's possible to have that while having mutual recognition. Similarly to a parent/child or teacher/student, someone can have the upper hand while still respecting the other. When I ignore my dog's pleas for attention in an attempt to teach him not to whine when he wants something, I can't explain to him that I would give him a belly rub if he would just calm down for a second. Or when I pull on his leash when he's taking a long time to sniff a pole because I'm in a hurry, I am blatantly prioritizing my needs over his. I always feel guilty, as Benjamin expressed, after I dominate my beloved pup like that. At the same time, although such occasions are much more rare, he feels guilty when he eats my food or vomits on the carpet. Although we have a very beneficial relationship to both sides, I think it is ME/him, and I am trying to change that. However I'm also trying to change that in my head my relationship with my dog is more valuable sometimes than with humans. Do you feel you treat your pet as an equal, or even that you should?

The Cycle Only Continues

Since we were not able to get to it in class, I thought it was important to evaluate the ending of Barn Burning, specifically focusing on how Colonel Sartoris feels regretful about turning his back to his family and specifically his father. At the end, after Snopes has been shot, he reaches the hill and Faulkner writes, "At midnight he was sitting on the crest of a hill. He did not know it was midnight and he did not know how far he had come. But there was no glare behind him now and he sat now, his back toward what he had called home for four days anyhow, his face toward the dark woods which he would enter when breath was strong again, small, shaking steadily in the chill darkness, hugging himself into the remainder of his thin, rotten shirt, the grief and despair now no longer terror and fear but just grief and despair" (Faulkner 157). It is important to notice how Faulkner focuses on describing the setting as dark and gloomy. He describes the time being midnight and how he saw "no glare," it is pitch black, he also describes it as cold. One is led to believe that breaking out of the horrible oppression under his father's domination would be later described as happy. Thinking back to Jessica Benjamin, she says that when someone breaks out of the binary they typically end up not knowing what to do with their new found power and turn into their old oppressor. We see this start to sprout in the last paragraphs.

Faulkner, towards the end, uses pronouns such as "he" and "him" when talking about Colonel Sartoris to show how he in himself is his own self. By using pronouns, it seems as if Sartoris is a whole new person since his disengagement with his father. He separates himself from his father but then defends him and says "he was brave!" (Faulkner 157). This example reinforces Benjamin's statement that after a revolution, the rebels then scramble to find a form of government or power and end up resorting back to the only thing they know, the previous form of power, and thus the cycle only continues.

Power and Dominance

Through his short story Victory Lap, George Saunders manages to capture the imaginations out of our very bodies and place us directly into the minds of several different dynamic characters. He carefully creates several images and examples of different dominance complexes, happily building off the other work in class on philosophers Jessica Benjamin and Vladimir Nabokov.

The first complex he develops in seen through Alison Pope, as she paints her fantasy across her staircase walls. She depicts herself as a ballroom princess, judging suitors left and right, deciding whether they've earned her favor. "What about this guy, behind Mr. Small Package, standing near the home entertainment center? What a thick neck.."  (1). Here Saunders develops his first binary, the BEAUTY/beast. That is, Alison's princess status that reigns above her lowly suitors.

Secondly, Saunders establishes the PARENT/child binary through Kyle. Kyle is hardly allowed to be his own person in life, as he's strictly controlled by his parents rule system. He is so limited by his parents 'directives' that he even considered not doing ANYTHING about Alison's kidnapping, even calling the police, lest the outside world think him strange, lest he violates too many directives. Luckily in the end he is driven to overcome these constraints, but all the same, this binary nearly cost a girl her life.

This ties into the third binary produced, KIDNAPPER/captive, an obviously negative complex by nature. A rapist, pedophilic murderer nearly captures and kills Alison, and would have been successful had Kyle not intervened.

All of these point to a greater truth that Saunders's story conveys, that truly Victory Lap is about the struggle for POWER/dominance, as seen through Alison's need to put herself above her subjects, Kyle's parent's need to control their son and his need to find his own person, and the rapists need to control his victims. Saunders paints these binaries all in negative lights, from Alison fanciful whims forcing her to be polite and invite the murderer into her home despite her instincts, Kyle's much needed reaction that might have remained dormant had his instincts not overridden his rules, and there's definitely no good way to look at a rapist.

In the end, Saunders is able to pull ideas together and solidify an underlying opinion of the negative effects of dominance complexes through carefully constructed streams of consciousness running parallel throughout a gripping short story. He can enchant and perplex the reader, thus inspiring them to seek out complicated thought and find inner meaning in all he writes and all he does, this past example to name one of a few.

He's pretty awesome, this Saunders guy.

The Magic of a Geode

I'm not enchanted by George Saunders. He has his magical moments, but I never feel enchanted. Enchantment, as described by Nabokov, is a necessary happening to become a good author. However, I find that enchantment can draw away from the storyline of Saunders' short stories. When I think enchantment, I think wordy. Deep, too deep, descriptions of unnecessary scenes; and Saunders does not do that. He keeps the reader active and engaged-not dreary and dreading the next paragraph of descriptive fluff. He keeps up captivated- not enchanted.

In Escape from Spiderhead, there scarcely is a dull moment. He leaves us with an opportunity to form our own opinions yet leads us toward a common ending. He uses every captivating material in his repertoire to keep us locked in- sex, death, suicide, challenging authority, prison, women, men... All things that the readers secretly wish that they could have or do. His stories combine all of these edgy ideals into a massive hodgepodge of controversy and sensual chaos that leaves the reader wishing it wasn't a short story. 

Blogging College English Since 2004!

Yep, it is the 10th Anniversary Blogging Year for College English.

This year, because of the school's adoption of all things Google, I converted the blog into Google's Blogger platform -- so it's all shiny and new. But if you are curious about what it's looked like in year's past ....

For the past five years we've had a continuous blog running: Word Choices.

To find the first five years -- and maybe some older siblings -- check out the Blog Archives.