조 오튼의 신-풍속 희극에 나타난 메난드로스 희극의 전통과 와해

Abstract

This study aims to explore Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw by comparing with Menander’s Epitrepontes in terms of Greek tradition of Menandrian ‘New Comedy.’ Particularly, this essay focuses on how Orton invoked the conventions of Menandrian drama related to the action of plot and the comic pattern of mistaken identity through a breakdown of the happy ending using tragic-comic devices. In the play, Orton took Menandrian motif of ‘rape’ as his main plotting. However, unlike Menander, he emphasizes the violent suppression of modern society, which he mocks. Orton’s What the Butler Saw is highly regarded as Ortonresque farce in the mid-sixties with constant twists and turns of Menandrian comic elements involving cross-dressing. Through the action of the play, bizarre and subversive plot devices are used for revealing his attack on the hypocritical morality of contemporary English life. It is argued that he expected nothing from life and was free of society’s values in his time. As usual, he satires institutional mores; moreover, he attempts to deconstruct the bureaucratic authority of established society through the play.