Ellie in Wonderland: Dream and Madness in Heartbreak House

Abstract

E L L I E I N W O N D E R L A N D : D R E A M A N D M A D N E S S I N H E A R T B R E A K H O U S E JAMES WOODFIELD University of New Brunswick “ But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “ Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “ we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “ How do you know I ’m mad?” said Alice. “ You must be,” said the Cat, “ or you wouldn’t have come here.” 1 Alice in Wonderland An Shaw’s plays reveal an impressive eclecticism: none, perhaps, displays a range quite so large as Heartbreak House. Shaw’s Preface, in addition to indicating his debts to Chekhov and Tolstoy, is a veritable compendium of political, intellectual, and artistic figures that includes dramatists, novelists, poets, musicians, philosophers, scientists, kings, statesmen, soldiers, and characters from literature, and the play mentions or alludes to a dozen more — most of whom could be, and in many cases have been, pursued by literary sleuths in search of sources or frames of reference. His letters suggest further personal sources, and assiduous biographers have sought out contemporary events and personal connections or experiences in Shaw’s life that expand the play’s background. Lewis Carroll is not mentioned in the Preface, nor have I discovered any reference to him anywhere else in Shaw, but I am not the first to suggest sources or parallels in Alice. However, although a few critics have noticed similarities in passing,2 none has explored the dream process and allied theme of madness that forms the basis of both works (I regard the two Alice books as one). I do not propose to establish Alice as a source for Heartbreak House; rather, I wish to identify some of the more significant similarities or echoes and use them as points of depar­ ture to help analyze and understand Shaw’s most perplexing play. Both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass open with Alice falling asleep and making an almost instant transition from the everyday world of waking consciousness to the dream world of sleep. Wakening into her dreams, Alice enters worlds that are clearly fantasy, English Studies in Canada, xi, 3, September 1985 though nonetheless real to the dreamer. In Shaw’s play, the world of Heartbreak House, strange though it may be, is not of the same order; however, the sub-title “ Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes,” in addition to pointing to Chekhov and Tolstoy (Tchaikowsky might be even more appropriate), does attach the word to the play. The possibility that it is all Elbe’s dream (note the echo of Alice in her name) is clearly established in the opening dumbshow sequence in which “a young lady,” impatient with waiting, resignedly begins to read a volume of the Temple Shakespeare, then falls asleep.8 A second sequence, in which a “womanservant” —-passing to and fro’ rather like the White Rabbit — crosses with fresh bottles of rum and returns with empties, is broken when the young lady drops her book and awakens — awakens out of her sleep, or into a dream? Such an opening has other precedents than Alice, of course, such as The Vision of Piers Plowman and the Divine Comedy to name only two, but more direct affinities with Alice occur when the Captain, who is “as mad as a hatter” (61) according to his daughter, Hesione, empties Elbe’s tea into a bucket, then fetches her more. With his white whiskers and muttering entrances and exits, the Captain also bears a resemblance to the White Rabbit, and like the Rabbit, who misnames Alice “Mary Ann” (55), he mistakes Elbe’s identity. In the hall and in Rabbit’s house, Alice drinks and eats and undergoes alarming changes in size: Elbe’s tea initiates signifi­ cant changes for her, not of size, but of character and outlook. It is also interesting to note that the White Knight, who is usually regarded as a caricature of Carroll himself...