The author is dead; long live the story. When Wilde dies, when George Bernard Shaw dies, when Samuel Beckett dies, then the pieces begin to live. In his 1967 essay “Death of the Author,” Roland Barthes tells us “the birth of the reader” only occurs when we disregard the writer. Attaching significance to the author in criticism means making a puzzle of the author’s text—something to be dissected, its meaning hung up on a cork board with pins, a butterfly of art turned into a trophy. When the reader obtains the “victory” of piecing out the intent of the writer, it means moving on to the next piece to destroy it in biographical content and intention. This victory, however, is hollow. Storytellers, writers, and performers do not practice their arts for their own selves. They give the audience their children, their works, and instead of studying what the children go on to do, the audience turns its eyes away from the text and to the writer’s interpretations.
Readers do not need the author’s interpretations. Texts are gifts to the reader; they are the author’s thoughts meant to inspire thought in others. The author’s later words invariably close off avenues of thought, never open them. George Bernard Shaw “does not believe in endings,” and as such, he leaves the ending of Pygmalion open to interpretation. Eliza and Higgins are as combative as ever to the very last. The ending moment we are left with is not a kiss between Eliza and Higgins, or Eliza and Freddy, but between Higgins and his mother. Higgins may have a “self-satisfied” manner in regards to Eliza’s attitude as though he knows she will break, but that is only in step with his abrasive personality throughout the play. He has never broken her before, and there is no reason to think he will, except because of others’ need for a storybook ending. The subversion in not definitively pairing the leads caused a “sense of unease” in Shaw’s audience. Authors are free to play with stereotypes, archetypes, and audience expectations, as that is part of writing. If an author toys with tropes in such a fashion, however, he must make sure to sew up the gaps that audiences will fill with their own expectations.
This vagueness also strikes in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Godot has a “white” beard; the main characters wait for him in the anticipation that he will grant their “kind of prayer” and that they will have to approach him on their “hands and knees." This depiction has “several traits in common with the image of God,” including the beard and his potential wrath and bounty. Godot may be pronounced “GOD-oh,” despite concerns that that is too “obvious” for a playwright such as Beckett; it may be pronounced with stress on the second syllable--or with equal stress on both. The uncertainty of the unseen character’s name reflects the Biblical references that continue throughout Waiting for Godot. Samuel Beckett stated that his piece “means what it says,” and what it says is many allusions to the Bible--and to God. He also said that “If by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot." He did in fact say God--in GOD-oh. Beckett could have worked the pronunciation into his text, but he did not. As a result, it is another meal available at the buffet of interpretation. This ambiguity is the same vein that we hit in Pygmalion. Both authors insisted on a premise open to interpretation and seeded with natural conclusions, but when the audience’s perspective did not match theirs, they sought to correct this oversight retroactively--Beckett with his statements, and Shaw with his epilogue. Just like Beckett, Shaw knew that his vague story left the story open to interpretation.
He also knew that, in the original myth, “Pygmalion marries Galatea." It is no wonder, then, that the audience expects to see the modern Pygmalion marry his modern Galatea. Just because he wrote the piece does not make his insistence on Eliza’s marriage to Freddy any more valid when that resolution was not in the original text. Shaw derides his audience members’ imaginations as “enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of ‘happy endings’ to misfit all stories.” Here the text and his interpretations reach an impasse: Shaw intentionally left the ending vague. He named the play after a “romantic” myth that is romantic in the typical sense of the word, as well as in Shaw’s preferred concept as a “transfiguration.” Shaw may be intent on the term romance for changing a statue into a person, or changing a person into a duchess, but that word has more than one meaning; as a lover of language, he was certainly aware of the dual meanings when he subtitled the play.
Shaw agrees with the audience in that Eliza Doolittle will not “give [Higgins] up.” He is insistent, however, that the two of them will never marry. Here we turn from the reader’s interpretation of a piece to that of the actors; the originator of the Higgins role on stage was more interested in a true romance than in the nuances of the piece. The actor began “throwing flowers to Eliza as she exited the stage at the end.” Shaw reacted by first adding the sequel wherein he explains what he “intended by the final scene” in prose, and then by adding lines such as “Galatea!” from Higgins’s mouth to indicate that Eliza has attained personhood and broken ties with her creator. Between the audience’s ready expectation, the actor’s portrayal, and the fact that Galatea does marry Pygmalion in the original myth, this alteration did not help Shaw’s cause. He went on to alter the printed text itself in 1939 with Higgins’ statement that Eliza is “going to marry Freddy.” If Shaw believed that the actors’ changes to his piece in production weakened his message, he is at least as guilty. Just as the audience will not see Eliza stand on her own, Shaw could not let his piece stand on its own. “It is the language that speaks, not the author,” and with his sequel in prose, Shaw was speaking--not his language.
Readers do not need the author’s interpretations. Texts are gifts to the reader; they are the author’s thoughts meant to inspire thought in others. The author’s later words invariably close off avenues of thought, never open them. George Bernard Shaw “does not believe in endings,” and as such, he leaves the ending of Pygmalion open to interpretation. Eliza and Higgins are as combative as ever to the very last. The ending moment we are left with is not a kiss between Eliza and Higgins, or Eliza and Freddy, but between Higgins and his mother. Higgins may have a “self-satisfied” manner in regards to Eliza’s attitude as though he knows she will break, but that is only in step with his abrasive personality throughout the play. He has never broken her before, and there is no reason to think he will, except because of others’ need for a storybook ending. The subversion in not definitively pairing the leads caused a “sense of unease” in Shaw’s audience. Authors are free to play with stereotypes, archetypes, and audience expectations, as that is part of writing. If an author toys with tropes in such a fashion, however, he must make sure to sew up the gaps that audiences will fill with their own expectations.
This vagueness also strikes in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Godot has a “white” beard; the main characters wait for him in the anticipation that he will grant their “kind of prayer” and that they will have to approach him on their “hands and knees." This depiction has “several traits in common with the image of God,” including the beard and his potential wrath and bounty. Godot may be pronounced “GOD-oh,” despite concerns that that is too “obvious” for a playwright such as Beckett; it may be pronounced with stress on the second syllable--or with equal stress on both. The uncertainty of the unseen character’s name reflects the Biblical references that continue throughout Waiting for Godot. Samuel Beckett stated that his piece “means what it says,” and what it says is many allusions to the Bible--and to God. He also said that “If by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot." He did in fact say God--in GOD-oh. Beckett could have worked the pronunciation into his text, but he did not. As a result, it is another meal available at the buffet of interpretation. This ambiguity is the same vein that we hit in Pygmalion. Both authors insisted on a premise open to interpretation and seeded with natural conclusions, but when the audience’s perspective did not match theirs, they sought to correct this oversight retroactively--Beckett with his statements, and Shaw with his epilogue. Just like Beckett, Shaw knew that his vague story left the story open to interpretation.
He also knew that, in the original myth, “Pygmalion marries Galatea." It is no wonder, then, that the audience expects to see the modern Pygmalion marry his modern Galatea. Just because he wrote the piece does not make his insistence on Eliza’s marriage to Freddy any more valid when that resolution was not in the original text. Shaw derides his audience members’ imaginations as “enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of ‘happy endings’ to misfit all stories.” Here the text and his interpretations reach an impasse: Shaw intentionally left the ending vague. He named the play after a “romantic” myth that is romantic in the typical sense of the word, as well as in Shaw’s preferred concept as a “transfiguration.” Shaw may be intent on the term romance for changing a statue into a person, or changing a person into a duchess, but that word has more than one meaning; as a lover of language, he was certainly aware of the dual meanings when he subtitled the play.
Shaw agrees with the audience in that Eliza Doolittle will not “give [Higgins] up.” He is insistent, however, that the two of them will never marry. Here we turn from the reader’s interpretation of a piece to that of the actors; the originator of the Higgins role on stage was more interested in a true romance than in the nuances of the piece. The actor began “throwing flowers to Eliza as she exited the stage at the end.” Shaw reacted by first adding the sequel wherein he explains what he “intended by the final scene” in prose, and then by adding lines such as “Galatea!” from Higgins’s mouth to indicate that Eliza has attained personhood and broken ties with her creator. Between the audience’s ready expectation, the actor’s portrayal, and the fact that Galatea does marry Pygmalion in the original myth, this alteration did not help Shaw’s cause. He went on to alter the printed text itself in 1939 with Higgins’ statement that Eliza is “going to marry Freddy.” If Shaw believed that the actors’ changes to his piece in production weakened his message, he is at least as guilty. Just as the audience will not see Eliza stand on her own, Shaw could not let his piece stand on its own. “It is the language that speaks, not the author,” and with his sequel in prose, Shaw was speaking--not his language.
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