Thomas Shockley

Anthropomorphism and Death Research Work for Genre

Through my work in writing a short play, in respect to the poem by Walt Whitman, This Compost, I have decided to dive into what it really means to be alive in a literary way, and see if through this writing I can discover what it is at the heart of “being alive.” Though I do not find Whitman to be in line with my preferred perspectives on writing, as he is more of a personal and expressive poet, and I prefer to write in the field of absurdist theater, I find his poetry to be quite resonant with me, particularly for instance his poem “This Compost,” a piece that might give mixed reactions for different readers of it, but I particularly find it to be quite amusing in his perfunctory way of assessing the situation. But I find in this work, along with others like Emily Dickinson, a sense of anthropomorphism that lives in this piece that is not blatant like an animal on a television show that can talk or a walking animal in a commercial, but the concept of Whitman anthropomorphizing a decaying pile I find quite fitting to the absurd. In my research and analysis, along with the play that I have written, Ashes to Ashes, I feel strongly that anthropomorphism is used as a way for the absurd to make death seem approachable and comforting in works of literature, bringing together a sense of fulfillment and wholeness to those who engage with it and embrace it.

When researching into this, I tried not to find works that would “confirm” my previously held beliefs, but in a way, provide me a platform to then have my thoughts have their own place to exist in. I came across the piece "The Absurdity of Denial: Staging the American Way of Death” by Adrian Curtin and it provided a fascinating viewpoint for me in my reflection on how death is staged in theater productions and something they focus on is that of “death denial,” the essay opening with, “Death denial is a psychological impulse and cultural attitude that banishes thoughts about death and disavows the reality of personal mortality. In theatre, death denial can function as an unexamined philosophy and conditioning element unless it is foregrounded and challenged” (Curtin 125). I found the opening to be so profound in its laying out of the ideas present and, how I see it, how to put those ideas into practice. I wanted to write a piece, like Whitman’s, about death but also in a way denying that said death not in a “I will not die” way, but in a “What is happening?” kind of way. I wanted the death to seem as confusing to the reader or viewer as it is to the characters themselves. I just needed a way to portray death and then wonder, what does death bring to, in my case, a play? Then, another text I found in my research was that of Kathleen Robin Hart’s “Animal Humor and the Darwinian Absurd,” and in it Hart uses Watt by Samuel Beckett, who is one of my biggest inspirations, and writes “Absurdist literature that unites humor with discomfort exercises one of the most advanced of human fitness traits, cognitive flexibility: the ability to respond promptly and effectively to changing situations, instead of relying on habitual assumptions” (Hart 481). The writing around humans and what it means to be human, then to what it means to be alive or dead, I have found, to be trivial in regards to what life is actually like, so I found in Hart’s work, a method that I have used before that Whitman in his own way uses, anthropomorphization.

It makes you truly human to not be human. When you are absurdly stripped of your identity either through representation as an animal or through death, I have found, there is a new sense of liberation. That is what I aimed for and that is what I strive to find in the work of others as well as in my own. There is a need to be whole or a “human,” but in actuality people are at their happiest in these works when confronted with nature and death in combination. It is liberating to not have any tethers to your old life, and just become a bear wandering in the woods, or a decomposing pile creating a site for Whitman’s speaker.

Works Cited

Curtin, Adrian. "The Absurdity of Denial: Staging the American Way of Death.” New

Theatre Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2, 2017, pp. 125-142. ProQuest,

http://queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-

journals/absurdity-denial-staging-american-way-death/docview/1886874321/se-2?

accountid=13379, doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X17000045.

Hart, Kathleen Robin. “Animal Humor and the Darwinian Absurd.” Contemporary French &

Francophone Studies, vol. 16, no. 4, Sept. 2012, pp. 477–85. EBSCOhost,

https://doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2012.711635.

Ashes to Ashes: A Play in 1 Act

Self Portrait as St. Sebastian , Egon Schiele, 1914-15

The Players:

Genet

The Man in the Road

The Bear

The Master

Production notes:

This play requires 3 actors. No age, race, gender, or body size or shape requirements for any actors.

The character of The Bear should be dressed not like an actual bear, but like a typical tramp of a Samuel Beckett play. For the hands covering Genet’s face, see photo below.

The set of the stage is that of Genet, whose lower half is that of a tree stump that her torso comes out of. On the opposite side of the stage is a small strip of road where The Man in the Road lies.

Don’t look behind you, Bradley Branson, 2022

Act 1

(The lights rise to reveal an almost barren stage, one side has GENET, a woman whose body emerges from a tree stump which stops at her torso. Her eyes are covered by the fingertips of hands, which are not connected to arms, On the opposite side is a small strip of road. On it, THE MAN IN THE ROAD, who may or may not have been run over, he quietly groans to himself. THE BEAR enters. GENET and THE BEAR are oblivious to THE MAN IN THE ROAD.)

THE BEAR

(Cautious. Tapping foot on ground 3 times.)

Dialogue?

GENET

(Confident.)

Dialogue.

THE BEAR

(Reassured.)

Dialogue!

GENET

It is good to see you on this beautiful morning.

THE BEAR

THE BEAR

I presume.

(THE BEAR shows GENET the log.)

GENET

It says, “Wait here I will be back.”

THE BEAR

Okay.

(THE BEAR reaffirms his stance.)

(THE BEAR plops down onto the ground, his short pant legs and coat sleeves riding up his arm.)

GENET

He was hit in the road by something.

(THE BEAR springs to life.)

THE BEAR

What is it?

GENET

THE BEAR

Three days?!?!

THE MAN IN THE ROAD

(Coughing.)

Three days.

GENET

Three days.

THE BEAR

And you have done nothing to help him?

(GENET does not respond, she simply gestures to her lower half being rooted into the ground.)

THE BEAR

(To THE MAN IN THE ROAD.)

You have been here for how long?

(THE MAN IN THE ROAD grunts.)

THE BEAR

No, that one just came to me, I am still lost on the previous.

THE MAN IN THE ROAD

(Croaking out.)

It was The Master’s doing.

THE BEAR

Who?

THE MAN IN THE ROAD

The Master…

GENET

Who is that?

(A large man wearing fish themed clothes, THE MASTER, enters.)

THE MASTER

(Confused at seeing THE BEAR.)

Hello.

THE BEAR

(Picking up the log.)

Who are you?

THE MASTER

I am myself, and you were not here before.

(THE MASTER walks swiftly towards THE MAN IN THE ROAD but is blocked off by THE BEAR.)

THE BEAR

(Angered.)

I cannot.

Tell me what a fish is then.

THE BEAR

(Panicking in his head.)

Um… Uh… fuck!

GENET

They live in water!

THE BEAR

Lightbulb! They live in water.

(THE MASTER smirks and walks offstage and reenters with a large pale of water and puts THE MAN IN THE ROAD’s hand into it.)

THE MASTER

So tell me… how is he not a fish?

THE BEAR

What did you do?!

THE MASTER

I am not sure of what you speak of. I am just a man. I do not meddle in your cockamamie nature.

(THE MASTER hands something to GENET and exits leaving her onstage with the bucket of water across the stage. A bright spotlight shines on an angle at GENET. She feels the heat. She reaches for the bucket of water but it is on the opposite side of the stage. She continues reaching in her last moments. Blackout.)

END OF PLAY

Drama