by Rivka Abramson, Blogging Circle 3
I found the scene with Katherine and Alice especially interesting. There are many factors I find puzzling. The ones I’d like to focus on, however, are the matters of language and identity- how do these two elements connect with one another? Is there an embedded commentary being made?
We could of course read this scene as simply a mockery of the French, since there is the constant thread of mispronunciation- such as chin being pronounced sin. However, there seem to be other comments being made. There is the transcending nature of puns in this passage, for instance. As the footnote tells us, the body parts that Katherine is learning sound like foutre and con, which mean fuck and cunt. The multilingual layer of puns offers a window to other interpretations of this scene. There is the argument for reading this as a message on perception- the classic “there are two sides to every story”, “nothing is black and white”, etc. However, there is also the intriguing commentary on gender that prevails here. We remember Richard II, act 3, scene I, the woman who can only speak in Welsh, and Mortimer’s perception of her- “I understand thy looks: that pretty Welsh/ Which thou pour’st down from these swelling heavens.” Here, however, we have Katherine, whose perception of English, uttered in French, is that “ils sont les mots de sont mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d’honneur d’user”.
There is a total sense of displacement here: For one, the words Katherine finds vulgar and immodest are describing the human anatomy- neutral, non-sex specific body parts. Furthermore, stepping outside the boundaries of the play, we know that the actor playing Katherine is neither a woman nor French. Finally, placing this side by side with Mortimer’s aforementioned lines, what we have is a total flip of sentiments, supplemented by the fact that these are each delivered in two different languages that are of two different sides of war. Once again, though, we remember that what they are speaking of are shared body parts as well as shared emotions. Furthermore, the body parts mentioned are very specific to the human form itself. Mortimer speaks of lips- not mouth. The first word Katherine wants to learn is hand- then finger- then nail. Gender’s malleability is revealed. We come to note, through excessive layering of disguise (i.e. actor → gender role → class role → language role → the character speaking) that beneath all that there must be a common denominator, for how else could all these sentiments be functioning in unison?
Ultimately, it is as if language itself that comes to represent the sinews of disguise. We ask what this means to what we’ve read so far in the play. Upon asking this question, we remember Henry’s speech- “Disguise fair nature with hard favored rage”. There is a final lingering question – if language is what holds disguise intact, can language stand alone without disguise? Does language define speaker, or does speaker define language? Perhaps what Shakespeare is doing is revealing the skeleton, so to speak. Catherine wants to know how to say hand- is a hand still a hand without fingers, without nails? Moving to other portions of the play, is an army still an army without its soldiers? And is a king still a king without his followers?
You picked out a really interesting point about the language barrier that Catherine and Alice face in the scene where they are learning English. It reminds me of a postmodern concept I was taught about in my American Lit class called the crisis of signification. The crisis of signification is a term that explains how words are symbols and that each person (even if they speak the same language) interprets these symbols differently. Because of these differences in interpretation, people who are speaking to one another are never fully able to understand what the other is saying. I think this closely relates to your idea that language is made up of a disguise and that it cannot hold up without that disguise. Not only will Catherine and Alice have a hard time communicating in a language other than their first language because it is difficult for them to physically form the words themselves, they will never be able to understand each other or anyone else because each person’s interpretation of language and words are individual and unique to each person in the world. This poses the question: did Shakespeare write so far ahead of his time that he was able to predict the isolation between humans in the postmodern world? Maybe.
I like the focus of your post! I agree that Catherine’s misunderstandings are more than just puns and comedy, and Shakespeare is trying to send a message. I especially like the comparison you made to Mortimer and his wife. In my opinion, out of all the reasons you suggested, I think Shakespeare is trying to make fun of the French. The words as Catherine understands them are dirty which can represent the French as the Henry’s army sees them. Shakespeare was clever about choosing the misinterpreted words.
This is a really interesting statement to make and I think you could really tear through the text and learn a lot more by focusing on language. There seems to be a lot of statements that are more than they initially seem, so an entirely different reading can be done. The gendered framework seems to have a lot of representations throughout the text as you brought up. Catherine seems to act the part of Shakespeare’s messenger in her ‘punny’ language, sending the audience a message. Different people can say entirely the same thing, but based off of their background the words may resemble something completely different which was a strong tactic utilized by Shakespeare.
Hi Rivka,
This is a very intriguing point you make–I must confess that when I read this scene at first, I didn’t see what relevance it had in any way to the rest of the play or why it was important. There’s a lot to talk about in this play involving community, kings and their identities, kings and their armies, and other elements like that, and as you point out, this scene also reveals more to us about these ideas as well as the more obvious scenes. There’s a lot of contradictory language going on, like we see in the rest of the play; and it shows how language can be a kind of disguise, perhaps one of Hal’s greatest disguises. Shakespeare often uses puns and misinterpretation of language to be both funny and to point something out, and this is a great example of that.
I might be stepping away from Shakespeare here. You asked “can language stand alone without disguise?” I would say no. First of all, language itself is on a basic level, comprised of symbols. However, Niche makes the point (and I am horribly paraphrasing) that a stone is not truly a stone it simply is whatever it is. No two stones are the same thing, but we, through our imperfect “disguise” that is language, call all stones stones without acknowledging their differences. In this way language at its most base form is most certainly a disguise.
Even is we disregard these flaws of language, we still find that Shakespeare is disguising intention through the use of language. This is why we debate his meaning 400 years later. He does not speak entirely literally, nor does he always make his metaphors, allusions, or motivations clear. We must therefore interpret his words in order to see through this disguise and determine his authorial intent. However, the moment we reach an answer to what we believe his intent to be, we project a new disguise onto his language. One that logically, must be imperfect simply because we are not Shakespeare. Even if we are close to correct, we cannot be 100% accurate in interpretation and in this way we further disguise his words.
I think your deconstruction of the language’s purpose in these two scenes is especially an interesting point to wonder about! In both these scenes, but especially the one with Katherine and Alice, the focus is on details of the body parts, specificity. Mortimer, as you say, speaks of lips, and not the mouth, and Katherine wishes to learn all the parts of the language, analyzing in a new language, perhaps akin to viewing something from another perspective?
To answer your question, I believe that language can most certainly exist without disguise, as not everyone is just living out one giant lie or lying to one another all of the time. Perhaps some do exist where these two coexist always, but I believe language is the block that disguise stands on, and that the speaker defines the language. We re-purpose words all of the time as language evolves. Which comes back again to your original deconstruction point about the topic that is being deconstructed by these women in these scenes, perhaps Shakespeare is metaphorically showing us the removal of layers. I’m not sure if my definitions of hand, or nails, subsist of their finer details, but when applied to these social aspects of people, and their extensions, it leads to some very interesting meditations.
This is an astonishingly well thought out and elaborated post, Rivka. Hat’s off to you.
Your discussion of the crisis of signification in the ‘french’ scene is very interesting. You brought up one of the points I felt went unacknowledged, which is the reality of this scene as it was performed in The Globe (i.e. the actors were neither women or french). Of course, Katherine’s interest in English extends primarily to the body, and thereby broaches the concept of identity and its transmutation by language. Her honesty and inability to speak is a perfect foil for Henry’s silver tongue and fluid sense of self. I just wonder how much of this scene made any sense to the viewers at the time, I beleive the french in it intentionally employs homophones between English and French “impudique…honnuer” for example.