Robert E. Sherwood

Enter Robert E. Sherwood, playwright and playboy, to save the day. He pulled off a most amazing feat, producing a play in which every evil action or attitude of anyone anywhere is portrayed as simply a lapse into Nazism. Yes, the invasion of Finland that filled people with disgust appeared to be carried out by the communist Red Army; but this was only because they had temporarily forgotten their ideals and succumbed to the temptation to act like Nazis. Indeed, perhaps they were as innocents actually being manipulated by Nazis to carry out a Nazi agenda without even knowing it. Therefore, America needed to awaken and prepare to wage war against the Nazis.

The title of the play was “There Shall Be No Night,” from Revelation 21:25 or 22:5. However, it does not purport to be a Christian answer to the global situation. The main character explains that the deeper meaning of Revelation is theosophical rapture in one’s own mind:

Kaarlo: We can all use the Book of Revelation to substantiate our own theories. It’s an eternally effective device. I have heard evangelist charlatans quote it to prove that if you do not accept their nonsense and pay for it, you will most surely burn in hell.  But there is something profound in those words I quoted. That unknown Jewish mystic who wrote that — somehow, unconsciously, he knew that man will find the true name of God in his own forehead, in the mysteries of his own mind. “And there shall be no night there.” That is the basis of all the work I have done. (Scene 6)

The play premiered on Mar 29, 1940 — just two weeks after the “First War” against the Finns and 24 days after the Soviet massacre of 25,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in cold blood at the Katyn Forest.

The play can be summarized adequately by describing each character, for there is not much in the way of plot: the propaganda proceeds by chit-chat among the players, and the small amount of action is merely implied by the dialogue.

Dr. Kaarlo Valkonen, Finnish psychiatrist, takes every chance to pontificate about insanity, of which waging war is one manifestation. The Russian Revolution was an idealistic breakthrough of sanity, even as the work of Freud and Pavlov and himself is a marshaling of science toward curing humanity of its mental problem. Despite his pacifistic tendencies, however, he comes to see that Nazism is the one thing that will prevent man from rising to greatness, so he finally takes up arms himself.

His wife, Miranda, is New England-born, and represents the “can’t we all just get along” attitude of the typical American. She had two ancestors, representing two sides of America: “rugged heroism” — that one “died happy” –, and capitalism — that one “made a nice fortune selling shoddy uniforms to the army.” She is inclined to favor the latter as a role model for their son, like the proverb “better a live dog than a dead lion,” but the play is meant to rekindle the former motif, and trigger a properly anti-Nazi warlike spirit in other Americans.

Their son Erik, being of mixed American/Finnish blood, represents the conflict between patriotism and love of fun and romance. In the end, he realizes that he must fight for “freedom” and against Nazism in every form. He dies, but not before impregnating his girlfriend Kaatri. She is persuaded to flee to America to raise the child away from all the insanity, thus becoming a symbol for women and children that can rebuild and “carry on the blood” after the men have died fighting Nazism.

Affable German Consul Dr. Ziemssen frankly announces everything about Germans that Sherwood believes about them. In this way, Sherwood does not have to defend his prejudice, since his straw-man “opponent” admits the same view.

A few examples from the text of the play itself will show just how blatant New Deal rhetoric can be; indeed to the point that it is rather amusing in retrospect.

All evil comes from Nazism

Erik and his girl are discussing the Soviet buildup (Scene 2).

Erik: The American government — all governments — are being pulverized with fear by this Soviet propaganda. They want to pulverize us, too, so that well give them what they want without a struggle.

Maybe Erik is waking up to the Soviet threat? Alas, no:

… It’s all bluff — it’s all an imitation of the Nazis.

Kaatri: But when the bluff doesn’t work, suppose they go on imitating the Nazis — suppose they do attack?

Note the Soviets appear to be the aggressor, but if so, they are only “imitating Nazis.” Later (scene 5), Joe, the fighter pilot, describes his feelings after strafing a column of Germans.

Joe: They were Nazis. It gave me a thrill. All this time, in fighting the Russians, I’ve felt just a little bit uncomfortable — you can imagine it, Dave, after my experience with the Loyalists. You know, I couldn’t help saying, “God forgive them — for they know not what they do.”… But when I saw those Nazis — those arrogant bastards — and I could even see the looks on their faces, — all I could think of was, “God forgive me if I miss this glorious opportunity.” I let ‘em have it! It was a beautiful sight…

Dave: I thought it was about time for the Nazis to be taking a hand in this war. No wonder the tide of battle has turned. I guess they’ve decided there has been enough of this nonsense of Finland’s resistance. Probably they want the Russians to get busy somewhere else.

The idea is that the Russians when they are aggressive are simply the tools of the Nazis, not acting according to their own ideology and interests. In scene 7, incredibly, the Germans continue to be referred to as the actual aggressor:

Joe: This city might hold out for a long time, like Madrid.

Dave: I hope not. Because if it comes to a siege, you’ll see German battleships out there, doing their bit in the bombardment. I wouldn’t like to be here when that happens.

A bit later, Dave grants that the Soviets have a role, but:

Dave: Three months ago, the Soviet troops marched in…. The cause of revolution all over the world has been set back incalculably…. The Soviet Union has been reduced from the status of a great power to that of a great fraud. And the Nazis have won another bloodless victory.

Incredibly, the result of the Soviet invasion of Finland is… a Nazi victory over Finland.

Again and again, the play drills in that if the Soviets do something bad, it is falling away from the ideals of the Revolutionists, and instead, imitating Nazis.

Communism is good

In scene 1, son Erik says he is studying economics and sociology. His father chimes in.

Kaarlo: And skiing. He can’t make up his mind whether he wants to be another Karl Marx, or another Olympic champion.

Thus, Karl Marx is set up as the great exemplar of economics: the analogue of an “Olympic champion” of skiing.

Dave: Have you been much in the Soviet Union?

Erik: Oh, yes. We lived there when father was working with Pavlov.

The “oh, yes” shows enthusiasm at the memory of the Soviet Union. The only thing worth mentioning about that country is the science, the good work.

Dave: And you really believe they might invade this country?

The “really” indicates that it is inherently incredible to think of the USSR invading another country.

Erik: If there were counter-revolution in Russia, anything might happen. Or the Nazis might come that way. We have to be prepared.

Thus it is explained how such a thing could happen. It could happen if there were counter-revolution, i.e. if the Marxist revolution were overthrown by reactionaries! Or, what amounts to the same thing, the Nazis might get there first. There is some banter about punch, then:

Dave: Of course, the Nazis have been highly successful in terrifying people of the Bolshevik menace. But all the times I’ve been in Moscow, I’ve never seen anything but a passionate desire to be let alone, in peace.

Notice all the assertions here. Any fear of the Bolsheviks is caused by Nazi propaganda. Dave has been in Moscow a lot and all he has seen is the desire for peace. Just like Walter Duranty, only here it is being said with a straight face.

The German confesses that world conquest is the goal

Later, in scene 3, when the German Dr. Ziemssen urges his friend to leave Finland, he reveals this bombshell:

Ziemssen: You think our enemies are these — these Communists who now invade your country?

Kaarlo: Yes. That is what I think.

Ziemssen: The Russians think so, too, but they are wrong. We are your enemies, Herr Doktor. This Finnish incident is one little item in our vast scheme. We make good use of our esteemed allies of the Soviet Union….

After a bit he continues

Ziemssen: The same is true of every nation that we conquer; we shall see to it that none of them will ever rise again … This is a process of annihilation. It is a studied technique, and it was not invented in Moscow. You will find the blueprints of it, not in Das Kapital, but in Mein Kampf. …

Kaarlo: Do you approve of this technique?

In answering, Ziemssen indicates that the Germans even plan to enslave their fellow Aryans, the Scandinavians:

Ziemssen: Naturally, I regret the necessity for it. But I admit the necessity. And so must you, Dr. Valkonen. Remember that every great state of the past in its stages of construction has required slavery. Today, the greatest world state is in process of formation. There is a great need for slave labor. And — these Finns and Scandinavians would be useful. They are strong; they have great capacity for endurance.

The memes continue to be planted that the German goal was world conquest, including the outright lie that they desired the conquest of the new world:

Kaarlo: Where can one go to escape this world state?

Ziemssen: An intelligent question, Herr Doktor. I assure you that the United States is secure for the present. It may continue so for a long time, if the Americans refrain from interfering with us in Mexico and South America and Canada. And I believe they will refrain. They are now showing far greater intelligence in that respect than ever before. They are learning to mind their own shrinking business.

America must give up its isolationism

In Scene 3, while the doctor encourages his wife to leave the country, the meme is planted for Americans pondering their role. Miranda’s attitude is to mirror the American isolationist view — understandable but untenable.

Miranda: I don’t think [Erik] would be particularly happy or proud to hear that his mother has scurried to safety at the first sound of a shot fired.

Kaarlo: Erik has American blood in his veins. He will understand.

Miranda: Oh! So that’s it! His American blood will tell him that it’s perfectly reasonable for me to run away. You evidently share Kaatri’s opinion of me.

And later, American non-involvement is likened to Pontius Pilate.

Dave: [Pilate] knew that this was a good, just man, who didn’t deserve death. .. But when they cried, “Crucify Him!” all Pilate could say was, “Bring me a basin of water, so that I can wash my hands of the whole matter.”

Summary

In summary, the play drives home that Soviet aggression, to the extent that it was not just a manipulation by the Nazis and under their control, was a lapse from the glorious ideals of Marxism. American must therefore wake up and crush the Nazis.

It is no wonder that Sherwood was fingered to become an employed shill for the New Deal. The question for a grad student in history to pursue is to discover how he became such a doctrinaire apostle for the “cause.” A good place to start would be his Hollywood connections, who rewarded him richly for minor editorial work. He hung out with a number of them during his California jaunts. Therein is probably to be found the story behind the story.

To provide some context, the question was whether it would be helpful to read the two prior books of Lewis’s space trilogy before reading That Hideous Strength.  (I had previously recommended the book for its insight on the nature of conspiracies.)

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From one point of view, yes, you would get more out of THS by first reading the other two books.  It gives the back story and shows the evolution of the pivotal Ransom character.  But from the point of view that I emphasize above [the conspiracy angle], no, you do not have to read the other two books.  In this regard, it, like the others, can stand on its own.

But since you asked, the best book of the three is Perelandra.  It is basically Paradise Lost in prose (and without the fall).  The setting is one of the most powerful aspect of the novel, a pristine, pre-lapsarian Venus.  Though its genre is fantasy, it is in many ways closer to myth.

As a variation of the Eden myth, Lewis explores many interesting questions: How could a good creature fall?  What is the nature of temptation?  How far can one contemplate doing what is evil without doing evil?  Why, at a certain level, do rational answers to the tempter’s arguments somehow miss the point?  For those who have not read the book, you will be surprised at how the hero finally “answers” the tempter’s arguments.  Chances are you will reject it a first.  But give it time.  Upon further reflection the simplicity and power of it will begin to be intuited.  As a work of literature it does not come near intensity and beauty of Milton’s almost perfect marriage of language and themes, but at many points Lewis proves to have more acute insights.

There are passages in the story that are as primal and striking as one will read anywhere.  When the hero looks upon the sleeping Venusian Eve, unfallen and beautiful, he pines for the Mother of his own race.  “Other things, other blessings, other glories, but never that.  Never in all worlds, that.”  Before I read these words, it never struck me how real and devastating this particular loss really is.  (The deep affection that papists have for the venerated Mary becomes more easily understood on these lines.  A  mistake, yes, but one not without a degree of profundity.)

A weakness of Perelandra, though it is not as bad in this regard as THS, is that Lewis often gives the impression that he is using the story as a vehicle to transmit his insights on various topics (which are many) rather than letting story bring out these themes organically. The debate between the two main characters, for instance, sounds at times more like the give and take at the Socratic Society than an encounter between Man and Serpent in Paradise.  As Wittgenstein might say, Lewis says rather than shows.

The other main failure of the book is the ending.  Taken on its own merits it is not very good, but in the context of what went on before, it is a disaster.  Not only is it much too long, but it tries to say too much.  Lewis failed to understand one of the basic lessons of all good stories that have a happy endings: the happy ending is the ending.  The good writer, when writing such a story, stops with the rescue, the victory, the restoration, or the wedding.  “And they lived happily every after,” says all that is necessary.  Austen knew well enough that lingering one moment beyond Darcy’s and Elizabeth’s mutual confession of love would have ruined an otherwise great story.  (When browsing the literature section of a bookstore, I came across a novel about Mr. and Mrs. Darcy’s life after their nuptials.  We are all, at one level, curious about how things went on.  But beyond this natural curiosity what could possibly be added to the story by prying into their domestic life?)

And if telling about domestic happiness is a mistake, exploring the mysteries and joys of paradise is a gross one.   Not only does it miss the point, but it attempts the impossible.  The only result can be disappointment.  “That’s it?”  “All the struggle for that?”  Even Dante could not give us a heaven of anything more than abstractions.

Scripture tells us much of the present evil age, little about hell, and even less about heaven.  It was sufficient for our Lord to tell his friends, “in my father’s house there are many mansions.”  This is not to say that we cannot speculate about the banal truths of heaven (if any truth of heaven can be called banal; on one banality see here), but the joy and the glory of heaven is, as goes the cliche, beyond our highest imagination.  We must be satisfied with tasting Joy not explaining it.

Though making a slightly different point, Wittgenstein once again strikes the right chord: “Within Christianity it’s as though God says to men: Don’t act a tragedy, that’s to say, don’t enact heaven and hell on earth. Heaven and hell are my affair.”

Getting back to Lewis, even with its deficiencies, Perelandra is still his best novel; better than the other two installments of the space trilogy and vastly better than the worst book he ever wrote, Till We Have Faces.  Lewis is almost always worth reading.  Even his novels.  For his are some of the best mediocre novels ever written.

The book

The story is well-enough known, that the basic idea need not be described. It is much thinner in plot than the movies based on the concept. There are just three main characters — Dr. Lanyon, Lawyer Utterson, and Jekyll — and only two violent incidents with “Hyde.”

A couple common misconceptions should be cleared up.

1. It is not Dr. Jekyll the good-side vs. Mr. Hyde the bad-side. Rather, it is Dr. Jekyll the mixture-of-good-and-evil, vs. Mr. Hyde the only-evil. Jekyll refers (in his “full statement of the case”) to a “thorough and primitive duality of man,” and that he “was radically both.” He was able to distill the evil in the transformation to Hyde; everyone shrank from Hyde on encounter because “all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.” Jekyll’s temptation to morph into Hyde is to indulge the evil that he nurtures all the time without the scruples of his “better nature.”

2. Despite the apparent crude physicalism of bringing about a moral change by the drinking of a potion, the actual anthropology proposed is that the body is ethereal, and conforms homomorphically to the spirit. Jekyll writes

I not only recognised my natural body from the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp of lower elements in my soul.

This explains why Hyde’s body was shrunken from Jekyll’s, as well as the changed face that frightened everyone that saw it. Thus, Stevenson’s model is not exactly evolutionary, or at least not in a crudely physical way: rather, the body forms itself to the inner contour of the spirit.

Jekyll’s Confession

The struggle and its analysis is detailed in the letter written by Jekyll that Utterson reads at the end. The letter is a kind of confessional narration of everything that happened. Jekyll’s problem was nurturing a secret life in parallel to his admirable one of helping humanity. The sins he nurtured are left unspecified, only identified as “undignified.” (The movies go ahead and fill in that blank by various extrapolations.) Some themes that are brought out:

1. The double-mind (in contrast to the hypocrite). This is an important insight. Consider the difference in ordinary language between (a) the double-mind, (b) being half-hearted, and (c) the hypocrite. Jekyll identifies both impulses as genuine, and explicitly rejects hypocrisy as the underlying motive.

2. There is as it were a lid on a boiling cauldron building up pressure when he goes clean for a time. Jekyll explains

For two months, I led a life of such severity as I had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an approving conscience. But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling for freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.

3. A clue to why Jekyll could not overthrow his demon is found in his repentance that was only partial. For, even when he was disgusted by what his alter ego had become, and resolved not to go back, he left a back door open. “I made this choice perhaps with some unconscious reservation, for I neither gave up the house in Soho, nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay ready in my cabinet.” A chilling indication showing the difference between mere fear and true contrition is his rumination, “I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence.”

4. It becomes clear that the elements in common between Jekyll and Hyde are memory, death, and the ability to write. The latter was a physical detail needed for a couple of plot twists, and might perhaps be identified as a weakness in the construction.

Memory is what makes the continuity between the two persona possible– for example, Hyde must know to drink the potion in order to go back to Jekyll.

The fear of death, and the understanding that when one “person” dies the other will also, is what causes Hyde, fearing the gallows, to desire to go back to the Jekyll person, and what drives Jekyll, also fearing it, to desire to refrain going over again.

At length, a true horror of the evil within reaches him: “A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.” But by then, it was too late. “I began to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine.” Such is what happened.

Evaluation

Stevenson’s prose is elegant; but his strength is his weakness in that the diction of Dr. Lanyon and Jekyll, and the private ruminations of Lawyer Utterson, are all quite similarly ornate. Stevenson hasn’t mastered different voices, at least in this work.

But this is irrelevant. The basic premise of the story has entered our culture with mythic character. Indeed, I suspect few have actually read the original story: yet the image as interpretive myth is vivid.

As Anthropology in the theological sense, the premise of the story errs if it supposes that there is any good as a positive principle in the natural, sinful man. If Stevenson means that man has a “double root” ontologically, this is certainly contrary to the biblical view of man. The “problem” theologically is the portrayal of natural good in Jekyll, not the evil of Hyde.

In consequence, Stevenson’s depiction even of the “good side” falters. The fear of execution is major motive of Jekyll’s “contrition,” and Dr. Lanyon seems to ratify the idea that his secret can be kept as long as he doesn’t resort to it again. But a true penitent would turn himself in to face the consequence, let that be the gallows. On the assumption that Jekyll could have refrained ever again from becoming Hyde, the problem of satisfying public justice is a latent and unaddressed problem.

On the other hand, there are two frameworks in which the story is a useful mirror; each probably reflects part of the reason for the enduring popularity of the mythic center of the story.

First, everyone has observed at least one person in his ambit that manifests two persona that resonate as “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The model seems successful as an image of the fragmentation of man’s soul, when we view that as both fallen and held back by common grace.

Second, at the deeper level, some will see it as an allegory for their own inner struggle. Especially Christians may see an echo in their own struggle against the “old man.” In a sense, only the Christian really does struggle with a double source.

Superficially, we can of course say that the concept won’t work. There is only one person finally. But Stevenson accounts for this adequately, in that finally the chemical is no longer needed: Jekyll becomes Hyde irretrievably. The inner soul or spirit dominate the physical; like the monster created by the conspirators in C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, the physical eventually apes the underlying, more substantial spiritual reality.

In the story, there is no redemption finally. It can serve as a scarecrow against playing with evil, of not really taking repentance very seriously. There is no warrant for the belief in “subsequent penitence.” Such a belief is an example of self-deception.