Tragicomic Theatre and Contemporary Critique: ‘The God of Carnage’ by Yasmina Reza
An analysis of Reza’s use of tragicomic and literary techniques to construct a gripping critique of contemporary bourgeois society
The following article is an adaption of an in-class essay about Yasmina Reza’s play The God of Carnage (Le Dieu du Carnage), that I wrote in Year 12 in response to the following prompt:
Though comedic, the play offers more than an entertaining diversion; in fact, it presents a stinging portrait of contemporary society
Yasmina Reza’s tragicomedy The God of Carnage takes place in “a living room” (2) in which “the prevailing mood is serious, friendly and tolerant” (3) before the four protagonists’ descent from civility to brutality, resulting from competing interpretations of a prior offstage “drubbing during break” (52) between their children. The play’s raison d’etre is “the quarrel” (18) that occurs between Bruno Vallon and Ferdinand Reille, two 11-year-old boys whose parents, Michel and Véronique Vallon and Annette and Alain Reille, congregate at the Vallons’ apartment “to settle things” (63) amicably.
However, despite the parents’ attempts at maintaining a veneer of a bourgeois sense of respect and civility, the “parents standing up for their children become infantile themselves” (12) as Reza displays a “grotesque” (41) portrayal of the primeval, animalistic elements of the very citizens we expect to be “the custodians” (65) of contemporary society. Reza exposes our “savage” (16) ids — in the Freudian sense — that fail to be extinguished by the matrix of social constructs — language, sex, gender, and etiquette in this case — that the Reilles, the Vallons, and audience members alike, police and adhere to in order to uphold a concerted fabrication of normative behaviour. Society, Reza reveals, is underscored by an omnipresent deity; the looming “God of Carnage”. (52)
Classifying The God of Carnage is as tedious a task as trying to moderate a juvenile conflict understood solely through confessions from prepubescent, toothless children, but the play functions as a tragicomic comedy of manners — without the manners. From sarcasm to satire, hyperbole to hysteria, the “uncontrolled” (53) behaviour of all four upper-middle-class Parisians coalesces into a farcical depiction of the “brutal and catastrophic” (27) impulses that belie the poorly maintained civility of bourgeoisie society. Slapstick comedy assists in Reza’s disconfirming of the characters’ explicit claims at seeking to “calm down the situation rather than exacerbate it” (12) by imbuing the play with instances of outlandish physical comedy, such as when “Annette vomits violently” (27) in the middle of an emerging discussion between the families over Ferdinand’s conduct.
These instances of uncivil behaviour directly undermine the characters’ attempts at resolving interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts — not only for comedic/ironic effect, but also for the purpose of buttressing Reza’s evisceration of the notion of civil etiquette that she positions the audience to view as fabricated, fallacious, and far-removed from our more authentic, albeit “irrational” (53), tendency toward chaos. Reza evinces the futility of facades of normative propriety as insufficient attempts at placating our Absurdist desire for control, autonomy, and relative authority — streamlined by the unattainable yet inescapable goal of being “[the] good citizen” (44). This futility is satirised by Reza and undermined analogously to the undermining of the characters’ farcical attempts at masking vomit-drenched books with frantically sprayed perfume; in conflict-ridden social situations, we are little more than “clumsy and maladjusted” (65) creatures.
Both playwright Yasmina Reza and fictional “lawyer” (6) Alain Reille believe that a titular “God of Carnage” (52) underscores human nature, that beneath any surface of “civilisation” (41), a latent primeval id penetrates our psyches, poisons our actions, and by extension, feeds the conflict of the play. Conflict is innate to all drama — as readers and audiences voyeuristically watch a scene of tension that erupts and resolves by the denouement of a narrative — but The God of Carnage lacks a conclusion that explicitly resolves the play’s conflicts.
Rather, The God of Carnage exposes how, despite a perception that “everything’s great[,] everything’s in order” (33), we have “no chance” (57) at reconciling with our innately animalistic nature. In fact, despite what Michel believes — that “children consume and fracture our lives” (49) — it is, instead, this ‘God of Carnage’ that propels “the planet” (64) towards a state of “catastrophe” (16) — rife with the inevitable “fighting” (19) and “slaughter” (42) that swallow up our well-meaning attempts at achieving a modicum of “universal harmony” (44). Véronique, for instance, prescribes to a mantra of “the possibility of improvement” (46) but descends into “throw[ing] herself at her husband and hit[ting] him several times” (53) once faced with discord; demonstrating that any claim at being a “pe[rson] of good will” (36) is “feeble” (50) and that a “fully evolved” (41) contemporary society is stained by a corrossive and “terrible stink” (47) of carnage.
To maintain the “civilisation” (41) and “courtesy” (41) desired by the Reilles, the Vallons, and — more broadly — society, each of Reza’s protagonists rely on a flimsy social construct that functions as an arbiter of human behaviour: Véronique, harmony; Michel, diplomacy; Annette, sex and gender; Alain, language. The futility of these crutches warns the audience of the dangers of an overreliance on social codes to moderate our actions since the instability of these social norms renders them unequipped to manoeuvre a society governed by the “God of Carnage” (52). For the Vallons, several attempts are made at using a “charter” (64) of social etiquette to control the “nightmare” (30) ensuing within their apartment. Véronique frequently interrupts herself and takes “hiatus[es]’ (22) to truncate the speech acts she attempts to make in order to share her interpretation of events; believing in the “pacifying abilities” (17) of stifling her own hermeneutical experience through self-censorship. Michel, her counterpart, uses the edible social lubricants of food, drink, and refreshments to instil a symbolised — and, metonymic — sense of diplomacy in the “grotesque” (41), “fundamentally uncouth” (41) atmosphere.
The Reilles repeatedly attempt to enforce their rigid, stringent perspectives of gender and language, challenging and labelling aberrant behaviour as that of some “snivelling little poof” (66) as Annette conflates propriety and sexual orientation in her judgement of juvenile antisocial behaviour. From the start of the play, Reza depicts how conflicting attempts at authority lead to “unavoidable” (49) catastrophe as the play’s “emotional cul-de-sac” (4) is catalysed by Alain and Véronique’s semantic disagreement over “the difference[s] between” (21) ‘armed’, ‘furnished’, and ‘equipped’ (3) when framing Ferdinand’s actions. The perpetual conflict(s) between characters’ value systems and perceived adherences to and transgressions against normative human behaviour represents an inclination toward our “pathetic” (47) and “absurd” (16) attempts to reify our opinions and beliefs through socially codified constructs and etiquette. Perhaps the most striking element of Reza’s tragicomedy is her depiction of our futile endeavours at diluting “chaos” (17) with “balance” (17) through our use of the social roles and rules through which humans perform — and form — constructs of normative behaviour.
In The God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza provides a theatrical portrait of a contemporary society in which it is “a law of life” (52) that humans are “not domestic animals” (7), but “wild animals” (7): “social crusaders” (65) who placate ourselves with the illusion of “courtesy” (38) to compensate for the “wildness” (65) of our, au fond, “savage” (16) ids. By hyperbolising and satirising the normalised and normative hypocrisies that penetrate the “procedure” (50) of “behaving well” (38) for the maintenance of society, Reza showcases how commonly accepted idiosyncrasies “disintegrate” (66) behind closed doors. The primeval “instinct[s]” (64) supersede the “good will” (36) of Reza’s characters as civility is “totally exposed” (4) by the playwright as a farce; a “phoney” (64) that provides us with solace while we deny the “impulse[s]” (20) that erupt in “irrational desperation” (53), as epitomised by the class we trust to retain “peace and stability” (54). Reza portrays how humans, as “architects” (47) of a multifaceted matrix of social construction and constriction, deliver little more than a crumbling façade of civility. The God of Carnage reveals, to a “dreadful” (30), uncomfortable degree, that we have failed to “maste[r]” (4) the critical “art of coexistence” (4).
