"Shooting yourself, in a manner of speaking!"

(In which I do an unabashedly symptomatic reading of Heartbreak House in order to make it talk to Ellen Rooney about surface reading.)

The distinction that Ellen Rooney attempts to make clear between symptomatic reading and surface reading (in “Live Free or Describe”) might be summed up as follows: “symptomatic reading implies a kind of unfreedom, an imposition, the trace of a force never entirely in the control of either reader or writer, [while] description as the problematic of surface reading celebrates obviousness, that which (allegedly) lies in plain view”(Rooney 116). Heartbreak House is also concerned with the notion of “that which (allegedly) lies in plain view.

Many of the characters are immediately recognizable—both to each other and as recurring fictional types. Their characteristics are the characteristics of their category. They are, in other words, readable solely on the basis of what is obvious about them. Shaw encourages a kind of allegorical reading of the play in both his introduction to it, where he writes of English society as a collection of easily defined categories of existence, and in his stage directions, which often describe the characters in terms of their social station and type. He defines them by their place, and simultaneously claims that they may stand for that place in society. Rooney might object to the claim that allegory (which asks us to create an allusion between text and social structures) could ever qualify as surface reading. And yet, as each character arrives before the audience, those things that are obvious about her are those things which refer easily within a set of social significations. If a description of surface reading refuses any meaning which relies upon a sign system, then of course Rooney is right to claim that it is impossible. I can imagine an account, however, (though Rooney would believe that I am deceived about the extent of ideology) which acknowledges the necessity of sign systems in the creation of meaning, but which asks the reader to rigorously deny all but the most superficial claims of a text. A character in a military uniform, for example, could not be read as a symbol of war, but could be understood to be in the military until further information is provided. Thus allegory may be ruled out insofar as each character is asked to stand for an idea, but a reading of characters based on their social markers would remain acceptably on the surface.

The characters in the play certainly believe that each of the others is an identifiable type who may be treated as such. They are surface readers of each other. And some of them have no depth. They are always an extension of their surface; they mean as they appear. And yet they play is also aware of the problems of an easy assignation of meaning. Captain Shotover, from the beginning, mistakes Ellie’s father (Mazzini Dunn) for an old acquaintance (Billy Dunn), and he refuses to believe that he might be incorrect . . . until the arrival of someone else whom he believes to be Billy Dunn. And this new Billy Dunn’s identity is also in doubt—he is always playing a part. He plays the part of a burglar, and then the part of a poor beggar, and then accepts the Captain’s claim that he is Billy Dunn, and plays that too. It is at this point that he accuses Mazzini, crying, “have you been giving yourself out to be me? You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting yourself, in a manner of speaking!” (87). Thus the possibilities for a given identity double (at least!), while Mazzini (and perhaps the Captain too) stands accused of an attempt to destroy the other possible version of himself. He is imagined as a defender of a singular meaning, foolishly seeking to destroy all other options. Various other cases of characters appearing to be singular and simple appear and are complicated through the play. Even the fact that this is a play makes the most superficial characters potentially complex, as each is realized by an unruly body and appears in a performance that inevitably changes with each enactment. Thus the play presents a set of superficial characters, whom the playwright defines as types, and then proceeds to mock the very idea of holding on to singularity in meaning.