Marcel: The playwright philosopher

Renascence, Spring 2003 by Hanley, Katharine Rose

The question of what becomes of loved ones after death is a mystery that preoccupied Marcel, from the time of his mother's death and again intensely when he was working for the Red Cross and had to notify families of persons missing in action in World War I. This theme occurs in at least seventeen of his plays, explored in different contexts and from various points of view. Particularly illuminating are The Iconoclast (1920), The Broken World (1932), The Lantern (1935), and Le Dard (1936, The Sting), and Rome n'est plus dans Rome (1951, Rome is no Longer in Rome).21 Marcel's philosophical analysis of this question appears in an essay, originally entitled "The Existential Premises of Immortality," written after the death of his wife and published in the book Presence and Immortality (1919-1951).22

THE idea for The Iconoclast came from a Major Percy who approached Marcel in a Swiss Hotel. Major Percy was grief-stricken after the death of his young wife. He was so distraught that he even contemplated suicide, but turned from it because of an experience of his young wife's presence from beyond death communicating her request that he marry again for the sake of the children and for his own sake. Knowing it was her express wish, he did marry again. Marcel based the play on Percy's experience. The play ends with the line of a friend, encouraging the husband's trust, "You could not live in a world devoid of mystery." Thus a character in this play voiced for the first time the word "mystery," which was to become so important in Marcel's thought. In "Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontological Mystery," "mystery" is identified as transcending the notion of a "problem." A problem is something outside ourselves that can be solved objectively and dismissed. A "mystery" is something that we must welcome as touching and affecting us, something in which we must be involved if we wish to fathom its meaning; mystery is a reality that involves and affects us even while it transcends us.23

Marcel describes "presence" as a spiritual influx that profoundly affects our being. For presence to occur one must remain open and permeable, yet presence occurs as a gratuitous gift. It issues from a dialogue of freedoms, or the dialogue of liberty and grace. And whenever presence occurs, its benefit is an incitement to create.24 Marcel's drama, as always, mirrors and validates his philosophic thought. In the final scene of The Broken World, the news of a posthumously found journal brings news that frees the main character from the trauma of rejection she has suffered since her childhood and, in a new light of truth, she offers her husband her real love.

Marcel observes that moments of presence of loved ones from beyond death create breaches in what would otherwise be a wall of despair. In the final scene of Le Dard (The Sting), Werner Snow bids farewell to Beatrice. Werner, a singer, is returning to Germany in solidarity with his Jewish accompanist, who most likely has not survived the rigors of persecution. Werner knows he will not long survive but hopes his gift of music will sustain courage among fellow sufferers. Bidding farewell to Beatrice, whom he loves but whom he would not compromise as the wife of a long time friend, Werner entreats Beatrice to care for Eustace who is infected by the plague of poverty of spiritual values. Werner promises he will be, for Beatrice, what his Jewish accompanist has been for him, a kind of via te cum, a Viaticum.25 Marcel's concern with immortality is not so much the classic one of arguing one's own immortality. Marcel's concern is clearly focused on the survival of loved ones beyond death. He also seeks to investigate how loved ones can continue to be present to us from beyond death.