Page 348 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes 19. Laszlo and Ilse. The Uncontaminated Hero and La Femme Fatale. Both in white always;
clever opposition with Germans, usually in black. In the meeting at Laszlo’s table, Strasser is
in white, in order to reduce the opposition. However, Strasser and Ilse are Beauty and the
Beast. The Norwegian agent: spy movie.
20. The Desperate lover and Drink to Forget.
21. The Faithful Servant and his Beloved Master. Don Quixote and Sancho.
22. Play it (again, Sam). Anticipated quotation of Woody Allen. 15
23. The long flashback begins. Flashback as a content and flashback as a form. Quotation of the
flashback as a topical stylistic device. The Power of Memory. Last Day in Paris. Two weeks in
Another Town. Brief Encounter. French movie of the 1930’s (the station as quai des brumes). 16
24. At this point the review of thearchetypes is more or less complete. There is still the moment
17
when Rick plays the Diamond in the Rough (who allows the Bulgarian bride to win) , and two
typical situations: the scene of the Marseillaise and the two lovers discovering that Love is
Forever. The gift to the Bulgarian bride (along with the enthusiasm of the waiters), the
Marseillaise, and the Love Scene are three instances of the rhetorical figure of Climax, as the
quintessence of Drama (each climax coming obviously with its own anticlimax).
Now the story can elaborate upon its elements.
The first symphonic elaboration comes with the second scene around the roulette table. We
discover for the first time that the Magic Key (that everybody believed to be only purchasable with
money) can in reality be given only as a Gift, a reward for Purity. The Donor will be Rick. He gives
(free) the visa to Laszlo. In reality there is also a third Gift, the Gift Rick makes of his own desire,
sacrificing himself. Note that there is no gift for Ilse, who in some way, even though innocent, has
betrayed two men. The Receiver of the Gift is the Uncontaminated Laszlo. By becoming the Donor,
Rick meets Redemption. No one impure can reach the Promised Land. But Rick and Renault
redeem themselves and can reach the other Promised Land, not America (which is Paradise) but
the Resistance, the Holy War (which is glorious Purgatory). Laszlo flies directly to Paradise because
he has already suffered the ordeal of the underground. Rick, moreover, is not only one who
accepts sacrifice. The idea of sacrifice pervades the whole story, Ilse’s sacrifice in Paris when she
abandons the man she loves to return to the wounded hero, the Bulgarian bride’s sacrifice when
she is prepared to give herself to help her husband, Victor’s sacrifice when he is prepared to see
Ilse with Rick to guarantee her safety.
The second symphonic elaboration is upon the theme of the Unhappy Love. Unhappy for Rick,
who loves Ilse and cannot have her. Unhappy for Ilse, who loves Rick and cannot leave with him.
Unhappy for Victor, who understands that he has not really kept Ilse. The interplay of unhappy
loves produces numerous twists and turns. In the beginning Rick is unhappy because he does not
understand why Ilse leaves him. Then Victor is unhappy because he does not understand why Ilse
is attracted to Rick. Finally Ilse is unhappy because she does not understand why Rick makes her
leave with her husband.
These unhappy loves are arranged in a triangle. But in the normal adulterous triangle there is a
Betrayed Husband and a Victorious Lover, while in this case both men are betrayed and suffer a
loss.
In this defeat, however, an additional element plays a part, so subtly that it almost escapes the
level of consciousness. Quite subliminally a hint of Platonic Love is established. Rick admires
Victor, Victor is ambiguously attracted by the personality of Rick, and it seems that at a certain
point each of the two is playing out the duel of sacrifice to please the other. In any case, as in
Rousseau’s Confessions, the woman is her an intermediary between the two men. She herself does

15. Play It Again, Sam is the title of a film made by woody Allen in 1972, about a neurotic film critic obsessed
with Humphrey Bogart.
16. Literally, ‘quay (or railway platform) of fogs’, this was the title of a classic French film, directed by Marcel
Carné in 1938.
17. To be precise, Rick ensures that her husband wins at the roulette table, thus ensuring that the couple can buy
their exit visas from Renault for cash, instead of the girl having to sleep with the police chief to obtain them.

342 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY