Originally Posted by Karen 6th November 2005


Mr. Jeffreys has given Rochester so many eloquent and also so many scathingly brilliant speeches and bits of dialog.

Please share with us the one you feel most exemplifies the spirit of Rochester. If necessary. please ***** any questionable words. LOL

Show us which "good bit" defines John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester in your eyes, and why.

Captainjacksparrow

There are several scenes that I am looking forward to seeing ....but you asked which scene most exemplifies the spirit of Rochester.....I guess that it depends upon which side of us he is wanted us to see at the time.....but the sundial scene ....(pages 64-69) but most specifically pages 66 and 67...if I use ****** that would be all you see...so I will not post the script......is the one that I think really shows us what he is made of.....the anger that he has bottled up within himself....

Hibblette

Besides the prologue

The whole speech about receiving the letters from his father when he was just five.

That is probably the most vulnerable point that we see Johnny Wilmot.


"I received a letter from my father when I was five. I was just old enough to realise it wasn't safe for him to be in England. We went to Paris to meet him but he'd gone to Germany to raise funds for the cause. I was sitting in a garden with my mother. This gruff cavalier came pounding towards us, ignored my mother and handed me a package of letters. I never met my father, but the letters had a smell which I knew was his. The letters in my hand, the fact that they were for me, and from my father...In the moment before I opened them, I knew the most intense surge of certainty that I was where I belonged and that everything would turn out for the best. I read them. I cant' remember what was in them, the usual stuff, the stuff I write to my son about studying hard and being good. But I loved simpyly holding them and having them. Then I said to my mother: 'Why can't he be with us?' And she said: 'He has to be with the King.' And all the joy of the letters drained away for ever, because I knew there was someone else he preferred. You. And I've never forgiven you."


To me, along with the prologue; which says what he is all about in his life, this monologue speech to the King is what explains somethings about him.

Honestly he was looking for the edge of the world to fall off of it. Some of it has to do with his circumstances in the society he was born into and he had no control of it. And he knew it.

Karen


I love that scene about his father's letters too. It's quite telling about the inner soul of the man's torment.


Let's also remember to counter in that Rochester was a raging alcoholic.

Lufirel

This is another difficult question because I love so many of Rochester's speeches and think that a lot of them serve to highlight/illuminate different parts of his character. The prologue is definitely right up there but aside from it I think the following is one of his most illuminating speeches (I don't have the text in front of me because I lent the play to my sister but I'll try to get as close to it as I can from memory):

"I am the cynic of our golden age. This bounteous dish which our great king and our great god have set before us, in more or less equal measure, sets my teeth permanently on edge. Life has no purpose. It is everywhere undone by arbitrariness. I do this, but it matters not a jot if I do the opposite. But in the playhouse every action, no matter how small, has its consequence. Drop a handkerchief and it will return to smother you. Outside the playhouse there are for me no crimes and no consequences."

By the time this speech is said (in the scene where Rochester is tutoring Elizabeth Barry) we are already fairly well acquainted with Rochester's rakish character, and we have also seen a personal side of him in the brief scene between him and his wife. In this speech (and the ones immediately following it) however, he is for the first time really laying out his beliefs. He take shots at both the king and God (two of his favorite targets) and expresses disgust at the meaninglessness of life all with a cynical wittiness that is quintessentially Rochester. But he also reveals a deeper part of his character that goes beyond his cynicism. One gets the feeling that he wants the real world to be more like the playhouse, that he hates the fact that his actions seem so meaningless. Perhaps these beliefs also help to explain why Rochester acts so extremely. Since he feels that his actions have no consequence he logically also feels that he can act as extremely as he wishes without fear of penalty. Or, and perhaps more likely, he keeps acting more and more extreme in the hopes that eventually he will go over the limit and there will be consequences for him. At any rate, the picture of Rochester that these lines give us is not simply of a cynical man who (because the world is in a rotten state) feels entitled to do as he pleases, but of a deeply disappointed and disillusioned man who wants some order and consequence but feels unable to get them unless he completely crosses the line. Thus, in my opinion, this speech is very illuminating because it clues us in to one of the primary motivations behind Rochester's behavior.

Hibblette

Also, I have to note here that he acknowledges God, which I believe in some of his poetry he does this. Which is interesting.

Is he saying this to be cordial, perhaps he doesn't want to offend her, or is he saying it because he knows there's a God he just doesn't ... well he feels God is not there.

Perhaps that is why he is going for the edge...to see if God will either push him over or save him.

The thing is about this time is that man was really questioning certain things. One of them was not only the Catholic church but also the beliefs that the Protestants were pushing.

Actually I've always thought he was more agnostic then atheist.

Deppraved

Here's a very telling passage I'm partial to:

"Contentment is the drug of fools. I prefer truth. And the truth is that we are all animals scratching and rutting under an empty sky. Here in this theater we can pretend that our lives have meaning. But the pretence only holds if we are given the truth. That is why I wish to see you shine on the stage, that is why, selfishly, I wish to train you. The theater is my soothing drug, and my cynic's illness is so far advanced that my physic must be of the highest quality."

Lufirel

I'm fond of that one too deppraved (as you can probably tell by my signature).

Hibblette, I agree with you about Rochester being more of an agnostic than an atheist. I've read that he had a very Puritan upbringing which probably instilled in him Christian ideas that would have been very hard for him to shake off no matter how much he might have wanted to. In fact I'd go so far as to say that Rochester would have been a far less conflicted and troubled individual if he had not (in some small, but essential, rebellious part of himself) believed in God. Going back to the theory that Rochester goes to incredible extremes in the hopes of provoking some response (negative attention seems to be better than no attention at all in his mind), you may be right that in railing against God he hopes to illicit a response that will restore his faith.

Hibblette

Yep.

I know that they will say that his mother made much of the deathbed conversion but you know what-when someone is dying of syphillis it is not an easy death and well...whether he was in delirium or not it's possible that something happened. I can see it as a possibility.

And CaptainJackSparrow-I take that to mean that the scene with Dr. Bendo was rewritten and actually maybe shortened. Because it's really not that big a scene.

Going back to the religion-a lot of our Forefathers here in the States were actually Agnostics. I know much is being said that we were established on Religious Freedom true-but the Freedom of it means that if you don't believe you don't have to. I've always felt ol' Johnny Wilmot would have loved being in the Colonies.

JDFan

For me the two most telling passages, the ones that provide some sense of motivation for why Wilmot turned out the way he was were:

1. The discussion he had with the king about his father. I think this had been well-analyzed already.



2. At the very end Sackville says the following:



"My Lord had never believed in God because of Mr. Wyndham at the battle of Bergen. The night before the engagement, my Lord and Mr. Wyndham being possessed of a premonition of death made a solemn bond that if either was killed he should return to the survivor with tidings of the afterlife.

The next day a cannon ball carried away Mr. Wyndham's belly. He not appearing from the grave, my Lord thenceforward turned his face from God."


This is an historically accurate statement. I believe it was this incident, both the death of his good friend and the lack of proof of an afterlife that started Rochester's decline into cynicism and turning more and more to drink. That, combined with his severe disappointment in the reign of King Charles, apparent throughout the play, compelled him to push every boundary he could. His friend, his faith, his king, his father, his love all failed him.