Spreading the News is a drama comedy by Lady Gregory. The story tells about error judgments and misunderstanding. The drama is set in the fair in a district. The Magistrate, one of main characters, judges the district as a bad place. The judgment seems paradox with the condition of the district where there is a chaos caused by misunderstanding between people. Actually, the real condition of the district contradicts with the Magistrate’s judgment that judges the district as the bad place because of crime, but it is true if the district is called bad because people like gossiping even Bartley Fallon and Jack Smith become the victims of the gossip. For the formalist critics the tension of the story can be created by irony, paradox, and ambiguity (Dobie, 2009). It is also can be applied in Gregory’s drama where the ambiguities, ironies, and paradox of the situations and acts that seems from the characters’ conversation, fit together to form a tension. The tension formed in the story is chaotic.
The drama is opened by the conversation between the Magistrate and the police that is full of bad judgments. First, he states that the district has “no system” and “repulsive”. Then, he asks some questions to the police to confirm the condition of the district using checking questions which are statements ended by question mark (?). For example he asked “I suppose there is a god deal of disorder in this place?” (p.25). The question indicates that the Magistrate just confirms his judgment to the police about the district because his question is not begun by question words. The judgments conveyed through the questions “common assault?...Agrarian crime, no doubt?...Boycotting? Maiming of cattle? Firing into houses?” (p.25)– show that the district in the Magistrate’s view is disorder, criminal, rebellious, and bad. In other word, the Magistrate judges that the district is a bad place.
The Magistrate’s judgment is paradoxical. Paradox is “a statement that seems to contradict itself but is actually true” like what Dobie explains (2009:45). The Magistrate who states that the district is bad seems to contradict with the reality of district in which people in the district do activity normally. They work like people in district generally such as trading and farming. As describing of situation in the first scene that is the drama taking place in “the outskirts of a Fair” and there is “an apple Stall” (p.25). It indicates that there is activity of trades. While the indicator that refers to the farming is a description of one character, that is Jack Smith, a raid-haired man, comes in carrying a “hayfork”(26). The word “hayfork” is representative enough to describe that Jack is a farmer. Beside they trade and farm, they are also like chit-chat such as Bartley Fallon who talks about death and misfortune to Mrs. Fallon and Mrs. Tarpey. Actually, there is no crime between them as what the Magistrate judges. However, the Magistrate’s judgment of the district as the bad place is true because their chit-chat is the main cause of chaos in the story.
The chit-chat between people in the fair causes chaos because there are many ambiguous statements and acts. The ambiguity is “a stylistic error in everyday speech in which a word or expression has multiple meanings” (Bressler, 2007). There are some fatal ambiguities among conversation people in the fair that cause misunderstanding. However, the most ambiguous act and statement is begun on Bartley’s act when he will give Jack’s hayfork back because it is left in Bartley’s stall. Bartley “takes up fork awkwardly and upsets the basket” (p.26). Bartley makes their stall untidy and it makes Mrs.Fallow angry. The condition makes ambiguity that seems in Mrs. Fallow’s answers to Mrs.Tarpey’s and Tim Casey’s questions below:
MRS. TARPEY (turning from stall). God help us, Mrs. Fallon, what happened your basket?
MRS. FALLON. It's himself that knocked it down, bad manners to him. (Putting things up) My grand sugar that's destroyed, and he'll not drink his tea without it. I had best go back to the shop for more, much good may it do him!
(Enter TIM CASEY.)
TIM CASEY. Where is Bartley Fallon, Mrs. Fallon? I want a word with him before he'll leave the fair. I was afraid he might have gone home by this, for he's a temperate man.
MRS. FALLON. I wish he did go home! It'd be best for me if he went home straight from the fair green, or if he never came with me at all! Where is he, is it? He's gone up the road (jerks elbow) following Jack Smith with a hayfork. (p.26)
Mrs. Fallow’s answers and the condition of the stall lead Tim Casey and Mrs. Tarpey to misinterpret the situation. Tim Casey interprets that there is some dispute between Jack Smith and Bartley Fallon, and Mrs.Tarpey agrees with Tim Casey’s interpretation. Both of them, then, spread the news about dispute between Jack and Bartley to people in the fair. The news extends to be the news of murder and it spreads to the Magistrate and the police too.
The Magistrate reacts to the news ironically. He arrests Bartley as “the murder of John Smith”. It is ironic because he is wrong in mentioning the victim. Moreover, the murder is never happened because the Magistrate misinterprets Bartley’s statement about death. The Magistrate misinterprets Bartley’s confession while Bartley talks about her feeling about misfortune related on death. The chaos become more complex since Mrs. Fallow is angry with Jack’s wife, Kitty Keary who is accused as the trigger of Bartley’s act. Bartley and Kitty are accused of having an affair and they will go to America. The issue is created from misunderstanding of the spreading news between people. The issue makes Jack angry to Bartley. However, ironically the Magistrate arrests Jack too with accusation of conspiracy.
In conclusion, looking at the ambiguity, irony, and paradox that fit together along the story can help the reader to form the tension of the story. The conversation among people in the fair which is full of ambiguity and irony help the reader to reconcile them to decide the tension of the story so that Spreading the News becomes the unified whole of chaos. The chaos comes from the paradoxical judgment by the Magistrate about the district as the bad place unifying with the spreading news created by ambiguities and ironies.
References:
Bressler, E. Charles. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.
Dobie, B. Ann. Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009.
Gregory, Lady. Spreading the News.
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