The Refiner’s Fire: Drama

Gide’S Philoctetes’: Half-Truths About Christianity

We read imaginative works for entertainment or for the aesthetic experience, rarely to pick a quarrel with the underlying world view. In scientific and philosophical treatises or serious articles, logical fallacies and misinformation are brought to light sooner or later; in imaginative works, on the other hand, they are generally excused or ignored. Yet untruths that the reader unconsciously absorbs may have an eternal effect upon his character and destiny.

To illustrate how the “belles lettres” frequently perpetrate half-truths, often without the author’s conscious intention, I should like to use a play by André Gide, Philoctetes or the Three Moralities. This work by the distinguished French moralist and Nobel prize winner is short, simple, and available in English, and it illustrates the point perfectly. My intention is not to give a thorough aesthetic analysis but rather to treat the work from a philosophical standpoint. (All my quotations from the play are from André Gide, Le Théâtre Complet, I, Ides et Calendes, 1947; the translations are mine.)

In this play, first published in 1898, there are three characters, each supposedly typifying a distinct ethical code. Note that the subtitle reads “The Three Moralities” and not simply “Three Moralities.” Surely we are to infer that the list is exhaustive, that all moral codes can be classified under one of these three basic types. If this is so, then may we not expect one of the three characters to give a reasonably true picture of Christian ethics?

In this variation of the classic myth Philoctetes had been abandoned on a lonely island because of a snake bite that would not heal. His groaning and the stench from the wound were demoralizing the army. For the good of the greatest number the Greeks put him ashore with the famous Herculean bow and arrows as his only means of livelihood.

Now, ten years later, in response to the oracle’s assertion that the Greeks cannot win the war without the bow and arrows, Ulysses is returning to the island to recover them by stealth. Knowing that Philoctetes will suspect him of some treachery because of his crafty reputation (or at least that is his excuse), Ulysses is taking along the guileless and unsuspecting Neoptolemus to do the dirty deed. When the time comes to seize the weapons there is nothing to hinder Ulysses from doing it himself, but he refuses. Why? Was he not so sure after all that the gods had spoken? Was he ashamed, or afraid? The reader is never told. In the meantime Philoctetes voluntarily takes his own life, more for self-fulfillment than to help the Greeks. Through the questioning of Neoptolemus, the hypocrisy of Ulysses, as well as other features of his absolutistic code, is cleverly brought out. Ulysses represents blind submission to an objective and universal moral code. Some of the implications of such a morality are shown to be:

1. Utilitarianism or the greatest good of the greatest number. (“And so are we supposed to submit the valor of an army to the distress, to the lamentations of single man?” [p. 149]).

2 The end justifies any means. (“Therefore we shall take possession of them by trickery” [p. 150]).

3. Insincerity. The reason Ulysses gives Neoptolemus for refusing to seize the weapons himself is not the real one. (“If he sees me alone he is going to suspect some ruse” [p. 151].) We know this because when Ulysses has the opportunity to take them he says: “Neoptolemus is a child: Let him obey” (p. 177).

4. Lack of artistic sensibility. Ulysses cannot understand Philoctetes, as we see by his misinterpretation of Philoctetes’ voluntary death. (“I should like him to know that I find him admirable … and that … thanks to him, we shall be victorious” [p. 177].) As we learn from Philoctetes’ dying soliloquy, it was for himself that he acted. On the other hand, Philoctetes understood Ulysses very well and predicted that Ulysses would misunderstand the reason for his sacrifice.

5. No moral progress. Ulysses is the same at the end as the beginning, whereas the other two have made considerable moral progress: Neoptolemus by open-mindedly observing both Philoctetes and Ulysses and coming to his own conclusion about their points of view, and Philoctetes by learning that there is no virtue in the traditional sense.

Neoptolemus, who is an immature but sincere seeker after truth, is shocked by Ulysses’ standard, and so is the reader. With a shrug, Ulysses’ code is dismissed. Without giving such a reprehensible theory a second thought we direct our attention to the two remaining ethical views.

The usual discussion of this play revolves around the moralities of Philoctetes and Neoptolemus. Which one was Gide advocating? Gide has been noted not for taking sides, for presenting various points of view and letting the reader draw his own conclusions. It is not surprising that the unwary infer neutrality on Gide’s part, for both Philoctetes and Neoptolemus are sympathetically portrayed. I think that Gide did not take sides here because both positions were acceptable to him. In fact, I think that he deliberately invented two characters who would represent what he conceived to be the two poles of a sincere relativism.

Philoctetes was by nature extremely egoistic while Neoptolemus was very much inclined toward altruism. Neither one, however, set up egoism or altruism as an end outside himself. These leanings were a matter of temperament and purely subjective. Moral progress for Philoctetes would have to be in the direction of altruism since he was beginning from the egoistic pole. For Neoptolemus the only direction to move would be toward egoism. Note also that if Neoptolemus’s and Philoctetes’ evolving moralities are both acceptable because each one is tailored to suit the particular temperament and needs of an individual at a certain stage in his development, then these two characters really represent only one type of ethics, the relativistic one; the three moralities are reduced to two, with Ulysses embodying an absolutistic position.

If we are not on guard, we shall miss the other half of the teaching, which is much more subtly presented. This is in accord with Gide’s method as he was to reveal it in his diary for 1931: “If I do not assert more, it is because I believe insinuation to be more effective.” In addition to learning that moral codes must be subjective and provisional, we discover that objective and inflexible codes are not live options. In fact, as we have seen, absolutistic views are never seriously considered. This might not matter so much except for the fact that the subtitle of the play, as well as the content, implies an all-inclusive treatment of ethical views.

Which character is supposed to represent Christianity? Someone might be tempted to see in Philoctetes a type of Christ because in the end he lays down his life. We are shown that this was good by the one scene that constitutes the last act. Here we see a perfectly happy Philoctetes, now surrounded by a vibrant nature instead of the ice of the earlier scenes, having finally created the beauty that he had previously struggled so hard to produce. By a beautiful deed he has achieved immortality in the minds of men.

Is this Christianity? For obvious reasons it is not the biblical variety. Gide’s Christianity was almost always based upon his own opinions rather than upon the Scriptures or the Church. Consider, for example, this entry from the diary for May, 1910: “But my Christianity springs only from Christ. Between him and me, I consider Calvin and St. Paul as two equally harmful screens.” Also, years later, in 1949, he asked in a radio interview: “Peut-on être un saint sans Dieu, c’est le seul problème qui m’intéresse?” I think Philoctetes was an attempt to answer this very question years before it was posed in these particular words.

If Philoctetes’ morality is not biblical, then to whom may we ascribe the scriptural view? Obviously the only possible place for it is with Ulysses. Doubtless Gide thought he was disposing of the traditional Judeo-Christian view in this absolutist. Before attempting to evaluate Ulysses’ position in the light of Christianity it will be necessary to discuss ethics in more technical terms. (For this I have relied heavily on Gordon H. Clark’s A Christian View of Men and Things, Eerdmans, 1952, pages 151–93.)

For convenience all ethical theories may be divided into two categories. One group is called teleological because the virtue of an act is judged in the light of the consequences. The other is ateleological: the goodness or badness of an act is to be discovered in the act itself. The common man reasons that it would be absurd to hold a person accountable for consequences he cannot control.

Ulysses’ morality is clearly teleological. If the disjunction is complete, as Gide implies, then Ulysses must be the spokesman for all such theories. In rejecting Ulysses’ ethics, therefore, we automatically throw out all teleological ethics.

The difficulty with this procedure is that there are two types of ethics that judge virtue in the light of the consequences, and they are quite dissimilar. Ulysses’ variety advocates the greatest good of the greatest number and is generally called utilitarianism; the other is known as egoism or, if pleasure is the end, as hedonism. Teleological egoism is not at all the same as Philoctetes’ egoistic leanings. Gide probably felt secure in assuming that no one—least of all a Christian—would want to try to make a case for egoism or hedonism. What he failed to realize is that if one thinks of pleasure as the enjoyment of a special relationship to God that begins with regeneration and lasts forever, then Christianity might be considered egoistic and even hedonistic. Christianity is patently teleological, but what Gide did not see is that on the Christian view the consequences are broad enough to include what happens to the character of the agent.

Intentionally or unintentionally, Gide misrepresented the historic biblical position on morality. Like many famous authors he did so in such a way as to prejudice the uncritical reader without the reader’s realizing it.

MARY M. CRUMPACKERMary M. Crumpacker is associate professor of foreign languages and literature at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana.

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