CARNIVAL
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What do the images have in common?
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RIO, PADSTOW, MINEHEAD, BRIDGEWATER,PEWSEY
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FLINTOCK IS BASED ON PEWSEY
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Carnival can be a pagan festival to celebrate the
coming of the new year
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Mardi Gras is now part of the Christian calendar to
celebrate excess before the period of fasting that
is Lent.
A licence for misrule
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Pagan Spring Festivals
Origin of Padstow ‘Obby ‘Oss can be traced to preChristian times
Padstow “morning song” is used in the play: “Unite
and Unite…”
Sexual union is seen as part of the explosion of Spring
and celebrates fertility.
The ‘Oss wasrebranded to represent George and the
Dragon
The ‘Oss is killed to indicate the death of the old year.
A continuing cycle of creation and death
Celebrated in Johnny’s incantation of his forebears?
Adapted over time
 Christianity
encourages such fertility revels
to change
 Linked to Church events
 As religion relaxed its hold on society in
Britain, paganism returned
 A new paganism emerged based on
shallow materialism and popular culture
Flintock changes
 “It’s
shit on toast”
 “There’s a Lord of the Rings float… There’s
a George and Dragon, Men in Black II.
Crown and Goose have gone X factor.
Same as last year…”
 “It’s the brewery’s idea”
 “How long’s the Flintock men been
going? / Six weeks”
Every revel must have a leader
 Contrast:
May Queen: A pubescent
local girl; sexualised and presented to the
onlookers for delectation
 The
Green Man – the pagan Lord of
Misrule
Misrule
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Flintock
Sponsored by business
Low level copies of
modern spiritualism
Transvestism and
racism
Alcohol and drug
fuelled
Links to 1940 and last
great threat to the
Island
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Rooster’s Wood
Flagrant threat to
authority
The individual is freed to
behave as he/she
wishes
Drug and alcohol fuelled
Some evidence of
mystical power shown
Attempts to link to a
distant pre-history
Destructive and violent
Johnny as ruler
 Snatches
of old songs are sung – trying to
reconnect?
 Destroys TV before play – symbol of a
dying society (Winter)
 Clear terms of reference deep roots in the
festival: St George, Titania and fairies,
Oden, Gog and Magog, Jack of Green.
 English heritage is held up against modern
England.
Johnny as destroyer of the old
year
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P52
“Make merry. For tonight like a flaming flock of
snakes, we will storm Flintock Village and burn
every house, shop and farm. We will behead the
mayor. Imprison the Rotary club. Pillage the pubs!
Rob the tombola! And whip into a whirlwind a
roughhead army of unwashed, unstable,
unhinged, friendless, penniless, baffled beserkers
what haunt that Godforsaken town, and together,
snout by jowl, we will rise up and ride on Salisbury,
Marlborough, Devizes, Calne, until the whole plain
of Wiltshire dances to the tune of our misrule.”
Such language
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Short, sharp imperatives
1st person plural for inclusion
Triplets – “Pillage the pubs” is most important
and receives the first exclamation mark
Long sentence to conclude as passion
supplants authority
Use of alliteration and negative prefixes
Animal imagery – “snout by jowl”
Whole plain of Wiltshire – the archaic world
was small, as is Johnny’s (NB p101 Phaedra
sees the inherent irony in this)
Dichotomy
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Carnival looks both forward and back
Destruction is at heart of rebirth
Life will follow death and Spring will follow Winter
Johnny leads the revels and pollutes society
NB from a village perspective the wish to evict
Johnny can be justified with ease: P30 Davey
Johnny is a total outcast from the village but hold
court in the forest for the next generation (literally)
Johnny is pained by his position as scapegoat – p97
“Okay, stop….I said stop. Enough. SILENCE”
Johnny despises all that is based on business (who
gets the kickbacks?” yet is a successful “business
man”.