awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.4, 2014Saadallah Wannous: From Existentialist to ActivistAl-KhateebunfathomableMike Orrmystery?‖ (p. 420). To this Jassem asserts his authority: ―When I enter the house,they need to feel the earth tremble under their feet. Who dares look me in the face?‖ (p. 420).Through Unsi and Jassem, Wannous creates sides on the question of authority. He ―managed togrant his audience the chance to make moral judgments and openly take sides on issues evenbefore leaving the theatre hall. Their participation was, thus, evaluative and critical, often turningthe show into a small-scale social phenomenon‖ (Swairjo, para. 11). However, for the audienceof The Glass Café, the situation is dire and the decision is one of life or death as is reflected inthe game of backgammon Unsi and Jassem play. As the play progresses, the audience will feelthe accumulating pressure to make a decision, viewing a catastrophic ending on the horizon ofthe drama.So Wannous wants his audience to make a decision! But how? Sartre asserts that ―whatthe writer requires of the reader is not the application of an abstract freedom but the gift of hiswhole person, with his passions, his prepossessions, his sympathies, his sexual temperament, andhis scale of values‖ (p. 1206). It is in this inclusive sense of judgment that Wannous hopes hisreaders indulge. For this purpose, he offers them Unsi‘s take on fatherhood:He‘s my son. It was a long time since I‘d thought of him. That‘s what‘s so hard to bear.He was just absent, like a distant memory – like a wife – like the paint on the front door –but – (His voice trembles.) There he was in front of me, only a tile‘s distance between us– he was breathing quite calmly – but in his eyes there was a pagan look – as thoughthreatening me – no, not that – maybe reproaching me – no it wasn‘t reproach – it waslike a whipping – like poison. (p. 421)The threatening image is intended and, a few lines later, intensified as Unsi informs Jassem thathis son ―grew – and grew . . . swelling and swelling‖ until he ―concealed‖ him (p. 421). Heremembers the two dead men; he references their bursting, which draws to our mind the burstingof the Waiter‘s mother, closing up with a terrifying sentence ―they just burst, with no warning‖(p. 421). At this point, the audience discovers that they are in a death trap, and before they canemotionally react, Master Zaza ―smashes his palm on the glass. His eyes sparkle, he lifts hishand and looks at it. The flea is squashed on a finger‖ (p. 422). At this moment, the action of theplay accelerates, the motion has started; doom‘s day is almost here. Immediately after the flea iscrushed, ―at a table in the middle of the café, a customer‘s head falls on his shoulder, completelystill‖ (p. 422). The other customers start shouting ―Dead – dead – dead‖, and except for that,there is ―no reaction or change . . . on the customers‘ faces. Their features are too deeply set to bemoved at events‖ (p. 423). The only person reacting is Unsi, a reaction that will consequentlylead to a similar fate. Had he chosen not to recognize the ―event,‖ it would not then haveessentially happened. After all, it is us, through our consciousness, according to Sartre, whocreate relation with and thus moral judgment toward the world around us. We bring the world tolife as we experience it, otherwise, ―earth will remain in its lethargy until other consciousnesscomes along to awaken it‖ (Sartre, p. 1200). Thus, Unsi, through his apprehension and fear,establishes a relationship with death, awakens a monster that only he, by willing ignorance of thesituation and disregard of his emotions, can kill.The disposability of the customers resonates like a curse. Right after the Customer‘sdeath, the rest of the customers ―all sit and return to their games. Even at the dead man‘s tableanother man now occupies the empty chair, and the games continue‖ (p. 424). When the Waitervocalizes the ―incident‖ declaring ―We‘ve lost a customer, Master Zaza,‖ Zaza coldly repliesArab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org386