A Feast in Time of Plague

A Feast in Time of Plague is the shortest of the tragedies and in my opinion, the most ambiguous. The whole play takes place in real time during a feast amongst friends. The reader quickly discovers, during a toast, that one of their dear friends has just passed away from the plague that has taken over the city. The Master of Revels (Walsingham) then suggests a silent toast be made in honor of their friend, and after the toast is complete, Walsingham asks Mary to sing a sad song. Mary's song, which takes up a good portion of the already short play, educates the reader of the severity of the plague and narrates a story between two lovers who contemplate the doomed future of their love during this time of plague. Louisa criticizes the song, but faints once she hears a cart going by that is creaking from the weight of all of the dead bodies that it is carrying. Walsingham then sings a hymn to the plague, a more hopeful tone than that of Mary's that discusses facing the plague without fear because with its presence comes a promise of eternal life. A priest then appears who lectures the party-goers for their feast in time of the plague, and mentions to Walsingham the death of his mother and wife before attempting to persuade him to leave the party. In the end, the priest leaves alone, the feast continues, and Walsingham is lost in thought.

I believe that through analyzing this play, it becomes very apparent that these characters live in a world of extreme binaries. The first binary lives within the title of the production; these characters are literally wining, dining, and partying while a cart that is weighed down with bodies passes by. It is not just that they are eating during the plague, or even that they are feasting after a good friend's death: they are feasting during a plague, two aspects that lay on complete ends of the spectrum.

Their feast is the ultimate act of consumption--not only are they eating up the food, they are also eating up life. The first lines of the play indicate that their friend, Jackson, has just passed away. The characters then toast to the memory of Jackson. This toast and party, symbolizing life, is juxtaposed against what they are toasting to--the loss of life. This binary is further extended to the attitude of the party-goers themselves: their act of revelry completely overrides the emotion of grief that usually accompanies death and the loss of a friend.
Furthermore, the lyrics of Mary's hymn are borne out of a binary between life before the plague, and the lack of life after the plague:

Mary:
Long ago our land was blessed:
Peaceful, rich, and gay;
People then on days of rest
Filled the church to pray.
Children's voices full of cheer
Through the schoolyard rang;
In the fields both far and near
Scythe and sickle sang.

Now the church deserted stands;
School is locked and dark.
Overgrown are all our lands;
Empty groves are stark.
Now the village, bare as bone,
Seems an empty shell;
All is still--the graves alone
Thrive and toll the bell.

The last two lines of Mary's hymn point back to the binary between life and death: not only is the village dead now from the plague, the graves bearing the dead are more alive than the actual village. Walsingham's hymn lies in contrast to Mary's solemn hymn. While his hymn recognizes the malignancy and precariousness of the plague, the majority of the hymn focuses on overcoming the plague, and it has a more inspiring and encouraging tone.

Upon the entrance of the priest arrives another binary--one that exists between the priest and the rest of the party. In the end, this binary between the priest and the party-goers is broken upon the priest's exit; furthermore, the main binary between revelry and grief begins to be negotiated through Walsingham's reaction. The play only states that Walsingham is left lost in his thoughts, but what those thoughts are, we do not know. The rest of the narration has existed on two separate ends of the spectrum; whenever one aspect is mentioned, the complete opposite aspect comes into the scene not long after. Therefore, the ambiguous endings that have taunted the readers in all of the other tragedies exists within this world too, and it's presence is that much more highlighted through Pushkin's employment of extreme binaries. And perhaps, even most importantly, is Pushkin teaching the reader a lesson through the ambiguous ending of the tales, and specifically through the ending of the last tale? It is through the reader's yearning for a definitive answer that Pushkin is saying to the reader that they need to be comfortable living in the middle, comfortable looking for the gray areas, comfortable not living in a binary. The reader discovers, in the end, that they are like the characters in the narration, and instead of feasting in the plague, they need to accept the complexity of being "lost in thought."

Below is a clip of a production of A Feast in Time of Plague. Sorry for the inconvenience of not being able to find English subtitles, but hearing it performed in Russian is truly incredible.