Word: greenes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Moral authority, even in Genet's inverted world, carries with it moral responsibility. Snowball and Green Eyes are like two inverted Christ-figures. Green-Eyes says, "Here in the cell I'm the one who bears the whole brunt. The brunt of what--I don't know. I'm illiterate. But I know I need a strong back. The way Snowball bears the same weight. But for the whole prison...
...cell-society that Deathwatch portrays, the leading position among the three isolated cellmates is held by the murderer Green Eyes. He can control the other two by physical force; and the vague but dense tissue of hints toward homosexual relationships which is woven in the dialogue, indicates that they are rivals for him. Much is made of the fact that the guard is his friend (strange, that these avowed criminals should value so highly the favor of the only non-criminal character in the play). This guard brings him cigarettes in token of amity from Snowball, a savage Negro convict...
Since Snowball and Green Eyes are under lock and key, it cannot be physical, but spiritual authority that they wield. This spiritual authority stems from their criminality: Green Eyes' cellmate Lefranc, trying to build up Snowball at the expense of Green Eyes, caps his description of Snowball with "... his crimes! Compared to them, those of Green Eyes..." And Green Eyes, unready yet to concede the supremacy of Snowball, answers, "I don't know anything about his crimes...
...most striking effect and evidence of Green Eyes' authority, and its source in criminality, is Lefranc's attempt to equal or supplant him by matching his crime. "You ... you're beginning to be radiant," says Lefranc. "I wanted to take your place ... your luminous place..." The climactic action of the play is Lefranc's attempt to become what Green Eyes is by murdering the third cellmate Maurice...
...inaugural ceremonies for the University of Washington's new president, Charles E. Odegaard, President Clark Kerr of the University of California last week offered some of the green fruit of his experience: "I find that the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni and parking for the faculty...