The Insect Play: A human parody

Literature made easy - with Joseph Amatre

THE tramp, in The Insect Play, having closely observed the lifestyle of different groups of insects concludes; “we men are just like you or we rush to ruin.”
The Brothers Capek using human and insect characters in Insect play light-heartedly expose and attack human follies and excesses.

The playwrights find human obsessions of the following nature rather absurd and irritating:

The obsession with passionate love, romance and lovemaking. People who indulge in these passions lose themselves in numerous short-lived love affairs, flattery, poetry of romance, comparison of beauty and gossip. They idle and hangout in bars and saloons, day in day out and do not work.
The butterflies in this play represent such humans. Among them are harlots (strumpets). The tramp says the female butterfly such as Iris or Clytic is “jest a man-trap ‘idden be’ind two silky wings.’ These prostitutes powder themselves, strip to the waist and they cherish alluring the males and being flattered in poems. They rival among themselves for the attention of the men; Felix, Victor and Otto. They ‘love’ only for a brief moment and in turns.
The playwrights through the tramp are not happy with this over indulgence, immorality and idleness.

The lepidopterist is also ridiculed for his claim of loving nature and endeavouring to preserve it through ironically cruel method—killing, pinning and preserving with a little potassium cyanide. He shows man’s double standards towards nature.

Through the creepers and crawlers, Brothers Capek portray avarice and materialism among humans. Capitalism is a vice the playwrights sanitise in the beetles. The beetles roll all over a huge ball of dirt (muck) which they variously call, ‘Our little ball of blessedness,’ ‘Our life’s work!’ ‘A godsend’, ‘The dream of one’s life.’ ‘The fruit of one’s labours,’ and ‘my savings’.

The rat race for money and the primitive accumulation of wealth that preoccupies the greater part of ones life is what the playwrights deplore in the lifestyle of the beetles.

The attendant evils of capitalism, that is, a feeling of insecurity, restless and suspicion are exposed in the way Mr Beetle rolls the muck around, sets out to find a hiding place (a bank) for it. When the ball is rolled away (a vice of theft in Capitalist setting) Mr Beetle suspects everybody around. In a materialistic world, the strange beetle represents those who steal and profit from other people’s sweat without working.

An obsession with work in the Ichneumen fly is exposed and attacked. The workaholic fly hunts relentlessly under the pretext of a parent’s duty to feed the children. It destroys and kills everything on its path to feed the larva. It is a folly of pampering children, making them dependant and idle. Her pride at the expense of other creatures’ lives is cruel.

She says ‘Feeding the poor mutes, paying for their education and putting them out into the world’ is a life-long prescription of a parent. It is absurd that she has no time for herself. She advances excuses like ‘It is a result of brain, expert knowledge, enterprise, initiated and love for work’ to make her obsession with overfeeding the larva and stocking food pass as a noble endeavour.

The vices of selfishness and destruction are also depicted in the murderous acts of the Ichneumen fly.

The larva (child), the parent fly dotes on becomes indisciplined. It tells the tramp, an adult, that he is ugly.

The Crickets show the human obsession with family life and love. The death of another Cricket becomes a blessing to Mr and Mrs Cricket who happily move into his house. The vice of callousness and sadism are portrayed here. What initiates us is the excessive care and fondness the family members have for each other. Life to them is enjoyable only in the company of each other and nested in a comfortable home they have not worked for.
The totality of life to them is bliss-love, kiss and children. They ask the tramp if he has children!