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Mr Johnson: I thought I’d try somewhere in town. Anywhere you'd recommend?
In the episode and specifically in the extract above, Basil likens Mr. Johnson to a buffoon – a pantomime dancer, akin to monkeys or apes because they are apt to mimic what they see others do. In his earlier comment to his wife Sybil, he jests that Mr. Johnson may fancy some bananas because monkeys care for bananas. Basil also refers to Mr. Johnson’s decoration of himself with many medals as a result of Mr. Johnson being “the bravest orang-utan in Britain.” Throughout the episode, Basil answers for Mr. Johnson questions which he himself had asked of him. That renders Basil’s questions not a request for an exchange, but rather proclamations of unworthiness in the guise of a question. He basically wipes out all opportunities for communication and for mending the relational dynamics between himself and Mr. Johnson because he would not deign to converse with a monkey.
Basil: Well, what sort of food were you thinking of – fruit?
- In the extract below, Basil reveals his frame assumptions about psychiatrists and the profession of psychiatry.
Basil: Keep back, keep back.
In this extract, Basil reveals his frame assumption that psychiatrists are dangerous because they can see through anyone they come across and render personal shields protecting one’s sense of vulnerability useless. In other words, in the presence of a psychiatrist, one is left “bare” and exposed to the psychiatrist’s scrutiny in all aspects of life.
Polly: ... What is it?
Basil: ... Abbot ...
Polly: What's the matter with him?
Basil: ... Psychiatrist ... look at him ... look ... look at the way he's listening ... see ...? He's taking it all in. She doesn't realize. Look? Look at the way she's talking! They've got photographic memories. (looks to Polly but she's gone – calls) Sybil! Sybil! (he moves back into the dining room)
Sybil: Yes, Basil?
Basil: Could I bother you, dear?
Sybil: What is it?
Basil: Just a little problem. (Dr. Abbot turns towards Basil) Nothing personal. Nothing of a private nature or anything... Just to do with ...
Sybil: Excuse me, would you?
Basil and Sybil move into the kitchen.
Sybil: What is it, Basil?
Basil: Just ... just ... take it easy ... OK?
Sybil: What?
Basil: Just keep your distance. I mean, remember who you are, all right?
Sybil: ... Remember who I ...
Basil: Well, just don't tell him about yourself.
...
Basil: I'm not bothered by that. I'm not ... I'm not bothered by that. If he wants to be a psychiatrist that's his own funeral. They're all as mad a bloody March hares anyway but that's not the point. Look. Look! How does he earn his money?... He gets paid for sticking his nose ...
Sybil: Oh, Basil ...
Basil: No, I'm going to have my say ... into people's private ... um ... details. Well, just speaking for myself, I don't want a total stranger nosing around in my private parts. Details. That's all I'm saying.
Sybil: They're down here on holiday. They're just here to enjoy themselves ...
Basil: He can't.
Sybil: Can't what?
Basil: He can't tell me anything about myself that I don't know already. All this psychiatry, it's a load of tommy-rot. (Sybil gives him the Abbotts' bill; he takes it and goes muttering towards the dining room) You know what they're all obsessed with, don't you.
Sybil: What?
Basil: You know what they say it's all about, don't you ... ,,,? Sex. Everything's connected with sex. Choh! What a load of cobblers ... (he goes into the dining room)
When excusing Sybil from the presence of Dr. Abbott, Basil lets slip the nature of the perceived problem caused by being in close proximity with someone of the psychiatry profession. By announcing that he has “Nothing of a private nature or anything”, he reveals his utmost fear that psychiatrists are able to see right through somebody and hear both what is said and unsaid. When he outright commands Sybil to “just don’t tell him about yourself”, Basil is considering the context of a psychiatrist at work, in which the patient reveals personal information to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist then diagnoses him, presumably with some form of mental illness. This explains his wariness when speaking to the psychiatrist more than necessary or when demanded by his role as the hotel owner. By cautioning his wife to keep her distance from the doctor, he believed he was protecting her from a mental illness, or at least the stigma thereof.
Basil also believes that psychiatrists are themselves “mentally wanting” – that they are “as mad [as] bloody March hares” and that going into their profession is akin to staging their own “funeral.” He also seems most irked by the ability of the people practising the profession to probe into the others’ inner worlds and the private matters therein. As he explicitly stated to Sybil, he does not appreciate a “stranger nosing around in [his] private parts. Details.” Being of a nervous disposition, Basil rather hastily picks perhaps not the most apt words, “private parts”, which create a comic effect for the audience and an air of absurdity for those around him. The audience understands that he really means his privacy, including his private inner thoughts and feelings, and that the term “private parts” communicates that, but also something more.
Lastly, his frame assumptions associate the profession of psychiatry with a preoccupation with sex because “everything is connected with sex.” Considering that Freud’s theory of the unconscious remain largely unchallenged at the time of this episode, Basil’s contemporaries most likely share a similar view, albeit possibly a less narrow-minded view. Of course, the audience knows that there is more to the profession. - Basil’s frame assumption concerning the profession of Psychiatry is based entirely off Freudian notions which attempt to find explanations for human behaviour on the basis of sex. Lay audience may form similar assumptions if they believed that one of the field’s forefathers was obsessed with the role of sexual fixations in his quest to understand the human mind. However, most people know that there is more to the field than psychoanalysis. In this episode, when doubts are epitomized in a character and long-standing suspicions are voiced out in exaggerated form, the effects of the clash between assumptions are reflected and magnified. Thus, the audience could laugh at both the buffoonery exaggeration and perhaps at themselves too.
- Basil’s frame assumption of psychiatrists is that their primary purposes of speaking to people is to pierce through what they say to suss out what they do not say, in order to ‘catch someone out’ on some mental abnormality – note that Basil believes that they WILL find out what is wrong with them, that there are things there to find out.
His script assumption is that the psychiatrist will feign to speak about normal everyday subjects with you in order to catch you unaware as they access your mental soundness (in Basil’s mind however, it’s more likely that the psychiatrists want to find any evidence of unsoundness indeed.) Therefore, when Dr. Abbott asks about the frequency of vacations that Basil and Sybil usually have each year, or, the Fawlty’s love life, Basil hears it as a unwelcome probing into how often Basil has sex with his wife. This is perhaps due to Basil feeling deficient in that faculty even before the harmless enquiry of the Abbotts. That, on top of his growing wariness against the Abbotts, and Mr. Abbott in particular, leads to the misunderstanding. - While Dr. Abbott was really asking how often the Fawltys manage to get away on holidays while running a hotel business, Basil interpreted Dr. Abbott’s question of “how often do you manage it?” in the context of marriage – more precisely, their sex life. As the audience does not share Basil’s assumptions, they are in a position to soundly hear what the Abbotts are implying, and to know that it is a very innocent question indeed.
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Sybil: (to Johnson) Do enjoy yourself ... we'll see you later.
The excerpt above demonstrates the result of confusion between the schema of marriage and the schema of running a hotel. As Basil grows increasingly vexed by the flirting between Mr. Johnson and Sybil and by the way Sybil defends Mr. Johnson, he adopts and starts tossing the word ‘enjoy’ about as in a counter-attack against Sybil, who initiated the repeated use of the word both during and immediately after her pleasant exchange with Mr. Johnson. In the exchange, Sybil raises a complaint against Basil’s extremely patronising customer service. However, Basil twists the scheme of things around by using the word “enjoy” in a schema than the one referred to by Sybil; he transfers the word from the schema of marriage to the schema of running a hotel. Sybil uses the word “enjoy” mostly in reference to her adoration of Mr. Johnson, which Basil perceives as a threat to their marriage (the schema of marriage). Basil, on the other hand, adopts it and puts it into use in the context of running a hotel, about whose running Sybil is dissatisfied. As if to deal a final blow, or to simply find yet more opportunities to let out steam, he further takes the word out of the new context of running a hotel into that of the hotel’s dining room by inquiring “Did you enjoy your beef?”
Sybil: (turns and speaks quietly to Basil) I've had it up to here with you.
Basil: What, dear?
Sybil: You never get it right, do you. You're either crawling all over them licking their boots, or spitting poison at them like some Benzedrine puff-adder. (she goes into the office)
Basil: (to himself) Just trying to enjoy myself.
The dining room, towards the end of dinner. The Abbotts are just finishing their main course. Basil approaches them.
Basil: Ah ... did you enjoy your beef?
- Basil repeatedly uses the word “enjoy” after Sybil casually tosses it about in her flirtatious exchange with Mr. Johnson. Seeing that Basil is displeased by the charms Mr. Johnson seemingly exerts on Sybil, that Basil repeatedly adopts it afterwards characterise Sybil as perhaps someone who isn’t particularly sensitive to the effects her actions have on her husband. From this, she also seems much more laid back than her husband. This is supported by Sybil playfully putting Basil down in the dining room when Basil mentioned that he had once considered becoming a surgeon to which Sybil replied “a tree surgeon”.
Inferencing of Meaning (8-14)
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