Un-Shuffled: The Evolution and Order of Playing Cards
Devin Dadigan
Madeline Yonker WRT 205
Syracuse University
Let’s face it; most of us enjoy reminiscing about our childhood. What better way is there to relive our memories than to remember nursery rhymes—Mother Goose’s in particular. Who does not lament the disastrous ending of “Humpty Dumpty” or continue to wonder how many pickled peppers Peter Piper picked? What we have failed to realize however, is that these puerile nursery rhymes have meaning behind them. One nursery rhyme that has been ingrained in my mind is from the book Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll:
The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, all on a summer’s day;
The Knave of Hearts, he stole the tarts, and took them clean away.
The King of Hearts, called for the tarts, and beat the Knave full sore;
The Knave of Hearts, brought back the tarts, and vowed he’d steal no more. (Carroll, 1805)
When looking further into the “Queen of Hearts” nursery rhyme, a meaning and distinct system of order become apparent. The social order of King, Queen, then Knave from the late 14th century has ultimately carried over to the world of playing cards. Even in 1805, when Carroll first published Alice in Wonderland, he referred to that order by showing the King literally “beating” the Knave in the world of playing cards. And today in the year 2008, when everything is being modernized or modified, the same order of playing cards still exists from the 14th century.
Playing cards are used for education, divination, illusion, and mainly for plain old fun and games. The cards are not, in and of themselves, “a game” but equipment used for playing different types of games, and have therefore become widely popular because they appeal to all ages, genders, and social classes (Parlett, 1990). The only thing that has actually changed since the beginning of card playing is the method of play. The method of playing has evolved from the second order “gathering in a group and playing with physical cards” to a third order digitalization of card playing. Two things that have not changed however are the racist and sexist undertones of cards that were developed at the time cards were fashioned. In this essay, I plan to deconstruct the systematic order of cards, delve into the possible racist and sexist themes, and explore the transformation from the second order to third order of card playing, as David Weinberger does in his book Everything is Miscellaneous.
Before we are able to jump down the rabbit hole and enter the fantastic realm of playing cards, we must understand a bit of history. The exact date that playing cards were established is questionable, so researchers have had to estimate a time period for their first use. Since cards are flat, flexible objects made from layers of pasteboard pressed together and printed on both sides, they could not have originated before the 13th century, when Europe dates the economic production of paper (Parlett, 2005). And since 15th century English players spoke of a “pair” of cards and Shakespeare used “deck” of cards in one of his compilations, we know that the creation of cards was somewhere in the late 14th century (Parlett, 1990). One side is marked in such a way as to give each card an individual identity; the other is either blank or carries a design common to every card, so that none can be identified from the back. So, in a sense, cards stress randomness from the front and secrecy from the back—a unique trait shared by Chinese dominoes and Mah-jong tiles, which were said to be early predecessors (Massa, 2002). The randomness will get the majority of my focus, as it is the front of the card that determines why one card has more importance than another.
Around the 14th century, different countries began to design their own nationalistic versions of playing cards. The Spanish, as early as 1370, came up with a version of cards that was ceremonial in nature and introduced swords, cups, clubs (weapon with knob), and coins as its four main suits (Parlett, 1990). The Italians created their version and made their court (top three cards) based on Italy’s military power: king, knight, and foot soldier. The Germans, who also had a strong military prowess at the time, followed suit and had an all-male court of King, ober (over-officer), and unter (under-officer); and had a rustic flavor for its suits of leaves, acorns, hearts, and bells (Parlett 1995). Conspicuously missing is the presence of a female figure, in particular the Queen. For some unknown reason, these all male versions did not last for long, as the French cards became the international standard of playing cards.
The standard French version is much courtlier; the four suits are Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs. They stand for power, love, materiality, and spirituality respectively (Arcana, 1991).
The French court is King, Queen, and the menial male called Knave (or as we know it, Jack). This is the first deck of cards to include a female figure and offer real representations for each court card. For example the King of Spades represents King David from the Bible, the King of Hearts is Charlemagne, the King of Diamonds is Julius Caesar, and the King of Clubs was Alexander the Great (Massa, 2002). By viewing the connections between each renowned individual and their suit, we are able to see what the French valued in society: hard work, manual labor, military strength, love, money, and religion. These values ultimately helped create a social hierarchy in regards to the suits and show how one suit (Diamonds = coins) can be more valued or more important than another suit (Spades = manual labor) in different types of play.
Initially cards started off one, two, three, four…ten, Jack, Queen, King—where the King was always the highest card in each suit. However, as early as the late 14th century, special significance began to be placed on the nominally lowest card, now called the Ace. For divination purposes, the lower cards have an enhanced more powerful meaning. The Ace of each suit is given the strongest meaning, while the ten of each suit represents bad things to come in many versions (Arcana, 1991). Each Jack, Queen, and King, has a separate meaning which I will discuss later. As a result, the Ace was given the highest rank, making the king the second best card and the two, or deuce, the lowest. This concept was hastened in the late 18th century by the French Revolution, where games began being played “Ace high” as a symbol of lower classes rising in power above the royalty (Parlett, 1990). Even though the lower classes increased their influence in society, the royal courts remained (King, Queen, Jack) and still were the second, third, and fourth strongest cards in the deck respectively.
One particular order of rank that has not changed is the King is still ranked higher than the Queen. Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, Queen Victoria, and even Queen Cleopatra all reigned without a king’s rule. They were all considered at their time to be more powerful than any man, yet playing cards illustrate otherwise. The lower classes were showcased by the “Ace” to show their increased power, while women were not represented in the same way. Does this mean that the only important women in the world were ones from a royal bloodline? And still, those few important ones were ranked below the noble male figures. This act of blatant sexism truly shows how the French felt about women in power. Seriously, how many King Charles’, Louis’, Phillip’s or Henry’s can a country have?
Through these sexist undertones, playing cards have given our society certain manifestations we as a culture ordinarily believe in and have let shape our minds. The Women’s Equality Movement, as we know, took a long time to evolve and continues to be a predominant issue today. Tom Lester, a writer of a London newspaper, notes that, “There is no sign of the “glass ceiling” shattering anytime soon” (Lester, 1993). Men either didn’t want to relinquish power to women, or didn’t recognize the power differential, thus explaining why the Queen is not equally as powerful as the King. At the time period when playing cards were established, the role of the women in society was to act as companions for the men and live in the house doing domestic chores. In the Alice in Wonderland nursery rhyme, we see sexist undertones where the Queen of Hearts was in fact making some tarts—thus carrying out a domestic chore. Yet even more sexist undertones show up in numerous card games.
In Solitaire, only a King is powerful enough to be able to be moved into an empty location. In the childhood favorite pastime, Old Maid, the goal of the game is to pair up all of your cards with identical cards. The loser of the game is the individual who is left with the “old maid” the (Queen of Spades). The game of Pinochle further exemplifies the worthlessness and impotence of the Queen. In tallying tricks taken at the end of a round, queens are not counted as a point. In fact, Tens, Aces, and Kings are worth more than Queens. The game of Hearts however has a different strategy which is not to acquire points. Each heart card collected is worth a point. And whoever gets the Queen of Spades receives a whopping unlucky thirteen points. This is a noticeably high amount compared to the other cards in the deck, which are either worth nothing or a single point. So, why in so many popular games, does the queen get the short end of the stick? Even the suicide King (the King of Hearts who is portrayed as stabbing himself) is worth more than any queen. So this implies that a King who commits suicide has more significance than a woman. This seems paradoxical, since most nations’ value life over self-inflicted death.
In divination aspects, the Queen is also poorly portrayed, unless it’s the Queen of Hearts, which stands for true love in every case I’ve seen. Madam M.lle Marie-Anne-Adelaide LeNormand, an extremely popular cartomancer (a fortune teller), developed her own divination system in the 19th century that was based on 36 special cards (LeNormand, 2004). And even in her system the Queens were not the most favorable cards. The Queen of Diamonds symbolized the choice between right and wrong. Even worse was the representation of the Queen of Clubs as a snake or enemy (LeNormand, 2004). In the Arcana divination system, which was developed in 1990 by Arcana the Prophet, the Queen of Diamonds represents vanity, while the Queen of Spades signifies vulnerability (Arcana, 1991). Another cartomancy web site, titled Café Astrology, depicts the Queen of Spades as a widowed or divorced woman (Banks & Heese, 2002). The Queen of Spades is in most cases the most unfavorable card in the deck.
After delving into the meaning and order of playing cards a bit further, I started to notice that there is a large difference between the black and red cards. It became obvious to me that red and black cards had different meaning. As noted above, diamonds and hearts represented money and love, while spades and clubs represented manual labor and fighting. So this assumed hierarchy began to take shape. It was noticeable in several occurrences that the red cards were more favorable and had a stronger meaning than the black cards. Maybe this is because the color red is vibrant and represents stimulation, while the color black often represents death and mourning. But then again, there could be multiple meanings behind why red cards tend to be more favored than black ones. So, I wondered if there was a racist undertone beneath all of this, since there was a sexist one, too.
Many people have posted online blogs attempting to show how the game of Chess crosses racial boundaries, since there is a white and black army about to go to war and the white player always makes the first move. This may very well be a racial undertone; however these racial themes in the game of Chess are undermined by the amount racism in playing cards. With playing cards, specific suits or cards get singled out as the worst cards for a particular game. As I mentioned earlier, the Queen of Spades is typically that card. It is the Old Maid, counts for 13 points in Hearts where points are bad, and doesn’t count for points in Pinochle where trick points are good. So I believe that there is some sort of correlation between the Queen of Spades being connected to a black female figure ultimately making it one of the worst cards in the deck. In divination, the Ace of Spades, is often considered the most powerful card of the deck and hence said to be the death card. Even though it is one of the best cards, it’s supposed to bring unfortunate omens (Partlett, 2005). In another version of LeNormand’s system, the red cards represent the degree in which a wish will come true, while the black cards show how certain it is that the wish will not come true (LeNormand, 2004). In other instances, professional poker players have noted that in some instances they will fold a black pair or two clubs, because they tend to be very superstitious.
During the 14th century when the French created playing cards, racism was a prevalent issue in society. The French had slaves and contributed greatly to the slave trade in America. So it is quite possible that black cards developed this sort of negative connotation, because it wasn’t until 1848, when France finally abolished slavery (Smith, 1994). I believe that as more playing card games were invented, a hierarchy began to evolve where black cards were of lower value than red cards. Ultimately, I think this hierarchy directly translates back to French society and the issue of slavery which was going on at that time. Once again, this is another way that cards have manifested the poor cultural values of society.
This paper has mainly discussed some of the major cultural concerns of playing cards to this point. Now I want to touch on the digitalization aspect of card playing. The second order of card playing is when individuals gather around a table and play. In earlier centuries, it was more of a social game where women would play Bridge, Pinochle, and Rummy, and men would play Cribbage, Poker, and Gin (Parlett, 1990). I distinctly remember my Grandmother holding card club at her house every other Sunday night. My Grandmother and her friends would play multiplayer social games, such as Bridge, which became associated with women. Men, on the other hand gather in pubs to drink and gamble away their coins. That is why Poker became so popular among men. I understand that the second order of cards is extremely stereotypical, but it’s true. But now, people aren’t gathering in pubs or clubs to socialize and play cards—instead they are playing cards digitally.
Only recently has the third order of cards begun to evolve by way of the computer. No longer are cards manually shuffled and ordered. They are randomly digitalized and the order is miscellaneous. The third order of card playing is quite paradoxical, because the computer is ordering something that is already miscellaneous. Every Solitaire game on the computer is randomized, meaning every possible combination is already in the system. This is not how regular shuffling works. Playing cards are supposed to be miscellaneous, and the third order is changing that.
However, that sense of getting together with other individuals is lost as the second order of cards becomes a thing of the past. Online Poker is one of the biggest new trends in the third order of cards. Sites like Full Tilt, Poker Stars, and Top Poker have become more popular than ever. Even I have downloaded the software, paid the $50 minimum, and played online Poker. It’s flat out addicting! But when you think about it, what are you paying for? I paid for a computer to randomly deal cards as I bluffed against people I’m not even sitting at a table with. But Full Tilt tells me I’m sitting at a table—look at the screenshot courtesy of Google Images:
Table 1. – Online Poker Table
Note. This table represents what the third order of cards has become – nine players and a dealer using different avatars to play a card game.
To me, I’m sitting alone at my desk fulfilling an unforgiving, addictive habit. This isn’t what playing cards were established for. I might as well be playing with Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Even my Grandmother now plays Hearts and other games online with random individuals. Yes it’s quicker and easier, but is she truly playing cards for what it’s worth? The third order of cards does not allow for verbal communication and doesn’t allow for me or anyone to read opposing players actions like one could do in a casino setting. Although online card playing is becoming more and more popular, I think some people are beginning to realize that the third order is not true to the order of cards. Cards are supposed to be miscellaneous for a reason. And actually as David Weinberger puts it, “Everything is Miscellaneous.”
Despite this, the third order of online cards has become quite customizable. Users get to create specific avatars which may or may not look anything like the individual. They can also choose where the event will take place i.e. the beach, a casino, or a typical dining room etc. Players have the ability to change the look of their decks online to ameliorate the racial or sexual undertones discussed earlier. One of the ways to do this is to choose specific colors for each suit. Why wouldn’t you choose to have clubs show up in a dazzling, yellow color—instead of being the dismal, plain black? Sites like Full Tilt are changing the way we as a society view the system and order of playing cards. The third order and digitalization of playing cards is bucking the previously established system for something less structured and more egalitarian.
Who would have thought that something as simple and miscellaneous as playing cards could carry such negative cultural values? As we gaze back through the looking glass, we remember that cards were initially developed for fun, divination, and education—not for gambling and carrying racial and sexist themes. But looking forward, our society has started to overcome these issues and is constantly working toward equality in every measure. Just as the Knave was changed into the Jack to avoid confusion with the King, the female and African American stereotypes have changed as these groups are now equally accepted in our society. Card playing has definitely impacted our culture in more ways than we can think of. It is up to us as a society to understand that a Queen is equally as important as a King, even though cards may suggest otherwise. Tom Lester shows how the first generation of women in the workplace had to play by the men’s rules, but now females are making it to top levels of management by using their own skills and climbing the corporate ladder that way (Lester, 1993). Perhaps playing cards should be changed and evolve over time to reflect these cultural changes. There are no racial barriers in society, so cards need to catch up with the movement. If we don’t realize this, then we are ultimately at fault. And for those individuals who don’t comprehend this, the Queen of Hearts puts it perfectly when she cries out, “Off with their heads” (Carroll 1805)!
References
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