Six Characters in Search of an Author ("Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore") is a play, written by Luigi Pirandello in 1921, that is often accredited with being one of the first existentialist dramas. The drama tells the story of a family who’s characters were left unfinished when their original author failed to finished his writing. The family has entered a theatre during the rehearsal of another play, asking the Director to let them tell their story.
Thus ensues a “play within a play” which reveals the inner workings of the theatre and the way in which playwriting is translated into a physical performance for a theatre audience.The play is an extremely complex and thought provoking piece of work that covers many themes and ideas. For the purpose of this paper I will address two in more detail. Firstly I will look at the idea of perception verses reality as presented within the play and consider how the actions of the characters may indicate Pirandello’s own views concerning existentialism.
I will then progress onto analyzing the characters themselves and the way in which they interact with the subject matter in order to reinforce Pirandello’s views.I will pay particular attention to the character of the Step Father who acts as the drama’s progenitor and who seeks to use the realm of the play to purify and cleanse his guilty conscience. Luigi Pirandello Before reviewing the contrast between perception and reality it is worthwhile to take a look at the author of the play in order to gain an insight into how the work may be reflective of his life experiences. There is no doubt tragedy and disillusionment was prevalent within his own life. At the age of 27 he had married a young woman, who he had never met but had, instead, been selected by his father (Paolucci, 1974).
Unfortunately, after the birth of their third child his wife became mentally ill and instead of being institutionalized, remained at home. Her madness had a profound effect on the whole family and led to the attempted suicide of his daughter and the continual terrorization of Pirandello. These events became reflected in Pirandello’s writing with the concepts of illusion, paranoia, insanity and isolation becoming prevalent in many of his plays. A common theme within Pirandello’s works concerned the “naked mask”, which concerned the concept of a dialectic relationship between the actor and the character the actor plays.
Pirandello once said: "I hate symbolic art in which the presentation loses all spontaneous movement in order to become a machine, an allegory - a vain and misconceived effort because the very fact of giving an allegorical sense to a presentation clearly shows that we have to do with a fable which by itself has no truth either fantastic or direct; it was made for the demonstration of some moral truth. " (from Playwrights on Playwriting, ed. by Toby Cole, 1961). This view is extremely prevalent in Six Characters and is worth exploring in more detail.
Perception Verses RealityThe conflict between illusion and reality is represented within Six Characters by the conflict created by the Director who, in trying to adapt a script to the requirements of the stage, alters the author's original ideas. As the Director begins to cast his Actors in order to represent the Characters, the Characters object on the basis that the Actors would never be able to adequately represent their reality, they can only pretend to be the Characters and will do so in a way that is dictated by the Director’s view of the play. Such a conflict is evident in the scene at Madame Pace’s.Within this scene the characters play out their version of the story before the Actors themselves attempt it.
The Characters are extremely disapproving of the reenactment that, they believe, is not a true manifestation of their reality. The Director’s reaction, “This is the theater! Our motto is: truth up to a certain point! ” (234) could be interpreted as Pirandello’s disapproval of the way in which the theatre and entertainment industry operates; truth is modified in order to create effective dramatizations but is then presented as though it is reality when, of course, it is not (Davis, 2003).Within Six Characters the Actors are unable to give real life to the Characters and the ensuing arguments suggest that there is a philosophical struggle concerning which of the two sets is actually real; the fictional characters of the actors representing them. The Characters have a reality that is real and unchanging whereas the Actors are mortal men who’s reality is contextual and will change with time; Real people’s lives can change, but the characters’ cannot (803,2).
Such passage of time, Pirandello suggests, acts as a conflict for mankind between what is real and what is an illusion and such a philosophical question is a constant theme that runs throughout the play. For Pirandello, reality is subjective: "Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. (788,2) The final moments of the play consolidate this view.In one of the last scenes that Directors, Actors and audience are left pondering if the preceding events really happened or if they were a direct result of acting; for the Characters, the whole episode was real, while for the Actors it was just a scene that can be played again.
The Manager, however, does not care, "Pretence? Reality? To hell with it all! Never in my life has such a thing happened to me. I’ve lost a whole day over these people, a whole day! (807, 1)Exploring The Conflict Between Perception and Reality Through Characterization Pirandello’s work is well known for the way in which he achieves characterization. There is a distinct conflict in play between the many characters in the play; the Director, Actors, Author and the Unfinished Characters and through the dramatization of these conflicts Pirandello presents the audience with a number of existentialist questions relating to consciousness, self-awareness and identity.Of all the characters, two are of the most significance to the realization of the drama; the philosophizing Father and the Stepdaughter. Each of them, however, has conflicting reasons for their persistence that their characters are realized and in both cases this reason necessitates the modification of reality in order to achieve a purpose. The (Step) Father The Father is a man in his late fifties who, through a previous marriage to a peasant woman, has a son.
Although he forced his first wife to leave and life with another man, he has watched her new family from afar.The Father's life is a series of good intentions that have failed to materialize. During the dramatization of the play we learn that the Father has inadvertently had sexual relations with his stepdaughter when she was working as a prostitute for Madame Pace. This act seems to trouble him deeply and he is left in a state of “eternal torment” for which he seeks release, "She is here to catch me, fix me, and hold me eternally in the stocks for that one fleeting and shameful moment of my life. " (801).It is as though the Father is stuck in purgatory for his sins, "the condition or state for those who have not totally alienated themselves from God by their sins, but who are temporarily and partially alienated from God while their love is made perfect and they give satisfaction for their sins.
" (Lewis, 108-109). The Manager within the play theorizes that this eternal torture is actually vital to the drama and allows the mechanism through which the character can potentially expiate his guilt.The Father too, recognizes the importance of the play in providing a broader context for his actions, "Then we perceive that all of us was not in that act, and that it would be an atrocious injustice to judge us by that human action alone, as if all our existence were summed up in that one deed. " (791,2) The staging of the drama represents a way in which he can purify himself and alter reality and he seeks to do so through a “deal” with the Manager. This however, entails that the play cannot be interpreted by his words alone.The Stepdaughter The Stepdaughter is portrayed as a beautiful, vengeance-seeking woman who wishes to realize the characters story in order to humiliate her father.
The reader can observe two distinct natures to the Stepdaughter’s character. On the one hand she is portrayed as someone who was exploited by the Stepfather as she mourned the death of her own father. This, she claims, has tarnished her purity and she holds the stepfather directly responsible for her own perversity.His responsibility does not seem to end there, it seems that she blames him for all the negative events in her own life, failing to consider the role her biological father played in her life. The hatred that she has developed towards her own misfortune has directly passed onto him and she seeks the drama’s production to seek vengeance on her stepfather and thus ensure his eternal torture in purgatory. Whilst she took wishes to alter reality in order to enhance her beauty and innocence whilst promoting her Father’s guilt she accuses the Manager of altering the story in order to satisfy her stepfather’s will, "I understand!He wants to get at his complicated ‘cerebral drama,’ to have his famous remorses and torments acted.
" (800,2-801,1). The Widowed Mother The Mother is a very emotional character who is mourning the death of her lover and appears to be the only one of the six characters who is unaware that she is, indeed, a character. Of all the characters, the widowed mother, who “seems crushed and terrified as if by an intolerable weight of shame and abasement. (785,2) is certainly the one who personifies the suffering and anguish of the family and acts as a constant reminder that a drama has taken place between the characters.Pirandello confirms this in his preface, noting her inability to cognize it as the father does. She too, is stuck in a purgatory of grief and torture that is emphasized cyclically as she continually approaches her estranged son only to be rejected once again.
The Son The Son, who "looks as if he had come on the stage against his will. (785,2), is an aloof, hard faced young man who rejects his mother with a deep hatred.He is unable to forgive her for abandoning him and he wishes to leave her, and the studio, but is unable to until he can play out his final scene. Despite his view that he is not a key character, "Believe me, Mr. Manager, I am an "unrealized" character, dramatically speaking; and I find myself not at all at ease in their company.
Leave me out of it, I beg you. " (792,1) he is bound to the drama and through his aloofness directly causes the death of his step brother’s deaths
