The Chairs (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Eugene Ionesco
- First Published: 1954
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Absurdist
- Time of Work: The indeterminate future: “four hundred thousand years after Paris has been extinguished”
- Setting: An island
- Genres: Drama, Absurdist literature, Farce
- Subjects: Memory, France or French people, Suicide, Surrealism, Future, Reality, Islands, Death or dying, Existentialism, Christ figures or saviors, Old age or elderly people, Furniture
- Locales: Islands
Characters Discussed
Old Man, a “general factotum” aged ninety-five. He is an employee, or assistant, who serves in a wide range of capacities. He, like all the characters in this play, both visible and invisible, is made up of contrasts and contradictions; he is both man and child. His speech is composed of words and logical sentences as well as some nonsense words and syllables and illogical sentences. Although he is a character of flesh and blood, he sometimes appears to be more illusionary than the invisible characters. While awaiting the arrival of guests, he and his...
[The entire page is 1049 words long]
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