The Chairs (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: Eugene Ionesco
- First Published: 1954
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Absurdist
- Time of Work: Indeterminate
- 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
Places Discussed
Tower. Structure in the middle of a circular island surrounded by a stagnant sea in which an Old Man and an Old Woman live. Eugène Ionesco describes this, the play’s setting, in meticulous detail; it is half of a circular room with basically symmetrical windows and doors. The play’s initial dialogue indicates that the room is above a vast expanse of water. Two unusual but real people appear and soon there are real chairs on stage, along with realistic sound effects from outside the tower. However, the increasingly bizarre dialogue soon claims that the...
[The entire page is 624 words long]
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