Instructions for John Howell (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Julio Cortazar
- First Published: 1966
- Type of Plot: Fantasy
- Time of Work: The late 1960's
- Setting: London, England
- Principal Characters: Rice, An actor, An actress, Flora, An actor, The tall man
- Genres: Short fiction, Fantasy
- Subjects: Acting or actors, Politics, Art or artists, Reality, Hallucinations or illusions, Drama or dramatists
- Locales: London, England
The Story
The title of the story, “Instructions for John Howell,” is ambiguous, for the identity of John Howell is only tentative. John Howell is a fictional character in a play that Rice attends. John Howell is also the actor who appears in the role, and, during the second and third acts of the four-act play, John Howell is Rice himself.
During the first intermission of the play that Rice is attending at the Aldwych Theater, a man in gray invites him backstage, gives him a costume and wig, and instructs him to act the part of John Howell. When Rice protests that he...
[The entire page is 1468 words long]
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