Václav Havel's recent rise to political power in the now-dissolved Czechoslovak Republic has only confirmed some critics' contentions that Havel's dramatic works are all basically political in origin and theme. These critics' beliefs are supported by some striking similarities in many of Havel's plays; the bureaucracies that are often seen as thinly veiled representations of totalitarian regimes, for example, are present in or alluded to in all of Havel's major works beginning with The Garden Party (1963) and ending with Temptation (1985). But while the existence of these bureaucratic systems and the protagonists' struggle to retain their personal identity in their dealings with such systems may suggest a political theme, they by no means limit Havel's plays to political matters. The appeal of Havel's plays in the West—especially in the United States, where threats of totalitarianism are distant—seems to suggest that these works hold within themselves something beyond their political content, something capable of capturing the attention of a large portion of the Western hemisphere.

Martin Esslin offers perhaps a better perspective to Havel's plays (or at least one that is better able to explain the playwright's international popularity) when he identifies Havel as an absurdist. Esslin's absurdist playwrights strive to express "the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought"; and indeed, Havel injects a multitude of contradictions and paradoxes into his plays, seemingly to express this very idea. And alongside these paradoxes and contradictions, Havel's works also mercilessly employ repetitions of words and actions. The end result of these techniques is a world—often centered around scientific or business affairs—where the human is remote or even alien; and it is in such a world that Havel's protagonists confront the absurd in the guise of bureaucracy and inner-office power struggles. For Hugo Pludek, Josef Gross, Leopold Nettles, or any of Havel's other heroes, the seemingly-arbitrary rise and fall of fortune is akin to Sisyphus's meaningless but interminable struggles to roll a boulder uphill only to have it roll back down. Unfortunately, the protagonists in these dramatic works fail to face the absurd with the heroic acceptance that Camus attributes to Sisyphus. In The Garden Party, for instance, Hugo's "swift career is … realized at the expense of his personality," and Marketa Goetz-Stankiewicz describes this loss of individuality as a fall from humanity: "Hugo has become a talking machine, a robot, repeating language which has become independent of its user. He has become a well-functioning particle in a system."

Havel's other protagonists, like Ionesco's rhinoceroses, also abandon their humanity or compromise themselves to become more easily assimilated into the inhuman bureaucracy that surrounds them. However, if Havel's heroes are not representative of the human in these plays, questions concerning whether such a representative exists and who such a figure would be follow logically. In searching for answers to these questions, Havel's viewer quickly finds that the only figures who consistently stand in contrast to the absurdity of the dramatist's bureaucracies are his female characters, particularly his secretaries.

In his own life, Havel seems to find an element of innate humanity in women. Certainly, his wife serves almost as an anchor, in Letters to Olga, to keep him connected to the normal, human world outside of his prison routine of work and interrogation. And Phyllis Carey identifies as the climactic catharsis of Letters to Olga one moment when, while Havel is watching television in prison, the television studio's sound equipment fails and "[a]n anonymous television weather-woman realizes with great embarrassment … that her words are not being heard." Carey notes that

The woman's vulnerability bespeaks naked human existence, which evokes compassion from those who are no less vulnerable. The picture of the mute human trying futilely to make contact from the machine-prison becomes a remarkable image for a great deal that Havel is trying to convey about human responsibility in a desensitized world.

Of course, Havel's female characters do not, like Olga, have fully fleshed-out identities. Havel's females are much closer to the two dimensional image that Havel views in prison (though a number of his female characters precede his experience with the mute weather-woman). As is often typical in absurdist plays, these human shells are not meant to be actual human beings; instead, they are part of "concrete stage images," to use Esslin's words, meant only to represent an abstract mood, situation, or idea. Havel's women are such characters. They respond to kind acts and kind words with love; they become willing to help or protect those they love, even if such assistance violates the laws of the synthetic world in which they are placed. Inevitably, these female characters are punished (literally or figuratively) for violating bureaucratic procedures; and/or worse, their love for the male protagonist is unrequited since he has by now assimilated himself into the bureaucracy he has initially struggled against. These actions or slight variations of these actions occur again and again throughout Havel's earliest works as well as in Largo Desolato (1984) and Temptation.

The first of Havel's female characters to follow or approximate this scheme is the Secretary in The Garden Party. This Secretary, who lacks a name and is only identifiable by her title, is tending to her duties at the Liquidation Office's garden party until Falk brings up the subject of love. Prior to this, as Paul I. Trensky observes, each character (with the exception of Hugo) has a "particular lingo": "The language of the [Clerk and Secretary] is characterized by excessive literariness. Both speak as if they were citing a prepared text; their language is dry, precise and complex." However, when love arises as a topic of conversation and when the Clerk and Secretary interpret Falk's praises of love ("a bloody useful thing—so long as one knows how to latch on to it" [Garden Party]) as a suggestion that they should try love, their language begins to fall apart:

CLERK I say, sparrows are flying—the boss mlossoms—the meadows are a-humming—

SECRETARY Oh, I see—nature!

CLERK Yes. Well now. You have hair! It's pretty—gold—like buttercrumbs—I mean buttercups—and your nose is like a rose—I'm sorry—I mean like a forget-me-not—white—

SECRETARY Look—a sparrow!

CLERK What?

SECRETARY It's flying!

CLERK And you have breasts.

SECRETARY I know.

CLERK Two—like two—like two—two little founts—(Pause.) I'm sorry—I mean footballs—like two footballs, that's what I meant to say—sorry—

SECRETARY That's all right—go on—

Trensky calls this dialogue "a grotesque demonstration of their emotional bankruptcy," but as "grotesque" and utterly pathetic as the Clerk's advances are, the Secretary welcomes them. This "love affair" progresses to further levels of intimacy, which the Clerk sums up for Falk:

we exchanged various facts from our private lives—we threw pine cones at each other—we tickled each other—nudged each other—tried to throw each other off balance—I pulled my colleague the Liquidation Secretary by the hair—my colleague the Liquidation Secretary bit me—but all just in fun, you know! Then we showed each other various peculiarities of our persons—we both found it very interesting—and we also touched each other—and, finally, we even called each other by our first names a few times!

Unfortunately for the Secretary, the Clerk quickly loses interest in love when he learns that the Inauguration Service is to be "liquidated." And when he turns their conversation to speculations about how the liquidation is to be carried out, she becomes distraught. Further, when the Clerk encourages her with "Be glad it's all over," she "begins to sob" and runs toward the exit. This disappointed sobbing is to occur again in later plays.

In contrast to this Secretary, who develops genuine human feelings, the Clerk and Hugo show badly. The Clerk clearly has no interest in anything remotely human; he prefers the sterile procedures of the Inauguration Office's bureaucracy. Hugo's transformation, though, is inversely proportional to the Secretary's. As she becomes more human, as she begins to experience love, Hugo loses any humanity that he had at the play's opening. When Hugo returns home, for example, he does not realize that he has entered his own home nor does he realize that he is in search of himself. He is seemingly so transformed that not even his parents recognize him upon his return. In contrast to Hugo's loss of humanity, the Secretary's failed love affair—though bringing the Secretary grief—reveals her as a character conscious of her emotions and, in this most basic way, human.

While the Secretary in The Garden Party reveals Hugo's inhumanity by way of a juxtaposition with her ability to love, Maria in The Memorandum shows Josef Gross to be another failure as a human being. This time, though, Havel's protagonist is directly involved with the secretary and, this time, it is Gross who disappoints the female character and ruins her professional prospects. Havel's change in tactics from simple juxtaposition of characters to direct involvement between Gross and Maria serves to better reveal Gross's loss of interest in non-professional human affairs and relationships after he again acquires the Director's chair. Ironically, her translation of Gross's typed memo makes his second rise to power possible, and Maria voluntarily performs this act despite the distinct possibility that she will be punished for it.

Of course, Maria's willingness to risk termination in translating the memorandum does nothing to condemn Gross; her willingness only testifies to her courage and sympathy for a fellow human being in need. Gross condemns himself by not only "abandon[ing] her at the moment of her greatest need" but by excusing himself from this debt with a wave of self-important rhetoric. He explains:

Dear Maria! We're living in a strange, complex epoch. As Hamlet says, our "time is out of joint." Just think, we're reaching for the moon and yet it's increasingly hard for us to reach ourselves; we're able to split the atom, but unable to prevent the splitting of our personality; we build superb communications between the continents, and yet communication between man and man is increasingly difficult…. Dear Maria! You can't begin to guess how happy I would be if I could do for you what you've just asked me to do. The more am I frightened therefore that in reality I can do next to nothing for you, because I am in fact totally alienated from myself….

The twentieth-century alienation of man from his fellow man is no more a reason to refuse Maria's plea than is Hamlet's lamentation directed at the twentieth century. Of course, Gross is correct in blaming his alienation from himself as the reason for his refusal, but the Director's awareness of the problem may just as easily make his behavior toward Maria more hateful as it is capable of excusing his actions. And finally, Robert Skloot adds: "[t]hat Maria remains 'happy' because 'nobody ever talked to me so nicely before' does not excuse Gross's avoidance of moral action nor his failure to reciprocate Maria's genuine expression of love toward him."

Havel's next major work, The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, provides yet another variation on the same male/female situation. While Hugo Pludek and Josef Gross lose themselves in the machinations of their respective bureaucracies, Dr. Eduard Huml drowns in the growing complexity of his private life; but oddly, this complexity is caused by Huml's own womanizing. Huml is married, but he also has a mistress. Meanwhile, he makes repeated, violent sexual advances to his secretary Blanka. Finally, toward the play's end, he embarks upon a fourth romantic entanglement with Miss Balcar. Huml's wife, to complicate matters, is aware of Renata, her husband's mistress, and continually prods him to break off his relationship with her. At the same time, Renata urges Huml to take action and leave his wife. Through the course of the play, Huml quickly goes from woman to woman while events speed up and Huml becomes increasingly confused, using the same pet names and the same lines of dialogue for all four women.

Eventually, Huml begins to alienate these women. Renata complains that her lover never says anything tender to her, and when Huml protests that he only lacks the "imagination" to say "big words," Renata exclaims "I'm a fool, I really am!" running from the stage in tears. Later Mrs. Huml makes a similar complaint about Huml's lack of "one kind word" and then laments that Huml never kisses her neck. She then uses the exact words to her husband that Renata uses in frustration with him: "I'm a fool, I really am!"

Huml's advances to his secretary are less emotional and more primitive than his dealings with either his wife or his mistress. Repeatedly, Huml stops his dictation, staring strangely at her turned back. And after a pause.

HUML leaps towards BLANKA, falls on his knees, grabs her shoulders and tries to kiss her.[…]

A short struggle ensues…. BLANKA resists, finally she gives him a push," HUML loses his balance and falls down. (intervening stage direction and outcry from Blanka omitted)

This scenario occurs repeatedly throughout the course of the work. And like his dealings with Renata and his wife, Huml's dealings with Blanka reveal the protagonist's inability to function normally on either an emotional or sexual level. His advances are almost attempts at rape, primal in nature and lacking any civilized human finesse. Further emphasizing the primal nature of Huml's attacks is their spontaneity. Like rapes, they occur without any clear reason or provocation.

Finally, Huml's dealings with women return to a more civilized though no less inept level with Miss, actually Dr., Balcar. Huml devastates her with a long and rhetorical speech against her career as a social scientist in which he argues the impossibility of ever understanding man "even a little." Miss Balcar responds to this attack with tears, and Huml responds in turn with a recantation and gentle sexual advances. "HUML watches her for a moment in some embarrassment, then he quickly approaches her, takes her gently in his arms and begins to stroke her hair." This embrace leads to several kisses and then to "passionate kissing." As he does with Blanka, Huml reveals, through his actions, a seeming inability to deal with women in any way other than as sexual objects. He is embarrassed and seemingly puzzled about what he should do since he has hurt Miss/Dr. Balcar. The only solution he can devise is to treat her the same way as he treats the other women in his life; he sets out to seduce her.

Indeed, Edward Huml reveals his limited ability to behave in a genuinely human manner by his consistently uncivilized treatment of the four female characters in the play and by contrast with them. On the other hand, Leopold Nettles in Largo Desolato shows his withdrawal from humanity and his ensuing lack of social skills through the difficulty he experiences in maintaining a successful emotional relationship. As Huml's four female companions suffer from his lack of humanity, so Lucy suffers in Largo Desolato because of Nettles's similar deficiency. Lucy sacrifices herself to rebuild Leopold, and she admits, "Everything I've done for us I've done freely and willingly, I'm not complaining and I don't want anything in return." However, Lucy does complain; she is clearly not happy with the state of their relationship; and immediately after protesting that she wants nothing, Lucy adds "I only want you to admit what is true," that she and Leopold are lovers. Leopold recoils from this request, though. In fact, he recoils from anything having to do with human emotions, failing to start work on his highly academic treatise which argues the thesis "that love is actually a dimension of being—it gives fulfillment and meaning to existence." Indeed, Leopold appears to be an even worse case than Huml, for Huml at least seeks out physical love. Leopold is repulsed by public acts of love. And in contrast, Lucy's openness and her aggressive efforts to strengthen Leopold through love testify to her acceptance of this emotion and all of its consequences. The contrast between Lucy and Leopold, for instance, is especially evident as Lucy promises to "unblock" Leopold, "embrac[ing]" him and "kiss[ing] his face." During Lucy's embraces and promises, "LEOPOLD sits perplexed and remains quite passive."

Lucy's efforts, though, lead to the same fate as befalls many of Havel's other female characters: tears. She realizes that Leopold is worse off than she believed. Saying, "All this talk—it's nothing but excuses!" She confronts him with the fact that he is a hopeless case. Leopold again shows his unwillingness to help her when she is detained by both the First Man and the Second Man. He fails to act on her behalf or even to visit her after her release, claiming: "I can't possibly leave here!" And finally, Leopold reaffirms his failed character by abandoning his second love when, "terrorized," he "chase[s] after and [is] humiliated by the two sinister chaps who inform him his gesture of 'heroism' will no longer be required."

Most likely, he would, like Josef Gross, excuse these failures because

In reality I've had the feeling for some time now that something is collapsing inside me—as if an axis holding me together has started to break—the ground crumbling under my feet—I lack a fixed point from which everything inside me could grow and develop—I get the feeling sometimes that I'm not really doing anything except listening helplessly to the time going by.

Like Havel's other protagonists, Leopold suffers from a loss of identity. Not only has he lost the drive to continue his work, he has also lost, seemingly, a part of his humanity, as is obvious first in contrast to Lucy and later in contrast to Marguerite's hope and optimism that she might save him.

Havel incorporates this male/female relationship into Temptation, his version of the Faust myth. In fact, Goetz-Stankiewicz observes that the secretary Marketa fits perfectly "in the tradition of Goethe's Gretchen," and that Havel appears to take advantage of the character's appearance in Goethe's Faust play as an opportunity to again juxtapose the male protagonist who compromises his soul to the innocent woman who retains a basic element of humanity. Indeed, Dr. Henry Foustka's seemingly sincere discussion of "moral action" strikes a chord in Marketa. She exclaims: "Yes, yes, that's exactly how I've felt about it all my life!," and believing that Foustka is as moral as she is and as he appears to be, she falls in love with him, declaring to him that she would "rather be ruined with you and live the truth than be without you and live a lie!" Havel's protagonists, though, never choose to live in truth, and Foustka is no exception. Like his predecessors, he offers no help to the woman who has, ironically, sacrificed herself in defense of him. He simply lets her lose her position. The only difference is that, on this occasion, the audience witnesses the consequences of Foustka's actions, for Marketa later reappears as a lunatic Ophelia.

However, the greater tragedy in this work comes as Foustka loses his moral compass, manipulating truth for his own benefit. Such actions are despicable enough, but when Foustka's morally-barren efforts to retain his position are contrasted to Marketa's honest words prior to her termination, Havel again succeeds in further disgracing his male protagonist while retaining a model of truth for his audience to celebrate and (possibly) emulate.

Throughout these works, Havel exhibits an amazing consistency in his presentation and use of secretaries and victimized female characters as foils to his male protagonists. As far as the reason Havel uses female characters as representative examples of fully-functioning human beings (in contrast to his deficient protagonists), one might only speculate. Certainly, if Havel is working on a somewhat symbolic level as he appears to be, a female character might be an appropriate choice because—archetypically—women are viewed as more nurturing and more likely to show their emotions. Whether such archetypal perceptions are true seems to be of little concern to Havel, for he deals not in fully developed female characters but—like many absurdists—in concrete representations of abstract concepts. Similarly, Havel's frequent use of females in secretarial roles might be explained (in addition to matters of setting and the status of women when these plays were written) by the low status of the secretary in bureaucracies and in relation to the male protagonist. The secretary is a person who can be taken advantage of by the protagonist. Treatment of his underlings becomes yet another facet of the comprehensive test of his humanity that Havel sets before him. Indeed, Havel appears to make much use of the contrasts that he repeatedly establishes between male protagonists and their female foils.