The Pillowman: Enjoy Life through the Pain.

After watching The Pillowman, I felt one important aspect that should be considered is an underlying message to enjoy life. Even though Katurian wrote horrific stories, some of which were played out on the stage, his zest for life was easily seen. Katurian did what he enjoyed… and loved it so much, his life meant less than his stories. He wanted his work to live on. Examining the rest of the dramatis personae in turn, Michael was a simple person… though that was from his parents’ torturing of him early on in life. He was a little slow, and did not think about what he did to those children, but he seemed to enjoy life too… though in a morbid and sick way. He enjoyed his brother’s stories and used them to make his life more interesting even if it meant the deaths of these young children. The street-wise policeman Ariel hates child abusers and from what the audience can gather, enjoys his job since he can make a difference in people’s lives. Even though he plays the Bad Cop, he is still one that is sympathetic to others… even to Katurian in some extent by keeping his stories from the flames. The character of Tupolski is another that enjoys life by being a detective and taking down scum like Katurian and Michael. Even though the audience is exposed to the horrifying tales of Katurian, we can perhaps sympathize with the idea that one must do what they enjoy… but as we can be hit by the conscience, we must temper our own zest with decency and thought. As long as you do not hurt others or yourself in your enjoyment of life, you do a fine job. The Pillowman makes us uncomfortable on different levels but there is that message of “don’t follow the Pillowman, no matter how enticing he might seem, no matter what happens in life”.

Emotional Irony: My Reaction to The Pillowman

I think the most successful aspect of The Pillowman was the playwright’s ability to evoke laughter from the darkest areas of my mind. My favorite line comes when the characters are discussing the effects of childhood rape on Ariel by his father. Tupolski explains, “Then Ariel murdered his father, with a pillow, right?” Ariel stood despondent in the corner. “Although, I guess you could say it was self-defense,” Tupolski continued, “I just call it ‘murder’ to tease him.” Reading it on this piece of paper, there’s nothing funny about it. The subject matter that surrounds it is all that’s abominable, and the words themselves aren’t funny. Yet, as the actor said that line, I found myself laughing louder and more deeply than I have in a long time. Why would writer Martin McDonagh choose to use humor in his play? I would say it came from necessity: to watch two-and-a-half hours of child abuse, child rape, child murder, profanity, and good old-fashioned torture would have been abysmal.

Kurt Vonnegut once said, “Humor is an almost physiological response to fear,” and this play proved that. McDonagh most likely wanted to confront his audience with this material but use humor to ironically depict it and to make something so confrontational somewhat accessible. In a strange way, the “Little Jesus” segment of the play, at least to me, was made more disturbing because of the use of humor throughout. It was as if the levity of the laughter made the fall back down into the sickening story that much more dramatic. I can see why in other college productions, the scene had been cut. But if it had here, the symmetry and rhythm of McDonagh’s play as well as the fearless humor would have been cut short.

A Real Pillowman

Wabash College’s production, The Pillowman, introduces several interesting concepts, and provokes both humor and intrigue. Main character Katurian K. Katurian weaves several tales, which through the actions of the characters become true. The title story, however, is the most relevant to Katurian, as he inadvertently represents a real life version of the character. There are similarities between the two characters, and a few differences, however, that distinguish the two.

Katurian believes that he will be saving his brother from a hellish death, as he smothers him with a pillow, similar to his previous murders. This reflects the Pillowman’s own mantra, as he kills children at a young age to prevent a horrible suicide that causes more grief than a younger death would. Interestingly, the Pillowman asks his victims to kill themselves via a lake or bag, instead of hugging them with his pillow arms. This seems like a more painful fate, but perhaps a more easily explained one (how would a parent explain a child that inexplicably stopped breathing?). With Katurian, however, a smothering is the only way to go, and a somewhat easily explained one, since there would be no easily distinguished motive by the police.

Wabash College presents: The Pillowman

First of all, I would like to congratulate all of the actors/actresses and people who worked on this semester's production of The Pillowman. This was the best performance I have seen so far over the course of my 3 years here at Wabash.

With that being said, the thing that stood out to me about The Pillowman was actually the audience. The actual plot of the story is pretty saddening, depressing, and gruesome. However, the "dark comedy" as it was advertised, truly displayed itself. Despite the intense plot, I was drawn into the sarcasm of the character Tupolski. Played by Matt Goodrich, I thought this character was actually hilarious. However, on more than one occasion, I found myself wondering how the audience could possibly be laughing at such a morbid play. It really made me think about how our human nature uses humor to cover up any fears we may have. Sometimes, despite how serious something may be, we can just "laugh it off". This is usually done when we as humans, are put into an uncomfortable situation. It made me question as to whether or not the intentions of a certain line or phrase were to actually evoke laughter from the audience, or if it was just the audiences' way of hiding their discomfort.

The Pillowman

Martin McDonah’s The Pillowman uses morbid comedy to portray Katurian and Michal’s ordeal as they are interrogated by the police for the murder of children. The two police officers, Ariel and Tupolski, use abrasive language and physical abuse to attempt to force Katurian into confessing the murders of the children. While Katurian describes his stories to the officers, he makes it clear his story The Writer and the Writer’s brother have autobiographical elements. This story recounts how Katurian’s parents tortured his brother and began to develop Katurian’s warped since of fantasy. The information the police gather form this story echoes the autobiographical analysis technique readers often use to understand a text. Readers allow an authors history to inform their understanding of an authors writing and what it points to. The detectives use this technique in the play and come to understand that Katurian murders his parents for torturing his brother for many years. The detectives do not rely only on Katurian’s story, but also manipulate him into divulging the information by threatening to destroy his voice, his stories.

Happiness: The Irony of The Pillowman

The Pillowman, though a dark comedy, sends an ironically happy message. This is reflected in two main ways: one, with the resolution of Katurian's tale whence the play derives its name and with the resolution of the play itself. Also, this message manifests itself in many other ways. 

The tale that Katurian recites to Michal has an inherently dark message that children should kill themselves early in life for two reasons: one, they will avoid the pain that life brings; and two, their families will find the loss of a child to "accident" easier than the loss of this child as an adult committing suicide. However, the Pillowman eventually encounters himself as a child, convincing him to kill himself (and thereby destroy the adult Pillowman). The surface interpretation might be that even the one responsible for removing the pain of others is too miserable to exist. However, a deeper look yields the conclusion that even though life is terrible, it is worth experiencing; hence, the destruction of the Pillowman (for a taker of lives is not necessary). 

Also, the play's resolution presents an interesting question: if Michal was approached by the Pillowman, how would he respond? Knowing full well that he would be tortured, and then eventually driven to murder through experimentation due to his brother's stories, Michal responds that he would be willing to suffer that life so that Katurian's stories could be produced, for even they are worth living a harsh life. 

There are many other examples where the play exemplifies this notion. The tale of the Writer and the Writer's Brother, which Katurian claims has a happy ending, empowers his tortured brother, who writes a story better than Katurian could ever hope to produce. Ariel, after hearing all of Katurian's story, becomes a protagonist rather than antatgonist, and, moving against the wishes of the dispassionate Tupolski, saves the stories that drove Michal to murder children; even these stories, which caused death, are worth saving. And there is the third child as well. Katurian was most saddened by her "death", for Michal said she was killed in the manner of the Little Jesus. However, the girl was not harmed, as she was the subject of the tale concerning the green pig, and for a time both Ariel and Katurian are overjoyed. And finally we have the tale of town on the river: the child is maimed by the mysterious stranger, a harsh deed in exchange for the boy's kindness. But what the man really does is save the boy from future abduction (as the man was the Pied Piper of Hamelin); so that even the horrible suffering from having toes removed is worth being alive.

In short, the message of the Pillowman entices us to enjoy life. It will be harsh, and we will suffer, but when the call of the Pillowman comes, we should refuse to answer him. 

the play "Pillowman"

The play was 'interesting' to say the least. It was dark and disturbing. I want to focus on the relationship between him and his parents. It shows the impact that parents have on their children. Although people have free-will, parents have a huge role in their children's lives. Because of his weird childhood and all the horrors he grew up with, he started writing about them. Writing is never a purely 'original' idea. It is always based on some sort of reality and/or inspiration. His stories represent his belief that bad things can happen to even innocent people. He also shows his desire to die. He wishes he had the opportunity to meet the acclaimed 'Pillowman' when he was a kid, so he did not have to live his horrible life and be killed in the end.

Ive heard it said that people whose parents sexual abuse them, being a violent drunk, dads who hit their wives, steal, murder, et cetera all have a very high chance of repeating the same deeds when they are older. It shows again the impact that parents have on their children. The parents in the play did an 'experiment' to see if all the horrible deeds and sounds he heard would have an impact on his life and his writings, and they did. He first wrote great stories, and then these wonderful stories turned into dark, gruesome stories representing the influences of his life and parents.