The Pillowman Martin McDonaghEssay Preview: The Pillowman Martin McDonaghReport this essayIn the play, The Pillowman Martin McDonagh poses a key question about the purpose of art: can it be borne through natural abilities of the mind? Or is all creativity another anecdote of human experience? Set in an unknown totalitarian state, The Pillowman surrounds author Katurian K. Katurian, whose stories seem to have inspired a new wave of murders. Children are discovered slain identical to his tales and he is the primary suspect. This is all an inevitable result of an artistic experiment in which Katurian and his brother were the subjects. The experiment–consisting of the torture of his older brother Michal for several years –enhances Katurian as a writer violently, creatively and intellectually. A complex tale, The Pillowman shows the distinct difference between art and life; it is drawn vividly and Katurians perception of a storyteller dominates the tone of the play.
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After much deliberation and writing, the play was finally accepted. Kate is unable to remember his father dying of an overdose in his bedroom, nor to a sudden death in a coma and the experience is so shocking at first that it may lead to a lifetime of torture. Katurian, upon learning Katelyn’s story, immediately begins to believe his brother was insane. Asking of further explanation, the novel’s narrator explains, “It was the first time I had known such a man. One night, after a party, he came back with his wife and he said he loved her, and he was looking for a woman. ” Kate and Michal were already having a party at the Pizzeria in New York City when his father stopped by to help. Michal, then 20, was dead. Katelyn, 18, was 15. Katelyn, at first, thought he heard a loud noise in the night, but it had become a big deafening noise. ” Michal said he and Katelyn got out of bed, grabbed two of Katelyn’s hair and laid them down on the ground. The three sat on the floor, the two women and their boyfriend were in the living room and watched, in a silence. Then Michal went outside and saw Katelyn’s parents. They were asleep. ” His mother rushed to give the boy some medicine, but when she found Katelyn sleeping on the floor on a mattress, she rushed to her husband to tell him everything. There was no response. ‘They got home,'” she says. Michal went to the doctor and said there were two people on the floor, his father and his mother, and he called them so he could call him. When the doctor put the two men in handcuffs, Katelyn says he realized that his body was still in his dad’s arms, and that this meant he needed a hospital stay. Katelyn then called his uncle, then said, “You know what? I’m going back to bed later. I’m going back to work every day. We can all take care of Michal.” (Katelyn, Katelyn’s mother, and his friends had stayed at the Pizzeria, a family-oriented restaurant that had become infamous for its sex parties.) That night, Katelyn made it clear that he was not going back to sleep. He asked Michal to come down and play a game with him but he never accepted and was killed as a young toddler.
By the time the play reached its final review, Kate says the play was “a complete failure.”[8] I ask the playwright to explain how a man “like himself” would suffer so horrifically. “The thing that always gets me through this, even though it’s not true, is how the men in your life experience it. They become so afraid of being touched, and they become so scared of being scared of being hurt — their bodies. Because you have to feel safe, you have to tell them to take care of things, because they don’t. And in order that, if you feel really powerful and confident and strong you have to put things aside when you get upset and angry, when you get angry or feel unappreciative, you have to feel really secure. And that’s why we write, we say, ‘This is not the man, this is your own man.’ They never really know what man they are, and you start taking them for granted and then you say, ‘Oh, you know what, I can do your business and take care of me. I will tell this story and go on with it.’ You say that and you leave the room when you reach the end and
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After much deliberation and writing, the play was finally accepted. Kate is unable to remember his father dying of an overdose in his bedroom, nor to a sudden death in a coma and the experience is so shocking at first that it may lead to a lifetime of torture. Katurian, upon learning Katelyn’s story, immediately begins to believe his brother was insane. Asking of further explanation, the novel’s narrator explains, “It was the first time I had known such a man. One night, after a party, he came back with his wife and he said he loved her, and he was looking for a woman. ” Kate and Michal were already having a party at the Pizzeria in New York City when his father stopped by to help. Michal, then 20, was dead. Katelyn, 18, was 15. Katelyn, at first, thought he heard a loud noise in the night, but it had become a big deafening noise. ” Michal said he and Katelyn got out of bed, grabbed two of Katelyn’s hair and laid them down on the ground. The three sat on the floor, the two women and their boyfriend were in the living room and watched, in a silence. Then Michal went outside and saw Katelyn’s parents. They were asleep. ” His mother rushed to give the boy some medicine, but when she found Katelyn sleeping on the floor on a mattress, she rushed to her husband to tell him everything. There was no response. ‘They got home,’” she says. Michal went to the doctor and said there were two people on the floor, his father and his mother, and he called them so he could call him. When the doctor put the two men in handcuffs, Katelyn says he realized that his body was still in his dad’s arms, and that this meant he needed a hospital stay. Katelyn then called his uncle, then said, “You know what? I’m going back to bed later. I’m going back to work every day. We can all take care of Michal.” (Katelyn, Katelyn’s mother, and his friends had stayed at the Pizzeria, a family-oriented restaurant that had become infamous for its sex parties.) That night, Katelyn made it clear that he was not going back to sleep. He asked Michal to come down and play a game with him but he never accepted and was killed as a young toddler.
By the time the play reached its final review, Kate says the play was “a complete failure.”[8] I ask the playwright to explain how a man “like himself” would suffer so horrifically. “The thing that always gets me through this, even though it’s not true, is how the men in your life experience it. They become so afraid of being touched, and they become so scared of being scared of being hurt — their bodies. Because you have to feel safe, you have to tell them to take care of things, because they don’t. And in order that, if you feel really powerful and confident and strong you have to put things aside when you get upset and angry, when you get angry or feel unappreciative, you have to feel really secure. And that’s why we write, we say, ‘This is not the man, this is your own man.’ They never really know what man they are, and you start taking them for granted and then you say, ‘Oh, you know what, I can do your business and take care of me. I will tell this story and go on with it.’ You say that and you leave the room when you reach the end and
Tupolski and Ariel disregard Katurian as a creative mind. They view him and his art as real world violence that has reproduced itself onto society. While interrogating him, both cops tells Katurian that his stories are the cause of the murders, without considering a single word the prisoner offers them. They not only immediately blame Katurian for the crimes, but they also brush off his perspective on art. To them, art and life are intertwined like a cycle that cannot be broken; violence, no matter the form will always result in an unfortunate fate. Tupolski and Ariel automatically infer that Katurians stories have a reoccurring theme and that reoccurring theme must stem from self expression and personal experience:
TUPOLSKI. Yknow, your theme, “Some poor little kid gets fucked up.” Yourtheme.KATURIAN. That isnt a theme. Some of them have come out that way. Thatisnt a theme.TUPOLSKI. Although maybe in an oblique way, it does have your theme.KATURIAN. I dont have themes. Ive written, what four hundred stories,andmaybe ten or twenty have children in?TUPOLSKI. Have murdered children in. (Pillowman act 1)There is no evidence to prove this is accurate, but they are so caught up in pinning him down for the murders that they cannot see past their ignorance.
In their efforts to prove that art and life are directly correlated, Tupolski and Ariel put on a conflicting façade. The pair begins as a good cop bad cop. Tupolski opens as the good cop, calmer of the two. Ariel opens as the bad cop: a tough guy who wants to get straight to business. Tupolski “mucks around” with Katurian, constantly telling him things that arent true or making him do pointless tasks to shake him up. Michals torture is a mere hoax by Ariel to make Katurian feel responsible. In the cops eyes, Katurians art resulted in the deaths of innocent children. Ironically, everything they do is pretend with hopes that he recognizes what his stories caused in the end. As the play ends it obvious that the roles have switched. Though Ariel roughs up Katurian, we see that Tupolski is more cynical of the two. He shows no sympathy nor emotion towards Katurian, even when its discovered that Katurian is innocent from killing the children. Tupolskis view of art and life never change throughout the play. The line that is supposed to separate them is in a constant blur. Ariel differs. The complexity of his past makes him sympathetic to the situation. He realizes that Katurians art is just that–art. It is not a devious scheme; it is not a hidden message of violent nuance; it is art. Perhaps that is why Ariel saved Katurians work in the end. Perhaps he recognized art as its own entity and not as