Compartmentalized ChaosOn The Meaning of Eugène Ionesco’sThe Chairs and The Bald Soprano
... Smith argue with each other (and themselves) over the details of several Bobby Watsons, who have passed on, and their related relatives – also named Bobby Watson: “MRS. SMITH: That would be improper. And Bobby Watson’s aunt, old Bobby Watson, might very well, in her turn, pay for the education of Bobby Watson, Bobby Watson’s daughter. That way, Bobby Watson’s mother, could remarry. Has she anyone in mind?” (Ionesco, 13) This sort of chaotic repetition entirely eliminates any possibility of following the logical proceedings of the play. No particular meaning or order is supposed to come from the discussion of the Bobby Watsons; in fact, attempting to find a meaning within those proceedings would only frustrate the reader (or audience, as the case may be with plays). Ionesco uses contradictions – between characters, dates, and times – to further resist conventional meanings. A prime example can be found, again, during the Bobby Watson proceedings: “MR. SMITH: [still reading his paper] Tsk, it says here that Bobby Watson died. MRS. SMITH: My God, the poor man! When did he die? MR. SMITH: Why do you pretend to be astonished? You know very well that he’s been dead these past two years. Surely you remember attending his funeral a year and a half ago.” (Ionesco, 11) Occasionally, Ionesco’s contradictions will even appear within a line: the fire chief, after arriving near the end of the play, politely refuses an offer to seat himself, saying “I should like to remove my helmet, but I haven’t time to sit down,” (Ionesco, 27) and then proceeds, of course, to sit down, leaving his helmet on. Logical fallacies and nonsense words run rampant throughout Soprano: the married couple Mr. and Mrs. Martin live together and have a child, yet remember nothing of their partner when they meet on stage. They describe the events leading to their arriving at the Smith residence as “curious coincidence.” (Ionesco, 17) The “English” clock strikes randomly during the play, toning strokes as high as twenty-nine. (Ionesco, 18) The fire-chief had been waiting outside of the door for 45 minutes before being acknowledged, although Mrs. Smith had answered the door four times in the length of, perhaps, five minutes, and seen no-one. (Ionesco, 22-24) The entire second half of the play is an adventure into complete nonsense; characters reciting vowels and consonants, mixed-up clichés, and childish gibberish. All of this ultimately leads to an anti-climactic ending – “It’s not that way, it’s over here,” (Ionesco, 42) and the play begins itself again in the home of the Martin family. The meaning of any of the individual acts of contradiction, repetition, and fallacy is indiscernible – save for a few grace moments where meaning can be drawn, such as two moments where Ionesco makes attacks on religion. At one point, the fire chief explains that he cannot extinguish fires for clergymen: “I don’t have the right to extinguish clergymen’s fires… Besides they extinguish their fires themselves, or else they have them put out by vestal virgins,” (Ionesco, 29) and again, later: “One always gets mixed up in the hands of a priest.” (Ionesco, 34) Altogether, however, the meaning of any of the nonsense in the play is quite simply that – nonsense. There is no underlying meaning other than the ineffectiveness of language to purvey any message at all – and, to a lesser degree, the utter meaninglessness of life. On the other hand, the meaninglessness of life seems to be the key ‘moral’ behind the “Tragic Farce” The Chairs. While Chairs contains a plot that can, in fact, be followed from the beginning of the play to the end without much difficulty, it displays many of the same linguistic tools shown in Soprano to portray a similar message on the utter meaninglessness of withdrawing reason from life. The Chairs has a fairly simple plot to follow, if you ignore a great deal of the tangents that the characters run off on: an elderly couple, living in what seems to be a lighthouse, change their home into a sort of lecture hall in preparation for the arrival of hundreds of guests – all imaginary – in order for the old man to give away his ‘message’ – a message of such great importance that even the ‘emperor’ himself is arriving to hear it. The old man is incapable of purveying this message himself, however, and, as such, has hired an orator to speak on his behalf. After a great deal of chaos leading up to the arrival of the orator, the couple throw themselves from the windows in a tragic double-suicide, and the orator proceeds to deliver the message of the old man to the crowd in attendance – except, of course, that there is no one on stage save for the orator, and the orator himself is dumb and m...