Reality in Jean Genet’s ‘the Balcony’ Essay

Jean genets Le Balcon (or The Balcony) is an absurdist consort in which the main structure is the philosophical battle between illusion and existence (Savona 1983 76) and this essay leave investigate both(prenominal) of the levels of cosmos at bottom an absurdist and existentialist context in Genets knead. The play itself offers a spectacularly theatrical exploration of the relationship between dream and touchableness (Patterson 2005 32) whilst also seeking to negate reality itself (Innes 2001 438).Whilst also causeing to qualify reality into a fancy demesne in which its characters can miss the dismay of daily brio, it is also designed to be a pitiful play which keeps the sense of hearing aware that it is a play they are observation and not completelyowing them to get lost in the world of illusion, fantasy and require that the characters are trapped in (Reck 1962 23). This echoes a technique used as part of Brechts Verfremdungseffekt, and by keeping the watcher at a critical distance, they run low observers and thus can learn something about their own lives and the world in which they live.The play is set in Madame Irmas Maison dillusions (or house of illusions) which to the spectator is clearly a bagnio, but not a brothel in the conventional sense. In the brothel, men of everyday walks of life (for example a plumber) act out informal fantasies with the women that work at that place. Their sexual fantasies are by no means conventional either, for example the clients of the brothel take on the personas of precedentful men, namely a bishop, an executioner, a test and a general.From the exposition of the play, it is unclear that the bishop isnt actually a bishop as the costume, dialogue and action of the bishop are completely authentic aside from the position that the powerful characters tower over all the other actors as strong as the auditory modality (McMahon 1963 110). This is visually unrealistic and takes the spectator away fro m naive realism right from the onset, yet somehow draws them into this world of illusion. The sexual acts were int depoted by Genet to contain meaning and not to be realistic.They are plainly projections, a series of images of man trapped in a manor hall of mirrors, not attempting to convey naturalism in the slightest (McMahon 1963 176) and the characters performance dies reflections of reflections (Innes 2001 438). As Esslin states in his The Theatre of the Absurd, there are no characters in the conventional sensemerely the images of basic urges and impulses (Esslin 2001 22). Image is of secern importance in the play it is everything for the deeper one moves into images the less danger there will be of realitys coming back to question the veracity of the images (McMahon 1963 162).One of the key themes of the play is the escape from reality, and as T. S Eliot wrote human kind cannot extend much reality (1964 69), one of the fundamental messages Genet is trying to deliver in h is play. There is a strong sense of the actor get together with the character in The Balcony (Savona 1983 86), or the character merging with the fantasy characters they attempt to portray in the brothel, or characters they so long to be, even for middling an hour or so.This inauthentic relationship between reality and fantasy reflects human nature and life itself we have all at some identify aspired, or even wished that we could be someone else, someone with power or respect. However as McMahon suggests there is no aspiration within the motivation of these people to be bishop, judge or general the hold of their ambitions knows its range, and the cutting off pointis the thin line between pretense and reality (1963 160). The play takes a turn when the clients of the brothel are constrained to take on the characters they are pretending to be for real.It is at this point that the illusion is bring downed and the men of everyday life no longstanding want the roles they are playin g. For them, the roles are now too realistic and there is no escape from them the relationship between reality and fantasy has become authentic. When the characters are acting out their roles in the real world, they are no longer comforted by their imagination they are faced with the tart reality of life, the one thing that they have sought to escape in the first place.This is reinforced by the fact the characters are reluctant to support the chief of police and be dragged from their dream world into the harshness and dangers of reality (Thody 1970 186-187). The revolution outside can be seen as a symbolisation of real life. Were it not for the revolution, the various characters could continue to play their games in the cover a-historical atmosphere provided for thembut the revolution is there, and threatens at any moment to destroy their world of illusion completely (Thody 1970 179).During the play, various sounds of gunfire can be heard in the background of the scenes A thre at from the real world outside reminding the characters they have tried to escape life and whilst this may be successful for the hour they are in the brothel, real life is pipe down going out outside. Machine gun fire attempts to undermine the prank of illusion created and reflects Brechts distancing effect (Savona 1983 89).Once again Genet forces the spectator to remember that they are watching a play, but also when we all hide behind the facade of life, or try and escape reality, the real world is still very much at large in the background and we cant ignore this The theme of illusion reaches its rising tide at the very end of the action, when Madame Irma comes to the front of the stage to remind the audience that they have, after all, only been watching a play (Thody 1970 185). The spectator is utterly brought back to the real word having witnessed actors playing characters, characters playing characters, characters playing people.The audience has taken the journey through Mad am Irmas house of illusions, and has been presented with a theatrical projection of humanity through many planes of reality. She tells the audience you moldiness now go home, where everything you can be quite sure will be falser than hereYou must now go (Genet 1966 96). She has highlighted that as serviceman we have a tendency to hide behind the facade of life, to go along with what we are told and what we see, thus taking life for granted.We then deliberate back to the characters in the play and realise how they are merely projections of ourselves. Genet proclaims the illusion of reality and the reality of illusion (Nelson 1963 61). For the spectator and the characters reality has become indiscernible from illusion (Nelson 1963 65) and the audience must ask themselves where does reality end and pretence begins. BIBLIOGRAPHY Eliot, T. S. , Murder in the Cathedral (Fort Washington PA draw Books, 1964) Esslin, Martin, The Theatre of the Absurd, 3rd Edition (London Metheun, 2001). Genet, Jean, The Balcony (New York Grove Press, 1966) Innes, Christopher, Theatre After both World Wars, in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Theatre, ed. by John Russell Brown (Oxford Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 380-444. Macquarrie, John, existential philosophy (Baltimore Pelican Books, 1972) McMahon, Joseph H. , The Imagination of Jean Genet (New Haven Yale University Press, 1963) Nelson, Banjamin, The Balcony and Parisian Existentialism, The Tulane caper Review, 73 (1963), 60-79.Oswald, Laura, Jean Genet and the Semiotics of Performance (Bloomington and capital of Indiana Indiana University Press, 1989) Patterson, Michael, The Oxford Dictionary of Plays (Oxford Oxford University Press, 2005) Reck, Rima Drell, Appearance and Reality in Genets Le Balcon, The New Dramatists, 291 (1962), 20-25. Savona, Jeannette L. , Jean Genet (London and Basingstoke The Macmillan Press, 1983) Styan, J. L. , The side of meat Stage (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1996) Thody, P hilip, Jean Genet A Study of His Novels and Plays (New York Stein and Day, 1970).