Comparative Literary Analysis of

The Room by Harold Pinter and

The Bald Soprano by Eugene
Ionesco
Comparative Drama Course
Supervised by:
Pro. Dr. Nazife Aydinoglu

Prepared by:
Osama M. Nabi

Decimber 29, 2014

Introduction

The theatre of absurd is defined a type of drama tries to portray the absurdity of
human life using illogical, meaningless, and deliberately confusing action and
dialogue (Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words, 2008). The term of the Absurd Theatre
was first coined by the critic Martin Esslin in his famous essay The Theater of
Absurd in 1968. Esslin in his essay enlisted number of playwrights and took their
works as module and derived the basics of the Theater of Absurd from them.
Among the playwrights were the Noble prize laureate Harold Pinter and Eugene
Ionesco who are considered as the pioneer absurdist playwrights. The first
drama which was written by Harold Pinter was The Room in 1957. In similar,
Eugene Ionesco like Samuel Beckett started writing plays after in later stages of
his life as he was 40. The first play written by him was The Bald Soprano in 1948.

The essential aim and purpose of this paper is to carry out a comparative literary
analysis between the two plays The Room and The Bald Soprano. First, short
biographies of the two playwrights are to be given with referring to their most
successful works and achievements. Second, the genre of the two plays is to be
discussed with analyzing the characteristics of the genre and showing them in
booth of the plays. Then, the comparative analyses are to be carried on in terms
of the main elements of the drama such as plot, characters, settingetc.

1. Dramatists Biographies
1.1. Harold Pinter
Being considered as the most prominent British playwright after Shakespeare,
Harold Pinter, was born in 1930 in Hackney, east London, as the only child of
Jack Pinter and Frances. Pinters desires were literary oriented from his youth, as
a teenager he developed his skills in reading literature and writing poetry,
however, he was highly affected by his English teacher Joseph Brearley who
encouraged and pushed Pinter to explore the realm of drama as he gave him
leading roles in play as (Romeo and Juliet) and (Macbeth) at Hackney Downs
Grammar School in 1947 and 1948. Besides, Pinter had many other talents as
he was a very enthusiastic Cricket player (Taylor-Batty, 2009:205). Billington
states that Pinter joined to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1948 for two
terms but being neglectful he was dropped out in 1949. And in the same year of
1948 due to his refusal for joining the National Service he was trailed twice and
consequently fined for his refusal. In 1951 he attended the Central School of
Speech and Drama (Billington, 1997:25-36). As a professional actor he initiated
his work with a repertory company called Anew McMaster from 1951 to 1952 in
which he had a tour in Ireland and played several roles. During the period from
1954 to 1959 he acted under the stage of David Baron, however, to support his
work as an actor he worked in several different careers. As at the same period
aforementioned, he wrote his novel The Dwarfs little by little till it was finally
published in 1990 (Barry, 2011). Pinter married twice in his life; he first married
Vivien Merchant and this marriage last from 1956 to 1980, then his second
marriage was with Faser in 1980 and last till his death (Staff of The Telegraph,
2008). As a prolific playwright, Pinter wrote 29 plays and his first play was The
Room which was written upon a request of his friend Henry Woolf in 1957 then
followed it by a number of successful plays as The Birthday Party 1957, The Hot
House 1958, The Dumb Waiter 1959, The Caretaker 1959 and many others,
however, these plays were considered to be of the absurdist (Benet, 2009:208).
His plays during the period from 1960 to 1980 were described as Memory Plays,

and from 1980s to 2000 tended obviously to be Political Plays standing for
human rights against all sorts of oppression. His whole life time, Pinter, was a
pacifist and stood against Gulf War, the USAs 2001 war in Afghanistan and 2003
invasion of Iraq as well as many others. Pinter won over 50 awards for literature
and was finally awarded the Nobel Prize in 2005. He suffered from health issues
from 2001 till he died in the Christmas Eve in 2008 due to liver cancer (Billington,
2009).
2.1 Eugene Ionesco
Eugene Ionesco is one of the most acclaimed dramatists of the Theater of
Absurd. He was born in 26 November 1909 in Romania, a year later his family
moved to Paris where they settled till 1925. The same year of 1925 his parents
were divorced and he returned to Romania with his father. He enrolled to the
University of Bucharest at 1928 till 1933 and graduated as a teacher of French.
While in Romania Ionesco started writing poetry and criticism and published his
writings in different Romanian Journals. His first article in the Zodiac review in
1930, then in 1931 published a volume of poetry called Elegy of Miniscule Beings
and a collection of essays named Nu (No) in 1934. He married Rodica Burileanu
in 1936 and traveled to France with his family to attain his doctoral thesis but was
unable to complete due to the German invasion in (1940) to France but by the
help of some friends he was relocated to Marseilles, after five years he returned
to Paris after its libration. Ionesco did not write plays till he was 40, he decided to
learn English language, using the Assimil method in which students
conscientiously copying whole sentences in order to memorize them and re-read
them again, he discovered astounding truths such as there are seven days in the
week and the ceiling is up, the things that he already knew before but did not
think of them seriously and al of a sudden they seemed as stupefying as they
were indisputably true. Having decided, Ionesco, started to write his first play The
Bald Soprano in 1948 in which he translated his language learning experience
and astounding discoveries in it and was staged for the first time in May 11,
1950, at the Thtre des Noctambules, but was not successful at the first until it

was recognized by some famous writers and critics. After the remarkable
success of the first play he started writing a series of successful such as The
Lesson in 1951, The Chairs in 1952, and Jack or The Submission in 1955 and
others (Crabb, 2006). In 1958 there was a huge debate between the English
critic Kenneth Tynan, who was the supporter of Ionesco formerly, form The
Observer and Ionesco as Kenneth believed Ionescos work create danger to the
public as it created a kind of cult. The period between 1960-1980 was a prolific
and most productive era in Ionescos life; as he wrote more than 18 plays during
the period and which among were Exit the King in 1962, Hunger and Thirst 1964,
French Lessons for Americans in 1966, Macbett in 1972, and Journeys among
the Dead in 1980. Ionesco received many award in his life such as the Medal of
Monaco and The Great National Theater Prize in 1968, the honorary doctorate
from Universities of Warwick and Tel-Aviv in 1974 and 1975, Max Reinhardtmedal in 1976, and the Monte-Carlo International Prize for Contemporary Art in
1985. In his last years, Ionesco, traveled and spoke against the censorship and
inhumane treatment of people around the world. He died in 28 March, 1994 in his
residence in Paris and was buried in Cemetery of Montparnasse (Bloom,
2009:12-14).
2- The Theater of Absurd
The theatre of absurd has various definitions; according to American Heritage
Dictionary is defined as A form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of
human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue,
purposeless and confusing situations, and plots lack the realistic or logical
development. (American Heritage Dectionary, 2011)
The term was first coined by the critic Martin Essilin in his essay The Theatre of
Absurd in 1960. In his essay, Esslin, referred to number of works which were
written during the period from 1950s to 1960s by some playwrights like Samuel
Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter. The term
was originally taken from the essay The Myth of Sisyphus written by the French

philosopher Albert Camus in 1942; in which, Camus, defined the human situation
as basically absurd and meaningless.
The two plays The Room and The Bald Soprano are to be considered good
representatives of The Theatre of Absurd if compared to the set of the common
characteristics that Esslin referred to in his essay while he realized them during
the instigation he carried on to the works of the aforementioned playwrights. One
of the features of the absurd theatre in which the both plays share is the usage of
the unusual revolutionary methods which were completely different from the
conventional theatre anti-theatre as it aimed to astonish the audience with its
irrational and idiotic actions and Esllin defines this as a bewildering experience,
a veritable barrage of wildly irrational, often nonsensical goings-on that seem to
go counter to all accepted standards of stage convention (Esslin, 1960: 3). The
two plays begin with a monologue by characters, in The Room the old woman
Rose starts the monologue as she talks to her husband Bert who remains silent
till the end of the play; she asks him questions and answers them herself. Next,
when Mr.Kidd enters he in his turn talks to Bert, who still remains silent, but Rose
interacts to the speech and answers the questions. On the other hand, in The
Bald Soprano the same starting occurs when Mrs.Smith talks with her husband
Mr.Smith who remains silent and when he starts talking he shifts to a total
different subject and provides odd and irrational information. Thus, another
feature shows up in which the actions does not proceed logically, and the ends
are not decisive; as a result the audience are confused and unable to understand
the full meaning of the events and the characters.(Esslin, 1960: 5,14)
Esslin refers to another important characteristic as he declares the time or the
place of the play is not usually made clear (Esslin1960: 3). For instance, in The
Room the time or the place are not provided as the whole play goes on in one
room. As well as, in The Bald Soprano the time is depicted in a very confusing
way as the clock striking does not proceed logically or even does not refer to a
specific time, however, the place is later revealed to be London by Mrs.Smith.

Another highly important characteristic depicted in the absurdist plays is the

revolutionary attitude towards the language. The language is portrayed as a loose
mean which carries a stereotyped and meaningless exchanges as it failed to
express the essence of human being. Sometimes the dialogues reverse what is
happening on the stage, for instance the characters starts reciting lists, or
repeating themselves continuously by using stereotypes and clichs over and
over (Esslin1960: 3). This feature is very obviously depicted in The Room in few
events for instance when Rose talks with Mr.Kidd their dialogue consists many
subjects and they frequently move from one subject to another and leaving many
questions about the previous floating in the air as they seem even not to listen to
each others. Also, in The Bald Soprano, the language is depicted as a frail mean
of communication; the characters seem not to understand what they talk about or
even what they utter as in tow events is clearly shown while Mr. Smith and
Mrs.Smith talk about their old friend Booby Watson and they completely get lost in
the subject, and at the end of the play there is a dialogue between Mr.Martin,
Mrs.Martin, Mr.Smith and Mrs.Smith as they start to recite a list of stereotypes
and clichs over and over.
3-Plots
Schumacher declares that the plot structure was highly valued in the traditional
theatre as the; the plots were straight forward and were logically leading either to
a comic or tragic conclusion and the characters where highly individualized and
spoke with a rhetorical dialogues. On the other hand, the theater of absurd
overturned twenty-five centuries of tradition by rejecting all the rules and by
facing the chaos head-on. (Schumacher, 2011: 464). In the booth one act
plays, The Room and The Bald Soprano, the plots are not straight forward as
there is no logical connection between the events, and the dialogues of the
characters are nonsensically portrayed. The booth plays begin with a monologue
from the female characters talking to their husbands, who read magazines and
remain silent or never show an interest to their wifes speech. In The Room,
Rose, talks to her husband Bert Hudd showing her continuous concern and

suspense regarding the life outside the room the live in and regarding who lives
in the basement of the house they live inside, but Bert never replies to her
speech. In similar, the play of The Bald Soprano opens with Mrs.Smith having
talk with her husband Mr. Smith who reads an English newspaper, she starts to
recount all the events that happened in that evening but the all the reply she gets
from him is a continuous click of his tongue showing his disinterest, however,
afterwards he interrupts her speech and they start to talk about a friend of them
Bobby Watson but seem to forget what or whom they talk about and get
completely lost in the subject.
Moreover, the events of the both plays are interrupted by the abrupt appearance
of new characters who add the sense of meaninglessness and absurdity to the
events due to their quirk dialogues and actions. While Rose is still talking to her
stand still silent husband Mr. Kidd enters the room, he starts to talk with Bert but
as usual receives no answer. Mr. Kidd and Rose start having a confusing illogical
talk as they jump form one subject to another leaving the previous floating in air
uncompleted. After Mr. Kidd leaves the two couple, Mr. Sands and Mrs. Sands,
appear and enter the room and Rose seems anxious at the first glimpse. The
Sands ask Rose for the land lord but they are not sure whom they are looking for
and in their turn they lead a confusing talk with Rose as the three characters
seem not to understand each other, finally rose tells them the land lord is Mr.
Kidd but she does not know where is he and ask them whether they know who
lives in the basement. After the departure of the Sands, Mr. Kidd appears once
more and informs Rose that the person in the basement, a blind Negro, wants to
talk to her. However, at the beginning she shows her refusal then agrees in one
condition as it should be a short talk and should leave before Berts arrival since
she does not want her husband to know there was a Negro I their room. Once
the Negro, whose name is Riley, shows up in the room he tells Rose he has a
message from her father asking her to return back home but she refuses to
believe. Moments later Bert arrives and once he realizes the presence of the
Negro he knocks him down and hits Negros head against the gas-stove several
times and apparently kills him. Immediately, Rose starts clutching her eyes

saying she cannot see, as she goes blind the play ends. In similar, the
appearance of the Smiths maid Mary adds more abnormality to the events. She
enters and introduces herself to the audiences and immediately the Smiths
blame her for her absence as she, ironically, left them hungry the whole day.
Mary tells the Smith the couples Mr. Martin and Mrs. Martin are waiting at the
door as they were supposed to dine together, the Smiths rush outside to change
their clothes. Moments later Mary leads the Martins to the leaving room, and
yields at them for being late. Here the Martins raise the nonsensicality of the
events more as it turn they do not remember each other, though they live in the
same house, they sleep on the same bed, they took the same train even they
have the same daughter, then they come to the conclusion that they must be
married couple. Later, the Smiths join the Martins and start to talk about
unexceptional events or perhaps have no idea what they talk about, like the fact
that Mrs. Martin says she has an amazing story as she saw a man bending and it
appeared he was tying his shoes, they all become astonished and call it a
fascinating story. Afterwards the door rings few times, and the Fire Chief
arrives; he wants to check whether there is a fire or not, but having no fire around
he joins the couples and to tell the stories. Abruptly, Mary enters as she wants to
tell some stories of her own. The fire Chief recognizes her, as she was his first
beloved. Then the Smiths offend her and push her offstage not letting her to say
her story, but she recites a poem dedicated to the Fire Chief. Thus, the Fire
Chief leaves the couples calming that there is a fire around in the city. After his
departure the whole play runs idiotically as the characters start furiously scream
in each others ears and utter random speeches, clichs and distorted aphorisms
then the lights are extinguished. As the lights come back again the audiences
see Mr. and Mrs. Martin are seated like the Smiths at the beginning of the play.
The play begins again with the Martins who say exactly the same lines as the
Smiths in the first scene, while the curtain softly falls. (Ionesco, 1958: 42).

4- The Characters
As the main purpose of the Theatre of Absurd is to instigate about the existence
of human being in this life and define it as absurd and illogical, therefore the
absurd dramatist stick themselves of using the minimal number of characters to
make the sought-after sense of absurdity stronger (Fariba and Parisa, 2014:
409). Therefore, the characters tend to be of stereotypical, stock, and flat type
that are lost and move in a circle of routines in which they live in
incomprehensible universe, thus the language the characters use most often is
obscure, they mostly speak in clichs and use deformed language that has lost
its validity as a compatible mean of communication.
Each of the two plays, The Room and The Bald Soprano, has six characters. The
characters are portrayed to be shallow and apprehensive and to be considered
as the parody of high/low class of the society. Booth the characters, Bert and Mr.
Smith, resemble the dominant power of the patriotic society as in The Room Bert
shows no interest at all to Roses speech and remains silent till the end of the
play and speaks at the end of the play describing his driving experience in an
erotic way. In similar to Bert, Mr. Smith, in his turn disrespects his wifes speech
as the only answers he gives is the clicking of his tongue, and throughout the
whole play his only love appears to be his disagreement with his wife in one way
or another, however, he does not have strong opinions but seems to refuse his
wifes opinions for nothing but for contradiction. For instance, he becomes very
determined to approve the fault of his wife as the doorbell rings few times and
Mrs. Smith is convinced that no one is there but in contrary he believes and
seeks to prove his idea that whenever the doorbell rings there must be someone.
In contrary, the female characters, Rose and Mrs. Smith, in booth plays take the
subservient role. The absurd playwrights seem to refuse the Victorian image of
the women as the angel in the house, passive, sexually innocent and dependent
in which all they seek for is a husband to provide them with support and security
as it was the traditional convention they had a bad husband is better than
none(Lewis, 1984: 77). Rose in her turn is a mother figure in the play, she takes

care of every single detail of Bert as she feeds them from the very beginning of
the play and looks after his clothes while he goes outside, as well as she is
dependent and has a great fear inside her regarding the life outside as she
prefers to keep herself confined to the spot safe inside the room, for instance she
is very anxious whenever the door knocks as she consider the new comings as
intruders threatening her security. In similar, Mrs. Smith take the role of
subservient women as she is continuously rejected by her husband Mr. Smith
whose main obsession is to humiliate her by showing no respect to her and to
contradict her by all means, however, he contradicts himself properly after
expressing a certain opinion.
Furthermore, in the two plays, each of the characters in their turns are shown to
be vague in a way that they do not have idea what they are talking about or
whom they are talking to as they jump from one subject to another as if not
listening to each other and they repeat themselves over and over. In The Room
while such events are portrayed among the characters for instance between
Rose and Mr. Kidd, Rose and the Sands, the Sands among themselves and
Rose and Riley. The characters in such events often talk in a meaningless
repetitious way as they themselves get confused. In similar, such repetitious
meaningless talk in clichs occurs between the Smiths as they talk about a friend
of them, Bobby Watson, and their dialogue gets very confusing they themselves
seem to forget from one moment to another whom they talk and totally drift from
the main topic and get lost in the subject. Also, when the Martins arrive to the
Smiths house, they start to interrogate each other through an absurd chain of
repeated question as they come to the end that they should be a married couple.

Moreover, in the two plays the appearance of the last characters has a crucial
role as it intensifies the complexity of the play and the absurdity and
meaninglessness of the event reach to the peak as well as the characters go wild
as they produce unexpected reactions. In The Room the appearance of the
Negro, Riley, at the end of the play rises the sense of vague as he tells Rose he
has a message from her father asking her to come back home, the obscurity

occurs as the audience do not have any idea or the purpose behind his
message, and when Bert arrives immediately strikes him down and most
probably kills him causing the catastrophe of the play. In similar, the appearance
of Fire Chief makes the absurdness of the events even more obscure,
particularly after he goes offstage the rest of the characters immediately start
shouting in each others ears uttering non-understandable deformed speech and
mutilated aphorisms.

5- Setting
Pinter in The Room does not provide the audiences with the exact place and time
where the actions take place. The whole play takes place is a single room as
described in the play as A room in a large house (Pinter, 1978: 101). An
indication is given by Rose while she talks to Bert from the very beginning of the
play about the place of the room as she says Thats right. You eat that. Youll
need it. You can feel it here. Still, the room keeps warm. Its better than the
basement, anyway (Pinter, 1978: 101). Thus, the only information the audience
get they know the place is a room in the upper floor of a big house which is the
property of Mr. Kidd. The room is physically described at the very first of the play
only of what it contains such as gas-fire, a gas-stove and tables and chairs as
well as is described to be very dark by the Sands while talking to Rose Mrs.
Sands: its very dark outside. Mr. Sands: No darker than in. (Pinter, 1978:
101). Considering the time it is totally vague as there is no indication to the time
as it is only described as dark outside and it is hard to know whether it is day or
night.
In contrast to The Room, Ionesco in The Bold Soprano reveals the setting of the
play partially to the audience since the place and the time are not directly
mentioned to the audience, but through a chain of descriptions and indications.
The play opens in a room and every single entity in the room is described to be
English:
A middle-class English interior, with English armchairs. An English evening. Mr.
Smith, an Englishman, seated in his English armchair and wearing English

slippers, is smoking his English pipe and reading an English newspaper, near an
English fire. He is wearing English spectacles and a small gray English
mustache. Beside him, in

another English armchair, Mrs. Smith, an

Englishwoman, is darning some English socks. A long moment of English

silence. The English clock strikes 17 English strokes. (Ieonesco,1958: 8)
However, the setting is revealed to be a leaving room, but the audience might not
realize the play is set in the middle-class suburbs of London, England, but the
fact is immediately unfolded by Mrs. Smith in her first line:
MRS. SMITH: There, its nine oclock. Weve drunk the soup, and eaten the fish
and chips, and the English salad. The children have drunk English water. Weve
eaten well this evening. Thats because we live in the suburbs of London and
because our name is Smith. (Ieonesco, 1958: 8)

However, the concept of time is very complex if relying on the striking of the clock
since it changes throughout the course of the play as it sometimes stops or
sometimes strikes as much as it likes. But according to the Smithss maid speech
the time must be evening as they were supposed to dine with the Martins who
arrive late.

5- Themes

1.5- The Absurd

As it is apparent the main purpose of the Absurd movement is to demonstrate the

nature of human existence. The absurdist playwrights were affected by the
philosophy of Existentialism which was popularized by Jean- Paul Sartre and the
notion of Absurd by the French philosopher Albert Camus. The philosophy of
Absurdity examines the existence of human being and defines it as meaningless
and illogical as there is the existence itself is purposeless and aimless, thus all
actions and the life of man is absurd and meaningless. Apparently the only way

to make reason out of the existence is only through individuals as they must take
the responsibility of creating meaning for their life. Therefore, the absurdist
playwrights tended to reflect this idea and sense through their plays and the
characters of the play as Pinter and Ionesco utilized the sense of absurdity and
purposelessness in both plays The Room and The Bald Soprano.

In the two

plays the characters are profoundly absurd, therefore whatever they do is

meaningless and absurd, they are shallow, empty and unable to communicate in
a reasonable way, and their non sequential dialogues make confusion to the
audiences as they seem totally absent-minded or either talk nonsensically. For
instance the in the dialogue between Rose and Mr. Kidd the absurdity and
emptiness of the characters is perfectly depicted, also in the dialogues between
the Smiths as the talk about Bobby Watson, their repetitive speech reflects the
shallowness, emptiness and absurdity of humans daily life actions.

2.5- Isolation
The theme of isolation is very often in absurdist plays due to the impact of the
philosophy of Existentialism on the playwrights as it defines the isolation and
loneliness not being a mere state exists with human being, but to be a part of his
existence as the human being are inherently alone in an incomprehensible
unknown universe. The characters in the absurd plays are depicted to be
profoundly isolated from the real world and their societies, families, friends and
even from one another. The characters confine themselves to a safe spot they
create and isolate themselves from the outside world. As a consequence there is
a lack of communication or a total failure of communication among them which
leads to a complete absence of mutual understanding. In the two plays the
isolation is portrayed in various ways. For example, through the first monologues
of booth characters Rose and Mrs. Smith, as they talk with their husbands but
with no mutual response or communication form them. This shows to what extent

the values and life of the modern man have been changed for negative as many
people now a day physically live together but mentally are a way.

Moreover, more examples of isolation are shown in the two plays. In The Room
when Bert talks about his driving experience he demonstrates it in an erotic way
due to his loneliness and lack of communications with Rose. This makes him
treat with the van as if it is a woman:
I drove her down hard Then I drove her back, hard. I sped her. I caned her
along. She was good. Then, I got back She was good. She went with me. She
dont mix it with me. I use my hand I get hold of her. I go where I go. She took me
there. She brought me back. (Pinter, 1978: 125)
And in The Bald Soprano the dramatist shows the isolation and loneliness of the
two characters Mr. Martin and his wife, Mrs. Martin. Despite the fact that they live
together in one house, they sleep on one bed, they took the same train and even
the same seat and even more they have the same daughter, but still they forget
each other and do not recall who are they till the end they suppose to be a
married couple. These two examples from the booth plays obviously illustrate
how the modern man become lonely and isolated even from the closest person
to them as the spouses do not know each other as well as they show how the
values have been changed in the modern life including the family concepts and
values.

6- The Language
Simpson obviously states that the discourse of absurd plays is irrational, antirealistic, and illogical (Simpson, 2002: 36). Moreover, Esslin declares that even
more the language devoid of the traditional attractions of the well-made drama
(Esslin, 1968: 28). The language is shown to be a mere vehicle for exchanging
invalid expressions as it loses its capability for making a healthy communication.
Clichs are used profusely in the characters speech, the dialogues seem empty,

shallow and meaningless and above all they are non sequential as they tend to
show the absurdity and nonsensicality of the everyday speech of human beings.
For instance, in The Room the sense of absurdity is quite clear in their speech:
ROSE: well, its a shame you have to go out on this whether, Mr. Kidd dont you
have a help?
MR. KIDD: Eh?
ROSE: I thought you had a woman to help?
MR. KIDD: No women here.
ROSE: maybe I was thinking of somewhere else.
MR. KIDD: Plenty of women round the corner. Not here though. Oh no. Eh, Ive
seen that before?
ROSE: What?
MR. KIDD: That.
ROSE: I dont know, have you? (Pinter, 1978: 106)

The characters seem to have a total failure in communication or even not

listening to each other. In similar, the characters speech of The Bald Soprano
roughly consists of clichs and irrational, incomprehensive deformed aphorisms
and the characters seem to be unaware of their partner speech as they reply a
total different illogical answer:
MRS. MARTIN: I can buy a pocketknife for my brother, but you can't buy Ireland
for your grandfather.
MR. SMITH: One walks on his feet, but one heats with electricity or coal.
MR. MARTIN: He who sells an ox today, will. have an egg tomorrow.
MRS. SMITH: In real life, one must look out of the window.
MRS. MARTIN: One can sit down on a chair, when the chair doesn't have any.
MR. SMITH: One must always think of everything.
MR. MARTIN: The ceiling is above, the floor is below.
MRS. SMITH: When I say yes, it's only a manner of speaking.
MRS. MARTIN: To each his own.
MR. SMITH: Take a circle, caress it, and it will turn vicious.

MRS. SMITH: A schoolmaster teaches his pupils to read, but the cat suckles her
young when they are small.
MRS. MARTIN: Nevertheless, it was the cow that gave us tails.
MR. SMITH: When I'm in the country, I love the solitude and the quiet.
MR. MARTIN: You are not old enough yet for that. (Ionesco, 1958: 42)

Conclusion
In this paper the main aim of the researcher was to make a comparative literary
analysis between the two plays The Room and The Bald Soprano. Firstly, the
biographies of the both playwrights were discussed in a chronological way
beginning from their born till their death with referring to their accomplishments.
During the comparative study of the both plays few good results were figured out.
In term of the genre, the both plays have many common sharing points such as
the usage of language and the way the characters were portrayed in both plays.
As well as in term of plots, the both plays had the same number of characters
that are six, also the events of the both plays seem to go in the same stream as
both of them start with the monologue by the main characters Rose and Mrs.
Smith. Moreover, while comparing the rest elements of the both plays a lot of
mutual points have been realized for instance in terms of settings, the events of
the both plays take place in one room till the end of the play, however, the place
in The Room appears to be more obscure rather than in The Bald Soprano as
well as the time. Furthermore, comparing the both plays in terms of themes it has
been realized the both share the same themes of The Absurd and Isolation.
Finally, the usage of language and how it has been manipulated in the both plays
had been discussed in a comparative way as the examples were provided by the
evidences like were provided for the rest of the aforementioned elements of the
plays.

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