Six Characters in Search of

an Author
Luigi Pirandello

Illusion vs Reality
Submitted to: Ma’am Iqra Tehreem
Submitted by: Muqaddas Hira
Roll No. 13151502-001
BS English/ Sem-VIII
6/10/2017
 Illusion vs Reality

The play “Six Characters in search of an Author” is written by ‘Luigi Pirandello’.

The play is about a family of 6 characters who are in search of some author to complete
their story. And for the sake of reaching their end they meet a stage drama manager at the
set. But their life remains elusive all over the play as it had been before there arrival on
the set. Even the end of their story is illusory. The theme of ‘Illusion and Reality’ is the
major theme of the play.

Illusion means the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas. It can also
be defined as semblance. Semblance means ‘an erroneous mental representation’, or in
simple words it is an ‘outward appearance or form that is deliberately misleading’.
Reality is defined as the state of being actual or real.

The play is a perfect illusion of reality. If we see the play in reality, all the six
characters are an illusion as they don’t exist actually. But if we get into the play, we find
those illusory characters to be real.

The characters having confusion and dissatisfaction about their story of life leave
the readers into disarray. They look in the dire need of a proper resolution of the tale of
their life. They all feel themselves stuck in an impasse and do not find themselves to be
able to come over this dilemma.

The play itself is outwardly an ‘illusion of reality’, but it also shows the same
characteristic inside it. The Manager tries hard to create the illusion of reality in the
play while sending the actors to the stage instead of characters. The convention of theatre
aims at creating an illusion of reality, a perfect illusion of reality. The Father criticizes his
idea and says that the characters exist in the reality. They all are the part of the dynamic
world. He argues that it is the actors who need the illusion of reality not the characters.
The illusion of reality suits to the actors because their reality changes with the change of
situation and passage of time, while the characters need not the illusion because their
actual existence is carved in the realm of art. That what is illusion for the actors is the
core reality of the characters. So indirectly, the Father is calling it semblance to present
actors in place of the characters.

There is a long debate on the illusion and reality and pretence and reality
among the Father, the Step-daughter and the Manager in the play. The Manager is of the
view that if the six characters want the end of their story, they will have to compromise as
the stage is a place where the illusion of reality is created. But the characters think that
for the sake of affirmation and acceptance of the reality of characters, they themselves
must be sent rather than the actors. The discussion between the characters and the
manager remains unsatisfying for the both sides.

The end of the play is also full ambiguity and confusion. At the end of the play,
the Boy and the Child attempt suicide by shooting themselves. But the Father, the Step-
daughter and the Manager are so involved in the argument about the illusion and reality,
and pretence and reality that they get confused whether the death of the two characters is
the reality or pretence. The Father being obsessed for the reality considers the quietus of
the Boy and the Child a reality while the manger being fond of pretence and illusion
considers it pretence. The self-annihilation of the two characters remains ambiguous due
to the deep indulgence of the characters (the Father and the Step-daughter) and the
Manager in the contestation about the nature of the reality, illusion and pretence.
Nobody finds any way to come out of the confusion.

Pirandello was profoundly influenced by the emerging philosophy of the scientific

relativism. The theory of relativity denies the absolute truth. The crux of the relativism
paved the way of the blurred boundary between illusion and reality.