Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello | In-Depth Summary & Analysis

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Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe provides an in-depth analysis of Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Download the free study guide and infographic for Six Characters in Search of an Author here: https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Six-Ch...

In his play Six Characters in Search of an Author, Luigi Pirandello deconstructs the traditional theatrical narrative.

The six Characters - members of a broken family - have been rejected by the author who created them. The Characters, seeking the life their author denied them, enter a theater where a troupe of actors is rehearsing and present themselves to a director, hoping that he might tell their story using the traditional conceits of a play.

However, the situation quickly devolves, with the characters asserting their own versions of the story they wish to be told. They argue about how much of their story should be revealed and about the actors' performance of their real-life travails.

Ultimately it is revealed that the stepdaughter sold herself into prostitution, that the young girl drowned in a fountain, and that the young man may have killed himself with a revolver.

This brutal conclusion confounds the director - and likely the audience - neither of whom know what to believe.

Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author was first performed in 1921. He was fascinated by psychology, the subconscious mind, and multiple personalities. He claimed a muse named Fantasy sent him six characters, who bothered him constantly until he wrote them into a play.

The Italian play contains many important themes, including illusion versus reality, as the characters make the actors doubt how “real” their own experiences are; life versus art, as artistic creations outlast their creators and take on lives of their own; and acting, performance, and disguise, as people perform roles and inhabit characters on and off the stage.

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