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The Son
The fourteen-year-old apparent son of the Mother and the Clerk, who is “timid [and] half-frightened” throughout the play and, like his sister the Child, never talks. The Step-Daughter continually berates the Boy, calling him a “fool,” asking why he does not speak, and predicting his death. At the end of the play, it becomes clear that he will play an important part in an important scene, as the Manager coaches him on how to act and bickers with the Father and Step-Daughter about where to stage the action. Astonishingly, in the play’s closing moments, the Boy stands “with eyes like a madman” next to the fountain where his sister, the Child, has drowned—possibly at the Boy’s hand, and possibly as a fateful reaction to the family’s turmoil after the Father met the Step-Daughter at Madame Pace’s brothel. The Boy immediately goes behind the set’s trees and shoots himself dead with the revolver, and the curtain falls with the Actors, Manager, and audience unclear whether this is was part of the Actors’ “real” universe, or only the story told by the Characters.
The Boy Quotes in Six Characters in Search of an Author
The Six Characters in Search of an Author quotes below are all either spoken by The Boy or refer to The Boy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1
Quotes
A tenuous light surrounds them, almost as if irradiated by them—the faint breath of their fantastic reality.
This light will disappear when they come forward towards the actors. They preserve, however, something of the dream lightness in which they seem almost suspended; but this does not detract from the essential reality of their forms and expressions.
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The drama consists finally in this: when that mother re-enters my house, her family born outside of it, and shall we say superimposed on the original, ends with the death of the little girl, the tragedy of the boy and the flight of the elder daughter. It cannot go on, because it is foreign to its surroundings. So after much torment, we three remain: I, the mother, that son. Then, owing to the disappearance of that extraneous family, we too find ourselves strange to one another. We find we are living in an atmosphere of mortal desolation which is the revenge, as he (indicating Son) scornfully said of the Demon of Experiment, that unfortunately hides in me.
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Act 3
Quotes
SOME ACTORS. He’s dead! dead!
OTHER ACTORS. No, no, it’s only make believe, it’s only pretence!
The FATHER (with a terrible cry). Pretence? Reality, sir, reality!
The MANAGER. Pretence? Reality? To Hell with it all! Never in my life has such a thing happened to me. I’ve lost a whole day over these people, a whole day!
Curtain.
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Get the entire Six Characters in Search of an Author LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Boy Quotes in Six Characters in Search of an Author
The Six Characters in Search of an Author quotes below are all either spoken by The Boy or refer to The Boy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1
Quotes
A tenuous light surrounds them, almost as if irradiated by them—the faint breath of their fantastic reality.
This light will disappear when they come forward towards the actors. They preserve, however, something of the dream lightness in which they seem almost suspended; but this does not detract from the essential reality of their forms and expressions.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The drama consists finally in this: when that mother re-enters my house, her family born outside of it, and shall we say superimposed on the original, ends with the death of the little girl, the tragedy of the boy and the flight of the elder daughter. It cannot go on, because it is foreign to its surroundings. So after much torment, we three remain: I, the mother, that son. Then, owing to the disappearance of that extraneous family, we too find ourselves strange to one another. We find we are living in an atmosphere of mortal desolation which is the revenge, as he (indicating Son) scornfully said of the Demon of Experiment, that unfortunately hides in me.
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Act 3
Quotes
SOME ACTORS. He’s dead! dead!
OTHER ACTORS. No, no, it’s only make believe, it’s only pretence!
The FATHER (with a terrible cry). Pretence? Reality, sir, reality!
The MANAGER. Pretence? Reality? To Hell with it all! Never in my life has such a thing happened to me. I’ve lost a whole day over these people, a whole day!
Curtain.
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