The Clerk Character Analysis in Six Characters in Search of an Author

The Step-Daughter’s father and the Mother’s ex-lover, who met her while employed in the family’s house decades ago. Learning of his budding relationship with the Mother, the Father fires the Clerk, but this leaves the Mother “like an animal without a master.” Out of pity, spite, disgust, or perhaps some combination of these, the Father sends the Mother away and allows her to live with the Clerk, which she does for many years, raising the Step-Daughter in the process. However, two months before the events of the play, the Clerk dies, leaving his family penniless, and the Mother and Step-Daughter begin working at Madame Pace’s atelier (as a dressmaker and prostitute, respectively) to make ends meet. Although he is central to the Characters’ family drama, the Clerk never appears in the play.

The Clerk Character Timeline in Six Characters in Search of an Author

The timeline below shows where the character The Clerk appears in Six Characters in Search of an Author. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...married—they are—and then why the Mother is dressed like a widow. Her old lover ( the Clerk ) died two months before, the Step-Daughter explains, but the Father insists the man is... (full context)

Reality, Illusion, and Identity Theme Icon

...Actors reject her appeal and ask the Father for his full story. He explains that his old clerk became close friends with the Mother, and they turned against him. He fired the clerk,... (full context)

...masculinity. He admits that, bored with the Mother, he “sent her to that man” ( the Clerk ), but “more for her sake than mine,” because of his “pure interest” in her... (full context)

...cannot be turned into drama, but the Father promises that “the drama is coming.” When the Clerk died two months ago, the Father heard from the family abruptly, after a long time—they... (full context)

After the Clerk ’s death, the Father explains, the Mother became a modiste (dressmaker) at Madame Pace’s atelier—a... (full context)

...of [her] disgust” by letting the Leading Lady explain that her (the Step-Daughter’s) father ( the Clerk ) just died. Rather, the Leading Lady must do what she really did: take the... (full context)