Truth and Order in Ionescos Bald Soprano Essay -- Bald Soprano Essays

Truth and Order in Ionescos Bald Soprano either sense of order, of sense itself, is shattered and constantly questioned by Eugene Ionesco in his hightail it The Bald Soprano. A serious challenge is made against an dictatorial notion of truth. Characters throughout the frolic, however, continue to struggle to maintain and share a unified and orderly existence. Empiricism is espoused by several characters. They stick in that support experience is all that is necessary to establish unshakable order and thus, truth. Mrs. smith states, Truth is never found in books, only in life history (29). While this empirical debate underscores the need for an unmediated knowledge of truth, Ionesco concurrently undermines empiricism as a viable method of attaining it. On a basic level, order diminishes, deteriorates, and virtually disintegrates as the play proceeds. Empiricism is fundamentally deductive in nature a logical premise is established from direct sensory experience. This metho d calls into question even the most old-hat assumptions. Nothing is accepted as given without sufficient proof. In this mien ordinary events like tying ones shoe or reading the report in the subway are made to seem extraordinary. Each other mundane experience contains a new vitality. Mr. Martin exclaims, One sees things even more than extraordinary every day, when one walks around (22). The characters seem to lack a certain sense of familiarity (or boredom, perhaps) with such mundane events. Each experience, regardless of sizing or scope, force the characters to constantly remain in the process of reevaluating and culture the most basic assumptions upon which their lives are based. Mrs. Smiths incessant externalized inner monologue at the open... ...le isolated statements cease to be intelligible. Ionescos terminology late in the play is a language of non sequitirs and nonsense. Far from articulating a unified notion of truth, language unleashes the capacity to express a cac ophony of voices and viewpoints. Unequivocal statements of any split become virtually impossible because the power to negate them is embedded in the fabric of language itself. Ironically, as the play reaches its seemingly chaotic crescendo, Ionesco himself seems to submit to some vaguely cyclical notion of order. The dialogue of the players disintegrates and then reintegrates into a single sentence, thus allowing the play to begin again with new faces, unless undoubtedly the same dramatic dnouement. Works Cited Ionesco, Eugene. The Bald Soprano. quaternion Plays by Eugene Ionesco. Trans. Donald M. Allen. New York Grove Weidenfeld, 1958.