Department of English

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

 

The Pillowman

(2003)

 

Martin McDonagh

(March 26, 1970 – )


Notes

The Pillowman was written in 1994 in two and a half weeks. It was first staged at the National Theatre, London in 2003 starring David Tennant as Katurian and Jim Broadbent as Tupolski.


Act 1

Scene 1


3  blindfolded: What is the difference between being blindfolded and being hooded?


Katurian blindfolded
4615 Theater Company (2015)
 The Pillowman
Oxford Playhouse (2014)




8  My parents were funny people: Which meaning(s) of funny do you think McDonagh is playing with in describing Katurian's parents?


8  Your name is Katurian Katurian Katurian?: Note that the initials for this name is KKK.
  • Ku Klux Klan (Oxford Dictionaries)
    (also KKK)
    An extremist right-wing secret society in the US
  • "Grant, Reconstruction, and the KKK," American Experience, PBS
    At the time of Ulysses S. Grant's election to the presidency, white supremacists were conducting a reign of terror throughout the South. In outright defiance of the Republican-led federal government, Southern Democrats formed organizations that violently intimidated blacks and Republicans who tried to win political power.

    The most prominent of these, the Ku Klux Klan, was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865. Originally founded as a social club for former Confederate soldiers, the Klan evolved into a terrorist organization. It would be responsible for thousands of deaths, and would help to weaken the political power of Southern blacks and Republicans.
    [...]
    In this violent atmosphere, the Ku Klux Klan grew in size and strength. By 1868, the Klan had evolved into a hooded terrorist organization that its members called "The Invisible Empire of the South." The reorganized Klan's first leader, or "Grand Wizard," was Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had been a Confederate general during the Civil War.

    White Southerners from all classes of society joined the Klan's ranks. In the name of preserving law and order in a white-dominated society, Klansmen punished newly freed blacks for a variety of reasons, including behaving in an "impudent" manner toward whites. They whipped the teachers of freedmen's schools and burnt their schoolhouses.


 


9  next of kin: After Katurian answers Tupolski, almost by reflex, that Michal is his next of kin, he begins to wonder why the police would need to know this. Usually, one wants information about a person's next of kin when there is an expectation of death so that this closest relative could be contacted to take on responsibility if there are any debts to be settled or any property to pass on. Tupolski brushes this off as "just formalities" but the ominous suggestion remains hanging now over the scene: that the police is preparing for Katurian's imminent death.



11  I'm the good cop, he's the bad cop: Tupolski is referring to the good cop bad cop routine, a common police interrogation technique.



The Heat (2013)


The Pink Panther (2006)


L.A. Confidential (1997)


The Lego Movie (2014)


"The Boy Who Knew Too Much," season 5, episode 20, The Simpsons (1994)


"Good Cop Bad Cop Interrogation Techniques" (2017)
  • Esther Inglis-Arkell, "Here's Why the 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' Routine Actually Works," io9 (2015)
    You know the routine. A tough cop berates and browbeats a suspect until his partner sends him out. The partner is reassuring, and the suspect spills his guts.
  • "Good Cop/Bad Cop," TV Tropes
    A type of Perp Sweating frequently used in Crime and Punishment Series.
    One cop behaves in a very threatening and menacing way towards the suspect, while the other appears sympathetic, helpful and protective. The suspect is expected to be cooperative with the "good cop."



17  Hamelin: the town in the well-known folktale The Pied Piper of Hamelin.



  (1989, claymation)


(1984 TV episode)


(1957 musical)
  • Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, "The Children of Hameln" ["Die Kinder zu Hameln"] (1816)
    In the year 1284 a mysterious man appeared in Hameln. He was wearing a coat of many colored, bright cloth, for which reason he was called the Pied Piper. He claimed to be a ratcatcher, and he promised that for a certain sum that he would rid the city of all mice and rats. The citizens struck a deal, promising him a certain price. The ratcatcher then took a small fife from his pocket and began to blow on it. Rats and mice immediately came from every house and gathered around him. When he thought that he had them all he led them to the River Weser where he pulled up his clothes and walked into the water. The animals all followed him, fell in, and drowned.
    Now that the citizens had been freed of their plague, they regreted having promised so much money, and, using all kinds of excuses, they refused to pay him. Finally he went away, bitter and angry. He returned on June 26, Saint John's and Saint Paul's Day, early in the morning at seven o'clock (others say it was at noon), now dressed in a hunter's costume, with a dreadful look on his face and wearing a strange red hat. He sounded his fife in the streets, but this time it wasn't rats and mice that came to him, but rather children: a great number of boys and girls from their fourth year on. Among them was the mayor's grown daughter. The swarm followed him, and he led them into a mountain, where he disappeared with them.

    All this was seen by a babysitter who, carrying a child in her arms, had followed them from a distance, but had then turned around and carried the news back to the town. The anxious parents ran in droves to the town gates seeking their children. The mothers cried out and sobbed pitifully. Within the hour messengers were sent everywhere by water and by land inquiring if the children -- or any of them -- had been seen, but it was all for naught.

    In total, one hundred thirty were lost. Two, as some say, had lagged behind and came back. One of them was blind and the other mute. The blind one was not able to point out the place, but was able to tell how they had followed the piper. The mute one was able to point out the place, although he [or she] had heard nothing. One little boy in shirtsleeves had gone along with the others, but had turned back to fetch his jacket and thus escaped the tragedy, for when he returned, the others had already disappeared into a cave within a hill. This cave is still shown.

    Until the middle of the eighteenth century, and probably still today, the street through which the children were led out to the town gate was called the bunge-lose (drumless, soundless, quiet) street, because no dancing or music was allowed there. Indeed, when a bridal procession on its way to church crossed this street, the musicians would have to stop playing. The mountain near Hameln where the the children disappeared is called Poppenberg. Two stone monuments in the form of crosses have been erected there, one on the left side and one on the right. Some say that the children were led into a cave, and that they came out again in Transylvania.

    The citizens of Hameln recorded this event in their town register, and they came to date all their proclamations according to the years and days since the loss of their children.

    According to Seyfried the 22nd rather than the 26th of June was entered into the town register.

    The following lines were inscribed on the town hall:

    In the year 1284 after the birth of Christ
    From Hameln were led away
    One hundred thirty children, born at this place
    Led away by a piper into a mountain.
    And on the new gate was inscribed: Centum ter denos cum magus ab urbe puellos
    duxerat ante annos CCLXXII condita porta fuit.

    [This gate was built 272 years after the magician led the 130 children from the city.]

    In the year 1572 the mayor had the story portrayed in the church windows. The accompanying inscription has become largely illegible. In addition, a coin was minted in memory of the event.
  • Robert Browning, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Child's Story" (1842)



22  you execute a writer [...] It sends out the signal "DON'T...GO...AROUND...KILLING...LITTLE...FUCKING...KIDS.": What, in fact, would you have said is the message sent if a totalitarian dictatorship kills a writer? Would it be this same message that Tupolski says is given? Why is Tupolski so obviously wrong? Why, rather, have a character who "do[es]n't know what signal it sends out, that's not really [his] area" give a clearly wrong reading of the meaning of killing a writer?


Act 2

Scene 1

32  weeping willow:


weeping willow Photo: Simon Kumm (2011)
  • "Weeping Willow," Oxford University Press
    A Eurasian willow with trailing branches and foliage reaching down to the ground, widely grown as an ornamental in waterside settings.
  • "Willow," The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols, edited by Udo Becker (2000)
    Because of its shape, which is poised toward the ground and reminiscent of streams of tears, the weeping willow is often a symbol of mourning.



34  Then he stopped bleeding and went blue:



41  put some limes on them: Michal is using, incorrectly, the plural form of lime which makes it sound like the citrus fruit when in fact he is referring to the calcium powder commonly used in disposing bodies.


calcium oxide 
Photo: Kemcore
  • lime (Oxford Dictionaries)
    1 [mass noun] A white caustic alkaline substance consisting of calcium oxide, which is obtained by heating limestone and which combines with water with the production of much heat; quicklime.
    1.1 A white alkaline substance consisting of calcium hydroxide, made by adding water to quicklime and used in traditional building methods to make plaster, mortar, and limewash.
    1.2 (in general use) any of a number of calcium compounds, especially calcium hydroxide, used as an additive to soil or water.
    2 archaic Birdlime.

    1 A rounded citrus fruit similar to a lemon but greener, smaller, and with a distinctive acid flavour.
    ‘roughly chop two limes’
    [mass noun] ‘wedges of lime’
    [as modifier] ‘lime juice’
  • Kathryn Meyers Emery, "New Morbid Terminology: Quicklime," Bones Don't Lie (2013)
    If you’re a fan of murder-mystery novels, you’ve probably run across quicklime before. It’s commonly cited in detective and mob stories as a method for quick and anonymous disposal of a body. Usually, the body is laid out on a tarp or placed in a burial, and then to prevent it from smelling and speed decay it is covered with quicklime. In movies and TV shows, the quicklime effectively destroys the body so that identification is prevented. [...]
    Quicklime does have uses for burials. In the Red Cross Emergency Relief Items Catalogue, quicklime and lime are listed as a tool for aiding in proper disposal of human remains that cannot be afforded a deep burial. However, the goal of the product is not to destroy the body but rather to prevent putrefaction that create odor, and attracts flies and animals. Quicklime was often used over plague or cholera burials to prevent the spread of disease, thought during this period to be transferred through noxious bad air known as miasma (a morbid term for another day).



43  what's done is done and can't never be undone: a paraphrase of Lady Macbeth's lines in act 5 scene 1 of Shakespeare's Macbeth



 Macbeth, directed by Philip Casson (1979)
  • William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 1623, edited by A. R. Braunmuller (Cambridge UP, 1999)
    GENTLEWOMAN. [...] Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her, stand close.
    DOCTOR. How came she by that light?
    GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it stood by her. She has light by her continually, 'tis her command.
    DOCTOR. You see her eyes are open.
    GENTLEWOMAN. Ay, but their sense are shut.
    DOCTOR. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
    GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
    LADY MACBETH. Yet here's a spot.
    DOCTOR. Hark, she speaks; I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
    LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One, two. Why then, 'tis time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear? Who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
    DOCTOR. Do you mark that?
    LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? What, will these hands ne'er be clean? No more o'that, my lord, no more o'that. You mar all with this starting.
    DOCTOR. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
    GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. Heaven knows what she has known.
    LADY MACBETH. Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O.
    DOCTOR. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
    GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
    DOCTOR. Well, well, well—
    GENTLEWOMAN. Pray God it be, sir.
    DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice; yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
    LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's grave.
    DOCTOR. Even so?
    LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; what's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.
    Exit



44  aggravated:


44  got on their nerves:


 

 

 

Comprehension Check

Act 1

  • Where is Michal while Katurian is being interrogated the first time? (14)
Act 2
  • How many of the three kids did Michal kill? (38, 48–49) When he tells Katurian "I was kind of playing a trick on ya" with his swearing on his life that he "didn't kill those three kids" (48), what trick was he playing?
Act 3
  • Who killed Katurian's parents? (76)
  • What is a wishing well for? What is the implied wish fulfilled that makes the well an "apt" burial place for the parents? (77)
  • What does Katurian's "not again" reveal about his electric torture? (78)
            

 

 

Study Questions

  • In the Chula production, the play opens with Katurian sitting hooded at the interrogation table. The playscript merely indicates "blindfolded" (3). What different meanings are suggested by the hood versus the blindfold?
  • Why is there a delay in revealing what Katurian does that causes him to be brought to the interrogation?
  • What is the difference or similarities between the police and the suspects?
  • At what points are expectations (readers' and characters') foiled in the play? What do these twists reveal?
  • What crimes are committed in the play? Which crimes are punished and which are not?
  • Why does the play allude to Shakespeare's Macbeth through Michal slightly misquoting Lady Macbeth's lines? What parallels or differences do you see between these two plays about murder? Compare, for example, Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking, Michal's "love [of] sleeping" (63), and Katurian's "long, desperate, sleepless night[s]" listening to noises of torture (23).
  • What responsibility does an artist have for his or her work?
  • Does this play have a happy ending? Why or why not?

           

 

   

 

Review Sheet

Characters

Katurian, Kat – "'Your name is Katurian Katurian Katurian?'" (8); "clear[s] stuff" at the "Kamenice abattoir" (9)
Michal Katurian – Katurian's older brother (9); "'He's not backward, no. He's slow to get things sometimes'" (9)
Tupolski – a police detective (3); "I am a high-ranking police officer in a totalitarian fucking dictatorship" (23)
Ariel – a police detective (3)

 


 

Vocabulary 

set

props
story
fable
parable
fairy tale
allegory; allegorical
origin story
bedtime story
deconstruction, deconstructive
self-reflexivity, self-reflexive
meta-text, meta-textual, meta-textuality, meta-narrative

plot

frame

framed narrative; layered narrative

foreshadowing; warnings; omens

suspense

denouement

narrator(s)

point of view

characters

stereotypes

plausibility

diction

voice

tone

mood

imagery

metaphor

simile

symbol, symbolic, symbolism

irony

understatement

contrast
repetition

theme(s)

literature; art; live theater

the connection between art and life

stories; storytelling; storyteller(s)
nostalgia, nostalgic
revision

truth

lies; lying; fiction

trust

doubt; suspicion

censorship

freedom

crime(s); criminal(s)
punishment
responsibility, artistic, legal, federal, filial, parental
right and wrong
fear
guilt; conscience

happy ending; unhappy ending; indeterminate ending

metafiction; metatheater; metanarrative; metatext

allusion

prior texts


 


Sample Student Responses to Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman

Response 1:

 

 

           

 

 

Reference


McDonagh, Martin. The Pillowman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.





 

 

Links
Productions

 


Media
  • "Opening Night," Broadway (2005; 2:40 min.)

  • "First Read and Introduction," The Pillowman, directed by Tracie Pang, Victoria Theatre (2007; 1:32 min.)

  • The Pillowman, directed by C. Y. Wang, Emory Chinese Theater Club (2015; 2 hr. 15:39 min.)

  • Act 1, The Pillowman, Vassar (2011; 21:13 min.)

  • Ben Pearson, "Interview: Martin McDonagh" (2014; 16:09 min.)



Martin McDonagh
Interviews

 


 

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Last updated March 4, 2019