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    The Bald Soprano

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    1) In The Bald Soprano by Eugéne Ionesco, the characters have a nonsensical experience of time as the clock strikes randomly and time seems to jump around. 2) The characters also shift randomly between tenses when discussing their friend Bobby Watson, undermining the purpose of tense in language. 3) By disconnecting time from reality and randomizing tense, Ionesco questions the dependence on language to understand the world and make sense of memory, identity, and the self.

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    The Bald Soprano

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    api-314201462
    124 views2 pages
    1) In The Bald Soprano by Eugéne Ionesco, the characters have a nonsensical experience of time as the clock strikes randomly and time seems to jump around. 2) The characters also shift randomly between tenses when discussing their friend Bobby Watson, undermining the purpose of tense in language. 3) By disconnecting time from reality and randomizing tense, Ionesco questions the dependence on language to understand the world and make sense of memory, identity, and the self.

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    the bald soprano

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    1) In The Bald Soprano by Eugéne Ionesco, the characters have a nonsensical experience of time as the clock strikes randomly and time seems to jump around. 2) The characters also shift randomly between tenses when discussing their friend Bobby Watson, undermining the purpose of tense in language. 3) By disconnecting time from reality and randomizing tense, Ionesco questions the dependence on language to understand the world and make sense of memory, identity, and the self.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    124 views2 pages

    The Bald Soprano

    Uploaded by

    api-314201462
    1) In The Bald Soprano by Eugéne Ionesco, the characters have a nonsensical experience of time as the clock strikes randomly and time seems to jump around. 2) The characters also shift randomly between tenses when discussing their friend Bobby Watson, undermining the purpose of tense in language. 3) By disconnecting time from reality and randomizing tense, Ionesco questions the dependence on language to understand the world and make sense of memory, identity, and the self.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Tense,

    Time, and Absurdity Within The Bald Soprano



    In The Bald Soprano, by Eugne Ionesco, Mrs. Martin exclaims, Thanks to you, weve

    passed a thoroughly Cartesian quarter of an hour (42). Although she addresses this comment
    specifically to the Fire Captain, her statement aptly describes the entirety of this bizarre and
    truly thought-provoking drama. By completely upending his characters senses of time and
    communication, Ionesco not only creates a comically nonsensical piece, but also demands that
    his readers question their own grasps of language and reality in a social world.

    In nearly every scene of Bald Soprano, the striking of the clock punctuates random

    moments of conversation with a frenzy of tolls: sometimes many tolls at once, and at other
    times (somehow) no tolls at all. In fact, Ionesco notes, The clock strikes as often as it likes
    (17). Within these characters world, time seems to have no bearing on reality; time is not
    linear, as it tends to jump ahead, skip back, and repeat whenever it desires. Twice within the
    play the clock actually mimics the tension between [the characters] and strikes accordingly
    (18). That the clock appears not to be an objective constant suggests that people do not live
    according to time, but that time is a product of the human mind. This revelation calls into
    question the usage of time within language and what purpose it serves.

    In evaluating the play as a cohesive whole, it is clear that one overarching theme is the

    arbitrariness of language. During one particularly perplexing scene, Mr. and Mrs. Smith are
    discussing their deceased friend, Bobby Watson; however, although the conversation begins by
    marking Bobby 2-years-dead, within the next few lines he is four-years-dead, then alive and
    engaged, and finally married with children. During the course of this exchange, the Smiths

    regularly change the tense with which they talk about Bobby. Since a languages tense typically
    serves as a marker for communication, these random linguistic shifts are unsettling. Ultimately,
    Ionesco devalues the importance of time within language by connecting an irrational and
    jumbled sequence of past, future, and present tenses until, with every strike of the clock, tense
    not only changes but so too, seemingly, does reality. As a result, the reader is forced to
    consider his own unthinking dependence upon language to make sense of the world.
    Language has no actual effect upon the condition of Bobby Watson; yet, without
    language, one would have no way to communicate events within temporal space and,
    consequently, the construction and verbal conveyance of memory would be severely limited.
    Furthermore, without proper arrangement of memory within time, one loses ones sense of
    self, as seen in the first conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Martin: I feel Ive met you before
    but I have a poor memory, dear sir, so I cant say (11). Without sense of self, one forfeits
    individual identity and becomes simply a person a Bobby Watson like everyone else.
    Following the complete breakdown of language by the end of the play, that is exactly what
    happens: Mr. and Mrs. Martin restart as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, indicating that no character is
    truly able to grasp his or her own identity.

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