the King dies is a Play of Eugene Ionesco into 1 act, created with the the Alliance Fran1caise on December 15th, 1962.

Characters

• Berenger Ier
• Marguerite (queen and first wife)
• Marie (queen and second wife)
• the Doctor (surgeon, bacteriologist, torturer and astrologer)
• Juliette (cleaning lady, nurse)
• the Guard

Summary

With the rising of the curtain, the Guard solemnly announces the Court, king Bérenger Ier enters the throne room and leaves, it is followed of the two queens, Marguerite and Marie, of Juliette and the Doctor. The situation is alarming: the cold settled, the heating refuses to function, the sun rebel and the walls of the palate are lézardent. The Marie queen who cries in front of this degradation makes tancer by the Marguerite queen for her frivolity. It is agreed that the king must be informed of this state and that the end of its reign is close, but the Marie queen refuses to accept the irreversibility of the things. The Marguerite queen insists: the ground is soft, it does not have an army in the kingdom, the population ages, the king is sick. It is ensured by the Doctor who reports that the stars are formal, it is the end.

Bérenger Ier enters the throne room and complains about his health, of the state of the Universe, of the kingdom, which the Doctor confirms by informing it of his nearest death. The king refuses to admit reality, even if it is appropriate that all is not for best, moreover it did not decide yet to die. All the court, except for the Marie queen, gets busy to describe its decrepitude and that of the world to him. Consequently, its behavior will be a succession of reversals vis-a-vis inescapable, for finally admitting it.

Analyzes

Set of themes

The central theme of the part is announced in the title: The King dies, and the king it is each one among us. Ionesco gives us to see the behavior and the usual manners of the behavior of the individual confronted with his own end. One schematically distinguishes three successive attitudes vis-a-vis a shocking truth: - the denial, the revolt and resignation. Initially, Bérenger Ier refuses to admit that it is with the anguish. - Then he revolts, not only against the inescapable character of his end, but also against itself which did not know to think of its own condition. - Last stage, the resignation which can intervene only after one intellectual advance. Inclusively, it is also a reflection on the flow of time and decrepitude, like on the perception of reality. In conclusion, death is scandalous because one did not take time to think of it. It is also represented like a spectacle, from where the second title that Ionesco had initially chosen: the Ceremony .

Characters

First of all one introduces to it characters out of the commun run, a king and his entourage (standard characters of the tragedies). The king reigns since eternity on an imaginary kingdom, subjected recently to natural disasters, wars and a contracting of his borders. The king will die (from where the title of the part), he is then confronted with his destiny and, is victim of a force which exceeds it, inflicting a form of terror on the reader. He knows (the king) that he will die in little time, thus a kind of countdown is held throughout the part (1H30), characters recall him without stop (with precision), therefore it can only resign and accept to it its death which he does not want to admit. This makes it suffer enormously and inspires to the reader a feeling of pity.

Related articles

• Eugene Ionesco
• Theater of the absurd
• 1962 with the theater

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