The Chairs Mortality Quotes

Is the Old Man rejecting the idea that his mother is in Heaven, or that she can see him? Many Absurdist plays reject the notion of an afterlife, but this doesn't necessarily seem to be the case here. Perhaps the Old Man thinks that once the dead have passed on, they are no longer aware of the world of the living. Then again, it could be that he thinks there is no afterlife.

This statement seems to go along with the idea that the work of our lives is what gives us meaning. You could interpret this as a rejection of the idea that there's any sort of reward for us in the afterlife (if there even is an afterlife). It's what we do with our time on earth that matters.

Snow is often used as a metaphor for old age and death, whereas flowers represent vitality and life. The Old Man seems to hope here that he can regain a bit of his youthful vigor at the end of his life. This late blooming will presumably come in the form of his message to the world.

Here the Old Woman recounts how her son blamed her for the death of lots of baby birds. The image of the streets filled with "dying baby birds" strikes us as particularly horrifying. If this event really happened, it must have been a terrible way for the child to discover the harsh realities of death. It's interesting that the birds are specifically babies. You could interpret this as suggesting that from the moment we are born we are all destined to die. Perhaps the dying chicks horrified the son so much because, like him, they were still so young.

The elderly couple's double suicide sort of comes out of nowhere. They say it's because they've completed their mission in life: now that the Orator has arrived to deliver the message, there's nothing left for them to do. We wonder why they didn't hang out just a little bit longer to make sure he did it right. Of course, in the absurd world of The Chairs, such questions may just be a waste of time.

You see this kind of attitude toward death a lot in literature: the noble hero dies valiantly and is forever honored for his courageous sacrifice. (Think Braveheart.) It seems to us that the play is satirizing this romantic notion. The old couple dies without their mission being fulfilled. On top of that, there's a good chance that they were the last people on earth anyway. It's quite possible that there's no one left to remember them and that their death was all for nothing.

The Old Man launches into a little poem about how he wishes he and his wife could rot together in death. As we discuss in our section on "Isolation," many Existentialists thought we all die alone. The romantic idea of the couples' bodies decaying together seems a bit absurd in this view. Why does it matter if their bodies are together or not? They're dead and won't know the difference anyway.

This line makes us laugh every time we read it. Number one: Why does the old couple seem to think that people leave deeper traces than cities? There are tons of ancient ruins scattered throughout the earth, yet millions upon millions of people have died whom no one remembers at all. Number two: If the memories of specific people did last longer than those of cities, why would you care if they named a street after you? The city would be gone, so there would be no streets. Number three: The whole world appears to be underwater, so there aren't even any streets left. This line seems to be skewering the false comfort many of us take in the thought of being remembered after we die.

The Old Man seems to be expressing a view that he and his wife will be united in some kind of afterlife. Many Existentialists believed that there was no such thing as an afterlife, or at least thought there was no real way of knowing. In this light, the Old Man's certainty of reuniting with his wife after death seems absurd.

What is the darkness beyond the door? Is it the nothingness of death? The meaninglessness of life? Do the two amount to the same thing? What does it mean when "human noises of the invisible crowd" fill this void, then fade away? Could it be symbolic of the way we come to life in the midst of meaninglessness and die in the same way? Or could you interpret it as meaning that we are the light in the darkness?