Author: Amrita S. Iyer, Independent Scholar, India
Email: iyeramrita@gmail.com
Published: November 20, 2019
https://doi.org/10.22492/ijah.6.2.08
Citation: Iyer, A. S.(2019). A Shot in the Dark: Delogocentrism in Harold Pinter’s The Dwarfs and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities, 6(2). https://doi.org/10.22492/ijah.6.2.08
Abstract
The advent of postmodernism and poststructuralism has served to decentre the idea of logos: reason. The “decentred” universe has taken centre-stage in a fair share of postmodern fiction, especially absurdist theatre. Central to this paper is delogocentrism (as opposed to logocentrism), as articulated by Jacques Derrida. Associated issues are the problems of language, the metaphysics of presence, the locus of identity, and so on, leading to the contention that reality is constructed through language. This paper is an attempt to analyse delogocentrism in Harold Pinter’s The Dwarfs (1968), in which there is an attempt to articulate postmodern anguish; and Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), in which delogocentrism is theatrically represented.
Keywords: delogocentrism, absurd, theatre, metaphysics, identity, Derrida