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Kaira, Aaron, Regina

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"You killed our little brothers" (13).

Little (repeated several times).

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Adoptive parents being abusive- use the same actors

Jesus being abused to become a savior, child being abused to become a victim

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Abuse of children

Magical Realism

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"You killed our little brothers" reference/foreshadowing theme in which Katurian kills Michal

Reversal to child's death

Reasoning/logic

Revenge

Spite

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The Violence of Innocence -- Little Jesus is a figure that combines the purity of a child with extreme violence, turning the idea of innocence into something unsettling.

Moral Ambiguity -- The characters often operate in a gray area between good and evil, and the story of Little Jesus challenges ideas of moral clarity, especially when it deals with themes of punishment and sacrifice.

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Reversal 1: Girl's father dies (deserved; treated her badly)

Reversal 2: Girl is killed by applemen (not deserved but fits with theme)

Reversal 3: Father eats apples to spite daughter, but spites himself instead.

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- Morality and Ethics

- Death and Sacrifice

- Innocence vs. Corruption

-"Do you still want to be like Jesus"

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Snow White maybe

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glow in the dark green

a little bit peculiar

misery

unpaintoverable

pink

rain

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The Bible

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Child torture seen as a good thing (for the girl, it's because it improves her relationship to her religion, for Michal it's because it makes Katurian a better author)

Disabled characters (blind man in Little Jesus girl, Michal is developmentally disabled, the deaf boy in Topulski's story)

Adults not listening to children

McDonagh blends absurdity with tragic moments, often making the audience laugh and feel uncomfortable simultaneously.

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the torture inflicted upon Michal and the violence upon the girl from Little Jesus by adults that are trying to push a child to their breaking points and seeing what will result from being pushed that far

pg 33 "'You don't write about little green pigs any more, do you?'"

the Pillowman is in the final telling (pg 102-103)

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The "Othering" of Man

Happiness and can it be forgotten.

Is it worth living a long, terrible life or a short, happy life?

Is it justifiable to kill for a "good" cause?

Is something worth it in the present if it will only be reversed in the future?

Religion/Christianity & the Afterlife

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abuse

family dynamics

legacy

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Jealousy

Religion

Individuality

Resisting conformity

Bullying

Controlling "caretakers"

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Repeats "that little deaf boy" in some variation about 13 times

Racist (description of Chinese man & boy)

Ableist

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"That was a happy ending" pg 60

"Once upon a time," pg 31

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Racist stereotyping of Chinese people

Isolation of the old man in the tower

Children put in harmful situations

Little boy = similar to Michal, theme of mental incapacity

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The action of throwing the paper airplane inadvertently saves the little boy.

Tupolski reverses his own narrative of the intentions of the old man in throwing the plane. (from not caring about the fate of the boy to throwing the plane in order to save the boy)

Reversal of Katurian's endings

Reversal of Katurian questioning Tupolski about his story instead of vice versa, as before

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Tragedy

Pillow

Suicide

Smile

"I've always been happy and I'll always be happy... But I've never been happy." - 45

"There was a man, who did not look like normal men" - the Othering of Men

Fading away

Heaven

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Emulates Katurian's stories at first

Odd methods of salvation

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TWATWB, twist at the end w Michal being one of the children visited by the pillowman

Katurian using pillows to kill his parents and Michal

"Once upon a time," fairytales

Tooth fairy, friendly figure visiting at night

Ties to Tulposki's own child drowning, the children the pillowman assist with suicide never making it seem like a suicide

Michal sacrificing himself for his brother's stories - the grand inquisitor, Dostoevsky? with Michal being Jesus

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The pied piper is actually the cart man

It's suggested that the pied piper brought the rats in order to have an excuse to take the kids

Has mercy on the kid by cutting off his toes because he shared a sandwich with him

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Who's who/ who dies in different versions

pg 34 "he burnt the story," but someone else threatens to burn his stories

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Happy disposition

Barefoot

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Unique green pig becomes like everyone else

The pink pigs become green pigs

The original green pig stays pink and becomes a bit peculiar again

Original pink pigs cry like babies when they become green

At the start, one pig was sad while the others were happy. At the end, one pig is happy and the others are sad.

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deception: the Pied Piper bringing the rats to create the problem for the villagers but using that to achieve his real goal which is to take the village children

suffering leads to better outcomes: the boy getting his toes cut off can't follow the Pied Piper so he survives

kindness is rewarded: the boy offers his sandwich to the Pied Piper and he saves his life

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The Pied Piper

this story contributes to a reoccurring theme of suffering leading to better outcomes

related to the toes being found in Katurian's house and a child murder

Ariel's story

The Pied Piper is leading the children like Ariel expects the children to come to him

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pillow over parents heads + pillow over michal's head

Katurian not caring that he might die, he just doesn't want his stories to die. He wants them to live on

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Bible

Wicked

Three Little Pigs

This little Piggy

Animal Farm

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Enforcing conformity - especially with farmers

Changing colors/faces

Repeated bullying

Repeated Biblical references and prayer

Inability to return to what color they used to be

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One instant "reversal" within just this story itself is the character of the pillowman. The pillowman is described as "His head was a circular pillow. And on his head he had two button eyes and a big smiley mouth which was always smiling, wo you could always see his teeth, which were also pillows. little white pillows." (43). The character in the beginning of the story is portrayed as a hero and he seems like he is nice, comforting, loving, etc. Katurian even says that he (the pillowman) "had to look soft and safe" (44). However, immediately after that we find and discover that "his job was a very sad and a very difficult one." (44). After this we learn that the job of the pillowman is dark and evil. This in and of itself is a reversal and subverts the expectations of the audience.

A second reversal within this story is that as we learn that the pillowmans job is to get the children he encounters to commit suicide and "avoid the years of pain that would just end up in the same place for them anyway" (44). The audience inherently does not like this but by the end of the story, we learn that Michal likes the pillowman. He is his hero in some sense which gives another perspective to Michal and at this point in the story reverses the audiences expectation.

So in sum both reversals entail something that is good becoming bad or something that is bad becoming good. A pillow itself can be used to sleep and comfort someone, but also (and in this play is used) to smother someone.

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No child death (that is discussed at least)

"Uh-huh." "Ah-hah" after discoveries are made about each man (Rapist, Murderer, man in cage)

The caged man is worse than a murderer or rapist, even a nun cannot pray for him.

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The Highwayman

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"Uh-huh" "Ah-hah"

Refers to the caged man as "our man"

"The last words our man ever says are 'Will I go to Hell?' And the last sound he ever hears is the highwayman quietly laughing." (18)

gibbet= gallow

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Repetition of the phrases "excessive fucking force", "entirely innocent individual", and "two wrongs do not make a right"

Excessive "fuck"s, emphasizing how strongly Ariel feels

'Good policeman' with variations on the words 'good' and 'policeman' -- Tristan

"Two wrongs do not make a right" - Tristan

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Sense of justice: Ariel wants to be known as a protector of children and is willing to do anything to make that happen.

Aftermath of trauma

Retribution: Because Ariel cannot take out his anger on his father, he gets catharsis out of torturing/killing/beating up those who harm children. - Tristan

Hypocrisy: Ariel talks very negatively throughout this monologue about how he despises people who would be violent blindly towards children, yet his answer is to be blindy violent. This all comes to a head when he mentions that he, like his father became a violent alcoholic, which does satisfy the comedic beat, but also proves that while he holds disdain for his father, Ariel is an imperfect character whose tragic flaw is that no matter how far he tries to run, he is running in the circle his father left for him. - Tristan

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The "sense of justice" theme gets turned around when Ariel realizes how awful it would be to torture Katurian with the electrodes, but feels that it is a suitable punishment for even writing a story about killing children.

It is revealed that Ariel's fantasy of being a savior for children spawned from him having an adverse childhood, wishing he had someone to protect him from danger, specifically a better father figure.

Ariel is against the murder of kids, but not against the murder of adults.

Rather than giving things (violent punishments) to adults who harm kids to cause fear and punishment, Ariel's dream is to have kids give things (sweets) to him out of respect and gratitude. - Tristan

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The aftermath of Ariel's story explains why he takes on the role of the "bad cop." He is more likely to rile to anger because of his trauma.

Learning more about Ariel's backstory explains why he would be angry that someone would write stories about children being hurt for purposes of entertainment and/or catharsis, and why Katurian's non-chalant nature about writing the stories of violence make Ariel even angrier -- Tristan

This also follows the pattern throughout the story of adults confronting the violence they experienced as children, but they confront it with violence, therefore repeating the same cycles, even if they do not want to- Tristan