SOURCE: Jean Anouilh, Columbia University Press, 1971, 48 p.

In this excerpt, Archer examines elements of satire and black humor in Anouilh's piéces griçantes.

The key to the cycle of pièces grinçantes lies in the scene in La Valse des Toréadors during which General Saint-Pé becomes desperate at the thought that life is not at all what he had believed it to be. Perplexed, he turns to the doctor and asks him the meaning of all he has read in books, the grandiose loves, the prodigious revelations, the tender young girls who love men forever, the joy one feels at having at one's side a little "brother in arms" who changes into a lovable woman at night. The doctor anvswers calmly that these things represent the dreams of authors who must have been poor devils just like the general, and they both agree that such...