SOURCE: “Mental Life in Thomas Bernhard’s Comic Types,” in Missing Persons: Character and Characterization in Modern Drama, The University of Georgia Press, 1994, pp. 108–54.

In the following essay, Gruber provides a psychological analysis of Bernhard’s characters and surveys his literary techniques.

Answer M D’s and Mrs. Dingley’s letter, Pdfr, d’ye hear? No, says Pdfr, I won’t yet, I’m busy: you’re a saucy rogue. Who talks?

Journal to Stella

What time is it No don’t tell me what time it is. …

It is good that you are there and that you are listening to me We are a conspiracy.

Ein Fest für Boris

Of character in the works of Thomas Bernhard one might say what Claude Rawson said once of character in Swift’s satires, that discussing it led only to “deserts of circularity.”¹ Certainly the figures in Bernhard’s...