Within the context of repressive family culture, this essay examines a train of fairytale violence that is submerged in Martin McDonagh’s problem play The Pillowman. This fairytale violence of the child abuse is represented by various layered storytellings via actor’s verbal performance in the play. It is true that the imbalance of power in society and family has been a chronic subject throughout human history. This principle of imbalanced power then has led to a never-ending burst of unilateral violence. Hence, McDonagh portrays drastically dark and wretched childhood story of the Katurian brothers in public. Because of the tacit secrecy or with memories of trauma, Katurian’s literary imagination is exaggerated with a disturbing Gothic fantasy in his fairytale writing.
The staged violence unfolds old wounds and inveterate matters in human relations on the whole. So to speak, the lethal violence in this play asks for an urgent examination of the family and its relationship. And equally McDonagh indicates the gravity of destructiveness inherent in the politics of totalitarianism. He produces visually recursive representations of lifelike pain performance on the stage. With this, he forces us to consider issues of repression and violence within a family. At the conclusion, this essay puts meaning to review repressive family culture through tracing the fairytale violence mingled in The Pillowman.