The Pillowman

Michal is Katurian’s older brother, and he is responsible for committing the murders the brothers are being investigated for. Michal has brain damage as a result of the physical and mental torture his parents inflicted on him as a child. Embodying traits of the “wise fool” archetype, Michal seems naive and childlike, but his actions and direct way of speaking often reveal deep truths. Having murdered two children, Michal clearly doesn’t share a socially functional ethical code. However, he explains to Katurian, “I know it was wrong. Really. But it was very interesting” (34), illustrating a view that is not so different from Katurian’s own belief that art has value independent of its inherent morality. While Katurian sees his fictional stories as valuable insofar as they reflect life and truth, Michal contributes the contrasting yet compatible view that life imitates fiction—and that this doesn’t devalue the stories, no matter how gruesome the implications. Regardless of The Moral Implications of Art, both brothers agree that art is valuable insofar as it is interesting.

Michal is a tragic figure: He is innocent not in that he does no harm but in that he does not comprehend the harm he does. This innocence leads to his death. His relationship to Katurian, and especially the way in which Katurian kills Michal (as painlessly as possible to prevent further suffering), creates an allusion to the character of Lennie from John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men. Lennie was also killed by his brother in a tragic act of altruism. Both characters are “wise fools” whose naivety causes harm while also allowing important questions to emerge.

Ariel, an antagonist in The Pillowman, is one of the detectives who interrogates Katurian and Michal as suspects in the murders of three children. Ariel plays the “bad cop” in a classic “good cop, bad cop” routine alongside Tupolski, the other detective. Initially coming off as excessively aggressive and violent, Ariel turns out to be the most dynamic character in the play. When he finds out that Katurian did not commit the crimes he was suspected of, Ariel sympathizes with him and no longer wishes to punish him. He ends up keeping Katurian’s stories in his file—as Katurian wanted—in defiance of Tupolski’s orders.

Ariel is also a complex and round character. In his dealings with Katurian and Michal, he is combative, manipulative, and even cruel. He pretends to torture Michal, even going so far as to put fake blood on his hand, just to disturb Katurian. He later reveals that he was sexually abused by his father as a child, which explains his motivations for punishing people suspected of hurting children. Ariel is not sadistic, as he might seem superficially; instead, his own childhood trauma motivates him to prioritize the wellbeing of children. At the end of the play, Ariel no longer wants to execute Katurian, but Tupolski insists on it. At first, Ariel appears a perfect fit for the “bad cop” archetype in his and Tupolski’s “good cop, bad cop” routine, but this turns out to an instance of ironic misdirection. In the play’s final moments, he emerges as far more empathetic than his partner.