The Pillowman

Written by: Martin McDonagh

Victoria Pallien

Exposition Setting: police interrogation room, unknown place, present day Mood: dark & depressing Plot line: Katurian, a writer, has created terrible stories about the deaths of

young children. The stories are then acted out upon real children, and Katurian and his brother are accused of the murders.

Characters: Katurian: writer, disturbed by the torture his parents inflicted upon his

brother Michal: Katurian’s brother, looks up to Katurian Tupolski: the good cop interrogating Katurian & Michal Ariel: the aggressive cop interrogeting Katurian & Michal

Mother Father Girl Boy

Inciting Incident

Katurian and Michal are being held in an interrogation room and are questioned by two police officers about murders that acted out Katurian’s disturbed stories. When Katurian hears Michal screaming, he insists on seeing him. Katurian then learns his brother admits to three of the murders, after he, himself, had denied it (Katurian in fact did not murder anyone).

Conflict

Seeing at Katurian did not kill anyone, he feels he should be set free. He wants to blame it all on his brother, Michal. However, he simply loves Michal too much to let this happen.

Rising Action

Katurian kills his brother, Michal, and admits to three of the murders. However, he answers a question incorrectly and the policemen start to suspect him of not killing the children. The policemen end up punishing Katurian for killing his brother and parents.

Climax

Ariel states the stories are pure evil and that he will burn them to protect others.

Katurian protests and tell the story of “The Pilowman”. As he is about to finish the story, Ariel kills him.

Falling Action

Ariel does not end up burning Katurian’s stories.

The case of the murders is solved.

Katurian

In this story, Katurian is the protagonist. He would be classfied as a static character

because he doesn’t go through a change during the story.

Katurian’s entire life revolved around death and torture. His parents tortured his brother when his was a young boy and in order to get back at them, Katurian killed them. Katurian ends up, later, killing his own brother. If Katurian’s parents did not torture and ruin Michal, Katurian might not have been as disturbed.