The Pillow Man Act Three Part One

In Scene One of Act Three, Katurian has finally consented to writing up a full confession, showing that he is resigned and has accepted that he will never escape this place. Now his main focus is saving his stories, and he is willing to be remembered as the murderer of three children in order to do it.

Ariel also feels that this confession is the end. He is no longer interested in playing games and only wants this case to be over. He is angered by Tupolski’s little “Write quicker” speech and rapidly shuts it down with his response. The only one still pretending is Tupolski, as he has been throughout the entire play. For me, Tupolski is the character that the audience will find the most difficulty with, when trying to distinguish the difference between what is the characters pretending and what is reality. It seems to me that Tupolski is so wrapped up in the ‘fake’ version of himself that he can’t separate them during the investigation. No matter what may happen, nothing will influence his course until the original objective has been carried out; in this case it is to execute Katurian.


I think that there are two options when viewing Tupolski’s character at this point in the play. Either he is heartless- cold and calculating- and the sudden outbursts of mocking exaggeration that he is prone too are a sign of an instability he is not aware of. Or he is clever-a mixture of this cleverness, his difficulty with social situations, his job and his loss have resulted in someone that doesn’t know who he is, but does know who he should be as a detective. He makes himself a character that it is impossible to like as a result of this. Whilst reading the confession, Tupolski laughs at Katurian’s choice to speak of how he loves his brother. Katurian has just killed Michal and Tupolski knowns that he feels pain over it and wants to make this worse. He even chooses to riel Ariel with the story of the Little Jesus by describing it in excruciating detail.

Like skip to the bit about the crown of thorns.

Or skip to the bit about the cat-o’nine-tails.

Or skip to the bit about the ‘carrying a crucifix around the room until her legs fucking buckled.’

Or skip to the bit right after that.

Despite all this, I do not believe that Tupolski is sadistic. There seems to be a reason for every terrible thing he does. He chooses to say the above in order to make Ariel angry, so that he will hurt Katurian. The investigation appears to be veering of its usual tracks, Ariel is behaving differently than expected and Tupolski uses this to try and return to the “norm”. This is also why he chooses to interrogate Katurian rather than allowing Ariel to torture him anymore. He has been placated by Ariel’s intentions and doesn’t need it to follow through, for him to feel back in control. In his mind, the torture has already served its purpose, and he finds no joy in hurting anyone unnecessarily, although neither will it bother him if he can find a reason to justify it.

I think the reason why Tupolski doesn’t have the same character development arc as Ariel is because of the differences in their circumstances. Ariel feels connected to the case through the abuse he experienced from his parents, which has left him angry and bitter, but also able to form a link with Katurian. This is why we see a more emotional side to Ariel in Scene One, Act Three, and even a slightly kinder side right at the end of the play when he saves the stories. On the other hand, Tupolski’s only connection is through the loss of his son. Having had a child himself, and therefore the deep ingrained protection instincts that come with it, he can only see the horror of what Katurian has supposedly done. Furthermore, my view of Tupolski is that he struggles to form emotional connections and as a result would shut down when discovering a case to do with murdered children, when his own child is also gone.