The Pillowman Act Three Part Two

Today we blocked out the next of part of the final scene, in which Tupolski tells his story of the boy on the train tracks, we discover that the third child is actually alive, and execute Katurian.

I think the importance of the story is that, as Tupolski says, the wise man represents himself and we learn something about his character by listening to it.

….this is his whole life. The world is beneath him. These designs, these computations are all he really cares about.

In my opinion, this is the truth of Tupolski’s world view. He see’s everything and everyone only from far away and he does not feel as if he is connected to them or can empathise with them. Tupolski leads a lonely existence, he has lost his son and to me if he had a wife I would guess that he does not anymore. Maybe it is a result of his work, which forces him to disconnect from the lives and the emotions of the people he has to interrogate and kill. Maybe Tupolski’s brain is simply different. He reflects the characteristics associated with those of great intelligence, and often those who register on the autism spectrum who find fact and calculation reassuring and easily understandable, but social queues and forming relationships much harder. This would suggest why his “designs” and “computations” are so important to him, because simply they are what he is best and that sort of environment is what he finds most comfortable. 

When Ariel takes control of the investigation and uncovers the truth of the third child and all the children, Tupolski is greatly affected and is at a loss. He trusts his brain, his calculations implicitly-with them he is comfortable and surer of success. When it proved that your brain has failed you, it can be very difficult for people like Tupolski to comprehend. The cleverest of us, as well as those on the scale tend to find it hard to cope when they are wrong and take the longest time to recover. This means that the control is easily given over to Ariel, as Tupolski is still trying to make sense of how he missed such an important part of the investigation. He looks through the story for evidence, in order to try and rationalise the turn of events in his head. The problem is that Michal’s actions are not rational, they don’t follow any particular pattern because he did not have an aim other than to test out Katurian’s stories.

He chooses to burn Katurians stories also because, unlike Ariel, he does not view things from an emotional or ethical side. In his brain, Katurian has technically broke the promise that they made. So technically it is completely fair for Tupolski to burn his stories. Ariel’s importance here is that he is a character greatly ruled by his emotions. To him, beyond all rationality, there are beliefs about right and wrong. He fills in the spaces that Tupolski cannot, and saves the stories out of a feeling and not to honour any agreement.