Extreme Apathy in John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation Essay

Extreme Apathy in John Guares sextette Degrees of Separation Many authors go to great lengths to explore the limits of human experience, testing realms beyond the imagination. Anything from physical boundaries to social boundaries are broken and thus redefined Kafka explores the life of a man turned into a bug, Nabokov examines the life of a man ruled by a sexual desire that is taboo. With so much effort focused on the extremes of life, one work, a play by John Guare entitled Six Degrees of Separation, stands out. Certainly, the events are extraordinary based on a true story, Six Degrees is the tale of a five-year-old con man, professing to be the son of Sidney Poitier, and his effect on the lives of several New York socialites. capital of Minnesota is the Eliza Doolittle of the modern age, adopting all the skills, stories, and styles that make him the perfect houseguest. Pauls charisma ensures that at every encounter, his presence leaves its mark. One broke and broken young man na med Rick, after losing his last dime and last shred of dignity to an encounter with Paul, throws himself from his triad floor tenement apartment. From the way that the New Yorkers speak of their experiences with Paul, one would think that Guare has crafted yet another story exploring the range of human experience, probing the impact and entailment of encounters among friends and strangers. However, as much as some incidents, such as Ricks suicide, suggest the extreme and most violent ends of the interaction, Guares play leads us d accept a in any case familiar path to a rather harrowing conclusion that the most unnerving edge of human experience is not, in fact, the most extreme and violent, only the most common and natural to human nature. Guares play is peopled with characters ... ...e to present ourselves and have some hand in our own destiny, we are paralyzed. As Paul says, the end of Waiting for Godot is Lets go. Yes, lets. They do not move (25). At the end of the play, Ou isa is about to go to Sothebys, but then pauses to watch Paul in her own mind. The lights go down as she remains on stage. Ouisa is not saved, and in the end we must doubt that she will find momentum enough to salt away the substance that is required to have a life. Instead of moving into a life of meaning, she will float to Sothebys, with a drink in hand and an svelte smile. One can picture the unwritten end to follow, Ouisa at Sothebys We had the strangest call tonight, that imposter that came into our lives, and you know, I had such a revelation about our lives . . . NOTES 1 John Guare, Six Degrees of Separation. New York Dramatists Play Service, 1992.