The Use Of Props In The Plays Of Ionesco And Its Metaphorical Analysis

Among a variety of absurd stage images of Ionesco, stage props are extremely important and unique elements. Through the use of stage props, a golden combination of absurd form and theme is realized. Ionesco holds that dramatist should make full use of stage props, which may provide more information and extend the meaning of words. This special stage technique was called'simile'by Beckett. In Ionesco's stage, stage props not only appear in great number frequently but they are of eccentric and absurd style, for example, numerous chairs, absurd noses, piles of eggs, bulgy corpus, proliferate furniture, splendid oil painting, rushing rhinoceros, and flying powder and bomb. Expressing agony which can not be expressed by human actors, these stage props, together with actors, represent characters in the play. This paper starts from stage props; through the analysis of the characteristics of the use of stage props and its figurative meaning, the writer tries to have a better and more profound understanding of dramas of Ionesco. The specific figurative meaning of stage props in Ionesco's plays are presented in the following five aspects: tangible substance, intangible consciousness, complicated and deteriorated human relationship, metamorphic symbols, emptiness and confusion of existence. Besides, from an artistic point of view, Ionesco's use of stage props not only strengthens and enriches expressing techniques of drama, but it inherits and develops'effect of the distance'advocated by Brecht, which successfully renders artistic theory to practice.