In his essay on Theater No More Masterpieces, Antonin Artaud, laid the groundwork for what he believed was the cure to the malaise that he felt plagued the drama world, by manner proposing the theater of cruelty. It is characterized by violent images, that are meant to “crush and hypnotize” the sensibilities of the audience. Like symbolism, images, and words are not direct and literal, instead they focus on nonsense, and a lack of the real. However, unlike symbolism, Artaud wishes to abandon psychology, and representations, for more of an attack on the audience’s senses, and morals (Artaud, pgs.359-62). Artaud thought that theater should not be an intellectual exercise, but one that deems to shock the audience, and rid them of the disease of the …show more content…
The story starts off rather simple, two young people are in love, and as other characters enter the scene, they seem to object to that. However, just as in symbolism, as the play progresses, the logic seems to dissipate. It is the violence, and the absurd physical scenes that take precedent for the purposes of the play. The violence itself, is never direct however. Instead, it seems to just happen to the characters, as they go from talking to bleeding, to dead, in the course of just one scene, and as this is absurdist, they don’t stay dead. The nonsense doesn’t stop there though, as animals fall from the sky, and scorpions crawl out of a character’s body. After this the play just sort of ends, with nothing really tying up the “plot” (Artaud, pgs. 352-355). This play leaves its audience shocked and confused, with no real answers as to what is was about, but that seems to be the point. Artaud aimed to attack the common ideals of analysis, and intellectual debate on themes and message, and he succeeds in those goal via The Spurt of Blood, though I do feel that perhaps this method for waking the public up may be a bit too