Page 88 - YB1967

Reality or Illusion_? "'RIGHT YOU ARE, IF YOU THINK YOU ARE!' is a statement of Pirnndello's 'relativism' in this play, pre-eminently, we see the struggle for life in its inner essence, life in the private depths. The struggle is caused, or exacerbated, by the desire of other people to know the truth about a certain family. Pirandello maintains, we are told, that truth is relative and subjective, the joke being that people know the truth already since whatever seems to each of them so is SQ. One would think the play philosophical, and the philosophy cynical, but what is this love of truth that Pirandello condemns? It is no Socratic dedication, it is Mrs. Grundy's nosiness, it is the idle curiosity of Ciuzza, Luzza, and Neln which has gained in malignancy as it has risen in social station. This love of truth is the pseudo-religion of the bureaucratic fact, on the altars of which men are sacrificed to paper and typewriters." -Eric Bentley Only "The Truth" will Jali_,jy this grollp oj cots Jllrrollnding the helpleu canary.