CHAPTER 3 Jean genet’s the maids is an elective drama which begins from a play within a play. Genet is clearly not interested in creating any kind of details of an event for the audience, he just takes two essentials from the case of the relationship between the mistress and the two maids who desire to kill their mistress. By writing the maids Genet has been regarded as a thief, homosexual and the writer of literature of blasphemy. Often theatre has been described as serving a mirror to the society in which it can see its own image. Many of the interpreters have seen the play as genet’s direct projection of his own fantasies and manifestations of his own unconscious. Critics have interpreted the maids psychoanalytically and have understood …show more content…
Anticipation of themes in Genet’s play is the merger of fantasy and reality. Another example of the distinction shown between reality and fake is when Claire and solange had been role playing in the first sequence, the alarm clock rings and this suggests a break of the fantasy world and a return to the real world, as if they got lost and delusioned and got back into reality in an abrupt manner. Genet’s interest lies in exploring the themes of mirror and its illusionary images. However the balcony reflects social patterns which contribute to the total impact despite the anti realistic features.The presentation of the maids can be said as a communion between spectator and the actor. However the balcony is a radical reinterpretation of how the theatre functions. The balcony invites the audience to participate in many of the situations and fantasies visually which Genet foregrounds in his novels . Genet employs the image of a brothel in which sexuality had no role to play and we are principally shown the desire for power, society confuses prestige with power and identify one with the other and that’s what makes them perform role playing of the men in power They dream of what seems to them to be the supreme form of power. We learn, moreover that the revolution going on outside threatens the very foundations of the established