38 pages • 1 hour read
John GuareSix Degrees of Separation
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Kandinsky Painting
The Kandinsky painting, double-sided with a “geometric and somber” side and a “wild and vivid” (3) side, represents human duality and a “double-sided” approach to life. It is particularly representative of Paul, as Paul has two sides to his character. When the audience and characters first meet him, he appears to be a “very preppy” young Harvard student in a “white Brooks Brothers shirt” (14). However, this is a front for a wilder, more vivid and vital side to his character that is slowly revealed as he is found sleeping with “hustlers” and going out partying. Paul also brings a wilder, more vivid aspect to the lives of the other characters, although it is only Ouisa who appreciates this, ultimately concluding that her time with Paul was a genuine, vital experience and wondering, “How do we keep the experience?” (118). In the very last line of the play, Paul reminds Ouisa that the Kandinsky painting is “painted on two sides” (120) and Ouisa “considers” and “smiles” (120), pleased to embrace a more vibrant side of life and thereby reinforcing the symbolic meaning of the painting. The painting can also be seen as representing the fact that the play itself is “double-sided,” functioning on one level as a farce filled with jokes and exaggerated characters and, on another level, as a tragedy in which one young man commits suicide and another is arrested and sent to prison.
Acting
When Paul first meets Ouisa and Flan, he claims that the famous actor Sidney Poitier is his father. His discussion of Poitier and acting contains several allusions to the creation of false identities. Paul claims that Poitier used to “conjure up” (22) new worlds and invent roles for himself there and even argues that Poitier, “being an actor, has no real identity” (30) but rather simply adopts the identities of the characters he portrays in movies. Although Poitier is not truly Paul’s father, these things also apply to Paul. He creates new identities for himself and plays different roles. In fact, as he says is true of Poitier, it is never clear exactly who Paul truly is; as far as the audience knows, he too “has no real identity” (30) outside of the roles he plays and personas he assumes.
The Catcher in the Rye
The fact that Paul claims to have completed a thesis on J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is highly symbolic. Holden Caulfield, the book’s protagonist, is famously fixated on the idea that he is surrounded by fakes. In fact, as Paul notes of reading the book again, “It’s exactly as I remembered. Everybody’s a phoney” (32). This highlights the shallow fakeness of many of the other characters in the play, whose liberal values are quickly revealed to be a front when they blurt out prejudiced statements, like referring to the hustler as “this thing” (49), using racial slurs like “the Japs” (39) and “Eye-tie” (42), or calling Paul “[t]his fucking black kid crack addict” (66). There is also another aspect to the book’s symbolic significance. Paul points out that the reason the book is so “comic” is because of Caulfield’s hypocrisy and the fact that he “[h]ates all phoniness and only lies to others” (32). In some respects, this mirrors Paul’s own outlook: while his presence reveals much of the phoniness and hidden prejudice of the other characters, he too “only lies to others” (32).
