Previous
The Clerk
The owner of an atelier—which is ostensibly a fashion house but truly a brothel—who employs the Mother as a dressmaker and the Step-Daughter as a prostitute after the Clerk’s death. In fact, she gives the Mother work as a ploy to get to the Step-Daughter, and as a result the Mother despises her, because it was at her atelier that the Father and Step-Daughter reunited, when he sought her sexual services, possibly in full awareness of her identity. In the second act, the Father hangs up hats and mantles, “the very articles of her trade,” and the “fat, oldish” Pace suddenly appears in the room, strutting to the stage with a “comical elegance” and blurring the lines between the supposedly realistic action of the play and space of the theater, on the one hand, and the world of authorial fantasy, on the other. Pace speaks in broken, half-Italian English (half-Spanish Italian in the original), which the Actors and Characters self-consciously admit offers comic relief—at once in the play they are planning to stage and the play as the audience experiences it. Nevertheless, this comic dimension of her persona contrasts sharply with her line of work and its horrifying effects on the family.
Madame Pace Quotes in Six Characters in Search of an Author
The Six Characters in Search of an Author quotes below are all either spoken by Madame Pace or refer to Madame Pace. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 2 Quotes
Excuse me, all of you! Why are you so anxious to destroy in the name of a vulgar, commonplace sense of truth, this reality which comes to birth attracted and formed by the magic of the stage itself, which has indeed more right to live here than you, since it is much truer than you—if you don’t mind my saying so? Which is the actress among you who is to play Madame Pace? Well, here is Madame Pace herself. And you will allow, I fancy, that the actress who acts her will be less true than this woman here, who is herself in person. You see my daughter recognized her and went over to her at once. Now you’re going to witness the scene!
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
On the stage you can’t have a character becoming too prominent and overshadowing all the others. The thing is to pack them all into a neat little framework and then act what is actable. I am aware of the fact that everyone has his own interior life which he wants very much to put forward. But the difficulty lies in this fact: to set out just so much as is necessary for the stage, taking the other characters into consideration, and at the same time hint at the unrevealed interior life of each. I am willing to admit, my dear young lady, that from your point of view it would be a fine idea if each character couldtell the public all his troubles in a nice monologue or a regular one hour lecture (good humoredly). You must restrain yourself, my dear, and in our own interest, too; because this fury of yours, this exaggerated disgust you show, may make a bad impression, you know. After you have confessed to me that there were others before him at Madame Pace’s and more than once…
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Six Characters in Search of an Author LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Madame Pace Character Timeline in Six Characters in Search of an Author
The timeline below shows where the character Madame Pace appears in Six Characters in Search of an Author. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1
...“moral sanity,” and while the Step-Daughter sees his visits to “certain ateliers like that of Madame Pace ” as evidence to the contrary, he insists that “this seeming contradiction” is proof of...
(full context)
After the Clerk’s death, the Father explains, the Mother became a modiste (dressmaker) at Madame Pace ’s atelier—a high-class one, the Step-Daughter insists, but the Mother regrets never knowing that “the...
(full context)
Act 2
The Manager cuts off the subject and asks the Step-Daughter if the scene of Madame Pace ’s atelier is right. The Step-Daughter “do[es]n’t recognize the scene” but the Father agrees it...
(full context)
...but the Manager means the Step-Daughter, who prepares to act out the scene. He realizes Madame Pace is not present, and asks “what the devil’s to be done” about her absence.
(full context)
...on the stage. He declares that, “by arranging the stage for her,” they can make Madame Pace appear—and she does. The “fat, oldish” Madame Pace walks down from the theater’s entrance, made-up...
(full context)
...scene” to begin, but the stage directions note that “the scene between the Step-Daughter and Madame Pace has already begun […] in a manner impossible for the stage,” with Madame Pace holding...
(full context)
...against “the conventions of the theatre,” which requires “the scene between [the Step-Daughter] and [ Madame Pace ]” first. The Step-Daughter hastily explains that Madame Pace has been complaining about the Mother’s...
(full context)
...English—“half Italian, half Spanish” in the original Italian script but “half English, half Italian” here— Madame Pace declares she “no wanta take advantage of” the Step-Daughter, who begins laughing along with the...
(full context)
Suddenly, the furious Mother lunges at Madame Pace —the Actors restrain her while she calls Pace an “old devil” and “murderess!” The Father...
(full context)
...“make a bad impression,” having “confessed to me that there were others before him at Madame Pace ’s.”
(full context)
