The Screens (Les Paravents, 1961) by Jean Genet (Key Facts)

 

The Screens (Les Paravents, 1961)

by Jean Genet

(Key Facts) 

Key Facts of The Screens (Les Paravents, 1961) by Jean Genet

 

Full Title:

The Screens (Les Paravents)

 

Author:

Jean Genet

 

Type of Work:

Experimental avant-garde play; political and symbolic drama

 

Genre:

Absurdist Theatre / Theatre of the Absurd; Political Drama; Tragic Farce

 

Language:

French

 

Time and Place Written:

Late 1950s–early 1960s; France, during the period of the Algerian War

 

Date of First Publication:

1961

 

Publisher:

Originally published in French by L’Arbalète (associated with Marc Barbezat, Genet’s publisher)

 

Tone:

Grotesque, ironic, satirical, chaotic, and deeply unsettling; often blending dark humor with brutality and absurdity

 

Setting (Time):

During the Algerian War (1954–1962), though presented in a non-linear and fluid temporal structure

 

Setting (Place):

Colonial Algeria; shifting between physical locations (villages, military spaces) and symbolic/theatrical spaces (including the realm of the dead)

 

Protagonist:

Saïd

 

Major Conflict:

The conflict between French colonial authority and Algerian resistance, intertwined with Saïd’s personal struggle for identity, survival, and recognition

 

Rising Action:

Saïd and other characters navigate a world of increasing instability as rebellion intensifies; acts of violence, betrayal, and shifting loyalties accumulate; authority and resistance both escalate their performances of power

 

Climax:

Saïd’s capture and death, marking the peak of his personal trajectory within the broader chaos of war

 

Falling Action:

After death, Saïd enters the realm of the dead, where characters continue to observe and reenact life; the conflict among the living persists without resolution

 

Themes:

Illusion vs. reality; identity as performance; power and its fragility; colonial conflict; cyclical violence; death and continuation; marginality and survival; fragmentation and ambiguity

 

Motifs:

Repetition of violence; shifting roles and identities; theatrical performance; fragmentation of scenes; presence of the dead; ritualized behavior

 

Symbols:

The screens (illusion and mediation); masks and costumes (constructed identity); uniforms (performative authority); the dead (continuity beyond life); space divisions (artificial boundaries)

 

Foreshadowing:

Saïd’s moral instability and opportunism foreshadow his downfall; the persistent presence of death and violence anticipates the blurring of life and afterlife; the fragmented structure itself foreshadows the lack of resolution and the continuation of conflict beyond individual events.