33 pages • 1 hour read
Alfred JarryUbu Roi
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1896A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Act Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaPreface-Act IChapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface Summary
The playscript of Ubu Roi starts with a Preface spoken by Alfred Jarry before the play’s first performance at the Théâtrede l’Oeuvre in Paris in December 1896. The performance shocked audiences accustomed to naturalist theater and resulted in a riot. In his Preface, Jarry quotes a Swedish philosopher who notes that “embryonic beings are the most complete” (1), and tells the audience that they are free to see in the title character “however many allusions you care to, or else a simple puppet—a schoolboy’s caricature of one of his professors who personified for him all the ugliness in the world” (1).
Jarry goes on to explain a few particularities of the performance: the actors will be performing behind masks, and the production hasn’t been too “literal” about reality; Jarry says the audience must “accept doors that open out on plains covered with snow falling from a clear sky” (2-3). The playwright also notes that the play was written “for actors pretending to be puppets,” and that the last two acts of the play are presented with “certain cuts,” including “several passages indispensable to the meaning and equilibrium of the play, while leaving in at [the actors’] request certain scenes I would have been glad to cut” (2). Before leaving the stage, Jarry notes that the play “takes place in Poland—that is to say, nowhere” (3).
Act I Summary
Ubu Roi begins with Pere Ubu and Mere Ubu (hereafter referred to as “Papa Turd” and “Mama Turd”), as they argue. Papa Turd exclaims “Pshit!” while Mama Turd tries to convince Papa Turd that he should become the King of Poland by “massacring” King Wenceslaus (who is the current king) and the entire royal family, and having Papa Turd put himself “in their place” (12). Papa Turd, currently the Captain of Dragoons, says he is “content with his lot” (11) and would “sooner die” than become king (12). “I’d rather be poor as a thin honest rat than rich like a wicked fat cat,” Papa Turd tells Mama Turd (12). Nevertheless, Mama Turd seems convinced he will change his mind, predicting that “in a week [she] may be Queen of Poland” (13).
Papa Turd soon acquiesces to Mama Turd’s plan, and in Scenes 2 and 3, Papa Turd and Mama Turd invite Captain Bordure and his men over to their house to dine. Mama Turd offers the men food, though Papa Turd soon begins attacking the men and ordering them outside, so that he can speak alone with Bordure and Mama Turd.
In Scene 4, Papa Turd tells Bordure that he plans to make the captain “Duke of Lithuania,” saying, “in a few days […] I shall reign over Poland” (16). Bordure joins Papa Turd’s plan, as Bordure is King Wenceslaus’s “mortal enemy” (16). Papa Turd orders Bordure away and says he “swear[s] by Mama Turd to make you Duke of Lithuania” (16).
A messenger arrives in Scene 5 to summon Papa Turd to see the king. Believing that it’s because the king has learned of his plan to overthrow him, Papa Turd tells Mama Turd that he will deny responsibility and say “it was Mama Turd and Bordure” (17), despite Mama Turd’s protestations. When Papa Turd arrives at the palace in Warsaw in Scene 6, he tries to blame Mama Turd and Bordure, but realizes that the king is not aware of his plan. Instead, Papa Turd is being rewarded “for [his] numerous services as Captain of Dragoons” and named the Count of Sandomir (18). The king tells Papa Turd to be at the “full-dress parade” taking place the next day; Papa Turd thanks the king and gives him a “little reed flute” (18). The king asks, “What would a man my age do with a flute?” and says he’ll give it to his young son, Buggerlaus, who exclaims, “Oh, is Papa Turd stupid!” (18). Papa Turd falls down as he leaves the palace and says he’s “sure to croak”; the king says if Papa Turd were to die, the king would “see to [Mama Turd]’s maintenance” (18). Papa Turd tells the king he’s “very kind,” but reveals his true intentions in an aside: “Yes, but King Wenceslaus, all the same you’re going to be massacred” (18).
Back at Papa Turd’s house in Scene 7, Papa Turd and Mama Turd have gathered with Bordure and his soldiers, along with other conspirators, including “Champions” Gyron, Pile, and Coccyx. They are there to decide a course of action to kill the king. Though Papa Turd suggests first that they poison the king, they eventually decide to “split the king down the middle” and “jump on him at once” (19). Papa Turd says that he will step on the king’s feet, which will then be the signal for the rest of the men to attack; once the king’s dead, Papa Turd will “grab his scepter and crown” (19), while Bordure and his men go after the royal family. The group disperses, but Papa Turd brings them back so that they can “swear to fight valiantly” (19).
Preface-Act I Analysis
Jarry’s Preface, which is included as part of the playtext, serves as a useful introduction to Ubu Roi and its absurdism. The playwright reminds the audience and reader not to take the play as a literal and realistic—or entirely sensical—work, noting the surreal settings, including “doors that open out on plains covered with snow falling from a clear sky,” and the fact that cuts have been made that were “indispensable to the meaning and equilibrium of the play” (2-3). The play’s setting of Poland, “which is to say, nowhere,” Jarry notes (3), goes along with this absurdism: though we know Poland as an autonomous country today, it was not actually a country when the play debuted. The Commonwealth of Poland broke up in the late 1700s, and Poland was not actually on the map of Europe until it became a country in 1918.
The Preface also establishes the play as a satire that represents larger themes. Jarry tells us that we are free to see any number of allusions in the character of Papa Turd. Jarry describes the character, who is based on a hated professor of Jarry’s, and that the character is also meant to represent something beyond that professor: a personification of “all the ugliness in the world” (1).
Act I introduces us to Papa Turd and Mama Turd and the greed and thirst for power that will come to define them throughout the play. In Act I, Papa Turd’s greed is not yet at its full force, even telling Mama Turd he would “rather be poor as a thin honest rat than rich like a wicked fat cat” (12). The audience, however, can see signs of his greed in his behavior. Along with conspiring to kill Wenceslaus for the crown, Papa Turd gobbles up food before Captain Bordure and his guests arrive, with Mama Turd asking, “What will our guests eat?” (13). At this point, however, Papa Turd is at least still giving the outward appearance of caring about others, promising Bordure the title of Duke of Lithuania and bringing the king a small flute, even as he conspires to kill him.
The first scenes also demonstrate Mama Turd’s own greed and desire for power, as she convinces Papa Turd he should massacre the royal family and celebrates that “in a week [she] may be Queen of Poland” (13).The audience and reader immediately glean the hostile relationship between Mama and Papa Turd that will go on to define the play; in the couple’s first exchange of dialogue alone, Mama Turd calls Papa Turd a “pig” and Papa Turd threatens to kill her (11).
The crude tone of Ubu Roi is immediately evident in the first act; the play begins with the exclamation, “Pshit!” (11), which is also referenced as being part of the meal Mama and Papa Turd serve to their guests (Bordure says he dined “pretty well […] except for the pshit”) (15).The plotting in Scene Seven between Papa Turd, Bordure, and their men about how to kill the king also introduces the extreme violence that will come to dominate much of the play, as they plan to split King Wenceslaus “down the middle” (19).
