Private Lives - Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis

Private Lives has been the subject of literary analysis under a range of literary theories. Coward expressed a dim view of such analyses: "Many years ago an earnest young man wrote a book about my plays. It was very intelligent and absolute rubbish." In a 2005 article, Penny Farfan analyses the play from the point of view of queer theory, arguing that "the subversiveness of sexual identity is reflected in his work," and that Private Lives questions "the conventional gender norms on which compulsory heterosexuality depends." Positing that the leading characters' portrayal as equals is evidence in support of this theory, Farfan instances the famous image (shown above) of Coward and Lawrence as Elyot and Amanda smoking and "posing as mirror opposites". Coward himself pronounced the play "psychologically unstable", and John Lahr in a 1982 study of Coward's plays writes, "Elyot and Amanda's outrageousness is used to propound the aesthetics of high camp – an essentially homosexual view of the world that justifies detachment. However, in a 1992 article on "Coward and the Politics of Homosexual Representation", Alan Sinfield, examining gay aspects of Coward's major plays, mentions Private Lives only in passing. The critic Michael Billington writes of the piece, "It is not a closet gay play but a classic about the mysterious charm of androgeny."

The play has also been analysed as part of the theatre of the absurd. In a 1984 article, Archie J. Loss argues that nothing can ever happen in the relationship of Elyot and Amanda, because it is based on conflicting emotions: "they are bound to repeat themselves, playing out their scene again and again with different words and different props but always with the same result." In a 2000 study of Coward, Jean Chothia instances surreal exchanges in the play, such as: "Have you ever crossed the Sahara on a camel?" "Frequently. When I was a boy we used to do it all the time. My Grandmother had a wonderful seat on a camel."