Hunger and Thirst, and Other Plays (English and French Edition)

Jean lives with his lovely wife, a quiet life of boredom and resignation, in a miserably drearly home. Jean's wife is a study in satisfaction. The home is crumbling around them, yet she is not motivated to seek change. Jean wants more. He is continuously unsatisfied; he longs for a more exciting and fulfilling life. After enduring a visit from a ghost aunt, Jean disappears. Literally vanishing into thin air, Jean moves into another plane of existence. In scene two, Jean appears on a platform suspended in air. He is trying to find his wife. Two employees guarding the entrance of a museum (?!) talk with him. It seems Jean has already seen beautiful views and breathtaking vistas on his journey-- images much cheerier than the walls of his dingy and sinking home. In scene three, Jean arrives at an inn run by fake monks. He is fed. He imbibes, but he is never satisfied. Always hungry and thirsty, Jean sits while the monks pump him for information. What has he seen? Where has he been? It seems these monks are too eager for news of the outside world. They prepare and stage a grotesque play for Jean's benefit. During the play, one of the monks insists that Jean answer the question "what do you believe in?" Tiring of the performance and famished, Jean answers "I believe in my soup!" After witnessing this crass farce, Jean begins his monastic duty: serving food. As the scene winds down, it is apparent (to the reader, but not to the protagonist) that Jean will never leave. Through insinuations and inferences, the reader comes to realize that the inn is, in fact, hell. In Hunger and Thirst, Ionesco has succeeded in showing desperation and the impossibility of satisfaction. Jean, a romantic seeker, is left in the end wondering why he ever wished for more than his modest home and wife. Throughout, the play is funny. As valuable as the author's best known work (Rhinoceros, or perhaps The Bald Soprano), Hunger and Thirst is rarely mentioned in a list of Ionesco's best drama. I take exception to such an ignorant omission. Hunger and Thirst measures up to any of Ionesco's plays.