A MOUTHFUL OF BIRDS: DEREK’S ROLE IN

ESTABLISHING ABSURDISM

Created by:
AHMAD TAUFIQUR RAHMAN
13020117130052
B - CLASS

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
DIPONEGORO UNIVERSITY
2019
Abstract:
Caryl Churchill, the famed playwright in the late 1970s, who created several
plays that has so much impacts and influences on today’s play especially in surrealism
and absurdism theme. One of the most famous Churcill’s work is A Mouthful of Birds
which is the main subject that I will discuss in this paper. The purpose of this paper is to
find out the level of absurdism that created by a specific character, that is Derek. While
this paper is focusing on Derek’s characteristics and analyzing why Derek character
could make an absurdism impact on this drama. This study is also mainly to find out
that if there’s a relationship between Derek’s behavior in the play and the absurdism of
the play. Close reading method is used in this paper to fulfill the aim of this paper.
Churchill illustrated Derek in a unique way and she had so many reasons why she made
Derek in such a way of absurd that gave effects in this play.

Keywords: Derek, role, characteristics, absurdism, Charyl Churchill.

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
A Mouthful of Birds is one of the famous literary work created by Caryl
Churchill. She made this play to make a potrait about passion, possession, and
obsession. Every human has their own passion, every human wants to posses
something or someone, and every humas is also obsessed by things. Churchill made
these portraits very well fit in her play.

On the other hand, A Mouthful of Birds has very unique theme which is
illustrated by Churchill herself as an absurdism. Absurdism in a play is a difficult
thing to be projected because there are so many people that will be misunderstood
the concept or the meaning of the purpose of the play itself. Characters in this play
are the ones that build the theme of the absurdism. One of the character is Derek
which is described as an unemployed man.

1.2 Purpose

Churchill created Derek as a filler character who is actually tied to main

characters and has a significant role in this play. The purpose of this paper is mainly
to analyze the characteristics of Derek and also to discuss how Derek could be one
of the characters that established absurdism theme in this play. This study will be
covering the topic in detailed so the reader could assume logical reasons after
reading this paper.
 2. PLAYWRIGHT BIOGRAPHY

Charyl Churchill is a British playwright who was born in London on September 3 rd

1938 and she was spending her life in Montreal. When she was 10, she attended
Trafalgar School for Girls also in Montreal, Canada. Churchill attended Oxford
University and mostly she was studying at Lady Margaret Hall with English Literature
major. In 1974 she joins Royal Court as Resident Dramatist and she moslty has spent so
much times working at ‘Joint Stock’ and Monstrous Regiment’. Her notable works back
then are Light Shining in Buckinghameshire which was produced in 1976, Fen was
published in 1983, and the play that will be discussed in this paper, A Mouthful of Birds,
that came out in 1986 and she wrote it with another playwright, David Lan. Caryl
Churchill married David Harter in 1961 and she has 3 childrens (all male) and now they
live in East London, Hackney.
3. Theory and Methods

3.1 Theory

Absurdist fiction is a literary fiction genre that coud be formed as a novel,

poem, play, or film. Absurdism mainly aims the experiences that felt by the
characters in literary work when they find out that they are in meaningless
actions and they even doubt what are the reasons to live. Some elements of
absurdism are dark humor, satire, controversy, and something that illogical.

3.2 Method
This paper is using close reading method. Close reading method, in literary
criticism, is a clear interpretation of a summary of a literary work. Close
reading method also dealing with formal structures of a text, and giving
attention to each word in the text.
4. RESEARCH OBJECT
4.1 Summary of the play
A Mouthful of Birds contains several primary themes which are
possession, obsession, and passion. The Greek classic also heavily influenced
this play which causing it has a dance theater part. This play is actually having a
strange structure because it’s focusing on each different character.
Stories in this play have been divided into seven separate parts which all
of them are set in London. The first story is describing an ungrateful wife that
always hallucinates that she should be drowning her baby into the bathtub and
well, she actually did it. The second story is a dude that is obsessed with a pig
and even this man is dreaming he was dancing together with his own pig.
Another story telling about a voodoo practitioner named Gillespie who just
arrived and enjoyed her life in Londo but got haunted by a spirit named Baron
Sunday. But, that spirit has left her after a moment, and unfortunately “The
Princess” or described as the gost of a dead britishwoman visited her.
Herculine Barbin who is someone that can change her sex from girld to
man or can be called hermaphrodite tells his own transformation by himself.
Another story is telling a woman that has difficlut time to throw away his
behaviour of drinking alcochol. Every character has their own conflict which is
difficult to categorized it as a sexual, murderous, or even worse both of them.
5. ANALYSIS

5.1 Analysis of Derek

Derek is one of the character that appears in the early of the play and
nearly-end of the play. Churchill describes Derek as someone who doesn’t have
a job or some important activities to do. However, as an unemployed man,
Derek still has activities to do, but these activitites don’t seem important to
audience. Derek actually has a little bit purpose of life as we can see him in the
early scene that he was doing works out by lifting weights.
In the part one of act one, precisely on scene 3 which titled
‘weightlifting’, we can understand that there are three people in here, Derek,
Man 1, and Man 2. They are doing works out just to fulfill their free time or
literally they are just wasting their time because they have nothing to do
because what do unemployed men do? While they are lifting weights, they also
have conversations. Man 1 asked Derek how long since he has worked? Derek
replies the question ‘A while’ simply. This could mean that Derek is lying and
he honestly has never worked before because he only replied with simple
words. If Derek has ever worked before, he may explain his previous job to the
Man 1, how was his work, how was the experience, and how was the story that
he got kicked from his job. After hearing what Derek says, Man 1 only drowns
in his silence but after that the Man 2 also joins the conversation between them
by telling that he will have an interview tomorrow in a company that producing
biscuits. Man 2 also told that he had seven years experience of marketing and
first class degree economics but sadly, he had already twenty-three interviews.
Suddenly, Derek replies with ‘seventeen months’. This is very confusing
because Derek said he doesn’t have a job just ‘a while’ but what makes him
said seventeen months? It could imply that Derek is a liar because he doesn’t
want to look bad in front of these two men. Man 2 wants to be mad, knowing
that Derek is lying about that, but it continues with silence between three of
them. Then Derek tells that actually he’s very busy man with so many activities.
He has to swimming, karate, jogging, lifting weights, and gardening. Doing all
of that stuff is not enough in one day, Dereks adds. He also told that He wasn’t
 a man without job because he has all that activites. This implies that Derek is
very inconsistent character. At first he said he doesn’t have a job but in after
moment he explains that he is a very busy man.
In scene 8 of part one titled “Excuses”, this scene explains characters that
avoid something that other person offered. Derek is also included in this scene.
At first he said that he can’t go to swim because he got a date in this morning. It
doesn’t make sense because having date in the morning is a stupid thing to do,
people normally having a date in the evening. Derek is just making an excuse to
avoid the invitation. However, he has two more excuses. He can’t come to the
pub tonight because his dog is missing and he can’t play tonight becahse his
house has blown down. These two reasons are nonsense and can’t be accpepted
logically.

5.2 Absurdism caused by Derek

In A Mouthful of Birds, Derek transformation is one of the most confusing
thing in this play and this is why we could see the sense of absurdims from it.
Derek is actually possessed by both Agave and Pentheus. Derek was
commanded wearing a woman clothes by DIONYSOS1 and DIONYSOS2 then
his clothes are torn by Agave when he is going to the mountain.

Derek’s sudden transformation actually connected with the line he said

before ‘He thought he was not a man without a job’ implying that he was once a
real man until he becomes a woman. When Derek is being reborn as a woman,
his last words were very important enough to be said:
 The moment when Derek realized he is not a man again but he ironically
accepts the transformation as he said above that he likes his breasts even they are
not big. At this moment, this is going beyond more absurd than before and it’s
really difficult to concern.

I think that Derek now accepts ‘his new appearance as well as his new role’
makes me think that Derek is now assuming that he is now a ‘essential’ being
because he was a man before which he thinks the male role wasn’t suitable for
him. He enjoys his new role and he becomes transsexual or whatever we call. It
also means that Derek doesn’t mind about stereotypical woman in universal
because as he has said before he is fine having small breasts and strong arms.

Derek’s transformation makes him live with satisfication life every day. He
thinks female body is the perfect choice for him, since he doesn’t have to
weight-lifting again. In his understanding, woman does not have to do works out
because their body is fragile and should be treated well.

The all Derek’s evidences reassure that this play has the enough amount of
absurdism to be showed to the audience. While the audience may be
misunderstood what the play trying to tell.
6. CONCLUSION

While A Mouthful of Birds theme is not officially categorized as

absurdism theme, but this paper shows and explains the parts of absurdism
contained in this play. This paper mainly shows absurdism that can be seen
through Derek’s characteristics and all evidences he has experienced. Although
Derek has short amount scene but I think it’s enough to tell how absurdism can
be applied even in the little space. Weird experiences that Derek got from the
first until the last prove these weird things are the main reasons why this drama
contains absurdism. Caryl Churchill must be on purpose to make Derek as a
person who fulfills the duty of presentating the side of absurdism in her play.
She expects the audience will understand the purpose of this play although it is
very difficult to normal people to tell what is going on. Indeed, absurdism is not
familiar thing but it is also very interesting thing that we can discuss or analyze
in drama.
 7. REFERENCES

1. Literary work:

Churcill, C. (1986). A Mouthful of Birds. Retrieved from https://epdf.pub/a-

mouthful-of-birds.html

2. Writer bio:

Caryl Churchill profile, Encyclopædia Britannica; accessed 29 September 2019.

"Caryl Churchill Biography (1938-)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 29

September 2019.

3. Theory:

Camus, Albert (1991). Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Vintage Books.
ISBN 0-679-73373-6.

4. Method:

Williams Jackson, A.V. (2008) [1896]. Warner, Charles Dudley (ed.). The
Avesta. A Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern. III.

5. General:

Churchill, Caryl & David Lan. A Mouthful of Birds. London: Methuen's New
Theatrescripts, 1986.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Blau, Herbert. “Ideology, Performance, and the Illusions of Demystification,”

Critical Theory and Performance. Eds. Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 430-445.