Six Characters in Search of an Author Lesson Plan

Discuss the presence and significance of the Child and the Boy. Why don't they speak?

Voiceless and seemingly without agency, the two children are innocents created to suffer. Without any lines to perform, the children's "reality" is questionable: do they have consciousness and complicated internal lives like the Step-Daughter, the Father, and the Mother, or are they blank slates whose identities simply haven't been written? Note the mechanisms by which the Characters become "real" (e.g., being written, being performed, living in the minds of the Author or the audience). Call students' attention to the following line from the Mother: “They can’t speak any more. They...