Stoppard is the one real "postmodernist" writer we're studying (See handout on The Twentieth Century).  The Real Inspector Hound questions or toys with many of the fundamental conventions and assumptions we make about drama, popular entertainment, "art," and texts more generally.

Questions to consider as you read:

• What specific points in the play show Stoppard spoofing the stereotypical "whodunit"?

• What comments does Stoppard make about theatre critics through the characters of Birdboot and Moon?

• What is each of the critics concerned about beyond watching the play?

• Why do Birdboot and Moon talk the way they do?

• In some respects Stoppard is clearly mocking the world of the theatre--the critics in particular.  Stoppard has said, though, that Birdboot and Moon were simply members of the audience in the play's early drafts.  He said he made them critics because literary critics are "easy to define."  If Birdboot and Moon are members of the audience first and foremost, and we accept that it's not so important what their occupations are, how does this change our perception of the play?

• What are the implications of the set mirroring the audience?  In productions of the play supervised by Stoppard, Birdboot and Moon have at times been seated in the actual audience--they watch the play just as the audience does.  What is the possible significance of these two characters coming from the midst of the audience?  Or in the mirror-like projection of the audience as the text indicates?

• Is this play somehow about the audience, or about the reader?  If actors and the "stage" audience are interchangeable parts, as they do become, what does this say about the audience's involvement with the world of the stage?

•  How does Stoppard's play blur or obliterate the boundaries between "text" and life?

• What does Stoppard seem to imply about "real life" and "art"?

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