Existential Hollowness in Ionesco’s The Chairs Through a Vedantic Lens

An old man arranges chairs for guests who never arrive, hires a mute to deliver his life's message, and leaps into the sea certain he is free. Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs is not merely a theatre of the absurd, it is a portrait of a soul that spent an entire life looking in the wrong direction. This article reads the play through Vedantic philosophy, arguing that the Old Man's tragedy is not the universe's silence but his own failure to turn inward.
His invisible guests are maya — appearance mistaken for essence. His speech is trapped in vaikhari, severed from the para where truth lives. His delegation of testimony violates the Bhagavad Gita's teaching that svadharma cannot be subcontracted. His final leap mirrors the Chandogya Upanishad's image of liberation, but he dissolves in avidya, ignorance dressed as fulfillment. The ocean was always there. He simply never asked: Ko'ham — Who am I?