Refund-One Act Play by Fritz Karinthy
Frigyes Karinthy was a Hungarian satirist who lived from 1887 to 1938. He was an accomplished novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and playwright. He studied to be a teacher eacher because he was deeply interested in natural sciences, but instead hecame a journalist and joined the literary periodical Nyugat.
He was a strong philosophical and humanistic thinker who spoke out against the barharism and horrors of World War 1. His works, including That's How You Write (1912), Journey Around My Skull (1939), Please Sir (1916), and Professor, earned him widespread acclaim.
The play Refund, written in 1938, is about a man in his forties who returns to the school where he had studied and demands a refund of the fees he had paid eighteen years before. claiming that he had learned nothing useful at school and is now useless.
SUMMARY
Fritz Karinthy is a well know short story writer who wrote the one act play "Refund" in the year 1938 This is the story of a former student Wasserkopf, who demands that his tuition should be refunded because he feels his education was worthless. But he loses his fight when he is tricked by the mathematics master.
The play "Refund is full of humour which deals with an extraordinarily absurd situation Wasserkopf is forty years old. He could not get any joh and wherever he goes people tell him that he is fit for nothing. One day be meets I eaderer and asks him about his business.
When Leaderer tells him about foreign exchange and Hongarian moncy, be could not able to understand anything and starts asking questions about foreign exchange. Leaderer says when Wasserkopf does not know the silly thing then what had he studied? He better can go to the school and get his tuition fees back. Wasserkopf who is jobless and does not have any Wasserkopf wanted the refund of his tuition fees which were paid eighteen years ago because he was taught badly.
When he asks for it, the principal is shocked. The principal is in a peculiar situation now and he calls for an urgent meeting with all other staff members. The masters realized that Wasserkopf's real intention was to fail in the exam and claim the refiand.
Therefore, they decided to outsmart the old student by proving all his answers right. The Mathematics Muster said that they had to be united and ought to help each other in implementing their plan. The exam was an oral one as Wasserkopf's refusal to write.
They decide that whatever answers he gives whether it is right or wrong they will prove him right.The first question was from the History Master. The Master asked him how many years the "Thirty Years' war lasted. The answer was in the question itself. But Wasserkopf, who was keen on giving wrong answers, said that the Thirty Years war', lasted seven metres.
The History Master did not know how to prove this answer right. Fortunately for him, the Mathematics master aided him by proving that the answer was right on the basis of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The Master argued that time and space are relative term and therefore years can be represented in terms of meter. The war took place during half of