Konacan Rad

UNIVERSITY OF NIŠ FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

MODERN ANGLO-AMERICAN DRAMA

CHILDREN AS VICTIMS OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM IN MODERN ANGLO-AMERICAN DRAMA: EDWARD BOND, CARYL CHURCHILL AND NEIL LABUTE

STUDENT: RADMILA FILIPOVIC SEDLAR

TEACHER ADVISER: PROF.DR LJILJANA BOGOEVA

NIŠ, SERBIA

APRIL 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction................................................................................... ..................................1 Beyond capitalism Theatre is supposed to accuse and attack

Children as victims of the capitalist system

Working Class Dehumanized by the System Edward Bond “ Saved”………………………………………………………… 6

Colonization as the By-Product of Capitalism Caryl Churchill “ Hospital at the time of revolution”……………………….........12

Modern-Day Capitalism Neil LaBute “Iphigenia in Orem”……………………………………………….18

Conclusion Marija Gimbutas “Signs Out of Time”……………………………………………22

Reference………………………………………………………………………… 24 INTRODUCTION Beyond Capitalism

What inspired this paper is the fact that we live in false democratic societies; capitalism, racism, and exploitation are hidden under the name of democracy. We are led to believe that we live in a just world that values our individuality and freedom. However, we are in fact victims of the capitalist system. Since the system is based on production and material profit, it creates a class division between proletariat or working class and bourgeoisie or capitalist class. The ruling class controls all social institutions and production of property. The driving force of the system is the material profit and for this reason, the society turns into a huge market in which an individual does not have more value than any other object. Workers earn only small amount of wages and the rest of the profit goes to the capitalist. The survival of the market depends on consumption and an individual in this way becomes a consumer. By wanting to consume more and more, a consumer is superficially satisfying his/her needs. However, his true human needs for love, closeness and security cannot be satisfied. In Adrienne Rich’s words “Our desire is stolen from us, and

then it is fabricated and sold back to us”. As Mark Ravenhill points out in his play “Shopping and Fucking” the consumer is presented with the false choice. We are under the impression that we can choose how to live our lives but it is actually dictated by the products offered by the huge companies. Social institutions are very important in the capitalist system because they are protecting the interests of the ruling class. The system of family, law, education, government, economic system and mass media corrupt the individual’s innate nature in order to create law-abiding citizens. In order to be accepted in the society, one must obey its norms and values. In Karl Marx’s essay “Alienation”, he argues that in the capitalistic division of labor, man is estranged from his productive activity because it becomes only a means of maintaining physical existence.1 Therefore, individuals become alienated from the product of their labor, from nature, from other individuals and eventually from their own existence. The system teaches the individual to be indifferent to others and to place his own selfish needs above all else. Both science and literature teach us that a child is born innocent, in the healthiest stage of morality. However, the prisons are crowded with criminals whose innate goodness was corrupted by the society. Although the ruling class tries to preserve order, violence bursts out on a daily basis. Some individuals turn to violence because they are deprived of their emotional needs. Feeling insignificant, they want to dominate other people in order to feel powerful. Others comply with Lena Petrovic, Literature, Culture, Identity, Writing as re-naming, Prosveta, 2004, pg 181 1

the system; they accept its norms, laws and regulations. Nevertheless, a minority of people manages to avoid the corruption of the system. Some of them manage to follow their innate goodness and resist the oppression. Their yearning for justice makes them fight for equality, humanity, the end of racism and the end of violence. Many writers and playwrights are in this third group of people.

Theatre Is Supposed To ACCUSE and ATTACK The role of drama as well as literature in general is to reveal the truth that is different from the manufactured truths made by the governing social institutions. In almost every developed society, literature is able to conceive of the self and the selfhood of others. According to Raymond Williams’ book “Drama from Ibsen to Brecht”2, all drama deals with the true representation of life. Its concern is to 2

Raymond Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht, conclusion

portray the difficulty of experience of an individual trapped in the bourgeois society, unable to escape from it. The difference is only in the form that the certain theatre movement uses to depict this conflict. Naturalism developed in the 19th century and it attempted to create a perfect illusion of reality. In order to do so, it used a variety of theatrical and dramatic strategies: detailed setting and everyday speech forms. It excluded supernatural forces, fantastic, outwardly settings and complicated plots. Henrik Ibsen was one of the founders of Naturalistic theatre. In his plays, he depicted a highly repressive society that causes the waste of human potentials. On the stage, he wanted to recreate the ways in which people speak, feel, and behave because he believed that if we see in detail the environment the men have created, we shall learn the truth about them. 3

He wanted to

“confront the human drama in its immediate setting, without reference to outside forces.4” Ibsen has placed his characters in the rooms of the bourgeoisie. These rooms represented an emblem of society distracting the development of the individual, preventing his growth. Dramatic tension is between what men feel themselves capable of becoming, and a thwarting environment that does not allow them to develop their true potentials.5 Contrary to Naturalism, the movement that followed it, Expressionism, focused on the internal consciousness of the individual. This inner world is depicted physically on the stage; the setting is such that it reveals inner condition of an individual.

3

Ibid, pg 386

4

Ibid, pg 385

5

Ibid, pg 386

Whatever conventions and techniques drama uses, its purpose remains the same- it has the passion for strictly human truth. 6 Violence that it depicts is different from violence in film and on television. The audience is not supposed to be entertained by the violence; it should question

it

instead.

In

Amiri

Baraka’s

1965

manifesto

“The

Revolutionary Theatre,”7 he states that theatre should not be a means of entertainment, but it should expose, correct, insult, and preach. He praises the theatre of the black people, stating that it is the theatre of victims. “This theatre must accuse and attack anything that can be accused and attacked.”8 It should make white men cower before this theatre. This theatre will be much hated because it will reveal the truth about racism and the effect that it still has on black people’s sense of identity. Its victims will soon become new heroes who will be out to destroy and ASSAULT white America and Europe.9 However, in contrast to US’s forced spreading of democracy, it will not use physical weapons. It will triumph with its preaching of virtue and feeling. Likewise, a contemporary American playwright, Naomi Wallace, defends the status of drama in literature by trying to explain what the best way to teach drama is. In her manifesto “On Writing as Transgression”10, Naomi discusses how teachers might encourage students to envision a theatre as a space for social and imaginative

6

Ibid, pg 391

7

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdf

8

Ibid

9

Ibid

http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous %20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdf 10

transformation. Young students should become dangerous citizens11; they should not maintain the status quo. As it was mentioned above, we live in an age of capitalism and Wallace states that “We live in a culture that is hostile to creativity that does not serve capitalism, empire, and the most virulent by-products of those forces: racism, homophobia, classism, and sexism.12” Students should be encouraged to read history, constantly and aggressively. They should not close their eyes to the fact that millions of people have died in Africa and in the Middle East because of civilization’s constant greed for money and conquest. They should not be ignorant of information that does not come from the dominant mass media. To conclude her manifesto, Wallace writes that the purpose of modern drama is to resist the injustice and tear down all ingenious fabrications designed to control the perception of the people. In this essay I will endeavour to show, by discussing the plays by Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill and Neil LaBute, how capitalism and its institutions affect the children born into such a society. In the plays, children are victims of either physical or psychological violence. Their parents’ violence is not innate; it is a product of the system. The adults choose different ways to serve the system; they either comply with it or blindly obey the rules. However, in these plays, there are individuals who preserve innate human goodness and it is through such characters that the authors portray the importance of questioning our culture and our society. By creating such characters, the playwrights try to make

11

Ibid

12

Ibid

the audience recognize the potential in the individual to revolt against the unjust system.

CHILDREN AS VICTIMS OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM WORKING-CLASS DEHUMANIZED BY THE SYSTEM

In his preface to the modern version of Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, the English playwright Edward Bond says: “I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners. Violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent we have no future. People who do not want writers to write about violence want to stop them writing about us and our time. It would be immoral not to write about violence.”13 Bond does not believe that human beings are innately violent. Instead, he is convinced that men tend towards 13

Bond, Edward, Lear, Eyre Methuen Ltd., London, 1978

violence because the way in which society works alienates them from their peaceful nature. Similarly to Karl Marx, Bond sees the root of all evil in the capitalist society’s alienation of mankind. He is particularly critical of the division of society into the ruling and the ruled classes. He also sees the reigning social mores and laws as latently aggressive. In his own words: “In this way an unjust society causes and defines crime; and an aggressive social structure which is unjust and must create aggressive social disruption, receives the moral sanction of being ‘law and order’. Law and order is one of the steps taken to maintain

injustice.”14

In

addition,

he

openly

argues

that

the

aggressiveness is not a need but rather the ability. Namely, there is no evidence that people are innately aggressive. Violence is a response to the social order. He states that ‘we tend to respond aggressively only when we are deprived of our physical and emotional needs.’15 According to Bond, the roots of violence lie in something he calls “social morality”. This form of violence is invisible and indirect. It is internalized by the individual in the course of his/her socialization. Thus, only a fundamental change in society can truly abolish violence. Bond’s play “Saved”16 was published in 1965. Its plot is set in the contemporary post-war South London. It portrays a group of young working class people who struggle to survive in the cruel economic system. They are aimless, rude and troublesome. They work, but their jobs are not creative. They do not love their jobs, but put up with them 14

Ibid

15

Ibid

16

Edward Bond, Saved, Methuen & Co LTD, 1969

in order to earn small wages. Being a part of the capitalist system, they are easily replaceable and therefore do not feel as significant members of the society. They even speak in a different accent in order to be distinguished from the ruling class. The play’s opening scene features Pam and Len in Pam’s living room. During their flirting, Pam’s father Harry comes in the room and goes out several times. Pam is indifferent to her father’s presence, she does not introduce him to Len and she is not concerned about what he is doing. Harry also does not comment on his daughter having a stranger in their home. He is not a dominant patriarchal figure; he is a quiet resident of the house who cooks his own food and irons his clothes. Pam’s mother Mary and he have not spoken to each other for years. Their only intersection is the money that Harry leaves on the fireplace every Friday. Right from the beginning of the play, it is evident that Pam is alienated from her parents. She cannot remember the reason for their feud or more precisely, she has never questioned it. When Len asks her about it, she responds, “It is their life. Yer can’t do nothin’, yer know.”17 Thus, there is a lack of communication in this dysfunctional family. This family is deprived of emotion, intimacy and compassion; its members are estranged from one another. Later in the play, Len becomes a lodger in Pam’s house. He is an inquisitive young man who falls in love with her. He wants to know everything about her but she wants to keep their relationship on a superficial level. Although Pam is not responsive, Len makes plans for their future together; he imagines their honeymoon and a little apartment of their own. However, their conversations are not meaningful; 17

Ibid, pg 24

they

are

fragmented.

They

reveal

the

lack

of

communication and alienation in human relations. Despite Len’s trying to be intimate with Pam, she is not capable of having a meaningful relationship. Following her parent’s example, she is alienated from people and does not want to change her attitude. Love is impersonal for her; Len is just an instrument for her physical desire. On the other hand, she is obsessed with Fred, a young member of a local gang. He only wants a superficial relationship with her and in this case, she is the one who is constantly begging for his attention. When Pam gives birth to Fred’s baby, he does not want to take responsibility as the baby’s father. In the scene four, Pam, Len, Mary and Harry are in the living room. The baby is first mentioned in the stage directions: “Slowly a baby starts to cry. It goes on crying without a break until the end of the scene.”

While the baby is crying in the other room, nobody tries to

comfort it. Pam is carelessly making up her face, pretending not to hear the baby sobbing. When Len tries to remind her that it is her responsibility as a mother to look after the baby, she rudely answers that he can take the baby away if he loves it so much. Pam is deprived of the motherly feelings because her mother Mary also does not care about her daughter’s life. She cuts her baby off emotionally and therefore it ceases to be a living thing to her. Baby does not have a human name and everyone in the play refer to the baby as IT. She calls it “a racket”.18 Len is the only one who regards the baby as a human being, but he also does not try to comfort it. Harry and Mary are preoccupied with lunch and they do nothing to help the baby. Therefore, Pam can be perceived as a victim of the society she was 18

Ibid, pg 40

born into. As a member of a working class, she did not have a chance to develop her true potentials. She was deprived of parental love and in return, she is not able to love her own baby. In a desperate attempt to draw Fred’s attention, Pam takes the baby to the park where Fred is hanging out with his friends, Mike, Pete, Colin and Barry. These young working class men exchange cruel sexual jokes and quarrel over trivial matters throughout the play. Fred has no moral responsibility for the baby and he treats it as an object. Pam brings the baby who is numbed by the aspirins she gave it in order to be quiet around Fred. Although the baby is not crying, its presence bothers these men. After Pam has an argument with Fred and goes home, leaving the baby, the men begin to play a game with it. Since there is no one around to see them, they figure that there is nothing wrong with teasing the baby. At first, they begin with pushing the baby’s pram to each other. They call the baby “a bloody nutter”19 and joke about putting it to sleep for good, with a brick.

Barry sings a

morbid nursery rhyme: “Rock a baby on a tree top When the winds blow the cradle will rock When the bow breaks the cradle will fall And down will come baby and cradle and tree an’ bash its little brains out an’ dad’ll scoop ‘em up and use ‘em for bait.”20

The song is shocking and horrible. Barry sings it to provoke the laughter of his friends. They start having fun by pinching the baby and 19

Ibid, pg 63

20

Ibid, pg 63

pulling its hair. However, they gradually become more violent; they start punching it. They even take off the baby’s diaper and rub it in its face. When Colin warns them not to hurt the baby, Mike explains that the baby cannot be hurt at that age because it has no feelings, like an animal. They begin to take pleasure in hurting the baby and they gradually become more aggressive. As a climax of their violence, they start stoning the baby. Fred also takes part in the stoning, although he was indifferent at first. These men experience an explosion of aggression where they do not perceive the baby’s human nature. By treating it as an object, they do not judge their actions as morally wrong. Consequently, they murder the baby by stoning it. When they leave the crime scene, Pam turns back to take the baby. She does not even look at the pram to check if the baby is unharmed. Her words to the baby “luckily yer got someone t’ look after yer”21 are ironic since she left it with a group of brutes who killed it. The irresponsible mother unable to connect with her child is the product of the capitalist system. In the same manner, the young men who stoned the baby to death could not connect to it because they are alienated from other people. They are the replaceable servants of the system who do not command their own lives. The society restricts and exhausts the gang members intellectually. Having no clear goals in their lives, they seek momentary satisfaction. They lose their own identity and from time to time, they burst into violent actions to assert their own existence. Feeling unimportant in the system, they need to prove their power and effectiveness. 21

Ibid, pg 72

Earlier in the play, Pete talks to his friends about a car accident in which he killed an innocent boy with his van. However, it was not an accident at all- he killed the boy intentionally. At the moment of murder, he felt a sudden urge to destroy. He does not feel guilt or remorse because of his actions; he only regrets the fact that his car bodywork was ruined. His friends listen to his story with laughter and admiration; none of them reproaches Pete. He is proud because he has avoided the punishment. They enjoy Pete’s victory: MIKE. Accidents is legal. COLIN. Can’t touch yer. PETE. This coroner-twit says ‘e’s sorry for troubling me. MIKE. The law thanks him for his help.22 Moreover, only Fred among all others is arrested and imprisoned for the murder of the baby. This fact points out to a flaw in the legal system, one of the institutions preserving the interests of capitalism. The system does not seek out the roots of the crime but it is focused on the punishment. In addition, being imprisoned does not lead Fred to accept his crime. Just as Pete does not feel quilt for murdering the boy, Fred does not feel remorse for killing his own child. Instead, he blames Pam for leaving the baby. In addition to physical violence against children, there is Pam’s psychological violence against Len. Pam does not appreciate Len’s love and his effort to satisfy her emotional needs; she constantly asks him to leave her house. She takes pleasure from insulting him. Being insignificant in the society and in her own family, she needs to feel 22

Ibid, pg 28

dominant in relation to someone. Likewise, Fred needs to feel empowered in his relation to Pam. He enjoys having power over her- he makes her wait for him every night in suspense. Wanting to overcome the feeling of triviality in the social system, Fred boasts of his sexuality. Finally, there is one person in the play who preserves his innate goodness. Len does not choose either physical or psychological violence. He also does not comply with the system. Even though he is another object used for the preservation of industrial society, the society has not destroyed his innate goodness. He is caring and compassionate, concerned about other people’s feelings. In spite of Pam’s degrading attitude, Len remains devoted to her. In contrast to other characters, he makes plans for the future- he talks about decorating their home. He nurses her patiently when she is ill. Although she is obsessed with another man, he struggles to make her happy. At one point in the play, he even selflessly tries to reconcile her with Fred. Moreover, he is the only one who takes care of Pam’s baby when everyone else disregards it. He does not feel alienated from other people; instead, he tries to establish meaningful relationship. He pays attention to Harry and is friendly towards Mary. Compared with other characters in the play, it seems that Len is an outsider in the social order. Pam is irritated by his presence because his sincere love is contradictory to the alienated and aggressive relationships that she experiences in her society. At the end of the play, when it seems that Pam and her family are in a desperate situation, we see Len mending the broken chair. His creative work is symbolic of trying to mend the social order around him. He refuses to recognize the defeat and therefore there is a hope that they will possibly find a new order out of

the disorder. He chooses to resist the restrictions of the system. Even though a child is sacrificed, there is an optimistic ending to a play suggesting that there is always a chance to change the society.

COLONIZATION

AS THE

BY-PRODUCT

OF

CAPITALISM

Caryl Churchill’s play “The Hospital at the Time of Revolution,”23 written in 1972, is based on historical facts, dealing with colonialism. It is partly influenced by Frantz Fanon’s famous book “The Wretched of the Earth,” regarding the Algerian struggle for independence from colonial rule in the late 1950s. As a psychiatrist, he explored the psychological effect of colonization on the psyche of a nation. Fanon supported the colonial struggle for liberation and he became the member of the Algerian Liberation Front. His life and work have inspired anti-colonial liberation movements for more than four decades. One of Fanon’s students and followers was Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian writer, poet, playwright, and the first African to be awarded with the Nobel Prize in literature. In his 1986 Nobel Prize Speech, “This Past Must Address its Presence”24, Soyinka talks about himself as an actor in the London theatre who refused to come to the stage and perform his role of the camp guard in the play “Eleven Men dead at Hola.” The play dealt with an event that took place at Hola Camp, 23

Caryl Churchill, Shorts, The Hospital at the time of Revolution, Methuen Drama, 1985

24

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.html

Kenya, during the Mau-Mau Liberation struggle.25 Mau-Mau was an anticolonial force that fought against the British colonial power from 1952 to 1960. The British herded Kenyans into special camps and the incident in the play involved the death of eleven Kenyans who were beaten up to death by camp guards. There was an official report of the event that was at the time presented to the British public. The report said that the prisoners died because they drank water from a poisoned water supply. Therefore, in his speech Soyinka wants to assure we remember the atrocities done by the colonizers. In his opinion, they should never be forgotten or justified. Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon’s teacher, makes a similar statement in his 1955 “Discourse on Colonialism.”26 He criticizes our decadent, stricken, and dying Western civilization as incapable of solving the problems of the working class and colonization. He argues that the real reasons for colonization were economic profit and white men’s greed under the pretence of spreading religion and “civilizing” the savages. European colonizers imposed forced labour, theft, rape, pressure, and intimidation onto the colonized. In turn, colonization dehumanized the colonizers; it brutalized them and squeezed out the compassion of them. Cesaire equates colonization with “thing-ification”27 because it turned the colonized into an instrument of production. Colonization was a cruel, ruthless, and deadly process and it had negative effects on the psyche of both the colonizer and the colonized. Caryl Churchill sets the plot of the “Hospital” in the Blida-Joinville Hospital in the colonialist Algeria, where Fanon is the head of the 25 26

27

Ibid http://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse%20on%20Colonialism.pdf Ibid

psychiatric department. This department treats both the Algerian revolutionaries and the French colonizers. Many of his patients were those who suffered from either psychological or physical violence. Fanon has a few lines in the play, but the reader has an impression that his silence is important. Since he is black, he identifies with the Algerian patients, but remains objective throughout the play. The play opens and ends with the story about a 17-year-old girl Francoise. Her parents are part of the colonial system. Her father Monsieur is a high-ranked French officer who is responsible for interrogation

of numerous Algerian patriots. They believe their

daughter suffers from a serious mental illness and they want Fanon to keep her in the hospital. When asked to describe her childhood, Madame explains that she had a perfect upbringing, but the reader has an impression that she was more like a bird in the cage. She was always an obedient daughter with good manners. Her mother says, “It would never occur to Francoise to be anything I didn’t want”28. Madame claims that she studied too hard because of her desire to go to university in Lions. In fact, the parents kept her in the house all the time, not allowing her to socialize with other children. They treated her as their little doll, with no consciousness of her own, molded in the way to suit her parents. Monsieur argues that since he is a civil servant, there is no chance that he could have raised his daughter to become a juvenile delinquent. Francoise

has

nightmares,

escapes

from

school,

uses

rude

language and rejects food. In her parents’ opinion, these are the symptoms of her mental illness. Whenever she speaks truthfully about Caryl Churchill, Shorts, The Hospital at the time of Revolution, Methuen Drama, 1985, pg 102 28

her observations, her parents dismiss her as psychotic. Monsieur brings some of the prisoners in an empty wing of their house and the police torture them there at night. Francoise hears the crying and the screaming, but her parents try to persuade her that those voices are all in her head. Her mother says to her “that’s right; it’s all your horrid dreams.”29 They cannot possibly conceive of such behaviour because a normal upper-class girl is not allowed to be so impolite and disobedient. Her father claims that everyone in their family is scrupulously honest and truthful and that his daughter’s deception is unforgivable. They confess to Fanon that one day she even threw a cup of boiling coffee at her mother and told her she hated her. Nevertheless, Francoise’s few arguments make perfect sense. She does not imagine the screaming she hears at night; her father tortures the prisoners in the other room. Moreover, she does not want to eat because she believes that her mother wants to poison her. She says, “All my life she’s been trying to poison me. It started in the milk when I was a baby.”30This poisoning is symbolic; she has been indoctrinated by the culture she was born into. As a daughter of the oppressor, she was taught to be a respectable member of the society with high goals to accomplish. In addition, she was taught not to be friends with the black children because they could hurt her. She learned from her parents that the Algerians are evil by nature and that she should be protected if she wants to live. In this manner, in the same way as Pam from Saved, she was not given a chance to develop her true potentials. Contrary to Pam, she is a

29

Ibid, pg 114

30

Ibid, pg 112

member of the ruling capitalist class, but her soul is poisoned by the injustice that her father does to the Algerians. Francoise’s parents are in denial of the roles they play in the oppression of the Algerians. Her father blatantly denies that the revolution is happening by stating that “there is no war and no revolution”31, there are only isolated incidents. He tries to convince himself that he has everything under control. According to him, only the French could pacify the land because the Algerians naturally have criminal tendencies. In his opinion, the native children are naturally born violent and dishonest. The law exists to deal with them; the task of the police is to curb, suppress and pacify. He reduces the natives to mere animals and does not consider that it is their human right to demand justice. He is a typical patriarchal figure in his family and an obedient servant of the system. He gave up his human goodness and internalized the values of capitalism. He confesses to Fanon that he identifies with his job. Therefore, if he had to give up his profession as an officer, he would lose his identity. His wife also does not have a sense of her identity. She tries to satisfy her husband’s demands- she lives in the country although she despises the heat and the natives. Similarly to the family in Saved, this family is secretive, abusive and in denial. There is a complete lack of trust or unity in their relationship. On her birthday, Madame got Francoise all dressed up and did her hair prettily. When she came downstairs to greet their guests, she was naked. She had taken off her dress, cut it to pieces and urinated on it. Francoise explains:

31

Ibid, pg 110

“The dress looked very pretty, but underneath it, I was rotting away. Bit by bit I was disappearing. The dress is walking about with no one inside it. That was a poison dress I put on.”32 Francoise feels nothingness under the dress; she is disappearing and rotting away. With both of her parents emotionally isolated from her, Francoise has also lost her unified identity. During her conversation with Fanon, she refers to herself in the first person and third person. Her psyche and her soul have been poisoned throughout her life by her parents’ racist prejudice and the injustice she witnessed every day. In the same way that the natives are fighting for their independence, she is also fighting using her madness as a defence against her parents and the system. There are three Algerians in the hospital, patients A, B and C. Patient A suffers perpetual guilt from the lives lost in an explosion from a bomb he planted in a French café. He discovers that his wife was also secretly a patriot when she dies while carrying grenades for the cause. He confides that he became isolated from his own wife, unable to sacrifice his job for their intimacy. He is unable to reconcile killing innocent French colonials in the name of punishing the oppressive officers who wronged his people. He used violence for a “right” cause but he damaged his humanity. Patient C is constantly trying to prove that he is an Algerian patriot. He hears voices that call him a traitor. His sense of identity is damaged, he is not sure who he is any more. He looked in the mirror and there was a European looking out. Thus, his personality is split because of the torturing he endured. 32

Ibid, pg 146

Another patient in the play is the Police Inspector. He blatantly asks Fanon to prescribe him the drugs that will prevent his job interfere with his family life. His job is stressful and he is constantly under pressure; he must stay through to finish each interrogation because if he does not, some of his colleagues might get the credit. He needs both strength and intelligence to accomplish his task successfully. He once had a harmonious family life but now he gets the attacks when he wants to hurt people. At home, he beats his children violently. He states that if he smacks one of his daughters, he cannot stop. He wants to destroy them.33 His youngest daughter was once unconscious for ten minutes due to his beating. Moreover, he hears his children cry and he is glad that he is making them suffer. Therefore, his children are victims because their father is a dutiful servant of the system. He, like Monsieur, defines himself by his profession. He wants the drugs to numb him so that he could go on torturing the Algerian patriots and has a peaceful family life at the same time. He is so used to torturing others all the time that he continues with it when he goes home. Due to his social role in the system, he rejects his humanity and uses aggressiveness to feel significant just as characters from Saved do. Except for Fanon, there is another psychiatrist in the hospital. He is young white man who openly expresses his racism. The fifteen-yearold-boy is submitted in the hospital because he has killed three people. He was an average pupil at the village school but he stabbed his friend and his family because they picked up olives from his father’s property. The doctor explains that the Algerians are innately violent. According to the scientists, the black people have virtually no cortex. He argues that 33

Ibid, pg 130

the Algerians are dominated by the lower part of the brain. In contrast, white men are distinguished by cortical thinking. Therefore, the Algerians are LOBOTOMIZED Europeans.34 This accounts for their impulsive aggression, the laziness, the shallowness of emotional effect, and the inability to grasp the whole concept. Nevertheless, he thinks that Fanon is different from other black people. Since he is a successful psychiatrist, he certainly uses his frontal lobes. Similarly, Monsieur gives Fanon a compliment because he has managed to rise above his race. He was educated in Paris and therefore they treat him as a perfectly “civilized” white man. All things considered, in this play Churchill examines the absurdity of colonization and the effects that it has on both the oppressor and the oppressed. The servants of the system accept its norms and regulations and consequently victimize their own children for its preservation. On the other hand, the oppressed struggle to regain their lost identity and in that way become dehumanized. In other words, the tortured become the torturers.

MODERN-DAY

CAPITALISM

Neil LaBute’s play “Iphigenia in Orem”35 was written in 2005. In relation to Bond’s Saved and Churchill’s Hospital, it also deals with 34

Ibid, pg 119

35

Neil LaBute, Bash: letterday plays, Iphigenia in Orem, Faber & Faber Ltd

victimization of children in order to preserve the capitalist system. Since it was written nearly 60 years after the first two, it can be argued that nothing has changed in the meantime. This play is a part of the trilogy of” Bash: latter-day plays” which were influenced by Greek mythology. It is based on the play “Iphigenia in Aulis”36 written by Euripides around 408 BC. Iphigenia is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, her father being the leader of the Greek forces in the Trojan War. In the play, the Greek fleet is waiting at the port of Aulis, but they are unable to depart due to a strange luck of wind. The goddess Artemis is holding the winds because Agamemnon has offended her. The seer Calchas informs the general that in order to appease the goddess, he must sacrifice his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. In spite of his horror, Agamemnon must consider this seriously, because he is afraid that his restless troops will rebel if their bloodlust is not satisfied. He sends a message to his wife Clytemnestra, telling her that Iphigenia is to be married to Greek warrior Achilles. However, he soon reconsiders, and sends another message to his wife to ignore the first. Nevertheless, his brother Menelaus intercepts the message and Clytemnestra never gets it. Menelaus is enraged because his brother’s change of heart may lead to the downfall of Greek leaders if the rank discovers that Agamemnon has placed his family above their pride as soldiers. The brothers discuss the matter, and Agamemnon decides to carry out the sacrifice in order to protect the rest of his family from the rebellion of the enraged army. Iphigenia is thrilled because of her marriage to a famous Achilles, but she soon discovers the awful truth. Achilles is also furious for having 36

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigenia

been used as a prop in Agamemnon’s plan and although he tries to defend

Iphigenia,

he

fails

because

the

entire

Greece

wants

Agamemnon to carry out his plan. Since she does not have a choice, Iphigenia consents to her sacrifice declaring that she would rather die heroically that be dragged to the altar despite her will. LaBute’s one-act play is set in a Las Vegas hotel room where a young travelling salesman confides his horrible secret to an unknown stranger. He begins his story by talking about the world of business. He works in the Salt Lake office and he enjoys the atmosphere at work. At work, one has to be competitive because in his words “It’s very high stakes, lots of cash floating around you, and the pressure’s real…”37 He describes his company as a jungle since every day you are out for somebody’s blood.38 For instance, his company was recently taken over by another company. Four people were supposed to be dismissed. The salesman argues that such takeovers were usual in the 80’s; a couple of people are dismissed, usually the ones that could not keep up and usually women. There are “old boys” on the top of the company who control everything and are untouchable. Nevertheless, a female colleague constantly competes with him. He describes her as “a walking cliché, vicious, always wearing a business suit, and never smiling”39. It always seems to him that he is one-step behind her; she is intelligent and she humiliates him in public. He reveals to the stranger that she is the one who should lose her job, since she is a woman. In other words, the patriarchal world of business dismisses a woman even 37

Ibid, pg 12

38

Ibid

39

Ibid, pg 21

though she is educated and successful at her job. From the male perspective, she is still inferior and less competent. Later on, the salesman remembers the day his daughter died. At first, he tells the false story about her death. He states that it was an accident: his wife and mother-in-law have gone to the supermarket and he remained home with the five-month-old baby Emma. He fell asleep on the couch and his daughter smothered herself under the heavy blankets on their bed. However, soon he reveals the true story. On the day that his daughter died, his friend from college called him from the Chicago office to tell him that he was the one who will be dismissed. The salesman was devastated; he began to look at all the things that he and his wife Deb had bought during their marriage. If he lost his job, they would not be able to keep up with the same luxurious lifestyle. Suddenly, he heard the baby crying. He went up and saw Emma under the blankets, fighting to get out. Nevertheless, he did nothing. He just stood there, staring at his daughter fighting for breath. Then he carefully examined the situation and decided to use it as a great opportunity to solve his problems. He coaxed the baby with the edge of his foot, dropped the blankets on her, and walked out of the room. He went down, put a pillow over his head in order not to hear Emma crying, and finally fell asleep. Consequently, his daughter died under the covers. The salesman justifies his crime by claiming that he took the risk for his family. He could not bear losing his job, so he killed his daughter hoping that his bosses would sympathise with his tragedy. That was exactly what happened; the woman was the one who was dismissed. Moreover, it turned out that his colleague knew the whole time that his

female colleague will be fired- he just wanted to play a practical joke on him. The absurdity of the murder is emphasized by the fact that nine months later, the salesman and his wife had a new baby boy Joseph. In other words, the daughter is replaced by the son. Iphigenia from the Greek tragedy corresponds to the baby from “Iphigenia in Orem.” Both Agamemnon and the salesman sacrifice their daughters for higher goals. Monetary gain was important at the beginnings of civilization and it is still important now. While in history books, Greece is described as the founder of democracy, America is nowadays referred to as the most democratic country in the world. In the modern society, the greed for money is the driving force of capitalism. An individual is easily replaced, so he has to struggle to keep his job. On one hand, Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter in order to remain loyal to his military troops and on the other; the salesman killed Emma in order to keep his position in the working class. The capitalist system has taught him to be more attached to material things than to human beings. Being able to identify only with objects in his life, he values his personality according to the money he earns. As a result, he is dehumanized by the system that he supports. On balance, they play delivers an important message that nothing has changed from the beginnings of civilization. Although modern society claims that it is based on democracy and equality of people, not a lot has been accomplished since the age of Ancient Greece. We are still cherishing the capitalist system that does not allow us to achieve true democracy.

CONCLUSION The Goddess Remembered In final consideration, it can be concluded that Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill and Neil LaBute assume that violence towards children and other people is not innate, but it is culturally evoked. The gang members from „Saved“ direct violence to the weakest one because they were mistreated by their society. In Churchill's „Hospital“, our culture creates mentally disturbed individuals. Monsieur and the Police Inspector use violence in order to feel powerful and significant in the system. They consider themselves to be the dominant members of

society while in fact they are only marionetes in the hands of the system. In addition, in „Iphigenia in Oprem“, the salesman complies with the system and is able to kill his own daughter in order to remain in it. In the three plays, children are either killed or they grow up to be emotionally instable individuals.

Every newborn comes to this world

with the expectation that this world would be a home to him, that his needs will be satisfied. He becomes frustrated because he/she lives in a society that will educate him into a tolerance of his frustration. He becomes tolerant of violence or violent himself. Therefore, the system is irrational and cruel because it violates the individual’s right to freedom, dignity and pursuit of happiness. However, we should remember that there is always the third option- to reject the restrictions of the system and to choose to live justly. We should reject violence and use instead the feelings of love, compassion and sharing. As Marija Gimbutas' research in the field of archaeology discovered, before the dawn of Western Civilization, there were long-lasting and peaceful cultures that lived on the territories of today’s Eastern Europe.40 They were on the high level of culture and art and most importantly, they never waged wars. They had a rich religious life; their primary deity was female, the giver of life, and she represented the unity of all life in nature, both male and female.They lived in a world without hierarchy and violence where the dominant feeling was that of love and sharing. They based their communities on the principle of motherhood. Children were sacred then; the bond between a mother and a child could never be broken. Nevertheless, civilization, with its conquests, invasions and warfare, destroyed these Signs Out of Time-Maria Gimbutas http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1 40

peaceful cultures. As we have seen in the plays, children are now used as objects and instruments for gaining power. According to Maria Gimbutas and her many followers, we should embrace the values of these „pre-civilization“ cultures and try to restore the peace in the world by basing our system on love and not money.

Reference: 1.

Edward Bond, Saved, Methuen & Co LTD, 1969

2.

Caryl Churchill, Shorts, The Hospital at the time of Revolution, Methuen Drama, 1985

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Neil LaBute, Bash: Letterday plays, Iphigenia in Orem, Faber & Faber Ltd Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize Lecture, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/s oyinka-lecture.html Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism, http://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse %20on%20Colonialism.pdf Amiri Baraka, The Revolutionary Theatre, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12 /barakatheatre.pdf Naomi Wallace, On Writing As Transgression, http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous %20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdf Lena Petrovic, Literature, Culture, Identity: Writing as renaming, Prosveta, 2004 Raymond Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht, conclusion,

10. Bond,

Edward, Lear, Eyre Methuen Ltd., London, 1978

11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&pl aynext=1, Signs Out of Time, Marija Gimbutas