Sarah Kane’s first play Blasted (1995) has often been read in a normative and biographical way by critics, authors and previous researchers. This essay makes a supplementary close reading of Blasted from gender and genealogical perspectives and utilizes theoretical works by Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray and Michel Foucault. My study makes clear that the characters different positions in language and talk create and maintain a power imbalance between them. Efforts to change and develop one’s individual position in language and talk are being made throughout the play since it is the only way to bring about a change in the social power structure. A fact that in turn also subsequently punishes those efforts. By analyzing the tools of representation, Kane points out a direct link between a violent power imbalance in a couples relationship and the violence of a war zone. In Blasted, it is revealed how violence in a private situation is mirrored in a situation of public violence and how the public violence, in turn, crawls back to the private zone and there repeats itself. By forcing one of the main characters to regress back to the infancy of language and from there alter the ability to act within the framework of human interrelations, Kane demonstrates how a change in social structures can be made, and as is shown in this essay, this indicates that a knowledge of how the social structures are being maintained and how they in turn can be disarranged, is what is required to create an opportunity for change.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-1761 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Mårsell, Maria |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för genus, kultur och historia |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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