Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1995

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

English

Major Professor

Stanton B. Garner Jr.

Committee Members

Norman Sanders, B. J. Leggett, Judy Lee Olivia

Abstract

Since the conclusion of World War II, the traditional Victorian idealization of the British family as an extended, heterosexual, patriarchal institution has been challenged through governmental policies, post-war economic affluence, and social changes. Through the plays of Harold Pinter, Peter Nichols, Caryl Churchill, Stephen Poliakoff and Sarah Daniels, among others, the contemporary British theatre has reflected these challenges to the image of the British family. Building upon socio-historical studies of the post-war British family as well as traditional dramatizations of the family (by playwrights such as Noel Coward), this dissertation discusses the changing presentation of the British family between 1956 and 1990. Chapter One considers contemporary explorations of maternity. Plays such as Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey, Churchill's Owners and Top Girls,/u>, and Charlotte Keatley's My Mother Said I Never Should contest the patriarchal preconception that women are merely maternal figures by emphasizing the effect of economics on motherhood. While Delaney underscores the economic plight of a struggling, lower-class mother and her pregnant daughter, Churchill and Keatley address the growing economic individuality of women and mothers in the work place. Incest, the classical taboo, forms the focus of Chapter Two. While Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw and David Storey's Mother's Day, both farces, create an inverted world in which incest is seen as a "normal" and even a restorative relationship within the family, Poliakoff's Hitting Town focuses on incest as a form of protest in an alienating urban landscape. In contrast, Daniels' Beside Herself politicizes the damaging long-term effects of incest in order to indict an unresponsive and uncaring patriarchy. Chapter Three discusses four adultery plays: Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests, Pinter's Betrayal, Nichols' Passion Play and Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Not only do these plays rejuvenate the tired adultery play genre, but they also address, the pain, agony and distress infidelity causes in marital relationships. Finally, Chapter Four examines a burgeoning collection of plays interested in alternative families: John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane and Churchill's Cloud Nine. Through the destabilization of the family as a traditional domestic unit, these plays explore alternative family configurations.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS