Lee, Insoo
(2012)
Reading and Writing as Transformative Action in Maria Irene Fornes' and Adrienne Kennedy's Plays.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation examines Maria Irene Fornes’ and Adrienne Kennedy’s plays, focusing on the female characters’ act of reading and writing on stage. Usually, reading and writing on stage are considered to be passive and static, but in the two playwrights’ works, they are used as an effective plot device that moves the drama forward and as willful efforts by the female characters to develop their sense of identities. Furthermore, in contrast to the usual perception of reading and writing as intellectual processes, Fornes and Kennedy depict these acts as intensely physical and sensual. Julia Kristeva’s and Hélène Cixous’ poststructuralist psychoanalytic theories of language and female sexuality, and Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of writing the body are the major theoretical framework within which I explore the two playwrights’ works. Since I treat the plays as meta-writing (writing about writing) I also use narrative theory to analyze the narrative structures of the plays, which the two dramatists use to reveal the nature of writing. I conclude that Fornes’ plays demonstrate that knowledge and the possibility to create oneself can only result from one’s earnest effort to merge language in one’s embodied experiences and vice versa. I also conclude that in Kennedy’s plays writing opens up a space in which the writer assumes many different identities simultaneously. In this space of writing, the writer uses her body as a medium through which she experiences the others’ identities.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
28 June 2012 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
16 April 2012 |
| Approval Date: |
28 June 2012 |
| Submission Date: |
19 April 2012 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
269 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Theater Arts |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Maria Irene Fornes, Adrienne Kennedy, Language, Sexuality, Women and Writing |
| Related URLs: |
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| Date Deposited: |
28 Jun 2012 20:34 |
| Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 13:57 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11910 |
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