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UNIVERSITY OF NIFACULTY OF PHILOSOPHYENGLISH DEPARTMENT

MODERN ANGLO-AMERICAN DRAMA

CHILDREN AS VICTIMS OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM INMODERN ANGLO-AMERICAN DRAMA: EDWARD BOND,

CARYL CHURCHILL AND NEIL LABUTE

STUDENT: TEACHER ADVISER:RADMILA FILIPOVIC PROF.DR LJILJANA BOGOEVASEDLAR

NI, SERBIA


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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 Saved6

Colonization as the By-Product of Capitalism

Caryl Churchill Hospital at the time ofrevolution.........12

Modern-Day Capitalism

Neil LaBute Iphigenia inOrem.18


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Conclusion

Marija Gimbutas Signs Out ofTime22

Reference24

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 consumemore 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 Richs words Our desire is stolen from us, and


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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 thehuge 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 individuals 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 Marxs essay Alienation, he arguesthat 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

1 Lena Petrovic, Literature, Culture, Identity, Writing as re-naming, Prosveta, 2004, pg181


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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 Brecht2,

all drama deals with the true representation of life. Its concern is to

2 Raymond Williams, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht, conclusion


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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 19

th

century and it attempted to create aperfect 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 behavebecause 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.4Ibsen 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


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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 shouldquestion it instead. In Amiri Barakas 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 truthabout racism and the effect that it still has on black peoples 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 USs 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

Transgression10, 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.pdf8 Ibid

9 Ibid

10http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdf
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdfhttp://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdf


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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.12Students 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 civilizations 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
http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdf


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the audience recognize the potential in the individual to revolt against

the unjust system.

CHILDREN AS VICTIMS OF THE CAPITALIST

SYSTEM

WORKING-CLASSDEHUMANIZEDBYTHESYSTEM

In his preface to the modern version of Shakespeares 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 towrite 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


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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 societys 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 noevidence 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.

Bonds play Saved16 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


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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 plays opening scene features Pam and Len in Pams living

room. During their flirting, Pams father Harry comes in the room and

goes out several times. Pam is indifferent to her fathers 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 hisclothes. Pams 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 cant

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 Pams 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; they are fragmented. They reveal the lack of17 Ibid, pg 24


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communication and alienation in human relations. Despite Lens trying

to be intimate with Pam, she is not capable of having a meaningful

relationship. Following her parents example, she is alienated from

people and does not want to change her attitude. Love is impersonalfor 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 Freds baby, he does not want to take responsibility as the babys

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 daughters 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


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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 Freds attention, Pam takes thebaby 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 goeshome, 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

babys pram to each other. They call the baby a bloody nutter19 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 dadll scoop

em up and use em for bait.20

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

19Ibid, pg 63

20 Ibid, pg 63


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pulling its hair. However, they gradually become more violent; they

start punching it. They even take off the babys 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 ananimal. 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 babys 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 yer21 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


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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 orremorse 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 Petes victory:

MIKE. Accidents is legal.

COLIN. Cant touch yer.

PETE. This coroner-twit says es 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 Pams

psychological violence against Len. Pam does not appreciate Lens 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


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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 peoples feelings. In spite of

Pams degrading attitude, Len remains devoted to her. In contrast toother 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 Pams 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


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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.

COLONIZATIONASTHE BY-PRODUCTOF CAPITALISM

Caryl Churchills 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 Fanons famous book The Wretched ofthe 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 Fanons 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 Presence24, 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

24http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.html
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.htmlhttp://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.html


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Kenya, during the Mau-Mau Liberation struggle.25 Mau-Mau was an anti-

colonial 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 werebeaten 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 Fanons teacher, makes a similar statement inhis 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 mens 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-ification27 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

25Ibid26http://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse%20on%20Colonialism.pdf

27 Ibid
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.htmlhttp://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.htmlhttp://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse%20on%20Colonialism.pdfhttp://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.htmlhttp://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse%20on%20Colonialism.pdf


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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 thathis 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 tokeep 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 didnt want28. 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

28 Caryl Churchill, Shorts, The Hospital at the time of Revolution, Methuen Drama,1985, pg 102


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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 allin her head. Her mother says to her thats right; its 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 daughters 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, Francoises fewarguments 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 shes 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


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member of the ruling capitalist class, but her soul is poisoned by the

injustice that her father does to the Algerians.

Francoises parents are in denial of the roles they play in the

oppression of the Algerians. Her father blatantly denies that therevolution is happening by stating that there is no war and no

revolution31, 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 tomere 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 husbands 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


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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 disappearingand 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 alsofighting 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 caf. 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


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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 doesnot, 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 heis 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-year-

old-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 fathers 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


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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 absurdityof 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-DAYCAPITALISM

Neil LaButes play Iphigenia in Orem35 was written in 2005. In

relation to Bonds Saved and Churchills Hospital, it also deals with

34 Ibid, pg 119

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


25/32

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 whichwere influenced by Greek mythology. It is based on the play Iphigenia

in Aulis36 written by Euripides around 408 BC. Iphigenia is the

daughter ofAgamemnon 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 generalthat 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 brothers 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

36http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigenia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clytemnestrahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clytemnestra


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been used as a prop in Agamemnons 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 dieheroically that be dragged to the altar despite her will.

LaButes 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 Its very high

stakes, lots of cash floating around you, and the pressures real37 Hedescribes his company as a jungle since every day you are out for

somebodys 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 80s; 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 clich, vicious, always wearing a business suit, and never

smiling39. 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
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigeniahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigenia


27/32

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 anaccident: 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 thathe 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


28/32

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 ofcapitalism. 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.


29/32

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

, ourculture 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


30/32

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 beemotionally 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 individuals 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

todays 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

40 Signs Out of Time-Maria Gimbutas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1


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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 theworld 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 ofRevolution, Methuen Drama, 1985
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1


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3. Neil LaBute, Bash: Letterday plays, Iphigenia in Orem, Faber& Faber Ltd

4. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize Lecture,http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/s

oyinka-lecture.html5. Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism,

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

6. Amiri Baraka, The Revolutionary Theatre,http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdf

7. Naomi Wallace, On Writing As Transgression,http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdf

8. Lena Petrovic, Literature, Culture, Identity: Writing as re-naming, Prosveta, 2004

9. 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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.htmlhttp://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.htmlhttp://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse%20on%20Colonialism.pdfhttp://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse%20on%20Colonialism.pdfhttp://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdfhttp://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdfhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.htmlhttp://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-lecture.htmlhttp://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse%20on%20Colonialism.pdfhttp://www.bandung2.co.uk/books/Files/Politics/Discourse%20on%20Colonialism.pdfhttp://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdfhttp://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text12/barakatheatre.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdfhttp://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/images/previous%20teachers/at_jan08_transgressionFINAL.pdfhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaeuULrLjM&feature=PlayList&p=42DD8748183C9B11&index=0&playnext=1

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