From Rite of Passage to Rite of Sacrifice: Modern Oedipus and Dysfunctional Family in Polly Stenham’s That Face
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The paper reads Stenham’s debut play That Face as a tragedy of ritual paucity in contemporary society and its impact on youth. While no serious scholarly research has been conducted on the play so far, several critics have reviewed That Face in light of Oedipus complex. While the mother-son relationship is central to the plot and it is possible to see their bond as incestuous, too much focus on the sexual aspect of the play led the critics to overlook it’s ritual dimension. Instead of limiting the analysis to the theme of incest, the essay compares the play with Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex to examine the young protagonist’s abjection and self-sacrifice in ritual terms. This comparative analysis begins by challenging the two major traditional interpretations of the Attic tragedy based on Aristotle’s Poetics and Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretations of Dreams, which still influence the scholarly and popular understanding of the Oedipal myth. A close textual analysis reveals that the fall of Henry, the 18-year-old boy taking care of his mother suffering from alcoholism and a mental disorder by himself, does not derive from his hamartia, often translated as ‘error of judgment’ or ‘moral flaw,’ or incestuous desire for her. Rather, his tragic fate is caused by his irresponsible parents and the family’s poor ritual condition; he is not an immoral hero seeking to take the bed of his father but an innocent scapegoat that sacrifices his life and dreams to care for his mother. Without any proper rite of passage that should transition him into adulthood, the critical period of his late-teen life becomes his rite of sacrifice.
Abstract
The paper reads Stenham’s debut play That Face as a tragedy of ritual paucity in contemporary society and its impact on youth. While no serious scholarly research has been conducted on the play so far, several critics have reviewed That Face in light of Oedipus complex. While the mother-son relationship is central to the plot and it is possible to see their bond as incestuous, too much focus on the sexual aspect of the play led the critics to overlook it’s ritual dimension. Instead of limiting the analysis to the theme of incest, the essay compares the play with Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex to examine the young protagonist’s abjection and self-sacrifice in ritual terms. This comparative analysis begins by challenging the two major traditional interpretations of the Attic tragedy based on Aristotle’s Poetics and Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretations of Dreams, which still influence the scholarly and popular understanding of the Oedipal myth. A close textual analysis reveals that the fall of Henry, the 18-year-old boy taking care of his mother suffering from alcoholism and a mental disorder by himself, does not derive from his hamartia, often translated as ‘error of judgment’ or ‘moral flaw,’ or incestuous desire for her. Rather, his tragic fate is caused by his irresponsible parents and the family’s poor ritual condition; he is not an immoral hero seeking to take the bed of his father but an innocent scapegoat that sacrifices his life and dreams to care for his mother. Without any proper rite of passage that should transition him into adulthood, the critical period of his late-teen life becomes his rite of sacrifice.
참고문헌 (30)
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