Abstract
Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (1998), an appropriation of the myth of Medea, re-presents the
predicament of Hester Swane, who like Medea, is an outsider, a dispossessed woman living on the margins
of society, who, at the age of seven, was abandoned by her mother, and now is struggling to establish her
identity by looking for connection with the lost m/other. Carr shifts the focus from stereotypical female
wickedness dealt with by the “malestream” playwrights to representation of mothers and maternal relations.
This essay, therefore, in alignment with French feminist theory, dismantles the negative image of Medea by
representing the wicked woman/monster/witch image on the stage as a psychological and social construct,
as well as a masculine one. This re-reading will situate the play as one of the representatives of a new phase
of contemporary Irish drama that is, content-wise, free from the nationalist discourse of the masculine Irish
dramatic tradition, and is more universal, more humane, and more appealing to a non-Irish audience.
Details
| Primary Language | Turkish |
|---|---|
| Journal Section | Articles |
| Authors | |
| Publication Date | April 1, 2008 |
| Published in Issue | Year 2008 Volume: 1 Issue: 9 |