PSYCHOLOGICAL PLANE: SIGMUND FREUD’S SUBCONSCIOUS MIND IN SIMON STEPHENS’S “BLUEBIRD”

Year 2021, Volume: 61 Issue: 1, 557 - 582, 24.06.2021

Cüneyt Özata

https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2021.61.1.23

Abstract

From the rituals demonstrated with masks and nature-inspired costumes to epitomise
supernatural beings to a church-based dramatization in the Early Middle Ages focusing
solely on commemoration of Christ with a theatrical rite on Easter, or even to Shakespeare,
where characters in disguise fill the scene at a time when Elizabethan notion of visceral
force was replaced by intrigue, theatre has always been the shadow of a changing society.
What, in fact, goes under a change is not the notion of theatre per se, but the idea of relating
to people from all walks of life. In this sense, theatre, which has a structuring power that
has managed to infiltrate deeply within the society, has sustained its existence in parallel
with the developing and shifting social dynamics. For theatre, change is bound to happen
if one retains his/her permanency. Theatre, which is in a continuous motion, allows
interaction between the audience and the actor. Though the dimension of this interaction is
multifaceted, one of the most broadly known is indubitably the reflection of Freud's
concept of psychoanalysis on the characters of the play, which is based on the view that
certain situations that take place in human consciousness and especially in the
subconscious have a great role in their daily lives. Simon Stephens, who reflects this
change and interaction to his works by going beyond the traditional understanding of
theatre and by including the post-dramatic elements with music and abundant visuality,
stands out as one of the important playwrights of contemporary British theatre in recent
years. The play Bluebird (1998), which he wrote on a level reminiscent of the cinema scene,
presents sections from the lives of postmodern individuals who are struggling to hold on to
life in the grip of the developing and globalizing world, which Stephens himself personally
experienced and observed. The author tries to reflect the psychological disorders of
today's individuals and Freud's subconscious concept to the audience with his play
Bluebird. This study deals with the characters in Stephens' Bluebird within the context of
Sigmund Freud's personality theories.

Keywords

Simon Stephens, Sigmund Freud, Subconscious, Psychoanalysis, Superego

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