Research Article

Modern Trickster in Joe Penhall’s Love and Understanding

Number: Ö9 August 21, 2021
  • Kadriye Bozkurt *
TR EN

Modern Trickster in Joe Penhall’s Love and Understanding

Abstract

Contemporary English-Australian playwright and screenwriter Joe Penhall’s play Love and Understanding (2004) depicts the chaos of modern world and the disintegration of the two young doctors Neal and Rachel as lovers because of their busy works and miscommunication. This play also introduces us the lonely and depressive Richie who resembles ‘trickster’ with his manipulative, narcistic, self-seeking, tricky character. Trickster as a character in literature and culture is an archetypical figure who mostly appears in many different identities and disguises and adorns with amusing, mischievous and clever personality; moreover, trickster achieves to survive and to arrange all the affairs for his/her own hand. Many well-known personalities such as Dionysus, Pan, Prometheus and Nasreddin Hodja in mythology, literature or folk tales, and Jack Sparrow, The Joker or The Mask in movies can be cited as examples for trickster being cunning, cheater and rogue to some degree. As it will be analysed in this essay, in Penhall’s play, Richie can be read as the modern version of trickster with his decadent slyness, hedonism, shallowness and piteous loneliness.

Keywords

References

  1. Cashford, J. (2015) “How Hermes and Apollo came to love each other in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes: imagination and form in Ancient Greece and modern psyche”, Ancient Greece, Modern Psyche: Archetypes Evolving (Ed: Virginia Beane Rutter, Thomas Singer), London and New York: Routledge.
  2. Collins English Dictionary (collinsdictionary.com), “Trickster definition and meaning” https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/trickster. accessed date: 15.02.2021.
  3. Das, C, (1993). Folklores of Mankind, Institute of Oriental and Orissan Studies.
  4. Freeman, Z. (2014). “Review: Love and Understanding”, Redtwist Theatre, Newcity Stage, (773)728-7529.
  5. https://www.newcitystage.com/2014/03/03/review-love-and-understandingredtwist-theatre/. accessed date: 12.03.2021.
  6. Gilles, M, A., Mahood, A. (2007). Modernist Literature an Introduction, Edinburg: Edinburg University Press.
  7. Hyde, L. (1999). Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art, (Foreword: Michael Chabon ). New York: North Point Press.
  8. Jung, C. G (1933). Modern Man in Search of a Soul, U.S.: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Linguistics , Literary Theory

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Kadriye Bozkurt * This is me
0000-0001-5219-5629
Türkiye

Publication Date

August 21, 2021

Submission Date

July 11, 2021

Acceptance Date

August 20, 2021

Published in Issue

Year 2021 Number: Ö9

APA
Bozkurt, K. (2021). Modern Trickster in Joe Penhall’s Love and Understanding. RumeliDE Dil Ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, Ö9, 184-192. https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.981526