The Violence of Duality in Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro
Journal Title: Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies - Year 2018, Vol 27, Issue 1
Abstract
Adrienne Kennedy’s psychodrama Funnyhouse of a Negro personifies in her protagonist, Sarah, the internalized racism and mental deterioration that a binary paradigm foments. Kennedy also develops the schizoid consciousness of Sarah to accentuate Sarah’s hybridized and traumatized identity as an African American woman. Kennedy’s play was controversial during the Black Arts Movement, as she refrained from endorsing black nationalist groups like Black Power, constructing instead a nightmare world in which race is the singular element in defining self-worth. In her dramatized indictment of both white supremacy and identity politics, American culture’s pathologized fascination with pigmentation drives the protagonist to solipsistic isolation, and ultimately, to suicide. Kennedy, through the disturbed cast of Sarah’s mind, portrays a world in which race obsession triumphs over any sense of basic humanity. The play urges the audience to accept the absurdity of a dichotomized vision of the world, to recognize the spectral nature of reality, and to transcend the devastation imposed by polarizing rhetoric.
Authors and Affiliations
Quan Manh Ha, Conor Hogan
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP447664
- DOI 10.7311/0860-5734.27.1.09
- Views 6
- Downloads 0
Happy is the Land that Needs No Heroes
This essay interrogates two articles by the Canadian historian Jeff Keshen and the Australian historian Mark Sheftall, which assert that the representations of soldiers in the First World War (Anzacs in Australia, member...
“I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue”: The Slavic Sounds of Shakespeare Translations
The paper sets to explore the specificity of the Slavic translations of Shakespeare with some special emphasis on the prosodic features of Slavic languages. Preceded by a general discussion of the sounds and rhythms of S...
The End of the 1914–1918 War in Africa
The end of the First World War in Africa occurred at different times across the continent as the German colonies capitulated and surrendered to the allied forces between 26 August 1914 and 25 November 1918. The experienc...
Literature, Politics and the CIA: Polish-English Literary Translation at the Time of the Cold War
The paper examines the interdependence of literature and world politics, focusing on contemporary Polish prose, mainly in English translation, promoted in the West between 1945 and 1989 for its anti-communist message, no...
British Film Propaganda in the Netherlands: Its Preconditions and Missed Opportunities
British film propaganda directed at neutral countries was meant to strengthen the pro-British attitude or at least weaken pro-German sentiments in the neutral countries. Directed at the wide strata of neutral societies a...