To Speak or Not to Speak? : Postcolonial Readings of Silence inRacine's Theatre Open Access

Abstract

Abstract To Speak or Not to Speak? : Postcolonial Readings of Silence in Racine's Theatre By Domenica Newell-Amato

This dissertation examines silence in Racine's theatre not only as an inability of the characters to express themselves, but as a subtle and complex account of negotiating cultural difference and interdependency. Coinciding with the inception of the French colonial system and its emergent discourses on cultural and racial differences (such as Louis XIV's edict of 1685 that denies rights to the African slaves in the French Antilles), Racine's theatre explores the troubled encounter between Western self and Oriental or African other. I argue that the Western self is afflicted by a loss of speech in the face of cultural alterity. Subsisting at the margins of Western imperial power and discourse, the silencing of Oriental or African characters marks the difficulty of entering classical representation as a culturally delineated space. However, the difficulty of achieving representation leads the cultural other to find alternative assertions of agency. Engendered as an unstable composite that is constructed across the borders of onstage and offstage, of speech and silence, and of self and other, identity ceases to reinforce Classical values. Just as the marginalized other destabilizes the Western imperial perspective, the muting of the culturally dominant self further signals the failure of hegemonic discourse. It is thus at the height of French seventeenth century classicism that Racine paves the way to postcolonial discourse on otherness through his use of silence. Engaging with questions of subaltern speech and cultural difference, my analysis is informed by the postcolonial writings of Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Edouard Glissant, and Homi Bhabha. I conclude by showing that Racine's explorations of silence inaugurate and provide a critical legacy for understanding the destabilization and muting of the voice in the postcolonial theatre of Marguerite Duras and Maryse Condé.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CHAPTER

1. VENTRILOQUIZING ONE'S GOOD-BYE;

ECHOES OF CONQUEST IN RACINE'S BÉRÉNICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

In the Shadows of Rome

Silence and the Body of a Protest

A Bad Actor or the Difficulty of Fitting the Role

Ventriloquisms of an Estranged Identity

The Reversal of Fortune and Discourse:

The Orientalization of the West

Staging/ Inverting Processes of Orientalism

Failures in Speech: Gaps in - or Occasions for - Representation?

A Leak in Silence

Another Side of Conquest: Tales of Devastation and Ruin

Hearing the Sighs above the Clamor

2. THE HUSHED HAREM IN RACINE'S BAJAZET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

The Fluidity of (Geographical) Representation

The Preamble to a Fictional Space

Distortions of the Peephole

Culturally Ambiguous Heroines

The Silent Prison: Metacommentary on Orientalist Representation

Unequal Playing Fields: Competing Dimensions of Silence

The Sultana's Theatre

Silence's Betrayal: The Breakdown of Body

Fragmentary Performances: Play-ful Interstices of Voice

Tragic Pitfalls of Silence

Compressing Tragic Space; Strangulating Tragic Voice

Imagined Voyages and Questionable Voyeurisms

3. OFFSTAGE MONSTERS IN RACINE'S BAJAZET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Activating Cultural Imaginary: Announcing Blackness

Contextualizing Orcan: Historical Overtones of Blackness

The African as Textual Disorder

Black Skin: Symbol of the Obscurities Surrounding European Knowledge

Striking at the Voice of the African

Monstrous Composites

Forcing the Monster back into the Closet

The Perpetual Exile of the Monster

4. THE SILENCE OF THE LABYRINTH IN RACINE'S PHÈDRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Speaking Oneself into the Labyrinth

Centrifugal Diffractions

The Eclipsing of the Son

A Culturally Handicapped Hippolyte

Censorship as an Impoverished Form of Slaying the Monster

The Implosion of the Virgo Intacto's Discursive Boundaries

The Abstraction of the Monster: Extracting Hippolyte from the Tragic Space

Encasing Hybridity and Consequent Subversions of Silence

The Other Scene

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	French
Degree	PhD
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Literature, Romance Language, Modern Literature, Modern
Keyword	Racine Silence Postcolonial
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Judovitz, Dalia, Emory University Loichot, Valerie, Emory University
Committee Members	Marder, Elissa, Emory University Moudileno, Lydie, University of Pennsylvania

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