To Speak or Not to Speak? : Postcolonial Readings of Silence inRacine's Theatre Público
Newell-Amato, Domenica Loren (2009)
Published
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
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