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University of Southampton Research Repository University of Southampton Research Repository Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis and, where applicable, any accompanying data are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis and the accompanying data cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content of the thesis and accompanying research data (where applicable) must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder/s. When referring to this thesis and any accompanying data, full bibliographic details must be given, e.g. Thesis: Author (Year of Submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University Faculty or School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. Data: Author (Year) Title. URI [dataset] Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF HUMANITIES English “WHY DOES ITS LOCK FIT MY KEY?” THE SPATIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF HOME IN BRIAN FRIEL’S DRAMA by Amaal J. Al-Kroy Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2017 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES English Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy “WHY DOES ITS LOCK FIT MY KEY?” THE SPATIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF HOME IN BRIAN FRIEL’S DRAMA Amaal Jassim Al-Kroy This thesis is a geo-critical study that combines spatial and post-colonial approaches to read the concept of home in Brian Friel’s drama. The thesis focuses on how the dramatic treatment of space and place shapes the representations, understandings and experience of home in his drama. The study attempts to resolve the questions of whether Brian Friel partakes in the de-familiarisation of the nationalistic discourse on space through his representation of home and thus creates discourses of resistance that challenge dominant assumptions about home space, or whether he in fact asserts this discourse on space despite his postcolonial position. In light of the complex and contradictory thematic of home in Brian Friel’s dramatic work, the study endeavours to elucidate four main aims. Firstly, it aims to consider how home is produced, negotiated, and represented dramatically in a partitioned state and the ways in which home might be considered a (post) colonial space under these conditions. Secondly, it plans to challenge dominant readings of home in Friel’s drama that have primarily been shaped by the concerns of nationalism and other 'public' discourses, focusing instead on the interplay between home as a space of life’s intimate human spatiality and home as a space of political negotiations. Thirdly, this thesis attempts to elucidate the paradoxical undertones in representing home as a political space, reinforcing colonial powers. Finally, I wish to contribute a productive theorisation of the value of home that synthesises its spatial and postcolonial critiques. Initially, the study is interested in the playwright’s response within his plays to the political, social, religious and cultural milieu in Ireland since the nineteen twenties and how this affects his awareness of the trauma of home. The project demonstrates conclusively how Brian Friel’s tendency to situate his dramatic plays within the domains of home reveals his critical engagement with the concept of home in the (post)colonial Irish context, and how this also is crucial for an understanding of the relationship between drama and political engagement of other texts produced in other postcolonial contexts. Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ i DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................................ v Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ vii Chapter 1: Research Context ................................................................................. 9 1.1 Chapter Overview ...................................................................... 9 1.2 The Scope of the Study .............................................................. 9 1.3 The Early Representations of Home in Irish Drama ................... 14 1.4 Brian Friel: “We must learn where we live” ................................ 16 1.4.1 Home and Brian Friel .................................................... 21 Chapter 2: Research Theoretical framework ............................................ 24 2.1 Chapter Overview .................................................................... 24 2.2 Home: Thesis-Working Definition ............................................. 24 2.3 What makes Geo-criticism ........................................................ 26 2.3.1 Gaston Bachelard: Reading Intimate Spaces ................... 28 2.3.2 The Social Conceptualisation of Space .......................... 31 2.3.3 Outline the Research Topic in Context of literature Reviewed .................................................................................... 37 2.3.4 Friel’s Concept of Home: Nationalistic Reading ............. 37 2.3.5 Friel’s concept of Home: Postcolonial Readings ............ 46 2.4 Concluding Remarks ................................................................ 49 Chapter 3: Images of Psychic Home as a Political Space ................... 51 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................ 51 3.2 Psychic Homelands: Imagination of Space and place in The Enemy Within ..................................................................................... 51 3.2.1 The Context of the Play ................................................ 51 3.2.2 Staging the Spatiality of Home ...................................... 53 3.2.3 Home as a post-colonial space ...................................... 55 3.2.4 The Problematic of Home and Identity .......................... 58 3.2.5 The Problematic of Home and Origin ............................ 61 i 3.3 The Loves of Cass McGuire: Returning home: Gender, Domestic space ...................................................................................... 63 3.3.1 The Context of the play................................................ 63 3.3.2 The Staging the Spatiality of Home ............................... 65 3.3.3 The Domestic Space of Home ....................................... 66 3.3.4 The Staging of Imagined space of Home ....................... 70 3.4 Molly Sweeney: Staging Body and Home .................................. 74 3.4.1 Home and Body ........................................................... 74 3.4.2 Staging the Spatiality of Home ..................................... 75 3.4.3 Staging Body as a Contested Space............................... 78 3.5 Conclusion.............................................................................. 82 Chapter 4: The Representations of Domestic Space in Philadelphia, Here I Come!, The Gentle Island and Dancing at Lughnasa 85 4.1 Chapter Overview .................................................................... 85 4.2 Philadelphia Here I Come: Unhomely Home ............................. 86 4.2.1 Introduction ................................................................. 86 4.2.2 Home on Stage ............................................................ 86 4.2.3 Father-Son Relationship................................................ 91 4.2.4 (Un) homely Motherland ............................................... 96 4.3 The Gentle Island: Uncanny Presence ....................................... 99 4.3.1 Introduction ................................................................. 99 4.3.2 Home on Stage .......................................................... 102 4.3.3 Home as a Chaotic Space: The Role of Patriarchy ........ 105 4.3.4 Strangers at Home ..................................................... 108 4.4 “The whole thing is so fragile it can’t be held together much longer” Failed Domesticity in Dancing at Lughnasa ............................ 110 4.4.1 Introduction ............................................................... 110 4.4.2 Home on Stage .......................................................... 111 4.4.3 The Internal Space of the Mundy House ...................... 116 4.4.4 The External spaces of the Mundy House.................... 119 4.4.5 Conclusion ................................................................ 124 ii Chapter 5: Spatial Representations of Homeland in Aristocrats, Translations and The Home place .................................................... 127 5.1 Chapter Overview .................................................................. 127 5.2 A Postcolonial Treatment of the Big House in Aristocrats ....... 127 5.2.1 The Tradition of the Big House ................................... 128 5.2.2 The Spatial Representations of the Big House .............. 132 5.3 Re- Mapping Home: Brain Friel’s Translations......................... 133 5.3.1 Translations: Text Background ................................... 134 5.3.2 Blurring the Boundaries: The Home and The Nation..... 137 5.3.3 Re-mapping the home Space ....................................... 142 5.3.4 Interlopers in the Home .............................................. 144 5.4 The Home Place: Why Home Matters ...................................... 150 5.4.1 Big House: Colonial
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