3 Female Characters in Selected Plays of Alan

SLEZSKÁ UNIVERZITA V OPAVĚ Filozoficko-přírodovědecká fakulta v Opavě DIPLOMOVÁ PRÁCE Opava 2020 Bc. Anna Bangoura SLEZSKÁ UNIVERZITA V OPAVĚ Filozoficko-přírodovědecká fakulta v Opavě Anna Bangoura Obor: Anglická literatura (angličtina) Female Characters in Alan Ayckbourn's Plays Diplomová práce Opava 2020 PhDr. Diana Adamová, Ph.D. Abstract The present master thesis examines the portrayal and the role of female characters in selected plays by a British contemporary playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The thesis deals with the analysis of female characters in terms of gender stereotypes and its evaluation based on the feminist theory in literature. The aim of this thesis is to focus on how the author approaches female characters in his works. Keywords: feminism, theatre, female character Abstrakt Tato diplomová práce zkoumá vyobrazení a roli ženských postav v literatuře. Konkrétně na příkladu vybraných her současného britského dramatika Alana Ayckbourna. Tato práce se zabývá analýzou ženských postav z hlediska genderových stereotypů a jejich hodnocením na základě feministické literární teorie. Cílem této práce je zaměřit se na to, jakým způsobem autor přistupuje k ženským postavám v jeho dílech. Klíčová slova: feminismus, divadlo, ženská postava 4 Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto práci vypracovala samostatně. Veškeré prameny a literatura, které jsem pro vyhotovení práce využila, řádně cituji a uvádím v seznamu použité literatury a internetových zdrojů. V Opavě dne 9. prosince 2020 Anna Bangoura Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor PhDr. Diana Adamová Ph.D for her helpful guidance, valuable advice, comments and support during my work on the thesis. Contents Introduction 1 1 The problematic of female characters in the literature of the past and present 2 1.1 How and by whom are the female characters made? 2 1.2 What is a female character? 5 2 Alan Ayckbourn as a writer of a contemporary female character 8 2.1 In the beginning 8 2.2 Recurrent themes in Alan Ayckbourn’s works 11 3 Female characters in selected plays of Alan Ayckbourn 14 3.1 Woman in Mind (1987) 14 3.1.1 Susan and Fata Morgana on the desert of her life 16 3.1.2 Susan in relation to other characters in Woman In Mind 20 3.2 Henceforward... (1987) 28 3.2.1 Corinna and all of her shapes in Henceforward… 30 3.3 Body Language (1990) 36 3.3.1 Opposites attract - stereotypes in female characters 37 3.4 Comic Potential (1998) 42 3.4.1 Woman or a robot? 43 3.4.2 Other female characters in Comic Potential 46 Conclusion 49 Bibliography 53 List of abbreviations AI – artificial intelligence 1 Introduction Alan Ayckbourn is a prolific author of mostly comedy plays that combine the element of deeply serious and lightweight at once, and is known for his focus on struggling relationships and marriage. The author’s interest in futuristic world and the search for freedom creates a brilliant opportunity to analyse the female characters in his plays in context of gender stereotypes and feminist theory. The way in which the writer interconnects the practical with the abstract, when it comes to choosing the setting or the motifs of his works, creates an attractive feature which appeals to be analysed in the literary field. Moreover, the female characters written by this author promise a diverse and unconventional expression of human emotions and various ideas. This thesis concentrates on the analysis of female characters that appear in four selected theatre plays by Alan Ayckbourn. The plays vary in the types of setting, number of cast and other aspects and they are arranged in the chronological order. The thesis consists of the parts where Chapter 1 concentrates on the theoretical approach to analysis of female characters, and Chapter 2 introduces the writing and recurrent themes in the works of Alan Ayckbourn. In Chapter 3 the practical part of the thesis is executed, meaning that the analysis of the female characters in Ayckbourn’s plays is described in the following four subchapters where each deals with one of the selected plays and the female characters that can be found in them. Female characters are analysed considering the topical issues surrounding women in society of this day. The aim is to explore how far did the process of equalization permeate into the different areas of everyday life questions, and whether it has brought a considerable change in the way that society perceives women. The selected characters by Alan Ayckbourn act as a litmus paper that indicates the amount of progress that has been made throughout modern history, as well as contentment or discontentment of women in society. The goal of this thesis is to discover and describe the potential imbalanced structures that influence the notion of a female character being an unvarying universal concept. 2 1 The problematic of female characters in the literature of the past and present 1.1 How and by whom are the female characters made? The existence of a female character in a literary canon could be easily described as ancient and it appears in many pieces of literature throughout the history of the human race. And if literature is to be regarded as a tool that has the ability to tell something about the world that contemporary people and their ancestors have inhabited, it is only exciting to have such a vast and long-standing archive of female representation in it. But previous to diving into a serious and thorough analysis of the female element in literary discipline it is only fair to remind all the parts that play an important role in telling or rather more accurately creating the stories of this world. More and more often these days the world is challenged with the issue that history is only as true as much it reflects the point of view of the one who is spreading it. And what now seems to be desired, is to hear the other sides of the stories that people are being told. Thus, in describing and trying to decode or analyse female characters it is vital to discover who are those that were, and are still, mainly giving us their viewpoint on female lives through the means of writing. What great authors of the literary world do come to the minds of people first? It would not be surprising to find mostly names of male authors in the notional “top writers'' list. After all, what kind of a surprise it is to assemble a list of names that have been taught and were long presented as the best in the given discipline. Debates over the rightfulness and justification of the praise for those male authors is not a subject matter of this thesis. But aiming to focus on the information that the male authorship has always been prevalent in the literature can lead to uncovering the nuances between the images of women true to their being, and projections, myths and demagogues imposed on the “other” gender from the men’s point of view.1 Could there be a connection between typical features, characteristics and behavioural patterns that most frequently recur in the depictions of women in fiction and poetry? When thinking about all these well-known characters, good or evil, it is 1 Pam Morris, “Re-vision: Reading as a Woman” in Literature and Feminism: An Introduction. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), 14. 3 almost impossible to avoid the word ‘stereotype’2. Whether it is Shakespeare’s Ophelia, James's Daisy Miller or Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter, the extraordinariness and heroism of these characters seems to lie in the ability to endure and bear their fates that seem to be completely out of their hands. Which itself is not to be depreciated as an element of epic in literature, since the lack of complete control over life is a fundamental attribute of the world’s balance. But the nature and submission with which these female characters accept their fortunes without a single revolt and fight for their rights3 is something quite astonishing. And what may come as even more startling, or even disturbing, is the praise of such a yielding attitude as a sign of a woman's positive moral quality. This celebrated passiveness is well described by Annis Pratt in her paper that focuses on archetypal theory in relation to women in fiction. As Pratt states there are forces “which, from birth, attempted to strip them of their autonomy and process them into passive zombieism according to accepted social norms for female behaviour.”4 On the other side of the scale there are female antagonist characters which also carry usually more or less similarities. It can be spotted in classics like, again, Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, where the main female role Katherina is simply a ‘wrong’ woman because she often disagrees, likes to complain, dares to refuse and speaks her mind rather aggressively. And thus for her intransigence she “must” be dominated and tamed in order to become a real woman.5 By this taming Katherine not only becomes a right woman, but when being domesticated she finally finds peace, happiness, and surprisingly, freedom which she allegedly lacked due to her ‘wrong’ attitude and behaviour.6 Examples of the said negative and unsuitable in women are also easily found in literature of more recent years. For example, the character of Dolores Umbridge in favourite children’s literature Harry Potter is thoroughly described in her flaws. Both in the book and in the movie, she is pictured as controlling, power-hungry, cruel and in addition to that - ugly. At the same time, she is misusing her pretended kindness to successfully mislead those who should fall into the trap of her influence.

Load more