Copyright by Dasan Kim 2013 The Dissertation Committee for Dasan Kim Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Myths of Home and Nation: Conventions of Victorian Domestic Melodrama in O’Casey, Osborne, and Pinter Committee: James N. Loehlin, Supervisor Elizabeth Richmond-Garza Carol H. Mackay Lynn R. Wilkinson David Kornhaber Myths of Home and Nation: Conventions of Victorian Domestic Melodrama in O’Casey, Osborne, and Pinter by Dasan Kim, B.A.;M.A.;M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2013 Dedication To my family Myths of Home and Nation: Conventions of Victorian Domestic Melodrama in O’Casey, Osborne, and Pinter Dasan Kim, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: James N. Loehlin This dissertation demonstrates that twentieth-century dramas by Sean O’Casey, John Osborne, and Harold Pinter continue the convention of nineteenth-century domestic drama. From the expressionist movement, theatre of the absurd, and theatre of anger, to the theatre of extremes, diverse theatrical experiments in the twentieth century urged critics to focus on the contemporary theatrical effort to break away from convention. Consequently, critics have often emphasized the disconnectedness of the twentieth- century avant-garde theatre from nineteenth-century conventions, especially from the tradition of the well-made drawing room drama. My thesis focuses on the trajectory of the nineteenth-century domestic melodrama. Despite the seeming disconnection, nineteenth-century domestic melodrama still lurks within political theatre in the twentieth century as a cultural inheritance. This study argues that the aforementioned twentieth- century playwrights participate in political critique through the discourse of domesticity. Despite the geographical and temporal differences, the characters in the plays all struggle in the absence of communal integrity or national consensus. They suffer from war trauma, from disillusioned nationhood, from abuses of power, and from fascist violence. In addressing the fractured nationhood, these playwrights reference the Victorian perceptions of the home, the mother, and the nation. While the Victorian discourse of v domesticity celebrated the idea of the home as a non-material, sacred haven and admired female virtue in support of patriarchal/national stability, Victorian domestic dramas displayed the anxieties surrounding domesticity. This dissertation examines how the twentieth-century plays considered here enhance the vision of late nineteenth-century domestic drama and exploit the myths of the home, the woman and the nation. vi Table of Contents Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 The Myths of the Home, the Mother and the Nation ......................................2 Theoretical Framework and Melodrama .......................................................11 Methodology and Chapter Outline................................................................16 Chapter 1 The Myth of the Home and Domestic Melodrama in Nineteenth-Century Britain ...........................................................................................................22 Introduction ...................................................................................................22 The New Woman and the Threat to British Masculinity ..............................23 The Anxiety Surrounding the Home in Sensation Novels and Melodrama..29 The Restoration of Patriarchal Authority and Male Vulnerability in Lady Audley’s Secret.....................................................................................32 The Inversion of the Myth of the Home in The Bells ...................................41 Disrupting the Myth of the Home as an Embodiment of Sacred Nationhood in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray ................................................................45 Herik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in Britain .......................................................49 Chapter 2 The Home and the Mother in Sean O’Casey’s Dramas ........................58 Introduction ...................................................................................................58 Irish Nationalism, the Literary Renaissance Movement, and the National Theatre of Ireland .................................................................................60 The Meaning of the Home in Irish Nationalism and Literature ....................64 Envisioning the Nation as a Home and Strengthening Biological Family Ties ..............................................................................................................65 The Myth of the Nation as the Home, Ideal Womanhood and Motherhood in Irish Nationalism and Literature ..........................................................69 Sean O’Casey’s Disillusionment with Irish Nationalism .............................75 O’Casey’s Literary Vision: Diverging from the Revivalist Faith .................78 Contrasting Receptions of the Plays: Revising Irish Womanhood ...............81 The Revision of Motherhood in Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars .....................................................................................................87 vii Chapter 3 The Quest for the Home in John Osborne’s Dramas ............................98 Introduction ...................................................................................................98 Downgraded Imperial Power and Emasculated National Identity in Postwar Britain ..................................................................................................99 The Fear of the Woman in Public and the Crisis of British Masculinity ....104 The Home in Postwar British Society and in the Theatre of Anger ...........108 Osborne’s Vision of Domesticity and of the Nation ...................................117 The Home in Osborne’s Dramatic World and the Conventional Discourse of Domesticity ........................................................................................121 Critics’ Responses to Look Back in Anger: Subversive? Or still too Conservative? .....................................................................................126 Jimmy’s Fatherhood and Alison’s Motherhood in Look Back in Anger ....131 Chapter 4 The Politics of Homemaking in Harold Pinter’s Dramas ...................139 Introduction .................................................................................................139 The Theatre of the Absurd, the Theatre of Anger and Pinter’s Political Concern ............................................................................................................140 Pinter’s Preoccupation with Political Injustices .........................................146 Political Context, or the Lack of it, in Pinter’s Dramas: Deconstructing Political Geography and Extending the Political Boundary.............................149 The Home as a Metaphor for the Nation ....................................................154 The Doubleness of the Home in Pinter’s Dramas .......................................157 Nora’s Homecoming and Ruth’s Doll’s House: the Critical Tradition of The Homecoming ......................................................................................164 The Home and the Mother in The Homecoming and Ashes to Ashes .........171 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................184 Bibliography ........................................................................................................187 Primary Sources: .........................................................................................187 Secondary Sources: .....................................................................................190 viii Introduction This dissertation examines the meanings of the home, the mother, and the nation in twentieth-century plays, focusing on Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926), John Osborne’s Look back in Anger (1956) and Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming (1965) and Ashes to Ashes (1996). Each playwright addresses a distinct nationhood, from Irish nationalism against the British Empire (O’Casey) and postwar British anxiety surrounding the downfall of the Empire (Osborne) to global imperialism (Pinter). This study demonstrates that these twentieth-century political plays—in negotiating dysfunctional nationhood—continued the tradition of late nineteenth-century domestic melodrama. The plays are set within the private space of the home, whose security is soon violated, as characters struggle, negotiate and redefine their domestic relationships. More specifically, the plays strongly resonate with Victorian melodrama, wherein the (transgressive) heroine is either punished or re-positioned within the domestic sphere. All the plays considered here redefine the woman’s role at home, as they end with the heroine’s reclamation or rejection of domesticity. In order to understand why and how these playwrights persistently referenced the ideas of the home and the woman in addressing nationhood, the introductory chapter begins with nineteenth-century Britain, which obsessively cherished the idea of the home as a sanctuary. As Chapter 1 fully examines, the emergence of the New Woman posed a