T.C. İSTANBUL ÜN İVERS İTES İ SOSYAL B İLİMLER ENST İTÜSÜ BATI D İLLER İ VE EDEB İYATLARI ANAB İLİM DALI AMER İKAN KÜLTÜRÜ VE EDEB İYATI BÖLÜMÜ YÜKSEK L İSANS TEZ İ THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND GENDER IN DAVID MAMET’S PLAYS GİZEM KURTSOY 2501040359 TEZ DANI ŞMANI: DOÇ. DR. H. ÖZDEN SÖZALAN İSTANBUL, 2007 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND GENDER IN DAVID MAMET’S PLAYS Gizem Kurtsoy ÖZ Bu tezde David Mamet’ın The Woods , Sexual Perversity in Chicago , ve Oleanna adlı oyunlarında yer alan karakterlerin ili şkileri, konu şma biçimleri ve toplum tarafından belirlenen kimlik konumları incelenerek, toplumsal cinsiyet ve dil arasındaki ili şkiler ele alınır. Yapısal ve ba ğlamsal açıdan farklılıklar gösteren bu oyunların ortak noktası, birebir insan ili şkilerinin toplumsal etkile şimin bir yansıması olarak betimlenmesidir. Oyunlar toplumsal cinsiyetin kültürel kodlar tarafından belirlendi ğini ve cinsel rol davranı şlarının bireylerce sorgulanmaksızın kabul edildi ğini örnekler. Erk ve kimlik arasındaki ba ğlantıların da ele alındı ğı bu çalı şmanın temel sorunsalını, toplumsal cinsiyet ve söylem ili şkisinin hangi biçimlerde kar şımıza çıktı ğı, cinsiyet rollerinin dilde nasıl yapılandırıldı ğı ve dolayısıyla nasıl de ğişmeye açık oldu ğu gibi sorulara Mamet’ın oyunlarında verilmeye çalı şılan yanıtlar olu şturur. ABSTRACT This dissertation studies the relationship between gender and language through a close examination of the interaction, the speech patterns, and the socially constructed identity positions of Mamet’s characters in The Woods , Sexual Perversity in Chicago , and Oleanna. The three plays selected for analysis vary in terms of structure and setting, yet they are all preoccupied with the portrayal of one- to-one relationships as a model of social interaction. The plays, indeed, illustrate how gender is culturally constructed, and how conventional patterns of sexual identities are unquestionably accepted by the individuals. Mamet’s representation of the relationship between power and identity also fall within the scope of this study insofar as their connection with gender issues is concerned, but the main focus of the dissertation is on the ways in which the plays show gender’s relation to discourse, and reveal how gender roles are constructed within language and, hence, are subject to change. iii PREFACE David Mamet’s career as a playwright began in the “me decade” of the 1970s where the social activism of the 1960s was largely replaced by individualism, and the political idealism turned into a concern with the self. America emerged defeated from the Vietnam War which killed and spiritually wounded many Americans. At the start of the decade President Nixon proved to be popular with the American people, however he had to resign in 1974 for his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Corruption was everywhere and the American dream was fully transformed into the pursuit of material wealth and self indulgence. Mamet’s plays can be considered to respond to this historical context as they present a critique of the American society, its values, destructive myths, and decaying human relationships including those between the opposite sexes. His focus is on the ways in which individual experience is framed by social reality; and since it is language in which that reality is constructed, language, for Mamet, is not only a tool to convey plot or subjects, but, more importantly, the very subject of his plays. In Mamet’s work the relationship between language and power is interrogated, and gender becomes the focal point in his discussion of the ways in which the possession or the acquisition of certain discourses determines one’s position in power relations. It was this preoccupation of Mamet’s that I found particularly interesting, and which led to the writing of this dissertation. I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Ayşe Erbora who has encouraged me with her enthusiasm and inspiration, and has introduced me into the world of David Mamet. I am also indebted to my advisor Asst. Prof. Dr. Özden Sözalan, who read this dissertation several times and stayed up to discuss and revise it with me; and this study would not have been possible without her amazing, thought provoking lectures in American Theater and Literary Theory. I also would like to thank our Research Assistant Cenk Yay who offered his kind help for the formal improvement of this dissertation. I owe a lot to the librarians at Bilgi University for their great assistance in finding my sources. I also give my special thanks to my friends in İ.Ü. EAT/Deneysel Sahne with whom I entered the fascinating world of theater, and particularly to Baver iv Alyakut who supported me with his very existence. And I am thankful to my sisters for their encouragement and help. Finally, I owe a special debt to my father and mother who have supported me throughout my studies with all their heart; this dissertation is dedicated to them, with love and respect. v CONTENTS PAGE NUMBER ABSTRACT iii PREFACE iv CONTENTS vi INTRODUCTION 1 1. THE WOODS 9 1.1. The Plot of The Woods 9 1.2. A Fable at Work: The Woods 9 1.3. Getting into the Woods: Dusk 14 1.4. Getting Lost: Night 24 1.5. Acquisition of Selfhood: Morning 35 2. SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO 44 2.1. The Plot of Sexual Perversity in Chicago 44 2.2. Language of the Perverse: Humanity in Oblivion 44 2.3. The Failure of Language 52 3. OLEANNA 82 3.1. The Plot of Oleanna 82 3.2. Language, Power, Gender 84 3.3. The Language of the Patriarch 98 3.4. Discursive Battles 111 3.5. “Whichever side you choose, you’re wrong.” 117 CONCLUSION 126 BIBLIOGRAPHY 131 vi INTRODUCTION In a morally bankrupt time we can help to change the habit of coercive and frightened action and substitute for it the habit of trust, of self- reliance, and co-operation. If we are true to our ideals we can help form an ideal society [. .] – not by preaching about it, but by creating it each night in front of the audience – by showing how it works. In action. 1 David Mamet was born in 1947, in Chicago where he spent his childhood and adolescence, and later went to college in Vermont and spent most of his time in the theatre department. In fact, Mamet came to writing via acting in college; later he was employed as a teacher of acting at Marlboro College (1969-1970), and started writing plays for his students to play. Lakeboat was first produced at Marlboro. Then he went to Goddard College and worked as an Artist-in-Residence, there he co- founded St. Nicholas Theatre Company (later reformed as St Nicholas Players), and wrote Duck Variations. Some of his major works in drama in 1970s are Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1971), American Buffalo (1975), The Woods (1977), The Water Engine (1977), and A Life In The Theater (1977). When 1980s came, Mamet’s reputation began to spread internationally, in 1980s and 1990s he presented Edmond (1982), Glengarry Glen Ross (1983, Pulitzer Prize in 1984), The Shawl (1985), Speed-the-Plow (1988), Oleanna (1992), Squirrels (1993), The Cryptogram (1994), The Old Neighbourhood (1997), and Boston Marriage (1999). As a distinctively productive artist David Mamet produced an impressive number of works as an author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director. Some are: the screenplay of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), The Verdict (1982), The Untouchables (1987), Wag The Dog (1997); screenplay and direction of House of Games (1987), Homicide (1991), The Spanish Prisoner (1997); direction of The Winslow Boy (1998); the screenplay of the film versions of his plays like American Buffalo (1996), and screenplay and direction of Oleanna (1994); adaptations of The Cherry Orchard (1985), Uncle Vanya (1988), Three Sisters (1990); novels, The Old Religion (1997), and The Village (1994); collected essays, Writing in Restaurants (1986), Some Freaks (1989), Jafsie and John Henry (1999); and many others including the children’s plays and radio plays. 1 David Mamet, Writing in Restaurants , New York, Penguin Books, 1987, p. 27. 1 Besides working as an actor or stage manager, David Mamet was also employed previously as a realtor, office cleaner, window washer, and taxi driver; and worked in a truck factory and a canning plant. These mundane works have provided him with “a sensitivity to the American vernacular unequalled by any other playwright, but they also alerted him to what he sees as the profound alienation which typifies an urban America in which activity is detached from meaning and desires are unrelated to human need.” 2 Indeed, Mamet portrays, in his works, a disintegrating society that has lost its sense of community, and sense of values apart from the ones offered by a competitive capitalism. Perhaps Mamet is a social critic who denounces the brutality and ruthlessness of capitalism, and exposes the alienations generated by urban capitalistic life. He is a kind of moralist that regrets the transformation of real values into artificial ones, of humanity into commodity, and the decay of language hardly expressive of real human needs. Given this lack of communality, the loss of the sense of belonging, the theater exists, for Mamet, “to address that need for community, for trust, that perceived sense of entropy which lies at the heart of his plays.” 3 Indeed, theater is the place where the ideals come true in action on the stage, and he praises theater for being a community act. Accordingly, he defines the purpose of the theater as “to transcend the individual conscious mind, to put the spectator in a communion with his or her fellows on the stage and also in the audience, so as to address the problems that cannot be addressed by reason.” 4 In his critique of society, Mamet actually aims the American dream rather than its realities.