The Faculty of Arts and Education MASTERS THESIS Study programme: Literacy Studies Spring term, 2020 Open Author: Federica Clementi ………………………………………… Supervisor: Allen C. Jones Title of thesis: Abject Relationships: Expressing Affection with Violence in Phaedra’s Love Keywords: abject theory, performance, Pages: 85 femininity, masculinity, violence + attachment/other: 12 Stavanger, 31/08/2020 Abject Relationships: Expressing Affection with Violence in Phaedra’s Love. Federica Clementi Master’s Thesis in Literacy Studies Spring, 2020 University of Stavanger, Norway iii ABSTRACT This thesis argues that Sarah Kane’s “Phaedra’s Love” is designed to open a discussion on the struggles of the feminine sexual and emotional identity and its relationship with desire, framed as abject in the male dominated society. The words of the script and the actions performed on stage, the behavior of the characters and their interactions with each other highlight the abjection of their interpersonal relationships, specifically through the use of violence and violent metaphors. However, instead of focusing on femininity alone, Kane presents to her audience that both masculinity and femininity suffer from the patriarchal perspective. In order to confirm my argument, I will firstly describe abject theory and its use in critical analysis. Then I will proceed to focus on violence as a social abject, that is an abject product of society, of which the most abject version is rape. In the third chapter I will describe the background of the myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus and the evolution of the play through the centuries and specifically the changes made by Sarah Kane on Seneca’s classic, so as to illustrate that those alterations are instrumental for the successful conveyance of its new message. Finally I will analyse the script of Phaedra’s Love dissecting each scene, paying attention to the use of violence and violent language. Phaedra’s Love has received harsh critiques for its absurd and extreme use of gore and in- your-face violence. On the other hand, the evolution of the use of violence in the entertainment industry, from Seneca’s to Kane’s time, implies a difference in the meaning said violence holds. What this thesis will argue is that, while violence was the core of classical entertainment, not a representation nor a symbol, but a tool in and of itself, the same cannot be said of how violence is used in contemporary art, where it becomes a metaphor for emotional and psychological pain. The research will expand on the topic of the artistic visual representation of social issues, finding its space within the feminist discourse and theatre studies, producing new instruments for engaging in the social debate about the abjectification of femininity from the part of what has been called “diseased masculinity”. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While I was writing this dissertation, I received the support and assistance of many people. Firstly, I want to thank my supervisor, Professor Allen C. Jones, for his guidance and invaluable help in developing my research question. Your feedback allowed me to develop and improve my writing, bringing it to a higher level. I would like to acknowledge my colleagues for their patience. You have always been available to listen and help me elaborate my arguments out loud and with clarity, so that I would not be stuck in my head, even when you too were busy with your researches. In addition, I would like to thank my parents, who might not understand why I chose to study literature, but have always been supportive nonetheless, and I thank my partner and my friends, who provided needed distractions to take my mind off of work when I needed it the most. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1. The Horror that Defines: Abject Theory 6 CHAPTER 2. A Type of Social Abject: Violence 21 CHAPTER 3. The Evolution of the Myth 40 CHAPTER 4. Close Reading of Phaedra’s Love 51 CONCLUSIONS 82 BIBLIOGRAPHY 86 1 INTRODUCTION The use of violence in the entertainment industry has been, and still is, reprimanded and harshly critiqued by framing it as a negative inclination typical of contemporary art. This critique is however unfounded, as the entertaining power of violence is far from being a recent discovery and has been used consistently in the past centuries and in many different and distant societies. Indeed, the use of violence as a show or as part of a show is nowadays much tamer when compared to what was normally displayed in Ancient Rome. Though in both societies, meaning the Roman and the contemporary western one, portrayals or showcases of violence are not uncommon, there are important differences in how those shows have been and are experienced by the audience and in the functions they fulfill. Phaedra’s Love is a reinterpretation of the classical myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus, borrowed from the Graeco-Latin tradition, written by Kane and first performed in London in 1996, directed by Kane herself. She kept the general plot mostly untouched, but she took care to adapt it in order to surpass the simple man/woman or male/female dichotomy and spark a conversation on the more conceptual and more topical contraposition between masculinity and femininity. When first staged, Phaedra’s Love received negative critiques, the abundance of extreme gore and in- your-face violence did not please the audience. At the same time, it serves to show how our relationship with violence has changed in the centuries and it makes a good case for the defence of violent art. What this thesis will argue is that the use of violence as a tool in the entertainment industry and in the arts has evolved, from the act of violence itself being the entertainment in the classic world, to the employment of violence as a metaphor for emotional and psychological pain in contemporary setting. In addition, I will also argue that, in writing her play “Phaedra’s Love”, Sarah Kane wanted to jolt a dialogue on the struggles of the feminine identity and its relationship with desire, that has been framed as the quintessential abject in the masculine centric societies. The words of the script and the actions performed on stage, the behavior of the characters and their interactions with each other highlight the abjection of their interpersonal relationships, specifically through the use of violence and violent metaphors. However, instead of focusing on femininity alone, Kane proves to her audience that both masculinity and femininity suffer from the patriarchal perspective. 2 My goal, is to research the topic of artistic visual representation of social issues, within the feminist discourse and theatre studies, and to produce new instruments to take part in the social debate about the abjectification of femininity and violence as the only emotional outlet masculinity is allowed to use. The use of a modern reinterpretation of a classic myth is not casual. The fact that an text from the Graeco-Roman tradition can still be used to explore contemporary matters surely vouches for the text quality, but more importantly it is a proof of how these beliefs are deeply engrained in human society. My research will start from Julia Kristeva’s work on abject theory, which she collected and published in 1980 in the treaty Powers of Horror. The terms abject and abjection are challenging to define properly, because they refer to ambiguity itself. Instead of being an issue, I find this vagueness to be helpful in explaining these concepts, because it actually provides an example of what the abject is and of what it does. According to Kristeva, the abject is anything that disregards limits and borders, not only in the physical sense, but also in a more conceptual way: it ignores classification by not being subject nor object. Instead the abject comes to existence in the empty spaces between subject and object. The characteristic blurriness of the abject and its disregard for the rules are a threat to the subject. The identity of the subject is indeed built by defining its borders and, according to Kristeva, in opposition to the other, the abject. At the same time facing the careless abject reminds the self of the illusory nature of those same borders. In the case of the individual self, the abject takes the form of bodily fluids. Excrements, vomit, blood, but also tears and sweat brings the attention to those liminal spaces of the body, where it opens towards the outside. Subject can also have a collective meaning and refer to society. As the body produces its own abject, so does society: by establishing rules and norms, it automatically defines everything else as abject. As the societal norm describes “white, neurotypical and able-bodied, heterosexual male” as the standard subject, any variation from it will be experienced as a dangerous variation: the other becomes the abject. This mindset gives space for racism, ableism, homophobia and sexism to develop, all forms of hate that are born of fear of the other and that impregnate every aspect of society, from religion to the arts. My attention will be focused on the abjectification of femininity and on the obsession with masculinity. This is the result of a widespread fear of cross- contamination and produces a list of abject behaviors, grouped under the umbrella term of diseased masculinity. 3 Kristeva, after extensively describing what the abject is, also gives her readers her opinion on how humanity has been trying to purify it. According to her, the arts are the subject’s outlet to process and explore the abject, to finally reach the catharsis. While Kristeva believes that it is literature the favored signifier of the abject, I argue that the visual arts offer an equally valid option, if not a better one.