Keywords

Cixous, Helene -- 1937- -- Nom d'Oedipe, Cocteau, Jean -- 1889-1963 -- Machine infernale -- English, Jocasta (Greek mythology), Racine, Jean -- 1639-1699 -- Thebaide, Stage directions, Theater

Abstract

This study is about three French plays in which Jocasta, the mother and wife of Oedipus, is shared as a main character: La Thébaïde (The Theban Brothers) by Jean Racine, La Machine Infernale (The Infernal Machine) by Jean Cocteau, and Le Nom d’Oedipe (The Name of Oedipus) by Hélène Cixous. Jocasta has always been overshadowed by the tragic destiny of Oedipus since the onset of Sophocles’ works. Although these three plays commonly focus on describing the character of Jocasta, there are some remarkable differences among them in terms of theme, style, and stage directions. In The Theban Brothers, Racine’s 17th century play, Jocasta is described as a deathlike mother, while Cocteau’s Jocasta, in The Infernal Machine, is portrayed as an “extravagant, liberal, and hilarious” lady. In The Name of Oedipus, Cixous portrays Jocasta as a woman possessing hermaphroditic characteristics, ushering in a new era of resistance to the age-old paternal hierarchy. As for style, Racine’s neoclassical play shows a strict respect for the three unities of time, space, and action. Cocteau’s avant-garde play neglects all these rules, while Cixous goes even further by destroying the order of languages, as illustrated by her “feminine writing.” Freed from Western orthodoxy, Cixous wants to contribute to the creation of cosmic unity. Her deconstructionist play intends to regenerate the world by establishing a new order and new point of view towards universality. The stage directions of these plays are also an important key to better understanding theatrical evolution. It is through the stage directions, indicated both implicitly and explicitly in these three plays, iv that enables us to appreciate the theatrical transformation in terms of visualization as well as metaphysics. In sum, the transformation of theme, style, and stage devices in portraying their own Jocastas demonstrates that while these three plays are deconstructional to one another, each denying the existing value and orders of their respective time periods, they are also constructional in that they all attempt to open a new horizon of theatre

Notes

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Graduation Date

2010

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Listengarten, Julia

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

Theatre

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0003540

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0003540

Language

English

Release Date

December 2010

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Subjects

Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic, Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities

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