First Advisor
Susan Reese
Date of Award
3-1-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English and University Honors
Department
English
Subjects
Gender identity in the theater, Marina Carr (1964- ) Low in the Dark, Theater of the absurd
DOI
10.15760/honors.668
Abstract
Low in the Dark by Irish playwright Marina Carr is an absurdist play that focuses heavily on concepts of gender as performance. It does so mainly through role-playing scenes in which two same-gender characters reenact a heterosexual relationship. These scenes can be tied to Marie-Laure Ryan’s conceptions of the four kinds of alternative possible worlds (APWs) within possible worlds theory: fantasy, wish, obligation, and knowledge. An analysis of the play’s role-playing scenes in conjunction with Judith Butler’s gender performativity theory and these four types of APW reveals the constructed-ness of gender norms within the work, which further calls into question a strictly policed gender binary both in the world of the text and our own world.
Rights
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Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/27954
Recommended Citation
Madsen, Andie, ""It Lurks in the Saying, Not What's Being Said": Possible Worlds Theory and Gender Performativity in Marina Carr's Low in the Dark" (2019). University Honors Theses. Paper 653.
https://doi.org/10.15760/honors.668