Lurking Shadows: Mental, Emotional and Physical Violence in Caryl Churchill’s Far Away
Lurking Shadows: Mental, Emotional and Physical Violence in Caryl Churchill’s Far Away

Summary/Abstract: Far Away is contemporary British playwright Caryl Churchill’s most widely acclaimed play. It masterfully thematizes subjects such as the ever-present threat of totalitarian regimes, innate human violence, and modern dehumanization. Presenting an apocalyptic world caught up in a universal war, where people, animals, and even elements of nature fight each other to death, Churchill points at the imminent destruction of the Earth at the hands of unbridled violence and a general human tendency to look away and ignore the most pressing issues. In the present paper we attempt to analyse how Caryl Churchill thematizes mental, emotional and physical violence in Far Away, and whether she relates to them to an innate human tendency towards evil, or to a historic process of ignoring violence until it escapes human control.

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