Monologue as a Discourse of Marginality in Contemporary American Drama
Monologue as a Discourse of Marginality in Contemporary American Drama

Summary/Abstract: Monologue has been used as a form of substitute communication throughout the history of drama. As substitution of stage communication, monologue can be read as the attempt to explain the unexplainable and speak the unspeakable on the stage. The form and shape of monologue, however, has been changed since the 1960’s, and has become voice of marginality. Contemporary American dramatists such as Edward Albee, Maria Irene Fornes and August Wilson, with many others, employ monologue as a discourse of marginality in their prominent plays. They create monologists in order to give voice to marginal, and reflect marginality of identity, certain groups and/or community. ‘Jerry and the Dog’ in The Zoo Story (1960), Fefu’s “black cat” hallucination in Fefu and Her Friends (1977), Stool Pigeon’s prologue in King Hedley II (2001) are speeches which are typical one-way conversation of monologic narrative. Edward Albee deals with mainstream marginal characters while Fornes examines marginality in its relation to a feminist perspective, and Wilson points out ethnic and racial marginality in his plays. This research attempts to analyze the function of monologue as a discourse of marginality in the selected dramas by the playwrights under discussion who are rebellious, in different ways, to hegemonic system in American society. The method in this study will be critical approach to determine the monologic narrative through qualitative nature of the several ‘voices,’ and in the thematic contents of the striking examples by each representative author who are in the core of contemporary American drama.

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