Citation

Shermeyer K. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 2019; 7(2): 297-313.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019)

DOI

10.1515/jcde-2019-0026

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Through an analysis of Martin McDonagh's play The Pillowman, this article explores the roles children play as avatars of futurity and tragic personages whose actions bid us to reflect on repetitive patterns of suffering. To this end, I suggest that we might productively engage with The Pillowman through the dramaturgical structures of tragedy, particularly insofar as tragedy revolves around catastrophic events in the family. While most previous scholarship on The Pillowman has focused on the protagonist, Katurian, and his social or moral obligations as an author, my work places the children of Katurian's stories at the center of the play's philosophical cruxes. Not yet fully socialized into societal paradigms that frame the replication of present circumstances, ideologies, and inequities as "progress," the children of this play disrupt dominant tragic structures, offer catastrophic responses to abuse, and emphasize the absurdity of certain cultural narratives of justice and salvation. My readings are widely informed by the fields of tragic theory, childhood studies, critical posthumanism, and performance studies. © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2019.

Language: en

Keywords

Children; suicide; tragedy; suffering; catastrophe; future; Kunstmärchen; reproductive futurism