Speaking of the Body: The Maternal Body, Race, and Language in the Plays of Cherrie Moraga, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Tony Kushner

摘要

This thesis analyzes the maternal body and its relationship to language in three 21st century plays: Cherrie Moraga's Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea, Suzan Lori Parks's Red Letter Plays, and Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul . In order to examine the maternal body and its position as a highly stigmatized object, my thesis will weave together three diverse theatrical presentations from 21st century playwrights in order to both compose a complex and racially-diverse understanding of the maternal body on the modern, political 21st century stage and explore the implications each rendering poses to women's issues in the 21st century. Language, race, and the maternal body continuously shift, define, and redefine the meaning of self, the making of a subject, and the political and social relevance of the body in question. Thus, this thesis is an attempt to engage playwrights of different racial and ethnic backgrounds as they explore the maternal body as an agent of historical and political relevance. This thesis engages critics with an interest in the female or maternal body. The primary critics used are Elizabeth Grosz, for her critical engagement with a corporeal feminism that is defined outside of traditional binaries, and Julia Kristeva, for her theories on the maternal body, language, and abjection. In addition, this thesis performs a reading of multilingualism as a form of resistance or resolution in Moraga and Kushner, respectively. This thesis concludes that the maternal body is an imperative force and one that is used to convey different social, linguistic, and cultural boundaries. In these three plays, the maternal body serves as a space for resistance as well as possibility, highlighting the cultural relevance of the maternal body in its many forms.