Hybrid Identity as Described in Bertolt Brecht’s Play In the Jungle of Cities

Goak JeangYean

doi:10.22901/trans.2013.6.2.59

The Drama of Bertolt Brecht’s In the Jungle of Cities deals with the psychological and emotional battle between Garga, an idealist recently arrived from the prairie, and Shlink, a pragmatic lumber businessman who is entrenched in the city. The play takes place against the background of Chicago in 1912. As the two men come into conflict with each other, they go through a process of dissolution of their identity and accept each other’s characteristics. Eventually, both of them lose their own separate identities and are transformed into one hybrid identity. This paper uses psychoanalysis and the theoretical work of Homi Bhabha to attempt an analysis of the two characters’ transformation from formal selves into the hybrid identity that combines aspects of both Shlink and Garga. It also examines the meaning of the hybrid identity that results in an era of trans-boundary trajectories, where the various local cultures intersect and co-exist. The play helps us to look at the life of the modern city in a compelling but also chilling way, for the urbanized human being becomes an object of work, and the misery induced by alienation and isolation is rampant. Brecht introduced a defamiliarization effect by setting the American city Chicago as the background to this work. The play was also a warning about Americanization to German audiences, who were being increasingly influenced by America after World War I.

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* 2021년 이후 발행 논문의 참고문헌은 현재 구축 중입니다.

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