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March without Vision: David Hare’s The Absence of War

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2008, 21(1), pp.129-150
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

김유 1

1성균관대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The argument that The Absence of War, a story about the political journey of George Jones, never gets beyond political fantasy, conveniently simplifies the political insight lurking beneath the surface. Although the play is very closely linked to the 1992 election, it is not just about the Labour Party’s election defeat. The struggle and eventual downfall of George, a central figure in the play, is a product of the increasingly faithless British political culture as much as his personal flaws, a plaguing self-doubt or a lack of the political killer instinct. In this paper, I argue that the very ‘deficiency of active interplay of political ideas,’ which was pointed out by some major critics as ‘dramatic weakness,’ constitutes, in fact, the crux of Hare’s dramatic intention to demonstrate modern British politics. In The Absence of War, Hare’s powerful moral energy and political message come from the very sense of lack of the interplay of political ideologies, which is a creation of an increasingly homogeneous political climate and of ideological vagueness. What caught Hare’s dramatic imagination was the sense of apathy on the parts of politicians and the public, and the play provides a remarkable commentary on British social climates in the post-Thatcher period. In the play, the sense of loss and purposelessness is created shamelessly through the negative ways in which the election campaign itself is run. The excitement created by backstage campaign activities is well delivered, but is always juxtaposed with or countered by the awful destitution of any battle over ideology and the lack of political vision. The central question, ‘why has George failed?’ is left for the audience, who are invited to be the voting public in the play. George’s failure to speak his heart is, by all means, a product of the politics of impotence and artificiality to which the electors’ (the audience’s) potential compromise and silence has contributed. George’s final question is deliberately aimed at the audience, who are invited to contemplate their active role in history.

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