@article{ART001274245},
author={Jung,Byung-Eon},
title={Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama},
journal={Journal of Modern English Drama},
issn={1226-3397},
year={2008},
volume={21},
number={2},
pages={31-50}
TY - JOUR
AU - Jung,Byung-Eon
TI - Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama
JO - Journal of Modern English Drama
PY - 2008
VL - 21
IS - 2
PB - 한국현대영미드라마학회
SP - 31
EP - 50
SN - 1226-3397
AB - This essay examines the liminality of miscegenation which causes a pathological condition, by focusing on the racial hysteria and schizophrenia of black/white women represented in Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon, Adrienne Kennedy’s The Owl Answers, and Alice Childress’s Wedding Band. Even though they are situated in a liminal space generally defined as “no man’s land,” they are not free from the racial code institutionalized on the basis of the whites’ idea of space. The concept of space functions as a racial ideology of legitimatizing the spatial division in terms of the differences in skin color. The social code serves to produce a hierarchical division of imaginary and social space, thus making it internalized in the consciousness of black/white women. These women desire to be white, though they are legally and socially defined as black. There is a wide gap between desire and reality. Even though they are in this liminal space, they are still considered black. This liminality does not offer them a space free from the whites’ “symbolic violence” which causes symptoms of neurasthenia in miscegenation, moving them from a feeling of inferiority to a pathology of hysteria and schizophrenia. Situated in a pathologically ‘double-conscious’ condition induced by such a liminal space, women of mixed blood are completely engrossed in a world of fantasy for venting their unconscious desire for freedom. These three plays require us to explore the politics of space embodied in black/white women’s “psychic landscapes” and the ways in which the spatial ideology functions to produce mixed races’ pathology.
KW - Boucicault;Kennedy;Childress;liminal space;miscegenation;pathology;symbolic violence
DO -
UR -
ER -
Jung,Byung-Eon. (2008). Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama. Journal of Modern English Drama, 21(2), 31-50.
Jung,Byung-Eon. 2008, "Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama", Journal of Modern English Drama, vol.21, no.2 pp.31-50.
Jung,Byung-Eon "Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama" Journal of Modern English Drama 21.2 pp.31-50 (2008) : 31.
Jung,Byung-Eon. Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama. 2008; 21(2), 31-50.
Jung,Byung-Eon. "Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama" Journal of Modern English Drama 21, no.2 (2008) : 31-50.
Jung,Byung-Eon. Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama. Journal of Modern English Drama, 21(2), 31-50.
Jung,Byung-Eon. Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama. Journal of Modern English Drama. 2008; 21(2) 31-50.
Jung,Byung-Eon. Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama. 2008; 21(2), 31-50.
Jung,Byung-Eon. "Liminality of Miscegenation and Its Mental Pathology: Black/White Women in American Drama" Journal of Modern English Drama 21, no.2 (2008) : 31-50.
