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A Study of Youth Theatre in Daughter's of Heaven

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2011, 24(3), pp.175-195
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

Cho Sook Hee 1

1중앙대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

One of the most controversial issues today is the rapid increase of juvenile delinquents. Consequently, the necessity of reinforcing the education of morality and of humanistic perspectives for adolescent youngsters gets urgent than ever. Michelanne Forster’ Daughters of Heaven seems to provide a timely chance to inspect the current issue. The play is based on the real story that shocked the quiet city of Christchurch in New Zealand almost fifty years ago when an adolescent girl killed her mother brutally by hitting her on the head as many as forty five times with a brick with the help of her intimate friend. In this play, one can trace a series of causes which finally led the young girl to commit such a formidable crime. To name but a few, one of the two protagonists, Pauline, suffers for a serious inferiority complex because she belongs to the neglected and underprivileged class. On the other hand, Juliet, in spite of her comparative affluent situation, despises her parents: her father shows a cold shoulder to his family, absorbed in his dry world of academism and her mother tries to revenge on her husband by developing an extramarital affair with a closest friend of her husband’s. As a result, the two girls come to stay in their own imaginary world where popular idol stars dominate. Furthermore, they even connived to kill Pauline’s mother who seems to impede them from enjoying their world of fantasy. Unfortunately, they carry out their appalling scheme and remain on the stage without any feeling of guilt when the curtain falls. The play about juvenile delinquency performed by the youngsters provides a therapeutic chance to the youngsters as audiences to look around their own situations and to get the moral and emotional balance which is liable to be neglected especially at the age of turmoil.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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