Past And Memory In Marsha Norman’s Dramatic Works

Marsha Norman (1947-) is a major contemporary American playwright. Since the very beginning of her writing, she has shown a tragic understanding of life and created a series of psychological portrayals of characters. Despite the diversified perspectives on Norman’s plays, Norman’s engagement with the past and memory has been paid short shrift. Therefore, this dissertation examines Norman’s concern with the past and memory and how Norman dramatizes them in her plays. This dissertation makes a close examination of Norman’s concern with the different pasts in her plays: the traumatic past, the wistful past and the fictional past. Norman incorporates multifarious artistic measures to represent the different past and memories of the characters and the dynamics of the past with the present. The protagonists show different attitudes toward the past and their actions are of crucial significance for their present life and future survival.Chapter One is an exploration of Norman’s dramatization of the traumatic past and the protagonists’progression from repression of the disruptive memories to reconciliation with the traumatic past in the two plays Getting Out and Traveler in the Dark. It reveals that the protagonists’traumatic past has a catastrophic impact on their lives and leaves psychological and emotional scars on them. However, the repression of the traumatic past renders them incapable of dealing with the present crisis. Reconciling themselves with the traumatic past with the presence of an empathic community makes it possible for the protagonists to heal and face the future with hope. To Norman, the reconciliation is not a purging of the traumatic past, but the integration of it into the protagonists’life which is of crucial importance for them to reconsider themselves in relationship to society and the world. In Getting Out, Norman uses flashback, split selves, spatial confinement and juxtaposition of two performance areas to represent Arlene’s traumatic memories of childhood sexual abuse and victimization. The intrusive traumatic memories are triggered by present cues despite her efforts to repress and dissociate them. Arlene achieves her self-reintegration through reconciling herself with the traumatic past. In Traveler in the Dark, Sam’s repression of the traumatic memory of the death of his mother causes dire consequences. Norman employs a symbolic setting—the dilapidated mother’s garden and the extrascenic space represented by the house facade to reveal the repression of his traumatic memories. The death of his best friend reminds him of the traumatic memory of the death of his mother. With the sustained support and empathy of his wife, he is able to come to terms with the traumatic memory and reestablish connection with his family.Chapter Two examines Norman’s dramatization of the wistful past and the protagonists’ change from nostalgia to reevaluation of both the past and the present in the three plays Third and Oak, The Holdup and Loving Daniel Boone. The protagonists are ensnared in their nostalgia for a past way of life to which they have no way to return. However, reminiscing the past in preference to the present prevents them from reflecting on the past and facing the present in an honest manner. The reappraisal of their obsessions with the wistful past causes them to realize the impracticality of their nostalgia. The disillusionment with the past resituates them in the present condition and reorients them to the future with an awakening. Through dramatizing the protagonists’ change from nostalgia for to disillusionment with the past, Norman shows her critique of the nostalgic point of view because indulgence in the past leads to unproductive engagements with the present. In Third and Oak, Norman deploys objects which are closely related to the absent characters and the imitation of the absent characters’ words and gestures to represent the onstage characters’ nostalgia for the past. The women’s chance encounter at the laundromat provides them a time and space for them to reevaluate their marriage and themselves. The acceptance of the death of Shooter and the imminent death of George prompts the two African American men in the pool hall to realize the pastness of the old days and makes it possible for them to patch up the former ruptures and clear up the misunderstandings. In The Holdup, Norman critiques the nostalgia for the western outlaw era. The nostalgia for the past is presented through the modern cowboy’s obsession with the western outlaws’stories and the Outlaw’s unwillingness to accept the technological advancements. But the nostalgia for the western outlaw era is disrupted by the death of the modern cowboy which causes the Outlaw to reflect upon the violent nature of the past era. The metaphorical funeral on stage mourns the passing of the western outlaw era. Nevertheless, the ritual of rebirth which strip the Outlaw of his former identity reflects Norman’s praise of humanity and the flexibility and adaptability of humankind. In Loving Daniel Boone, a time travel play, the individual memory of the heroine is interlinked with the collective memory of the Daniel Boone myth. Dividing the stage into two parts, Norman uses them to stand for the different venues in two time frames, partly in a modern-day museum and partly in Boone’s time. The heroine cherishes nostalgia for Boone’s time because of her loneliness in the modern time as a result of failures of romantic relationships. The time traveling to Boone’s time demystifies the heroine’s memory of Boone as the archetypal hero.Chapter Three investigates how Norman dramatizes the fictional past and the protagonists’ transformation from avoidance to confrontation in ’night, Mother and Trudy Blue. The past of the protagonists is based on a fictional one concocted by others or themselves. The protagonists’purposeful probing into the past unlocks the truth of their past. The realization that their past life of avoidance has not rendered their life to be a meaningful one prompts them to abjure the past. Through the confrontation with the past, even through death, the heroines display their self-determination and power in controlling their own lives. The duologue by the mother and the daughter in’night, Mother reveals that the past life of the daughter is lived through a fabricated reality made by the mother. Norman makes use of the symbolic attic to represent Jessie’s past life of stagnation and secrets. Through suicide, Jessie cuts ties to the past of powerlessness and achieves self-control. In Trudy Blue, a memory play which transpires in Ginger’s mind, Norman employs the pliability of the minimalist stage and adopts an episodic structure. Totally immersed in her inner world with imaginary selves, Ginger has maintained a distorted vision toward the real world and the surrounding people. The realization of the unreality of her inner world triggered by her imminent death propels her to walk out of her fictional world and establish connection with her family.Norman’s concern with the past and memory embodies her philosophical meditation on the existential angst of her characters. Dramatizing characters who can disentangle their memory of the past shows Norman’s persistence in human capability in solving crises and realizing the significance of their lives.