An Analysis Of Alienation In Sarah Kane’s Plays

Sarah Kane is one of the greatest playwrights in the 20th century.Her works directly show people’s mental breakdown,drug abuse,violence,sexual abuse,war and racial discrimination in modern society.She tries to reveal the new social reality by showing the bloody and horrible scenes of the human world,and calls for human conscience with extreme moral courage.Her inheritance and breakthrough in contemporary western theater have aroused people’s reflection on contemporary western culture.Based on Brecht’s alienation theory,this paper analyzes the alienation effect and its significance in Sarah Kane’s five plays.This thesis analyzes the alienation of Kane’s five plays from the perspectives of performing-spectating relationship,structure,language and characters under the framework of Brecht’s alienation theory.In the first chapter,the alienation effect of Kane’s plays is elaborated.The author arranges the trend of comments and analyzes the influence of alienation drama on the audience.The second chapter describes the alienation of Kane’s dramatic structure from the perspectives of disordered time and space and irrelevant scenes.The third chapter analyzes the characteristics of alienation in language from the perspectives of character language and stage language.The last chapter analyzes the alienation of Kane’s dramatic characters.Taking her five plays as an example,this paper analyzes Sarah Kane’s alienation narrative characteristics and changes in Kane’s theater criticism,and expounds how Kane achieves spiritual communication with the ideal audience through alienation.