Body Politics And Consciousness Of Female Subjectivity In Ruined And Intimate Apparel

Lynn Nottage(1964—)is a famous woman playwright in contemporary America and won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.Influenced by her life experience and ethnic identity,she is concerned with the marginalized groups in her works,in particular,the tragic life of black women under sexual and racial oppression.As the representative works of Nottage,Ruined and Intimate Apparel have drawn extensive attention since their publication.The present studies of the two plays,in China and abroad,are usually conducted from the aspects of feminism,dramaturgy and the community consciousness,and the study from the perspective of the female body has not been formed systematically.The two plays reveal the oppressed living conditions of women in the patriarchal society.The female body is the epitome of the patriarchal oppression for female,and becomes the battlefield to rebel against such oppression at the same time.In this sense,this thesis is of practical significance to study in the two plays the oppression for females,awakening of female self-consciousness and their hard struggle for liberation in the patriarchal society.The thesis consists of the introduction,body and conclusion.And the body includes three chapters.The introduction briefly introduces the playwright Lynn Nottage’s life experience and literary achievements,the plot of the two plays and the literature review in China and abroad.This part also introduces in brief Foucault’s theory on body and some feminist views on body,and then points out the study from the angle of body politics provides a new perspective to the study of Nottage’s works and the gender problem in them.Chapter One analyzes the concrete manifestations of oppression for female body in Ruined and Intimate Apparel.As the objects of power control and discipline,the female bodies have ceased to be possessed and utilized by the females themselves,instead,they become the objects constructed by the patriarchal culture.During the process of being disciplined,the females have internalized the patriarchal ideologies unconsciously,further severing the connection with their bodies.The bodies of,like Salima who is forced to sell her body in the bar,Sophie whose womb is destroyed and whose fertility is deprived,and Mrs.Van Buren who has to put on the sexy intimate apparel to please her husband,have been suppressed and harmed all the time under the patriarchy.Chapter Two interprets female’s diverse patterns of body resistance in Ruined and Intimate Apparel.The oppression for female bodies will definitely incur resistance from their bodies.The oppressed females take their bodies as the battlefield to launch their counterattack,to re-examine their lust,pursue their primitive desire that has been obliterated by rationality and “femininity”,to break through the patriarchal taboos with their bodies,challenging the male-dominated views on gender and sexual desire.Chapter Three examines the specific strategies for female liberation in Ruined and Intimate Apparel.First of all,the female characters in the plays rebel against the traditional female images through gaining independent income and marriage.In the meanwhile,these oppressed females help and support each other,construct sisterhood,to seek for their own living space in the male-dominated society.Finally,the ideal pattern for the two sexes is to build a harmonious and equal relationship rather than an unequal one.Only in this way can the deserved happiness and harmony be achieved.The part of conclusion sums up the whole thesis and points out that Lynn Nottage brings a ray of hope for the oppressed female by presenting the resistance with their bodies as the weapon,protection of their own interests and the dignity of their lives,and construction of sisterhood for mutual encouragement.