Race and Colonialism

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses racism and colonialism which are the two pervading themes of the two modern theatrical pieces "Cloud Nine" and "Madame Butterfly". The paper notes that discrimination is the main subject of both plays. Cloud Nine thus imposes an approach that is known as the theater of cruelty, and which uses the body to inscribe its meanings and does not make use of representation. The paper comments that "Madame Butterfly" also targets discrimination, mainly by deconstructing whiteness as otherness. Both plays thus tackle stereotypical thinking and the 'white' point of view on race and gender.

From the Paper:

"The purpose of the author is obviously to unmask the Puritanical Victorian Age, with its narrow-minded and fixed class system, and its immovable gender roles. Sexual repression and racial discrimination were two of the most blatant features of the Victorian Age. Thus, Churchill achieves a powerful effect by either keeping the gender or the race of the characters in the scenic representation.

Sample of Sources Used:

• Amoko, Apollo. "Casting Aside Colonial Occupation: Intersections of Race, Sex, and Gender in Cloud Nine and Cloud Nine Criticism(1)." Modern Drama 42.1 (Spring 1999): 45.
• Asahina, Robert. "A review of Cloud 9," in The Hudson Review, Vol. XXXIV, No. 4, Winter, 1981-82, pp. 564-66.
• Barber, Jeffrey A. "Churchill's Cloud Nine." The Explicator 57.4 (Summer 1999): 242.
• Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory and introduction to literary and cultural theory. Second Edition. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.
• Churchill, Caryl. Cloud Nine in The Wadsworth Anthology of drama. Fourth Edition. New York, 2005.

More papers on Race and Colonialism:

• Essay # 52284 : "Race and Family in the Colonial South"
• Comparison Essay # 89008 : "Critical Race and Post-colonial Theorists"
• Book Review # 108156 : "Gary Nash's "Race and Revolution"

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