Post-structuralism derives from philosophy , ‘ a discipline which has always tended to emphasise the difficulty of achieving secure knowledge about things' (Barry;1995:63) .Philosophical writing, although following the structure thesis, anti-thesis then a synthesis of both, always comes back to the question, never achieving a single answer, a single truth, and opening the conflict even more.
Elaine Aston (1997: pg.un) has expressed that because of ‘her experimental approach to dramatic and theatrical form, Churchill's theatre is not just a question of politics, but a politics of style'. In Blue Heart, which presents two short plays, one featuring the relationship between a father and daughter and the other between mother and son, form and content are constantly interrogated through a deconstruction of the concepts of plot, language and structure.
In Heart's Desire, where a couple awaits their daughter's return from Australia, the action is set back and altered. In Blue Kettle, a middle-aged man looks for his biological mother and as the action evolves, the words ‘blue' and ‘kettle' appear in the dialogue. Common to both pieces however is the questioning of the unity in the text and structure. This is why we can explore the contradictions that are exposed both in the language and structure of Blue Heart.
[...] Therefore, words, characters, actions and meanings are free to evolve in time and space as, according to Barry (1995:61, enter a universe of radical uncertainty, ( ) a gravity- free universe.' This frustration is developed by the deconstructionist approach, which ‘looks for evidence of gaps, breaks, fissures and discontinuities of all kinds' (Barry; 1995:72). In Heart's Desire (1997: Alice asks she- ?' and is interrupted by a back to top as before. Brian enters putting on old cardigan'. This breaks the action at a key moment where a clue might be given. [...]
[...] Barry also points out that ‘there is an almost universally felt anxiety that the language will express things we hadn't intended, or convey the wrong expression, or betray our ignorance, callousness, or confusion.' (1995:62) Post-structuralism plays with these anxieties in the sense that there are possibilities within the words themselves and they can be altered at any time, as when Alice remarks don't sleem peased you don't pleem (1997 : 14) then later don't seem pleased, you seem cross.'(1997: 14). [...]
[...] Therefore, by breaking free of the conventions of the medium of theatre Heart's Desire points to its irony and plays with it by challenging the whole idea of ‘structure', including, plot, beginning, end, following the poststructuralist thought that idea of the end is in various ways paradoxical. It calls on us to acknowledge-rather than to deny or ignore- the importance and value of aporia, suspense and the undecidable' (Bennett; 1999: 256). In this sense, meaning is never decided or determined in context, space and time, but is always moving, always played with and never the same. [...]
[...] As endings and beginnings can be invented, or remembered vaguely, the suggestion could be that it does not really make a difference whether the words are spoken or not, by one character or another. These sequences point out to the ironies of plot, text and language, considering the reader can deconstruct and create a set of meanings for the dialogue. By deconstructing the text, each word is felt on its own and has its own meaning, separate from the framework, supposing there is one. [...]
[...] the paradoxical nature of secrets- to the fact that secrets can be undiscoverable and yet at the same time unconcealed'. Therefore, we may find that just like ‘blue' and ‘kettle' have replaced words, Derek has taken the identity of the women's real sons. However, central to poststructuralist thought is the idea that all truth is relative and therefore that ‘metaphors evoke relationships and the making of the relationships is very much the task of the hearer or reader' (Sarup; 1993: 47, 48). [...]
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