Abstract
Critical works on Adrienne Kennedy’s The Owl Answers have been limited to the domains of surrealism and to the frame of literary criticism which situate Clara, the protagonist of The Owl Answers within a psychological context. Many critics find that the play is a portrait of a black woman who is searching for home and belonging in a world of discrimination and inequality. Clara is often regarded as a mixed-raced woman of fragmented psyche who remains confused about her identity. Within the perspective of intersectionality, however, we contend that the study of Clara’s character acquires new dimensions of analysis. This article addresses Clara’s alienation within the scope of three intersectional categories of her identity: race, gender and hybridity. Clara tries her best to identify with her father’s white legacy, but all her efforts have been futile. As she recognizes that she has no hope at all to belong to this legacy, she feels entirely frustrated. The tragic outcome of The Owl Answers owes to psychological trauma experienced by Clara. We interrogate the overlapping oppressions endured by Clara through a study of how these three interlocking categories combine to shape her alienation right up to the point where it causes her to take her own life.
Highlights
One of the more notable plays by black American playwrights in the 1960s is Adrienne Kennedy’s The Owl Answers
The main objectives of the article are to explore the intersectionality of race, gender and hybridity in Kennedy’s The Owl Answers and to examine the ways in which these three intersectional categories have cooperated to shape the alienated character of Clara
In the current article we investigate the theme of alienation in Kennedy’s The Owl Answers through an intersectional perspective
Summary
One of the more notable plays by black American playwrights in the 1960s is Adrienne Kennedy’s The Owl Answers. Unlike her contemporaries, Kennedy’s approach towards feminist issues is markedly more intersectional. Through the suffering of the play’s protagonist, Clara, the play reveals the intersectional axes of oppression present within her life, complicated by her own confused and ambiguous feelings about her racial hybridity. This ontological ambiguity is reflected in the shifting quality of the set which represents more than place, and in the masks figures who play more than one role. The autobiographical revelation reflected in Kennedy’s The Owl Answers is the outcome of a personal experience of a hybrid woman
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