Earticle

초록

영어

Shuriken (1983), the first stage play of New Zealand playwright Vincent O’Sullivan (1937- ), is based on the real-life mass shooting of Japanese prisoners that occurred during World War Two at New Zealand’s only prisoner-of-war camp. 48 Japanese and one New Zealander died in the shooting, and it remains the only incident of its kind to have occurred on New Zealand soil. O’Sullivan’s play, although mostly fictionalized in terms of its characters and the events that precede the shooting, constitutes an attempt to understand why this tragedy (or massacre, as some have deemed it) occurred. This paper, taking its lead from O’Sullivan’s stated conviction that there was nothing that could have alleviated the Japanese prisoners’ distress at being incarcerated by an enemy, nor anything that could have helped their New Zealand captors to appreciate fully the true nature of their despair, examines how the play ominously foreshadows the fatal shooting through a series of cultural misunderstandings on both sides. In doing so, it demonstrates how O’Sullivan’s play refrains from overtly blaming either the Japanese prisoners or the New Zealanders for the tragedy. In addition to arguing that the cultural clashes depicted in Shuriken have universal relevance, this paper also examines how the play employs elements of non-naturalism to illustrate the cultural gulf between the two sides.

목차

I. Introduction
 II. A Note About Historical Truth and Creative License in Shuriken
 III. Ominous Undertones: How Tragedy Is Foreshadowed in Shuriken
 IV. Non-Naturalism in Shuriken
 V. Conclusion
 Works Cited
 Abstract

키워드

저자

• Derek McGovern [ Pukyong National University ]

참고문헌

발행기관

간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  영어영문학21 [English21]

• 간기

  계간

• pISSN

  1738-4052

• 수록기간

  1967~2025

• 등재여부

  KCI 등재

• 십진분류

  KDC 840 DDC 820