The gaze, given our language and the structure of the unconscious as a prominent mode of vision in our culture, appears in several forms in Harold Pinter`s Old Times. Thus I want to propose a feminist reading of the platy, a reading which used the structure of the `gaze` for its focus, and which regards Old Times as a text that foregrounds the gaze as an instrument of power and dominance. The play explores the ideological uses of the voyeuristic gaze that demystifies and objectifies, and the narcissistic gaze serving as the vehicle for identification. And it dramatizes triangular relationships involving two members in contest for the possession of the third, which is governed by the gaze. The gaze structuring in the play affects the representation of Kate by drawing attention to the fact of Kate`s role as receiver of the gaze. Even as Kate keeps both Anna and Deeley at a distance, the two remain embattled over possession of her, expressing the desire to enfold the beloved in their gaze. Yet the position of detached observers that deeley and Anna wished to start with has now been fully undermined. They have become the objects the audiences watch for comparison and contrast. What play suggests is that reality is not only subjective and illusory, but that it is dependent on the observer. The audience can not be certain of a character`s nature, because it is altered by the very act of observation. Old Times reveals an instability inscribed within the very structure of the gaze. While the play examines the importance of the gaze for the elaboration of patriarchal power relations, it also deconstructs the scopic division of labor that cats man as active controller of the gaze, ad woman as passive object of the look. Pinter dramatizes the subversive potential of the gaze to deconstruct the gender-marked ideological solidarity between man/specular subject and woman/specular object.
한국중앙영어영문학회 [The Jungang English Language And Literature Association Of Korea]
설립연도
1968
분야
인문학>영어와문학
소개
본 학회는 영미어문학의 학술연구와 이에 부합하는 아래의 사업을 기획 수행하며,
또한 회원 상호간의 친목을 도모함을 목적으로 한다.
1. 학회지 발간
2. 연구 발표회, 강연회, 공동연구
3. 영미어문학 관련 도서출판
4. 영미어문학 관계 도서 및 자료의 모집 및 비치
5. 기타 본회의 목적 달성에 필요한 사업
간행물
간행물명
영어영문학연구 [The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature]