Earticle

초록

영어

This paper examines Paula Vogel’s approach to sensationalizing social issues such as prostitution in her 1981 play, The Oldest Profession. The paper focuses on analyzing how Vogel explores American culture and history to make sense of the lives of the five elderly prostitutes in the play. We resist empathizing with these elderly sex workers for their old age and their profession. However, this resistance can be overcome, and we feel empathy for them. This is what Vogel calls negative empathy. Vogel stresses the importance of negative empathy as a way of overcoming hatred for different social groups. To achieve this empathic response, the author gives her characters the voice to tell their own stories and demonstrates how their lives are shaped by the culture and history to which they belong. In the play, Vogel specifies how the labor of the five elderly women is devalued and how they struggle to survive in the era of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s in America. The author’s handling of difficult subjects and problematic characters such as geriatric prostitutes gave her unwelcoming criticism from 1970-80’s feminist theatres. Nevertheless, Vogel believes as a feminist playwright, she should give female characters three dimensionalities that would present them as complex as any male character on stage.

목차

I. 서론
II. 본론
1. 여성 노동과 여성의 빈곤
2. 매춘과 사회봉사
3. 노년기의 섹슈얼리티
III. 결론
Works Cited
Abstract

키워드

저자

• 강연주 [ Kang, Yeon-Joo | 경상국립대학교 ]

참고문헌

발행기관

간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  영어영문학연구 [The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature]

• 간기

  계간

• pISSN

  1598-3293

• 수록기간

  1968~2025

• 등재여부

  KCI 등재

• 십진분류

  KDC 840 DDC 810