The Concepts of Strangers and Hospitality Reconsidered in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s New Anatomies

• Main Authors: Huang, Hsin Ya, 黃新雅
• Other Authors: Yang, Li Min
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/78967811297379819585

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英國語文學研究所 === 103 === Timberlake Wertenbaker’s New Anatomies (1981) is a play that centers on Isabelle Eberhardt’s traveling experience during French colonialism in North Africa. Isabelle, who endeavors to break the gender stereotype that is imposed on women in the patriarchal society, manages to strive for her own freedom by setting out for a journey as a European cross-dressed adventurer. The play deals with the ideas of displacement, nomadic traveling, and the encounter with the other. Critics’ responses to the play often focus on how the characters cross the gender and spatial boundaries; however, few of them seem to touch upon the issue on traveling itself. I intend to grapple with the issue on traveling by having a close reading on New Anatomies, and to deal with the accompanying foreigner question in a voyage. Chapter One of the thesis contains the literature reviews of New Anatomies, and carries out the concern of the thesis. Chapter Two presents the essential element in traveling and further maps out my concern about traveling. Chapter Three brings out the foreigner question by elucidating Julia Kristeva’s notion on strangers. The play reveals the psychological conflicts between a traveler and the locals; meanwhile, it also presents diverse examples on how one is able to reduce the estrangement between one and the other. To proceed with the discussion on how one shall react in response to the encounter with the other, I employ Jacques Derrida’s concept of hospitality in Chapter Four. Chapter Five is the conclusion of the thesis that points out how the thesis can be treated as a new way of study on New Anatomies. Though the meanings of hospitality are in some occasions being deformed in New Anatomies, they imply that there are different concepts of hospitality that is authorized in different discourses including traveling.