Approaching Abjection in Sarah Kane's Blasted

Abstract

Julia Kristeva's notion of the abject is well suited to describe the gruesome actions that occur in Sarah Kane's debut play Blasted. Applying Kristeva's psychoanalytical approach serves to show that underlying these actions of horror is more than a rebellious will to shock the audience. My argument is that while the beginning of the play is still to a large degree situated in what Kristeva calls a symbolic order (setting, characters, language), allusions to the abject foreshadow the abject climax at the end of the play. By facing abjection, the subject comes into contact with the semiotic stage of being: a pre-linguistic state, a state of crisis.

The postulated movement from a symbolic to a semiotic state in Blasted is illustrated through an analysis of the changing manifestation of defilement and rape in the play. The realisation of abjection through art and its implications for content and form are examined in order to show how Blasted can be regarded as a theatrical instantiation of abjection. An observation of the narrative mechanisms of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's writings, as they are interpreted by Kristeva in Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982), forms the basis of this endeavour. The aim of this article is to emphasise the potential of contemporary drama for approaching and mediating the abject and providing a potential catharsis to its audience.

Notes

¹A distinction needs to be made between the symbolic, which is an aspect of language, and the Symbolic, which is one of Lacan's three registers of psychic reality. For a concise summary of Kristeva's conceptions of the semiotic, the symbolic and the abject, see Kelly Oliver (2003).

²For an exploration of abjection in Kane's final work, see Carolina Sánchez-Palencia Carazo (2006).

³It is important to note at that while this analysis has mainly focused on the male character, Ian, Cate's characteristics are equally significant in regard to abjection. During her fainting fits, she is in a state between life and death, her meat-loathing hints at a long tradition of dietary regulations related to the abject, and her stutter begins whenever she faces threats to her identity. An insightful analysis of the relation between Lacan's paternal symbolic realm and Kristeva's notion of a maternal semiotic, as well as its gender-specific implications, is given by Emily Zakin (2011).