Thesis (M.A.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Arts - Department of English

This thesis aims at examining three contemporary plays: American playwright tony kushner{u2019}s homebody/Kabul (1997), british playwright david hare{u2019}s The Vertical Hour (2006), and American playwright bill cain{u2019}s 9 circles (2010), as representatives of western theatrical anti-imperialist discourse. The research applies a syncretist approach utilizing selected tools of marxist, new historicist, and post-colonial literary theories. The study attempts to investigate how the three plays reflect the socio-political realities of their time and how they present individual approving and/or disapproving responses of these realities. Hence, the research analyzes the dynamics of the American imperialist ideology and its influence on the cultural formation of the contemporary western society as depicted in the plays. In addition, the study traces anti-imperialist rhetoric and voices of dissidence and resistance within the texts in order to identify the cultural responses the plays form and the political trends they endors. This study thus offers an evaluation of the significance of the dramatic resolution of each play in relation to its discourse as opposing or supporting the 2001 and 2003 American wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Issued also as CD