د. هند أحمد كريم جابر الكروي

Diving deep in human mentality and cognitive functions is highly treated by American dramatist Eugene O’Neill (1888 1953) in his dramatic productions. Notably, O’Neill’s plays are based on what he himself calls ―hopeless hopes‖ or ―little formless fears‖. Thus, the present study aims to discuss and analyze two of O’Neill’s plays; The Emperor Jones and Desire Under the Elms, in relation to psychological and socio psychological theories to diagnose the reasons and results of mental disorders. The Emperor Jones is analyzed according Carl G. Jung’s theory of the Collective Unconscious. Desire Under the Elms, on the other hand, is analyzed in the view of Erich Fromm’s theory of Mother-Fixation.

Modern drama has witnessed a powerful individualistic tendency coming from Italy represented by its significant dramatist Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936). Pirandello’s drama is greatly affected by his personal agony. Nevertheless, his plays represent a new tendency in twentieth century drama that depict the condition of the modern man, or more precisely the inner pain of the modern man. The present study is an attempt to trace the Nobel Winner of Arts (1934) and the author of “the Naked Masks” themes, techniques, and contributions through which he added much not only to Italian drama but also to modern drama in general.

Usurping ontological stability by the two dictators of Walhalla and Nibelheim opens the question of law and/or justice in Richard Wagner's “The Ring of the Nebilung”. The choice of and/or, of yes/no in the title of this paper is a Derridian torture, or (un)decidability between the polemic and the logic of supplement. It is a rewarding deconstructive method of interrogating the juridico-ethico-political discourse in Wagner's Ring Cycle. The power-struggle between gods, giants and gnomes and the subsequent human tragedy show that in the history of law (droit), legality is the construct of power, not of justice. Wotan's spear and the immense power given to the Rhinegold owner indicate, both in the libretto and music, the “enforceability of law or contract”, “violence that one always deems unjust”. However, 'it is just that there be law,' or the accessibility to law as law provides a 'possibility of justice,' says Derrida. Reading the supreme piece of Wagnerite music drama in the light of Jacques Derrida's ideas, this study seeks to find new interpretive potentialities. It aims at a deconstructive examination of the text by destabilizing the foundations of law, morality and politics. This study assumes having preliminary musical knowledge on the part of the reader.

In many respects, Modern life is the life of various complications not because Human is altered bodily or spiritually but because life itself has changed totally as the importance is assumed not to Man but to the modern specifics that control his existence. One of these facts is the part of knowledge with its recompenses and difficulties. This breakdown in life has led humankind to live in a threatened ring until life reaches to its final harbor. Elmer Rice (1892- 1967), the American dramatist illustrates this tendency in his tragedy The Adding Machine (1923), a drama that is emulating the expressionistic approach that thrived in Germany after World War I.

This paper deals with Afrofuturism as a literary aesthetic whereby African artists, such as Ishmael Reed, can anticipate a counter-reality through which they are able to practice their liberty. Afrofuturism represents the other voice of the marginalized blacks against the white authority and it is a reaction to the heavy use of technology by the whites to promote themselves over other races. It is a means at the hands of the black artists to recognize the inequality and oppression imposed over the Africans. The Afrofuturists often criticize the hegemony of the global status quo whether it is social, political or even technical. Thus, this movement came to existence due to the dehumanization that the Africans have faced since the Middle Passage, the slave trade case; the black nation which has no past, present, and even future from the Western perspective. The main goal that Afrofuturism is about to achieve is to imagine a good future for the Africans far from the white restrictions, and it shows how the blacks can use modern technology, or in general, how the black culture intersects with the twentieth century technological issues. The study discusses Reed’s Flight to Canada (1976), a novel that parodies the slave narrative and at the same time it draws a good future for its black slave characters, Raven Quickskill and Uncle Robin, as they plan to get their freedom away from the white supremacy. While Quickskill escapes to Canada to live in peace and getting his freedom, Robin stays under his slavemaster order plotting one day can manage himself freely.

The present study aims at investigating Verbatim Theatre as a Contemporary form of Western drama, focusing on David Hare's (1947) Permanent Way (2003). In this play, Hare mixes politics and art to criticize the Labour Government's performance concerning Privitization of Ralitrack system in Britain in 1991. In sequence of this decision, a series of train crashes between the years 1997-2002.

Human tragedy is characterized by its continuity over and over in human history. Many writers elaborate different tragedies, each according his\her own experience and understanding of world tragedies. The present study shows a comparison of such tragedies between two novels; one by Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and the other by Edith Wharton's Ethan From. The study sheds light on the way each novelist presents different sorts of human agony, the points they meet and the points they differ.

The present study focuses on the role of the past in two plays, one by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen Rosmersholm (1887), and the other by the Russian playwright Maxim Gorky the Lower Depths (1902). The concept of the past in these two plays is treated as a live existence, for it becomes obvious that the past that should be "past" is not dead; rather it goes on living in the present, conducting and dominating the characters' lives and actions. In addition to that, the past in both plays appears in different forms and is related to different memories, yet its destructive effect is the same. So it seems after all that the past is not treated as a dead entity but as a power that is responsible for Man's misconceptions in the present. "Man... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him

The present study aims at analyzing the elaboration of the theme of terrorism in Robin Soans' ( ) Verbatim play Talking to Terrorists ( ). In this play, Soans presents terrorism in its different forms, tactics, and effects through making not only the terrorists to speak but also the individuals who had certain experiences with terrorism. Moreover, the play attempts to raise questions and solutions of how to control the plague that has been always responsible for reaping lives for nothing.