A Bhabhaian Analysis: The Postcolonial Hybridity and the Third Space in Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea
Aycan GürlüyerThe aim of this study is to evaluate the recasting of the Medea myth by Cherrie Moraga, poet, thinker and one of the pioneer feminist playwrights of the Chicana theatre in Contemporary American Drama, under the scope of Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial hybridity and the third space theory. Evaluating the concept of hybridity within a controversial cultural identity structure, Bhabha underscores a hybrid third space which comes into being as a result of the fusion of the colonizer and the colonized. In Moraga’s dystopian play The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea, the protagonist Medea, who is exiled from her homeland Aztlan to Phoenix, and her life in a prison psychiatric unit after killing her son are portrayed. Through the lens of Bhabha’s theory, this paper aims to analyse Moraga’s play and examine the feminist third space evoked by the play’s main character, a lesbian Mexican woman.
Cherrie Moraga’nın The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea Adlı Oyununun Homi Bhabha’nın Postkolonyal Melezlik & Üçüncü Alan Teorisi Açısından İncelenmesi
Aycan GürlüyerBu çalışmanın amacı, Çağdaş Amerikan Tiyatrosu’nda yer alan Chicana Tiyatrosu’nun öncü feminist yazarlarından şair ve düşünür Cherrie Moraga’nın yeniden yazdığı Medea mitini, Homi Bhabha’nın postkolonyal melezlik ve üçüncü alan teorisi kapsamında ele almaktır. Melezlik kavramını tartışmalı bir kültürel kimlik yapısı içinde değerlendiren Bhabha, sömüren/kolonileştiren ve sömürülen/ kolonileştirilen iki kültürün etkileşimi sonucu melez bir üçüncü alan ortaya çıktığının altını çizer. Moraga’nın distopik oyunu The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea’da, anavatanı Aztlan’dan Phoenix’e sürülen başkarakter Medea’nın, oğlunu öldürdükten sonra yaşamını bir akıl hastanesi hapishanesinde geçirmesi anlatılmaktadır. Çalışmada, Bhabha’nın teorisinden yola çıkarak, Chicana yazar Moraga’nın Yunan miti Medea’yı Meksikalı bir lezbiyen kadın olarak yazdığı bu oyunda yarattığı feminist üçüncü alan incelenecektir.
The expansion of the multicultural discourses, theories and art work has produced countless studies in the 20th and 21st centuries. As one of those studies, this paper aims to trace Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial hybridity and the third space theory in Cherrie Moraga’s apocalyptic play The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea (1994). Postcolonial theorist Bhabha considers the concept of hybridity as an identity which is shaped by the fusion of the colonizer and the colonized. According to his theory of postcolonial hybridity, when cultures interact and come into contact with each other, their original states disappear and a hybrid one emerges. Bhabha contends that while this blending of cultures may seem perilous to cultural identity, it can actually be advantageous for growth: cultural production, because of the cultural interblending, may become more creative. He also argues that a newness steps into the world of colonizers and colonized through a new cultural space which generates the third space. To him, hybridity does not only hold the traces of two cultures, but it also forms a third space that fosters creative production. The constant flow between them enables the inhabitants living in this area to be more productive. His idea of ambivalence also focuses on the culture which brings opposing perceptions together. He theorizes all the cultural characteristics from past to the present. By evaluating Bhabha’s postcolonial theories such as the postcolonial hybridity, the third space, ambivalence and in-betweenness, the study aims to indicate how Moraga tries to create such a third space by using mythology in her Chicana dramaturgy. Moraga, playwright, poet, and thinker, rewrites the Greek myth of Medea as a Mexican lesbian, and by doing so, she underscores the ancient roots and multicultural heritage of Chicanos inhabiting the United States of America. The largest ethnic group in the Southwestern States of the United States (California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado), Chicanos are Mexican – American people who have a history of resisting injustices caused by white supremacy. Through a feminist point of view, Moraga draws attention to the cultural dynamics and bilingualism of Chicanos in her play, The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea. As a lesbian activist, a feminist playwright, and a philosopher, she has championed the rights of her community throughout her life, and these concerns are at the core of her academic and works of art. In reimagining the Euripidean tragedy (5th century BC) and the ancient Greek myth of Medea, Moraga adapts it to her own culture and introduces three indigenous myths: La Llorona, Coatlicue, and The Hungry Woman. The play is set in Phoenix, Arizona, or Aztlan, the mythological homeland of the Aztecs. In the play, Medea leaves Jason, her husband, for her lesbian lover Luna, and she is exiled to the border. Jason wants the custody of his 13-yearold son Chacmool because he wants to marry a young woman. Medea, afraid that her son will become a man like his father, decides to kill her son to take revenge. Medea’s act of violence brings her death as well. Ostracized by her own people, Moraga’s Medea criticizes patriarchy and calls attention to queerness, nationhood, and indigenism. Using female characters derived from Greek and indigenous myths, Moraga creates women who defy patriarchy, colonial oppression, and heterosexism. The play underscores oppression towards women and emphasizes the cultural conditions of Chicanos as they exist in a third space. In the play, Moraga tries to show that people will continue to suffer as long as the boundaries between cultures exist. Women are the most oppressed ones in every aspect, and that new space and freedom will come forward when these borders / pressures are eliminated through cultural negotiation.
