David Rabe의 작품세계와 폭력의 문제 : In the Boom Boom Room을 중심으로

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Radical young playwrights of the late 1960s and early 1970s shocked theatre audiences with new plays that attacked nearly every value in American life. These violent plays reflect the pessimism, anger, and despair of one of the most volatile era in American history. Scholars of various disciplines were interested in the dynamic social conditions and individual motivations which compelled people to commit violence. Many theories and much arguments were proposed as the causes of violence. Many radical scholars and most young playwrights were attracted with the arguments that American society itself was the main cause of the propagation of violence. The American society, they thought, was a battle field not much different from the battle field of Vietnam. In short, it is a "murderous wasteland" with little possibility of human dignity, affection and mutual respect.
David Rabe, with his experience in Vietnam, is obsessed with the problem of violence and the intermingled qualities of sexuality and racism. Especially his Boom Boom Room shows his ideas on men, women, violence, sexuality, and race. It shows Rabe's fundamental assumption that the overall pattern of American life is directed by the inescapable force of society. The inhabitants of the Boom Boom Room are helplessly driven to violence against each other. The violence is propagated by individual's sense of powerlessness, low-esteem of one's own self and prejudices of various kinds among which racial and sexual prejudices being the most prominent ones. Sexual relationships do not reflect sharing and mutual respect and affection. They are purely physical combat, battles for supremacy within bitter power struggles. Furthermore, this sexual combat fails to bring any satisfaction to those who are the "victors." Indeed, there are only victims, the worst of being the woman.
Chrissy abused not only by her father but also by her two uncles has grown up with least sense of self-esteem. The atmosphere of her family makes her think a worthless hunk of meat. She struggles pitifully to fulfil her ambition to become a dancer in spite of her childhood constraints and brutal life in the Philadelphia underside. Confronted with physical and psychological violence she is overcome by the evil forces surrounding her. Ultimately it is her inability to acknowledge and develop sense of her own value that defeats her. In the face of various forms of violence, she is destined to fail to achieve a strong sense of self. This failure makes her an easy target of violence. And the victim of violence is more likely to be a victimiser. Thus, Rabe seems to imply, the vicious cycle of violence in America is completed.