‘Uncanny’ repetitions in Lillian Hellman’s 'The Children’s Hour'

Cocks, N. (2016) ‘Uncanny’ repetitions in Lillian Hellman’s 'The Children’s Hour'. Modern Drama, 59 (4). pp. 363-379. ISSN 1712-5286 doi: 10.3138/md.0771R

Abstract/Summary

This article addresses Lilian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour in terms of “the uncanny,” that is as a play concerned with doubling and instability. Although this is not in itself an original approach the play, it is claimed that the unsettling iterations of the work can be understood to extend further than has been read within the handful of critical accounts thus far produced. In following Sigmund Freud’s “The Uncanny” and Judith Butler’s ‘Imitation and Gender Insubordination” in their understanding of the disruptive effects of retrospection and repetition, the article works through various threats to identity and structure in Hellman’s play, concluding with a questioning account of recent moves to situate the work within a contextual frame of performance history.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/51653
Identification Number/DOI	10.3138/md.0771R
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Literature and Languages > Graduate Centre for International Research in Childhood (CIRCL) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Literature and Languages > English Literature Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Identities
Publisher	University of Toronto Press
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