Irishness, female subjectivity, domestic relation, and landscape as manifested in carr's The Mai and Ariel

Abstract EN

This research aims at discussing the depiction of liminal space in the theater of Marina Carr, especially in The Mai (1994) and Ariel (2002), as an approach for presenting and analyzing the tension rooted in some issues pertinent to themes of gender, family, and identity.

It aims at discussing the importance of the landscape in her drama as a primary setting and a dominant feature symbolizing the Irish folklore.

Furthermore, it discusses how Carr interested in creating a conflicted space between binary oppositions that have characterized the prevailing ways of thinking and writing about Ireland in the nineteenth century reaching to the transition in the middle and until the end of the twentieth century.

In conclusion, the two plays under study illustrate how the concept of liminality is employed as a way for the protagonists to re-imagine their real conditions.

They allow readers to re-imagine the rapid change of Irish culture and community, which displays a postmodern self-awareness in the plays' multiple meta-theatrical elements.