Timo Pfaff

Decoding Sarah Kane

Dimensions of Metaphoricity in Cleansed

Felt it.
Here. Inside. Here.
And when I don’t feel it, it’s pointless.

Sarah Kane

1 Introduction: Love and Violence, Metaphoricity and Literality

—The Encompassing Parameters

“Love is war” and “love is a unity”—these are the two main conceptual metaphors underlying Sarah Kane’s play
Cleansed (1998). However, and quite paradoxically, Kane realizes these metaphors on stage in a way that could
not be more literal. A rather minimalistic language is supported by cruel extremes and an “in-yer-face”
directness, hard to digest for the audience. These parameters make up Kane’s theatrical language, which is
characterized by a non-realistic approach to its topics and a tendency to let form express meaning. The scenes in
Cleansed can, at least partly, be analysed by taking them as figures, as it has been done in one of Kane’s
inspirational sources for the play, Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse. This may sound rather strange, given
that Cleansed is a play that literally bursts with atrocities like cut-off tongue, hands, and feet, an impaling scene
and lots more. Indeed, what fascinated Kane most was Barthes’ contemplation on Bruno Bettelheim’s
comparison of the feelings of a lover to those of an inmate of Dachau: “The amorous catastrophe may be close to
what has been called, in the psychotic domain, an extreme situation, ‘a situation experienced by the subject as
irremediably bound to destroy him;’ the image is drawn from what occurred at Dachau” (48-49). Barthes
questions the acceptability of such an immoral comparison, but concludes that it is justified because both “are,
literally, panic situations: situations without remainder, without return: I have projected myself into the other
with such power that when I am without the other I cannot recover myself, regain myself: I am lost, forever”
(49). This literality is a key feature in Sarah Kane’s plays. The audience witnesses literary metaphors that have
come into being on stage, revolving around the issue of love and war/violence: “A parable about love in a time
of madness, Cleansed is full of metaphors of addiction, need, loss and suffering” (Sierz 114).

Anna Opel explains Kane’s use of minimalism in language and metaphor on stage as Kane’s quest for her own
language of theatre: “Die Suche nach dieser Theatersprache beinhaltet in Kanes Ästhetik eine Buchstäblichkeit
der Sprache, die etwa in Cleansed ein Eigenleben entwickelt und als monströse Materialität wiederkehrt” (169).
Furthermore, Opel states: “Das Verfahren der Ausgestaltung sprachlicher Wendungen als Wirklichkeit, also als
Figuren und Handlungen, führt zur Verdeutlichung und Zuspitzung von Aussagen”
(Opel 159).

Thus, my analysis will take place within the parameters of love and violence/war on the one axis and metaphor
and literality on the other axis. The metaphors in Cleansed, however, are not realized on the linguistic level but
they appear directly on stage, are a result of what I would like to call ‘figurative scenes,’ in accordance with
Roland Barthes’ technique of analysis in A Lover’s Discourse (3-6). This is to say, there is no or little such thing
as figurative speech; metaphorical significance comes into being in the larger context of statements put together,
making up a scene that “says” more than what is actually said on stage. In the course of my analysis, I would like
to place Cleansed in the context of two further works, namely Plato’s Symposium, and here especially the speech
of Aristophanes who interprets love in terms of a pursuit of wholeness; and Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and
Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense, a treatise on the origin of language and human quest for truth. Nietzsche in
particular focuses on the phenomenon of metaphor in language and human perception. I will try to transfer his
findings to the stage of Kane’s play.

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The methodical proceeding of my analysis will largely be based on Kövecses’ reworking of Lakoff’s findings in
the field of cognitive linguistics. Kövecses outlines the concept of conceptual metaphors: “In the cognitive
linguist view, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual
domain” (4), with a “conceptual domain” being “any coherent organization of experience” (4). Furthermore, as I
have already hinted at above, one has to distinguish conceptual metaphors from metaphorical linguistic
expressions, which “are linguistic manifestations of conceptual metaphors” (Kövecses 39). What is of special
interest with regard to Kane is how her mapping of metaphors works, that is to say, how the source domain and
the target domain correspond, or how several conceptual domains are being blended into “a nightmare, self-
contained, like something jointly dreamt by Goya and Odilon Redon, a vision of monsters and victims” (Peter,
Sunday Times).

Chapter 2.1 focuses on the appearance of violence and in the play. Here, I will try to reveal several conceptual
metaphors that underlie these atrocities. In chapter 2.2, I will focus on the second part of this binary opposition,
namely the occurrences of different forms of love in Cleansed, in most instances based on the conceptual
metaphor “love is a unity.” This will be emphasized by outlining an analogy between the play and Aristophanes’
myth of love. Chapter 2.3, then, turns to a further analytical dimension of the play: the interaction between
metaphoricity and literality. In the final chapter I intend to elucidate Kane’s modus operandi in terms of theatre
by comparing Cleansed with the above mentioned Nietzschean essay.

2 Main Part: Decoding Sarah Kane

2.1 In-yer-face: Violence as Metaphor

What does the term “in-yer-face,” first applied by the theatre critic Alex Sierz to an extravagant piece of British
theatre of the nineties, signify? According to Sierz, the widest definition of in-yer-face theatre is “any drama that
takes the audience by the scruff of the neck and shakes it until it gets the message” (4). In its wider sense,
“[q]uestioning moral norms, it affronts the ruling ideas of what can or should be shown onstage” (4). Thus, a
major effect of in-yer-face theatre derives from directly confronting its audience with shocking scenes, leaving
them with the feeling “that your personal space has been invaded” (Sierz 4). The movement, according to Sierz,
seeks to “question current ideas of what is normal, what it means to be human, what is natural or what is real. In
other words, the use of shock is part of a search for deeper meaning . . .” (5).

In Cleansed, these shocking elements are evident the very moment the play sets off and the character Graham
receives an injection in the corner of his eye, as a result of which he dies.

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Although a brief summary of the play’s plot would have to outline it as an accumulation of scenes of atrocities,
Kane herself explains in a interview:

[U]m die Gewalt ist es darin nie gegangen, es ging immer darum, wie sehr diese
Menschen lieben. Stärker noch als in meinen Stücken davor wird die Gewalt in Gesäubert
zur Metapher, und mittlerweile bewege ich mich immer stärker in eine eher poetische
Richtung. (Tabert 20)

Many theatre critics have also recognised this poetical tendency. David Benedict states in the Independent that
“her [Kane’s] handling of image and metaphor sets her apart from almost every other playwright of her
generation.” This raises the question what these metaphors stand for. Criticism has not come up with a
convincing analysis in that field so far.

To begin with the analysis of metaphors, the first thing one has to bear in mind is that metaphors do not only
occur as linguistic realisations. On the contrary, there is a huge variety of non-linguistic realisations of
conceptual metaphors. Kövecses points out that “if the conceptual system that governs how we experience the
world, how we think, and how we act is partly metaphorical, then the (conceptual) metaphors must be realized
not only in language but also in many other areas of human experience” (57). An analysis of metaphors, no
matter whether on page or on stage, has to focus on the mappings between source domains and target domains,
or, as I. A. Richards named it, vehicle and tenor.

How does this go together with Sarah Kane’s Cleansed? No doubt, physical violence is the source domain.
However, it will certainly not be an easy thing to figure out which meaning the violence tries to convey, or
whether it tries to convey any meaning at all. The first observable entity with a metaphorical implication
certainly is the setting. As the reader (not the audience) gets to know from the stage directions, the play takes
place within the “perimeter fence of a university” (3). However, what is described as a university is actually the
prison- and hospital-like realm of Tinker. Thus, the non-realistic setting is a blending of diverse settings existing
in reality: prison, university, brothel, and hospital. Kane concocts a setting of implicated violence (prison), help
(hospital), and learning (university) into a metaphorical location that can be interpreted as Kane’s sinister view
of the world. Thus, the people living in it are prisoners and made dependent upon help and sources of knowledge
of some external powers in society. “The spirit that hovers over it [Cleansed] is that of the philosopher Michel
Foucault. Discipline and punish. The world is a prison, disguised as an educational institution, which trains you
with the utmost brutality for nothing much else than dying” (Peter). Therefore, the underlying conceptual
metaphor is “the world is a prison,” which is being blended with social institutions that are responsible for the
individual’s mind and body and therefore have the ability to take away the individual’s autonomy over the self.
Thus, an extended version would be “the world is a prison for mind and body,” which calls into mind similarities
to a concentration camp.

The character who resembles the setting in its structure to a certain extent is Tinker. He is the one who has the
full authority and power over the inmates of the institution, just like a jailer. Likewise, at various situations he
appears as a doctor, is addressed as a doctor, commands in a doctor-like fashion (“Show me your tongue” (10);
“Swallow” (10)), and treats the inmates. What contradicts this aspect of Tinker is his constant denial of
responsibility (“I’m not responsible, Grace.” (10); “I’m not responsible.” (33)), for it is the foremost duty of any
doctor to show responsibility for his patients. However, there are some scenes that show Tinker in a very
ambiguous, vulnerable light. These scenes will be the objects of analysis in chapter 2.2.

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The question is in how far the disgusting acts of atrocities are the source for some underlying target domain. In
Scene One, Tinker injects an overdose into the corner of Graham’s eye, because Graham wants to end his life.
The conceptual metaphor here is “suicide is the ultimate escape”—by and large a minor aspect of the play. This
motif later recurs when Robin hangs himself after having realized how long he will really have to stay in the
institution (40). What is also of importance is the fact that Tinker, a personification of society or rather those
powers in society that pressure the individual, looks away as Graham dies (4), he does not feel responsible. In
general, the atrocities committed by Tinker seem to follow a kind of cause-effect calculus. The atrocities follow
specific actions of the characters in respect to two dimensions. On a first level, the brutality has to be interpreted
as punishment for a behaviour that does not conform to society’s morals. So, Carl is dismembered and Rod
killed because they are a gay couple. Grace is beaten up and raped because she has an incestuous affair with her
brother Graham. The conceptual metaphor in this case could be termed “society is a punisher.” On a second
level, the atrocities can be explained as a consequence of linguistic inaccuracy, a circumstance that will be
analysed in detail in chapter 2.3 within the framework of metaphoricity and literality.

A series of atrocities that has to be seen as belonging together is the “use of ritual dismemberment” (Saunders
20). Here, the acts of cutting off Carls tongue (14), the hands (25), the feet (32), and finally the penis (41) do not
stand for themselves but rather symbolise a gradual loss of articulation. With his tongue, Carl could have
expressed his love to Rod verbally; his hands could have written down the message; with his feet, he still was
able to dance a “dance of love for Rod” (32); and finally, the loss of his penis takes away the chance to express
love sexually, but by then it is too late anyway because Rod has already been killed. For Opel, these amputations
represent metaphors “für den Verlust von Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten angesichts einer überbordenden Liebe, die
nicht adäquat kommunizierbar ist” (161). Indeed, the human body in Cleansed can be seen as a metaphor for the
soul or mind. The appropriate conceptual metaphor thus is “the mind is the body.” The body, according to Opel,
has “die Funktion der Objektivierung subjektiver Empfindung” (170). She maintains that the human body
functions as a substitute to express the soul’s pain because this way it can be made visible on stage (Opel 171).
Taking this argument as a basis it seems valid to go one step further and see the scenes in the light of a criticism
of language. From this highly abstract angle, Carl can be interpreted as a ‘body of language.’ Thus, the
amputations are acts of deconstructing the corpus linguistics. Opel argues in a comparable way when she states:

Was Carl angeht, so potenziert sich der Zusammenhang zwischen sprachlichem Ausdruck
und konkreter Körperlichkeit noch, wenn Carl wegen seines Liebesschwures und seines
Verrates körperlich so weit beschnitten wird, daß er weder sprechen noch schreiben kann.
Sein vormaliges Zuviel an Sprache, [sic] wird mit einem vollständigen Verlust
sprachlicher Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten beantwortet. (156)

As shown above, this loss is not limited to verbal possibilities of expression but also extends to non-verbal ones.
To conclude, the physical violence does not stand for itself, it is rather the signifier for a tortured soul: “Der
leidende Körper ist in Kanes Stücken Sinnbild einer gemarterten Seele. Die Stücke erzählen von einer Spaltung
zwischen diesen beiden empfindlichen Phänomenen der menschlichen Existenz” (Opel 179). The violence,
however, does not only refer to conflicts inherent in the individual but also to the relationship between society
and individual and the conflicts society triggers within the self. According to this view, conceptual metaphors
that can be made out are “abstract complex systems are human bodies” (Tinker is society), “abstract complex
systems are buildings” (the institution is society), “societal powers are restraints to the individual,” “abstract
authorities are persons,” “society is a killer,” and finally, to form a transition to the next chapter, “love is a
killer.”

2.2 Love is a Unity—Cleansed and Aristophanes’ Myth

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

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You make me happy when skies are grey.
You'll never know dear, how much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away.
(Jimmy Davis and Charles Mitchell: You Are My Sunshine)

What lies under the surface of violence in Cleansed is to a large extent the idealized cognitive model for
romantic love. Idealized cognitive models “are structured conceptual representations of domains in terms of
elements of these domains” (Kövecses 250):

The ICM [idealized cognitive model] for romantic love involves several elements: the
lovers (subject and object of love), an intense emotion felt by the lovers, a relationship
between them, and a variety of attitudes and behaviors typically assumed by the love
emotion, including (but not exhausted by) affection, liking, enthusiasm, and sex.
(Kövecses 215)

On grounds of this mapping, an accurate analysis of the play seems possible. After the first seven scenes, the
four crucial love-stories are introduced: Rod and Carl (scene 2), Grace and Graham (scene 5), Robin and Grace
(scene 6), and Tinker and the Woman (scene 7) form the four intertwining love-relationships. However, in terms
of the Barthesian categories of subject and object of love, some distinctions have to be drawn. In the case of Rod
and Carl, as well as of Grace and Graham, all are subjects as well as their reciprocal objects of love. For Robin,
Grace is his object of love; he himself is the subject in love. This love relationship is one-directional. Finally, the
relation between Tinker and the nameless woman upon whom he projects the personality of Grace, is an
ambiguous one of different states: In their first encounter, Tinker seems to be the subject in love, in scene 14 this
relation is reversed and in the end, they form, as the first two couples in the play, also a loving couple (scene 19).

Scene 2 introduces the gay couple, Rod and Carl. The couple forms an essential opposition in respect to their
worldviews: Carl’s romantic idealism collides with Rod’s cynical realism (Sierz 114):

Rod What are you thinking?

Carl That I’ll always love you.
Rod (laughs.)
Carl That I’ll never betray you.
Rod (laughs more.)
Carl That I’ll never lie to you.
Rod You just have. (6)

Rod, who does not want to make a similar commitment, delivers a speech that in its realistic intensity outweighs
Carl’s utterances in its romantic nature.

Rod I love you now.

I’m with you now.
I’ll do my best, moment to moment, not to betray
you.
Now.
That’s it. No more.
Don’t make me lie to you. (7)

Carl’s urgent wish to express his love for Rod, as well as to get an affirmation from Rod (“What I want,
deliriously, is to obtain the word.” (Barthes 153)) can well be interpreted with Barthes’ figure of declaration:
“The amorous subject’s propensity to talk copiously, with repressed feeling, to the loved being, about his love
for that being, for himself, for them: the declaration does not bear upon the avowal of love, but upon the

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endlessly glossed form of the amorous relation.” (73). Carl never stops expressing his love explicitly, regardless
of Tinker’s intention to deprive him gradually from his means of expression. First, Carl verbally declares his
love to Rod. After his tongue gets cut off, he writes down a message of love. When his hands are being cut off,
he goes on expressing his love with a dance of love and after he loses his feet Rod and Carl finally make love.
Thus, Carl makes use of a wide range of verbal and nonverbal declarations of love.

In scene 2, Carl wants Rod to act out the signifier; the action of putting on the ring would mean, “I (always) love
you.” However, Rod is the one fully aware of his limits—the human limits and the limits of language. For this
reason, he is so devastatingly realistic. The ring is a key metaphor in the play. The second time the ring appears
in scene 4. Here, Tinker, who has just cut off Carl’s tongue, forces him to swallow his ring. Next, the ring
appears in scene 8 where Rod picks up Carl’s severed hand with the ring, takes it off and then reads Carl’s
written message: “Say you forgive me” (25). However, he remains consequent and says: “I won’t lie to you,
Carl” (26). The last time the ring appears (scene 16), it becomes a metaphor for the union of love. Carl swallows
a ring a second time. However, whereas the first time Tinker forced him to swallow his own ring as punishment
for his betrayal, he now swallows the ring he originally got from Rod—a metaphorical act of internalised,
everlasting love. Although Rod is killed later in this scene, the rings finally unite in Carl’s stomach. Hence, the
ring has the function to metaphorize the issues of betrayal and forgiveness. Whereas Carl the first time is forced
to swallow his ring as an act of symbolic punishment for his betrayal of Rod, the second time Rod makes him
swallow his own ring as a sign for forgiveness. That Rod has forgiven Carl becomes clear when he finally
repeats the pledge of love originally delivered by Carl:

Rod I will always love you.

I will never lie to you.
I will never betray you.
On my life. (38)

The theme of the union that love brings about is central to the play and primarily realized in the relation between
the siblings Grace and Graham. In the vocabulary of Barthes this union is the “[d]ream of total union with the
loved being” (226). This immediately brings to mind Aristophanes’ myth of love, delivered in Plato’s
Symposium.

An androgynous motif that appears throughout Western literature in a multiplicity of

guises is the mystical union (or the innate desire for such a union) of two persons into a
oneness. The description of the origin of the sexes and of romantic love found in Plato’s
Symposium seeks to explain this seemingly inevitable need for human conjoining that
defies rational explanation. (“Androgyny”)

At this point, a short look into the myth of Aristophanes seems helpful to discover analogies to Cleansed.
According to Aristophanes, in ancient times each human being consisted of twice of what they are now.
Consequently, there were three human genders: male, female, and androgynous (Plato 189d-e). Humans at that
time had much more power, they moved by spinning around because they had a round shape, “backs and sides
forming a circle” (Plato 190a). Because they were beginning to challenge the gods, Zeus decided to split them
into halves to deprive them of their powers. However, “it was their very essence that had been split in two, so
each half missed its other half and tried to be with it” (Plato 191b). What ensued was that humans were looking
for their second half and after they had found it embraced it until they died of starvation or general apathy. Zeus,
pitying them, moved their formerly backward genitals to their front. Thus, those pairs who were the former
hermaphrodites were able to have sexual intercourse and to reproduce. Aristophanes concludes: “Love [the God]
draws our original nature back together; he tries to reintegrate us and heal the split in our nature. Turbot-like,
each of us has been cut in half, and so we are human tallies, constantly searching for our counterparts” (Plato
191d). In a nutshell, then, love is equivalent to “the desire for and pursuit of wholeness” (Plato 193a) and the
desire to “recover our original nature” (Plato 193c).

This story elucidates the plot in Cleansed and provides for a better understanding of what is at the heart of the
relationship between Grace and Graham. Grace is driven by the desire to unite with her dead brother Graham.
This unity of identity or, as Aristophanes calls it, “wholeness,” develops gradually. In scene 3, Grace dresses in
her dead brother’s clothes after which she breaks down. This may be a hint that she relived the pains her brother
went through. To share pain with another person is an expression of ultimate closeness. As Elaine Scarry
emphasizes, “pain comes unshareable into our midst as at once that which cannot be denied and that which
cannot be confirmed” (4). So, pain is the dividing line for the highest level of certainty because it is “so
incontestably and unnegotiably present” (Scarry 4) for one person, while “for the other person it is so elusive that
‘hearing about pain’ may exist as the primary model of what it is ‘to have doubt.’” (Scarry 4). This seems valid
for and applicable to the feelings of love in a relationship as well. Here, nothing seems to be more certain for the
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loving subject than the love for its object, but how can the loved object, even if being itself a loving subject, gain
ultimate certainty? It is amazing how well the song of Jim Davis and Charles Mitchell You are my Sunshine,
sung by the siblings in scene 5, fits in this context: line three of the first verse is “You’ll never know, dear, how
much I love you.”

After these considerations it becomes clear how close the relationship between Grace and Graham already is.
This union, which has been expressed through the sharing of emotions and thus been presented as an inner unity,
gets its outward manifestation after Grace has put on Graham’s clothes and says to Tinker: “I look like him. Say
you thought I was a man” (10). In scene 5, Graham reappears in a ghost-like manner, thus being himself a
metaphor for Grace’s longing. When Grace sees Graham for the first time, she “smacks him around the face as
hard as she can, then hugs him to her as tightly as possible” (14). In this scene, the antithetic principle of love
and violence, upon which Kane built her play, becomes visible in a most intense way. Graham looks at his sister
and states: “More like me than I ever was” (15). This seemingly paradoxical statement again puts emphasis on
the idea of the “mystical union . . . of two persons into a oneness” (“Androgyny”). When the siblings begin to
dance, the process of adjustment, not “assimilation” because they are still two individuals, goes on with Grace
copying Graham’s movements and voice. Finally “she mirrors him perfectly as they dance exactly in time” (15).

Grace’s demand “Love me or kill me, Graham” (16) initiates their making love. “They come together” (16),
which is a further sign for their perfect cooperation. Sexual intercourse is the closest possible situation two
persons can be with another on a physical level. Moreover, sex is a metonymic variant of love. The metaphorical
nature of the whole scene is highlighted by that fact that in the end “[a] sunflower bursts through the floor and
grows above their heads” (16).

In scene 7, Robin asks Grace what would be the one thing she would change in her life if she could, whereupon
she answers: “My body. So it looked like it feels. / Graham outside like Graham inside” (22). This shows that the
unity of mind has already been accomplished, and the thing that is left to do is the total bodily fusion. In scene
10, after Grace has been beaten up and raped “Graham presses his hand onto Grace and her clothes turn / red
where he touches, blood seeping through. / Simultaneously, his own body begins to bleed in the same places”
(28). This scene marks another step towards the complete bodily fusion because by now the siblings not only
share their emotions but also their bodily feelings and pain. This has shortly been hinted at in scene three where
Grace suffers a nervous breakdown. Here, Kane makes visible the oneness of the siblings in the most plastic
way. However, this drastic plastic representation has not come to an end until scene 18. At this point, Grace has
received a penis transplanted onto her by Tinker (41). The first words she/he is able to speak after the surgery are
uttered by both siblings: “Felt it” (42). The transformation into a union is complete: “Grace looks and sounds
exactly like Graham. She is wearing his clothes” (45). The whole plot is thus driven by the necessary
metaphorical assumption “love is a unity” which gets people on the way to the pursuit of wholeness. If the
assumption turned out to be wrong then the following question would seem urgently justified: “[I]f everything is
not in two, what’s the use of struggling? I might as well return to the pursuit of the multiple” (Barthes 228). One
final remark about Aristophanes’ myth and Cleansed: Tinker as the destroyer of love and the entity who tears the
loving couples apart bears some resemblance to the way Zeus acts by splitting the humans into halves: Indeed,
Tinker can be seen, at least in this respect, as the ‘Zeus’ of the play.

“Grace and Robin experience a teacher and pupil, mother and child rapport”

(Sierz 114). The emotional state of Robin resembles what Barthes calls “ravishment:” “[T]he supposedly initial
episode . . . during which the amorous subject is ‘ravished’ (captured and enchanted) by the image of the loved
object (popular name: love at first sight; scholarly name: enamoration)” (Barthes 188). This “first sight” is at
once a very intimate one. When Robin and Grace meet for the first time they, in the process of changing clothes,
stand face to face naked. Ever after this, Robin wears Grace’s clothes till his end has come. In addition to and
along with Robin’s “ravishment,” the nineteen-year-old boy experiences a situation of utter confusion:

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 My mum weren’t my mum and I had to choose
Robin
another, I’d choose you.
Grace Sweet boy.
If I—
Robin
If I had to get married, I’d marry you. (22).

This scene is informed by the conceptual metaphor “love is confusion.” Robin is unable to clearly figure out the
feelings he has for Grace: The love for a mother or the love for a woman—a typical Freudian dilemma.
However, Grace never engages with Robin’s confession of love. This paves the way for the most innocent,
friendly relationship of the play. This can be seen in the way their dialogues contrast with the rest of the play: “In
ihrem nicht-hierarchischen, freundschaftlichen Verhältnis ist Raum für Gespräch und Fragen” (Opel 150). The
reason for Robin to commit suicide in scene 18, besides the fact that he had learned how to count and thus
realised how long his sentence really is, is his feeling of being deprived of Grace’s friendship—and love. Grace
is in a heavily tranquillised condition, does not respond to Robin calling her name and thus involuntarily
contributes to bring about Robin’s suicide.

The last, most ambiguous love relationship of the play is the one between Tinker and the woman in the peep-
show booth. According to Sierz, the two persons “represent domination and alienated love” (114). Scene 6
depicts Tinker masturbating while letting himself be stimulated by the female dancer. But then, instead, he wants
to see her face and talk to her. He says that the woman should not be here and offers his friendship: “Can we be
friends?” (17). After the woman rejects his offer he goes one step further claiming to be a doctor: “I can help”
(18). Tinker apparently projects Grace’s personality onto the woman because he addresses her with Grace’s
name (19). He is represented as a very ambiguous person desperately looking for love. He is the omnipotent
authority of the play, having the power to do what he wants with the other persons, but he is also presented
deeply vulnerable. In scene 9 Tinker again visits the woman. This time she accepts his offer for help on the
condition that Tinker saves her (26). In their third encounter in scene 14, they seem to have changed roles.
Whereas in the former scenes Tinker wanted to help the woman out of her situation, he now forces her to act as
she is supposed to as a peep-show dancer. In the penultimate scene, Tinker is finally able to confess: “I love you,
Grace” (45). Thus, there is another inversion, which leaves Tinker and the woman in a reciprocal love
relationship. According to Saunders, Tinker “seems to undergo a process of moral redemption through the
mutilation of Grace, and through it comes to accept love from the Woman in the booth, who he had previously
also abused and kept captive” (31). Consequently, “[t]he supreme irony regarding Tinker, is that someone who
so systematically attempts to destroy love in others is in fact yearning to express and reciprocate love himself”
(Saunders 98). Thus, even the “Mephistophelian figure” (Saunders 96) of Tinker is not presented as being
completely devilish. He, as well as other male protagonists in Kane’s plays such as Ian in Blasted and
Hippolytus in Phaedra’s Love “have an underlying fragility, a desire to be loved and an almost pathetic
tenderness that often lurks beneath their cruelty” (Saunders 32).

In this final meeting of Tinker and the woman (Scene 19), love in its various different shades and meanings is
shown. Tinker addresses the woman with “Hello, my love” (42), thus using “love” in terms of the conceptual
metonymy “love for the object of love” (Kövecses 215). Both admit to love each other (43, 44, 45), which is
“love for the relationship it produces” (Kövecses 215). Moreover, the woman demands “Make love to me,
Tinker” (43) which is a special case of the metonymy “whole for part,” namely “love for sex” (Kövecses 216).
Finally, there is the meaning of “love for liking,” when the woman repeatedly states “I love your cock” (44). In
spite of these various forms of love, the fact that the only positive union in the end could be achieved by Tinker
and the woman leaves the audience/reader with a bad aftertaste. The love they found seems not to be the real
love: for Tinker, the woman rather seems to function as a substitute for his real love—Grace.

In the final scene Grace/Graham and Carl sit next to each other leaving the reader/audience with a troubled
feeling about what conclusion to draw from this last image. “Wie weit Menschen gehen, wenn sie sich ihrer
Liebe ausliefern, scheint hier in einem Laborversuch untersucht zu werden” (147), is what can be concluded, if
one follows Opel. However, the desperate impression conjured up by the final images of Grace holding Carl’s
stump and rats gnawing at their wounds presses heavily upon the reader’s mind. However, this exactly seems to
have been Kane’s intention: “[S]ometimes we have to descend into hell imaginatively in order to avoid going
there in reality” (Stephenson and Langridge 133). “Love survives, if that is the word, as an incestuous dream, a
form of blissful death with, or a visceral loyalty between mutilated men whose wounds are being gnawed at by
rats” (Peter).

2.3 Transgressing the Borders: Minimalism, Metaphoricity and Literality

Someday when we’re dreaming

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Deep in love, not a lot to say
Then we will remember
The things we said today.
(John Lennon/Paul Mc Cartney: Things We Said Today)

A further dimension of the play is the interplay between statements and their literal realisation, or rather the
examination of their validity, on stage. This is to say that the metaphorical nature of language is being ignored
and thus the metaphorical meaning is made visible on stage by comprehending statements only in their literal
sense. The person who pushes forward the plot in this respect is Tinker because he is unable to understand any
meaning beyond the literal meaning of statements. This way of conveying meaning has to be seen in the light of
the development of cognitive linguistics in the twentieth century: “In the course of the twentieth century the
assumed distinction between the literal and the metaphorical has come under increasing attack” (Fludernik et. al.
384). From a cognitive perspective “linguistic expression arises from strategic adaptations of body schemata that
we project onto our environment” (Fludernik et. al. 385). Consequently cognitive linguists tend to think “of
metaphor as a process of thought rather than a product of language . . .” (Fludernik et. al. 388). In this respect,
Tinker can be construed as a representative of objectivist and empiricist tradition. As outlined by Lakoff and
Johnson, objectivism holds that because meaning is objective, there can, by definition, be no such thing as
metaphorical meaning. According to this view, metaphor can only be a matter of language evoked through
talking (blatantly false) about some objective meaning by using language that would be used literally to talk
about some other objective meaning. Consequently, a further conclusion is:

Again by definition, there can be no such thing as literal (conventional) metaphor. A

sentence is used literally when M' = M, that is, when the speaker’s meaning is the
objective meaning. Metaphors can only arise when M' ? M. Thus, according to the
objectivist definition, a literal metaphor is a contradiction in terms, and literal language
cannot be metaphorical. (209)

Such an approach is based on “fear of metaphor and rhetoric” (Lakoff and Johnson 191), which is equivalent to a
“fear of emotion and the imagination” (191). “Words are viewed as having ‘proper senses’ in terms of which
truths can be expressed. To use words metaphorically is to use them in an improper sense, to stir the imagination
and thereby the emotions and thus to lead us away from the truth and toward illusion” (191).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “literal” as “the distinctive epithet of that sense or interpretation (of a
text) which is obtained by taking its words in their natural or customary meaning, and applying the ordinary rules
of grammar; opposed to mystical, allegorical, etc” and “[h]ence, by extension, applied to the etymological or the
relatively primary sense of a word, or to the sense expressed by the actual wording of the passage, as
distinguished from any metaphorical or merely suggested meaning” (“literal”). Thus, literality and metaphoricity
form a further binary opposition besides the already analysed love-violence antithesis. In accordance to the
theoretical background given above, Opel states:

Wenn in der Folge Rods Behauptung, Carls Versprechen sei Selbstmord, sich durch den
Vollstrecker Tinker nahezu bewahrheitet, so gewinnt man den Eindruck, die Bildlichkeit
der Sprache habe sich in den szenischen Raum hinein erweitert. Es wird nahegelegt, der
szenische Raum und die Dinge, die dort geschehen, seien Effekt der sprachlichen
Operationen und Metaphern, die die Figuren gebrauchen. Sie repräsentieren in diesem
Sinne eine Sprache und ein Denken, das sich verselbständigt hat und sich nun szenisch
betätigt, dadurch aber als Metapher unlesbar, nicht eindeutig übersetzbar wird.
(Opel 156)

Thus, Kane’s way of working in a way is a deconstruction of the myth of objectivism. Cleansed ridicules any
objectivist assumptions and brings to light the essential metaphoricity of language on stage. The most obvious
example of this literal translation of speech is when Grace states that she wishes to change her body into that of
Graham: “So it looked like it feels./ Graham outside like Graham inside” (22). Meanwhile, “Tinker is watching”
(22) and thus overhearing her wish. “Was die Figuren im poetisierten Überschwang an Wünschen und Absichten
äußern, Tinker nimmt es buchstäblich. Seine Wunscherfüllung übersetzt sprachliche Wendungen in materielle
Realität” (Opel 147). This is in line with Ken Urban’s observation that from the way Kane’s plays are staged
“we can no longer respond to the action as literal, but allegorical” (45).

A further instance of literal understanding of metaphoricity in language is Carl’s pledge of love to Rod. This
scene displays the second aspect of literality, namely putting the validity of statements to the test. According to
Opel, this goes along with an extreme minimalism of language: “Daß dieser sprachliche Minimalismus auf der
Binnenebene mit einer extremen Empfindsamkeit gegenüber sprachlichen Ungenauigkeiten einhergeht, mit
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einem Bestehen auf absoluter Wahrhaftigkeit der Sprache, zeigt der erste Dialog zwischen Rod und Carl” (Opel
155). Tinker again overhears their conversation. In scene 4, he puts Carl’s commitment to the test and Carl fails
to proof the validity of his statement. Therefore, Tinker cuts off Carl’s tongue.

As the actor Stuart McQuarrie, who played the part of Tinker in the 1998 Royal Court production of Cleansed,
states about Tinker “[i]t’s almost as if he were scientifically testing out the boundaries of love” (Saunders 181).
In this respect, the testing of the authenticity of love seems to be equivalent to the testing of the validity of
statements. Saunders convincingly argues:

Integral to the theme of love in Cleansed are the ways in which love is tested. Often this is
brought about in the most brutal and violent ways by the figure of Tinker. . . . Tinker is
certainly a meddler in the fates of his charges, testing their desires, their delusions and
professions of love; often to savagely logical conclusions. (96)

In the case of Rod, this “savagely logical conclusion” is to murder him. In scene 13, Rod wonders what would
have happened if Carl had insisted on being murdered himself. Rod concludes: “He ever / asks me I’ll say ‘Me.
Do it to me. Not to Carl, not/ my lover, not my friend, do it to me’” (32). This announcement is put to the test in
scene 17 and Rod, insisting upon his decision, is murdered (38). The dismemberment of Carl’s body, however,
has primarily to be interpreted in terms of punishment for being dishonest and inaccurate in the use of language.
“Die oft derbe und obszöne Sprache in Kanes Stücken ist durch ein Mißtrauen gegenüber sprachlicher
Ungenauigkeit geschärft und zugespitzt zu einer kargen Poesie” (Opel 155).

As Saunders puts it, “Cleansed frequently relies on theatrical imagery to add a further dimension to linguistic
meaning” (88). This has already been shown above: large parts of the speech in Cleansed have their scenic
counterpart due to an understanding of speech (by Tinker) that is purely literal and thus brings about what Opel
calls “Ausgestaltung sprachlicher Wendungen als Wirklichkeit” (Opel 159). This embodiment of literal phrases,
however, is not restricted to actions, but also extends to characters: The figures “aren’t so much characters as
states of being; they speak in meagre, stilted jabs” (Clapp, Observer). This has already been argued in chapter
2.1, where the metaphorical nature of Tinker is analysed and in chapter 2.2, where Graham is interpreted as a
metaphor for Grace’s longing.

To sum it up, the “feeling of metaphoric truth” (Sierz 117) that permeates the play, just as in Kafka’s The Trial,
is brought about by literal translation of statements onstage. Opel nicely paraphrases this phenomenon of Kane
when she states: “Man könnte in dieser Phase von Kanes Schreiben vom Nebentext als szenischer Erweiterung
des Haupttextes sprechen” (159). These features in Kane’s playwrighting are embedded in her search for a
language of theatre that allows a different view on reality: “Die Suche nach dieser Theatersprache beinhaltet in
Kanes Ästhetik eine Buchstäblichkeit der Sprache, die etwa in Cleansed ein Eigenleben entwickelt und als
monströse Materialität wiederkehrt” (Opel 169).

2.4 “Is language the adequate expression of all realities?”—Form as Meaning

This final chapter intends to reveal some similarities of Kane’s conception of theatre and Nietzschean thought as
expressed in his essay On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873). Of course, this can only be an enquiry
touching little more than the surface of the topic. An adequate analysis would require an additional research
paper of its own.

In terms of metaphor, the Nietzschean attitude expressed in his essay is known as the “It’s All Metaphor
Position” (Lakoff and Turner 218) and shares some striking insights with Kane’s theatre. Nietzsche raises the
question: “Is langauge the adequate expression of all realities?” This goes along with an investigation into the
nature of man’s quest for truth, because adequacy in the expression of reality would imply truth-claims. For
Nietzsche, there exists no such thing as “the truth” uttered through language. Nietzsche argues:

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 The “thing in itself” (for that is what pure truth, without consequences, would be) is quite
incomprehensible to the creators of language and not at all worth aiming for. One
designates only the relations of things to man, and to express them one calls on the boldest
metaphors. A nerve stimulus, first transposed into an image—first metaphor. The image,
in turn, imitated by a sound—second metaphor. And each time there is a complete
overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one.

Thus, if there were such a thing as the res in ipsum, it would be completely inaccessible for mankind because
language has to be seen as twice removed from this “truth.” The first metaphor is a neural stimulus translated
into an image; the second the translation of the image into a sound. Hereafter, Nietzsche formulates: “Everything
which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a
schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept.” This is the point where the issue can be brought back to
Kane. To dissolve her scenic images into a concept is at least problematic. The disturbed reaction of many
theatre critics should be understood from this angle. Kane’s scenic metaphors can hardly be endowed with
concrete, plain sense. On the contrary, Kane goes the other way around, dissolving ideas, terms and feelings into
scenic images.

Nietzsche’s line of argumentation leads to the insight that “the world as it is experienced is protometaphorical in
its structure” (Wilshire 239).

What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—

in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and
embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical,
and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is
what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which
have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.

This metaphor of coins implies that mankind has forgotten its own active part in “imprinting” meaning onto the
things external to us. Therefore, it seems valid to assume that Nietzsche would probably have felt some affection
for Kane’s work. Her way of working with theatre bears some analogies to the way Nietzsche would like people
to use language. Kane (and other representatives of in-yer-face theatre) refuses to work in the way she is
expected to do by societal authorities such as theatre critics, but also by the audience. This is why her plays set
off vivid controversies. “After our vision clears, we can’t help but wonder how much all this sound and fury
really signifies” (Marlowe, What’s On). Reactions like this one are the consequence of Kane’s refusal to make
use of conventional theatrical imagery and metaphors. Nietzsche’s aversion “gegenüber der Festschreibung von
Werten, oder gegenüber wahrheitswertfähigen Aussagen über ethische Sachverhalte, oder auch gegenüber
Begründungen und Herleitungen von unbedingten Sollenssätzen” (Rauscher 22) can thus be extended to the
stage of theatre to draw an analogy between him and Kane.

But in any case it seems to me that the correct perception—which would mean the
adequate expression of an object in the subject—is a contradictory impossibility. For
between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no
causality, no correctness, and no expression; there is, at most, an aesthetic relation. . . .

Bearing this in mind, Nietzsche seems to have been a forerunner of cognitive linguists. The conclusions of
Lakoff and Johnson apparently derive from Nietzsche’s body of thought. Lakoff and Johnson argue against
traditional Western philosophy and linguistics that meaning

is never disembodied or objective and is always grounded in the acquisition and use of a
conceptual system. Moreover, truth is always given relative to a conceptual system and
the metaphors that structure it. Truth is therefore not absolute or objective but is based on
understanding. (197)

As Bruce Wilshire points out, “since perception is basic to that worldly presence of things-along-with-other-
things which is meaning itself, then metaphor—that sensuous grasping of things in terms of what they are not—
is endemic and fundamental to cognition itself” (241). Kane was well aware of how she worked. In an interview
she stated: “All good art is subversive, either in form or content. And the best art is subversive in form and
content” (Stephenson and Langridge 130). To make the form carrier of meaning and to refuse conventionalised
working is a key feature to understand her work: “form and content attempt to be one—the form is the meaning”
(Stephenson and Langridge 130).

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The similarity in the works of Kane and Nietzsche would thus be the acknowledgement of the fundamental,
universal metaphoricity of human language. Because they both accept this fact they become free to intuitively
create really new instances of thought and, in the case of Kane, theatre.

That immense framework and planking of concepts to which the needy man clings his
whole life long in order to preserve himself is nothing but a scaffolding and toy for the
most audacious feats of the liberated intellect. And when it smashes this framework to
pieces, throws it into confusion, and puts it back together in an ironic fashion, pairing the
most alien things and separating the closest, it is demonstrating that it has no need of these
makeshifts of indigence and that it will now be guided by intuitions rather than by
concepts.

3 Conclusion: Deconstructing the ‘Proper Senses’

What is to be drawn from all this? First of all, the physical violence in Kane’s plays that has caused such a public
outcry has primarily to be interpreted in terms of the conceptual metaphor “the mind is the body:” the body
becomes the epitome of a tortured soul. This has convincingly been argued by Opel. As Kane emphasizes,
Cleansed is essentially about love: “[U]m die Gewalt ist es darin nie gegangen, es ging immer darum, wie sehr
diese Menschen lieben” (Tabert 20). This love between two people is realized metaphorically first and foremost
through the conceptual metaphor “love is a unity” corresponding to Aristophanes’ myth and his conception of
love as the pursuit of wholeness in its most literal sense.

What makes Kane an outstanding author is her directorial and authorial performance originating from the insight
that any set norms whatsoever—whether societal, linguistic, or theatrical—are imbued by an essential subjective
moment in their origin. Her way of realizing this insight is to play with different dimensions of metaphoricity.
This leads to the “rejection, or at least manipulation, of the conventions of realism that is perhaps the key
distinguishing feature of the dramatic strategy employed in Sarah Kane’s work” (Saunders 9). This ties in with
Sierz’ remarks on in-yer-face theatre: “Writers who provoke audiences or try to confront them are usually trying
to push the boundaries of what is acceptable—often because they want to question current ideas of what is
normal, what it means to be human, what is natural or what is real” (5). Lakoff and Johnson point out a further
aspect of this way of working that leads to Kane’s unique aesthetics of theatre. They argue that a metaphorical
approach reconciles subjectivism and objectivism because it “unites reason and imagination” (193) and can
therefore be conceived of as “imaginative rationality” (193).

However, the readers/audience are deliberately left to their own when it comes to consider possible messages of
the play. This is due to Kane’s intention to design her plays in an ambiguous way. In an interview with Tabert
she states that a text becomes less important “wenn man ihn zu konkret macht und auf eine Ebene begrenzt”
(Tabert 15). This notion again highlights the dependence of understanding on a conceptual system.

In spite of the overall ambiguity of the play I will dare to declare a message of Cleansed: On the level of human
relationships it declares that love is possible even under the most extreme circumstances. Here, we finally have
arrived back at the Barthesian image of Dachau. The last scene seems to state—to put it in terms of the
conceptual metaphor “love is war”—that love conquers all. The only remaining question seems to be: At what
prize? Thus, there is an extremely romantic view on love under the surface of atrocities. On the linguistic level,
the play can be read as a deconstruction of the myths of absolute truth and proper senses. This is in accordance to
the postmodern body of thought set off by Nietzsche.

The last thing one might wonder about is whether a depiction of atrocities as graphic as in Cleansed is really
necessary for conveying the intended messages. But this seems to be a justified procedure in a society that is
characterized by emotional blunting. Hence, Kane makes society experience feelings, however devastatingly
these are for the audience:

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Grace/GrahamFelt it.
Here. Inside. Here.

And when I don’t feel it, it’s pointless.

Think about getting up it’s pointless.
Think about eating it’s pointless.
Think about dressing it’s pointless.
Think about speaking it’s pointless.
Think about dying only it’s totally
fucking pointless. (46)

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Works Cited

Primary Source
Kane, Sarah
Cleansed. London: Methuen, 1998.

Secondary Sources
“Androgyny.” Dictionary of Literary Themes and Motifs.
Ed. Jean-Charles Seigneuret. New York: Greenwood, 1988.

Barthes, Roland
A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. Trans. Richard Howard.
London: Penguin, 1979.

Benedict, David
Independent. 9 May 1998. Rpt. in Theatre Record 18.9
(23 Apr.-6 May): 564-65.

Clapp, Susannah
Observer. 10 May 1998. Rpt. in Theatre Record 18.9
(23 Apr.-6 May): 566.

Fludernik, Monika,
Donald C. Freemann and Margaret H. Freeman
“Metaphor and Beyond:
An Introduction.” Poetics Today. 20.3 (1999): 383-96.

Kövecses, Zoltán
Metaphor—A Practical Introduction. Oxford: UP, 2002.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson

Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: UP, 1980.

Lakoff, George and Mark Turner

More than Cool Reason: a Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor.
Chicago: UP, 1989.

“Literal.”
The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.

Marlowe, Sam
What’s On. 13 May 1998. Rpt. in Theatre Record 18.9
(23 Apr.-6 May): 566-67.

Nietzsche, Friedrich
“On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.”
15 March 2005. <http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/tls.htm>.

Opel, Anna. Sprachkörper

—Zur Relation von Sprache und Körper in der zeitgenössischen
Dramatik—Werner Fritsch, Rainald Goetz, Sarah Kane.
Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2002.

Peter, John
Sunday Times. 10 May 1998. Rpt. in Theatre Record 18.9
(23 Apr.-6 May): 564.

Plato

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Symposium. Trans. Robin Waterfield. Oxford: UP, 1994.
Rauscher, Josef. Sprache und Ethik:
die Konstitution der Sprache und der Ursprung des Ethischen
in der Grundkonstellation von Antwort und Verantwortung.
Würzburg: Königshausen & Naumann, 2001.

Saunders, Graham
Love Me or Kill Me: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes.
Manchester: UP, 2002.

Scarry, Elaine
Introduction. By Scarry. The Body in Pain-
The Unmaking and Making of the World.
New York: Oxford UP, 1985. 3-23.

Sierz, Alex
In-Yer-Face Theatre- British Drama Today.
London: Faber & Faber, 2000.

Stephenson, Heidi and Natasha Langridge

Rage and Reason- Women Playwrights on Playwriting.
London: Methuen, 1997.

Tabert, Nils
Playspotting- Die Londoner Theaterszene der 90er.
Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1998.

Urban, Ken
“An Ethics of Catastrophe: The Theatre of Sarah Kane.”
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 69 (2001): 36-46.

Wilshire, Bruce
Role Playing and Identity. The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor.
Indiana: UP, 1982.

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