Decoding Sarah Kane Dimensions of Metaphoricity in Cleansed

by Timo Pfaff

Felt it. Here. Inside. Here. And when I dont feel it, its pointless. Sarah Kane

1 Introduction: Love and Violence, Metaphoricity and Literality The Encompassing Parameters
Love is war and love is a unitythese are the two main conceptual metaphors underlying Sarah Kanes 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 Kanes 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 Kanes inspirational sources for the play, Roland Barthes A Lovers 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 Bettelheims 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 Kanes 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 Kanes use of minimalism in language and metaphor on stage as Kanes quest for her own language of theatre: Die Suche nach dieser Theatersprache beinhaltet in Kanes sthetik eine Buchstblichkeit der Sprache, die etwa in Cleansed ein Eigenleben entwickelt und als monstrse Materialitt wiederkehrt (169). Furthermore, Opel states: Das Verfahren der Ausgestaltung sprachlicher Wendungen als Wirklichkeit, also als Figuren und Handlungen, fhrt 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 Lovers 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 Platos Symposium, and here especially the speech of Aristophanes who interprets love in terms of a pursuit of wholeness; and Friedrich Nietzsches 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 Kanes play. The methodical proceeding of my analysis will largely be based on Kvecses reworking of Lakoffs findings in the field of cognitive linguistics. Kvecses 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 (Kvecses 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 Kanes 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.

Although a brief summary of the plays 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. Strker noch als in meinen Stcken davor wird die Gewalt in Gesubert zur Metapher, und mittlerweile bewege ich mich immer strker in eine eher poetische Richtung. (Tabert 20) Many theatre critics have also recognised this poetical tendency. David Benedict states in the Independent that her [Kanes] 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. Kvecses 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 Kanes 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 Kanes 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 individuals mind and body and therefore have the ability to take away the individuals 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 (Im not responsible, Grace. (10); Im 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.

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 Grahams eye, because Graham wants to end his life. The conceptual metaphor here is suicide is the ultimate escapeby 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 societys 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 fr den Verlust von Ausdrucksmglichkeiten angesichts einer berbordenden Liebe, die nicht adquat 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 souls 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 Krperlichkeit noch, wenn Carl wegen seines Liebesschwures und seines Verrates krperlich so weit beschnitten wird, da er weder sprechen noch schreiben kann. Sein vormaliges Zuviel an Sprache, [sic] wird mit einem vollstndigen Verlust sprachlicher Ausdrucksmglichkeiten 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 Krper ist in Kanes Stcken Sinnbild einer gemarterten Seele. Die Stcke erzhlen von einer Spaltung zwischen diesen beiden empfindlichen Phnomenen 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 UnityCleansed and Aristophanes Myth

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. 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 (Kvecses 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. (Kvecses 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: Carls romantic idealism collides with Rods cynical realism (Sierz 114): Rod Carl Rod Carl Rod Carl Rod What are you thinking? That Ill always love you. (laughs.) That Ill never betray you. (laughs more.) That Ill never lie to you. You just have. (6)

Rod, who does not want to make a similar commitment, delivers a speech that in its realistic intensity outweighs Carls utterances in its romantic nature. Rod I love you now. Im with you now. Ill do my best, moment to moment, not to betray you. Now. Thats it. No more. Dont make me lie to you. (7)

Carls 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 subjects 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 endlessly glossed form of the amorous relation. (73). Carl never stops expressing his love explicitly, regardless of Tinkers 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 limitsthe 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 Carls tongue, forces him to swallow his ring. Next, the ring appears in scene 8 where Rod picks up Carls severed hand with the ring, takes it off and then reads Carls written message: Say you forgive me (25). However, he remains consequent and says: I wont 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 Roda metaphorical act of internalised, everlasting love. Although Rod is killed later in this scene, the rings finally unite in Carls 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 Platos 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 Platos 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 brothers 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 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 Youll 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 Grahams 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

Graces 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 Grahams movements and voice. Finally she mirrors him perfectly as they dance exactly in time (15). Graces 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, whats 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 Graces clothes till his end has come. In addition to and along with Robins ravishment, the nineteen-year-old boy experiences a situation of utter confusion: Robin Grace Robin My mum werent my mum and I had to choose another, Id choose you. Sweet boy. If I If I had to get married, Id 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 womana typical Freudian dilemma. However, Grace never engages with Robins 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 Verhltnis ist Raum fr Gesprch 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 Graces friendshipand love. Grace is in a heavily tranquillised condition, does not respond to Robin calling her name and thus involuntarily contributes to bring about Robins 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 Graces personality onto the woman because he addresses her with Graces 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 Kanes plays such as Ian in Blasted and Hippolytus in Phaedras 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 (Kvecses 215). Both admit to love each other (43, 44, 45), which is love for the relationship it produces (Kvecses 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 (Kvecses 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 loveGrace. 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 Carls stump and rats gnawing at their wounds presses heavily upon the readers mind. However, this exactly seems to have been Kanes 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 were dreaming 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 speakers 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 reprsentieren in diesem Sinne eine Sprache und ein Denken, das sich verselbstndigt hat und sich nun szenisch bettigt, dadurch aber als Metapher unlesbar, nicht eindeutig bersetzbar wird. (Opel 156) Thus, Kanes 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 berschwang an Wnschen und Absichten uern, Tinker nimmt es buchstblich. Seine Wunscherfllung bersetzt sprachliche Wendungen in materielle Realitt (Opel 147). This is in line with Ken Urbans observation that from the way Kanes 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 Carls 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: Da dieser sprachliche Minimalismus auf der Binnenebene mit einer extremen Empfindsamkeit gegenber sprachlichen Ungenauigkeiten einhergeht, mit 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 Carls commitment to the test and Carl fails to proof the validity of his statement. Therefore, Tinker cuts off Carls tongue.

As the actor Stuart McQuarrie, who played the part of Tinker in the 1998 Royal Court production of Cleansed, states about Tinker [i]ts 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 Ill 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 Carls 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 obszne Sprache in Kanes Stcken ist durch ein Mitrauen gegenber sprachlicher Ungenauigkeit geschrft 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 arent 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 Graces longing.

To sum it up, the feeling of metaphoric truth (Sierz 117) that permeates the play, just as in Kafkas The Trial, is brought about by literal translation of statements onstage. Opel nicely paraphrases this phenomenon of Kane when she states: Man knnte in dieser Phase von Kanes Schreiben vom Nebentext als szenischer Erweiterung des Haupttextes sprechen (159). These features in Kanes 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 sthetik eine Buchstblichkeit der Sprache, die etwa in Cleansed ein Eigenleben entwickelt und als monstrse Materialitt 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 Kanes 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 Its All Metaphor Position (Lakoff and Turner 218) and shares some striking insights with Kanes theatre. Nietzsche raises the question: Is langauge the adequate expression of all realities? This goes along with an investigation into the nature of mans 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: 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 imagefirst metaphor. The image, in turn, imitated by a soundsecond 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. Kanes 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. Nietzsches 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 anthropomorphismsin 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 Kanes 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 cant help but wonder how much all this sound and fury really signifies (Marlowe, Whats On). Reactions like this one are the consequence of Kanes refusal to make use of conventional theatrical imagery and metaphors. Nietzsches aversion gegenber der Festschreibung von Werten, oder gegenber wahrheitswertfhigen Aussagen ber ethische Sachverhalte, oder auch gegenber Begrndungen und Herleitungen von unbedingten Sollensstzen (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 perceptionwhich would mean the adequate expression of an object in the subjectis 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 Nietzsches 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 thingsalong-with-other-things which is meaning itself, then metaphorthat sensuous grasping of things in terms of what they are notis 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 onethe form is the meaning (Stephenson and Langridge 130). 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 Kanes 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 whatsoeverwhether societal, linguistic, or theatricalare 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 Kanes 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 acceptableoften 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 Kanes 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 Kanes 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 stateto put it in terms of the conceptual metaphor love is warthat 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:

Grace/GrahamFelt it. Here. Inside. Here. And when I dont feel it, its pointless. Think about getting up its pointless. Think about eating its pointless. Think about dressing its pointless. Think about speaking its pointless. Think about dying only its totally fucking pointless. (46)

reproduced on the site with the kind permission of the author Timo Pfaff 2005