Can the Subaltern Really Speak?: Analyzing the Precarity of the Subaltern in Betty Shamieh's The Machine (2007)

Document Type : Original Article

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Faculty of Al-Alsun (Languages), Ain Shams University, Egypt.

Abstract

The paper examines Betty Shamieh's one-act play The Machine (2007) in the light of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's seminal work "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1994). The play presents five hybrid poets who are narrating their histories, but face being silenced by the shredding machine. The machine threatens their existence and censors them. The paper analyzes the hybrid identities in the play as precarious lives, as well as their subaltern status in the power structure. Themes like racism, hybridity, precarity, voice, and power are also traced and analyzed. Moreover, the paper highlights the importance of storytelling to narrate the counter-history and to cause change. Hence, the paper, through Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's article on the subaltern, Judith Butler's work on precarity, Homi K. Bhabha's hybridity trace the journey of the hyphenated poets in the play. The paper also highlights the importance of storytelling as a technique used in the play. Finally, the paper traces the attempts of the subaltern's resistance, and it also questions if the subaltern can find a way to be recognizable and heard, and if the subaltern's endeavors for voicing themselves can ever be achievable.

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