FIVE KINDS OF SILENCE BY SHELAGH STEPHENSON: DEBATES ABOUT ABUSE AND NEGLECT AS LEARNED BEHAVIORS

Özet

Literature is a mirror which is held up to nature and human life. In other words, literary works which take their subjects openly from human life have majorly influenced the improvement of society, shaping civilizations, and changing political frameworks and revealed injustice and forms of violence. That’s why, we have chosen a work of literature, a play, to deal with child abuse and neglect that may be caused by physical, emotional, or sexual harm, and can happen anywhere regardless of culture, ethnicity, or income group. Five Kinds of Silence by Shelagh Stephenson (2004) shows to the audience through three women who are obliged to continue their lives in fear of their husband or father that legal system cannot appreciate the wrath the women feel as a result of years of persistent abuse. The play also shows that even the murder of the abuser is not the end of the psychological torture that the abuse causes. The play is the criticism of the view that the end of the physical abuse is the end of the problems for the abused people. It is cleverly organized to demonstrate that there are no liberating endings in cases of child abuse. In the minds of his daughters and their exploited mother, the oppressive father, Billy, continues to live depending on the fact scarily personified by giving him a watchful post-mortem presence on the stage.