• SAMEA HALEEM

Gender identity has been and will continue to be a major part of the idea of ‘selfhood’ and ‘identity”. This concept however tends to be essentialist in nature and ignores other aspects of an individual’s experiences and personality. In the modern and postmodern times this essentialist aspect of the ‘self’ is being challenged variously and in the realm of contemporary British drama by several women playwrights like April De Angelis, Sue Lenier, Sarah Kane and Caryl Churchill. ‘Selfhood’ can be defined as the state of having a distinct identity; an achieved personality / a fully developed self individuality. This idea has been one of the major concerns of literature finding full expression during the Renaissance; and more so for women, which has been an especially long drawn and arduous task. Over the last century significantly much has been added to the concept of identity, yet much more remains to be done in the globalised burgeoning cyber environment. One of the postmodern personalities Caryl Churchill (1938- ) is regarded as a major playwright of contemporary Britain. Having written plays for the radio during the1960’s, in the 1970’s she turned to writing stage plays, in which she explored contemporary life in post-seventies Britain. She is best known for her plays like ‘Cloud Nine’ (1979), ‘Top Girls’ (1982), and ‘Serious Money’ (1987) in which she explores human existence and experience in all its present day dilemmas of a multicultural global environment. Indeed, she has a profound understanding of the contemporary world through the medium of theatre and questions and interrogates every construct including gender constructs, and every accepted belief. Consequently her characters become vehicles for exposing the inconsistencies with character stereotyping. In her plays Churchill deplores capitalism and deep rooted patriarchal mindsets that connive to limit the female ‘identity’ and confine her within certain definitions of the ‘self’. This paper will find how Caryl Churchill, with her innovative incisive plays subverts gender constructs. It will be a close reading of the primary source material which forms the selected plays and understand how Caryl Churchill deals with the question of female identity in her plays. From her vast oeuvre I deal with two widely acclaimed and very successful plays – ‘Top Girls’ and ‘Cloud Nine’ as these are radically different in their representation of female subjectivity.

self; identity; playwrights; gender; postmodern; patriarchy.

"Identity and Selfhood: Construction and Fragmentation of the Female Identity in Caryl Churchill’s Select Plays", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 5, page no.992-996, MAY-2018, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1805584.pdf

"Identity and Selfhood: Construction and Fragmentation of the Female Identity in Caryl Churchill’s Select Plays", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 5, page no. pp992-996, MAY-2018, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1805584.pdf