Intersectional Edges in Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro and The Owl Answers

Abstract

This article aims to explore intersectional boundaries in the construction of formations through the analysis of Adrienne Kennedy’s plays, Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964) and The Owl Answers (1965) Intersectionality challenges the axes of power by interrogating the experiences of the marginal voices who are exposed to simultaneous and interactive oppression. Positions of the disadvantaged identities predetermined through cultural construction in these plays reveal the discrimination debates at a junction where identity crisis points out what it means to be both black and woman, and the denial of intersections to keep the differences alive. The juxtaposition of intersectional voices against privileged ones provides a lens through which one can understand the systematic nature of oppression and inequality. One’s being aware of her/his own position means realizing how confronted identities are constructed and positioned. Thus, trying to struggle against domination and invisibility in such a construct draws a road map of a journey to self-definition and required consciousness to resist. Within the framework of intersectionality, the present study offers a focus on black females’ experience and social and political consequences of a culturally adapted construction through race, gender, sex, and class.