Multi-dimensional Traumatic Aesthetics in Craig Wright's Grace

Abstract

This study points out how the American playwright Craig Wright's Grace is replete with multi-dimensional traumatic aesthetics: physical, existential, emotional, and psychological. The aesthetics of trauma are reflections on the varied dimensions associated with traumatic experiences. The play demonstrates that traumatic aesthetics can plunge man into an existential void which distorts his beliefs, disrupts his cognitive equilibrium, and fragments his perception of human existence, self, emotions, and memories. Physical trauma has been existentialized to disclose the characters' distorted beliefs, existential anxiety, and alienation. Emotional trauma has been existentialized to unfold the characters' perspective on the futility of life, skepticism, and selfabhorrence. Psychological trauma has been contextualized to divulge the bitter effects of trauma on the characters' psyche. Grace is a dark play which dives deeply into the nature of suffering and the existential anguish of disappointed faith through the eyes of a young couple, Steve and Sara, their next-door neighbor, Sam, and the building's German exterminator, Karl. As their stories converge, Wright's characters find themselves face-to-face with their traumas. The traumatic effects include distressing memories, negative flashbacks, existential anxiety, distorted beliefs, and alienation. The play ends with three dead bodies. Steve's broken faith instigates him to kill Sara, Sam and himself.