Reciprocity of Power legitimization and Identity Quest in Sarah Kane’s play, Cleansed, a Foucauldian Reading

The present study is an attempt to explore the meaning and the domineering effect of power on man‘s identity with its function through discourse, gender, body and sexuality. The analysis is going to be done on Sarah Kane‘s play, cleansed, in the light of Michel Foucault‘s poststructuralist theories. To Foucault, power is practiced everywhere, and throughout all men‘s history. In the following, destructive and productive outcomes of power along with the specific discourse chosen by Kane to represent its characters‘ struggle for their identity will be lined up.

Keywords:

power , docile body , discourse , knowledge