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	Jordanian Journals Home Editorial Board International Advisory Board Scope and Description Manuscript Submission Manuscript Organization   Publication Ethics   Copyright   Offprints   Disclaimer   JJMLL Issues   Contact Address                    Presence-Absence Dialectics in Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot     Abstract   This article analyzes the Presence-Absence dialectics in Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot (1961). This dialectics is rooted in the racist premise which considers blackness as a hole in being. The two brothers, Zachariah and Morris, fall into this dialectics from the outset of the play and, therefore, are trapped in sado-masochistic interplay. As they start corresponding with a white girl, Ethel, in search of Zachariah’s sexual gratification, their hole in being is revealed in front of Ethel’s symbolic presence, along with her brother’s symbolic presence as a white cop. As a result, the black body recedes into its fixed racialized facticity that intensifies the sado-masochistic relationship between the two brothers. The play articulates an ontological examination of the black body in an antiblack world through the convergence of race and gender. I am engaged in an existential-phenomenological approach to dissect the ways in which the black body oscillates between Presence and Absence. Keywords: Blood Knot, Sadism, Masochism, Presence, Absence. Authors: Hamzeh Al-Jarrah Doi: https://doi.org/10.47012/jjmll.15.4.8   Cited by: Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures (JJMLL) 2023, 15 (4): 1281-1295   Full text   References Al-Qarni, Shunayfaa. 2015. Manichean and Dichotomous Opposites in Athol Fugard's Blood Knot. Journal of Language Teaching and Research 6 (6): 1225-1231. doi:0002207296; 10.17507/jltr. 0606.09 (accessed June 12, 2021) Barrett, William. 1990. Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. New York: Anchor. Beauvoir, Simon de. 1948. The Ethics of Ambiguity, trans. Bernard Frechtman. Secaucus, NJ: The Citadel. Birt, Robert. 1997. “Existence, Identity, and Liberation”. In Existence in black: An anthology of black existential philosophy, ed. Lewis Gordon, 203-213. New York: Routledge. Césaire, Aimé. 1972. Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review. Dolezal, Luna. 2012. Reconsidering the Look in Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. Sartre Studies International 18 (1): 9-28. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42705181 (accessed March 20, 2021) Elsom, John. 1970. “Genet and the Sadistic Society.” In The theater of Jean Genet: A casebook, ed. Richard N. Coe, 192-200. New York: Grove Press. Farley, Anthony. 1997. The Black Body as Fetish Object. Oregon Law Review 76 (3): 457–535. Frantz, Fanon. 2008. Black Skin, White Masks. trans. Charles Markmann. London: Pluto Press. Fugard, Athol. “Interview with Athol Fugard.” Interview by Robert Hodgins. Newscheck (July 21, 1976): 24-29. Fugard, Athol and Simon Barney. 1982. “The Family Plays of the Sixties.” In Athol Fugard, ed. Stephen Gray. 40-51. Johannesburg: McGraw-Hill. Fugard, Athol. 1991. Blood Knot and Other Plays. New York: Theatre Communication Group. Henry, Paget. 1997. “African and Afro-Caribbean Existential Philosophies.” In Existence in black: An anthology of black existential philosophy, ed. Lewis Gordon, 11-36. New York: Routledge. Gonzalez, G. M. James. 1997. “Of Property: On ‘Captive’ ‘Bodies,’ Hidden ‘Flesh,’ and Colonization.” In Existence in black: An anthology of black existential philosophy, ed. Lewis Gordon, 129-133. New York: Routledge. Gordon, Lewis. 1995. Bad faith and Antiblack Racism. New York: Humanities Books. Gordon, Lewis. 1997. “Existential Dynamics of Theorizing Black Invisibility.” In Existence in black: An anthology of black existential philosophy, ed. Lewis Gordon, 69-79. New York: Routledge. Gordon, Lewis. 2010. Theory in Black: Teleological Suspensions in the Philosophy of Culture. Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences 18 (2): 193-214. 10.1353/qui.0.0011 (assessed February 19, 2021) Natason, Maurice. 1973. A Critique of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Ontology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Orkin, Martin. 1991. Drama and the South African State. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Prece, Paul. 2008. Writing home: The post-colonial dialogue of Athol Fugard and August Wilson. PhD diss., University of Kansas. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1956. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Philosophical Library. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1974. The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Vol. 2, eds. Michel Contact and Michel Rybalka. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Wertheim, Albert. 2000. The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard: From South Africa to the World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Yancy, George. 2005. Whiteness and the Return of the Black Body. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, New Series 19 (4): 215-241. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25670583 (accessed February 12, 2021)   Copyright © 2006-2022. All Rights Reserved, Yarmouk University