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영어

This essay examines Sarah Kane's Blasted in the context of Henri Lefebvre's thesis on “the everyday” and “differential space.” In light of his concept of space, the study sees Blasted as a metaphor for contemporary world. It also discusses how “differential space” is generated by the social act of love. Early in its run at Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, critics, even in post-Thatcher Britain, often dismissed Blasted for its gratuitous violence. Critics also complained about the play's ambiguous setting. However, these anti-realistic elements deftly express the banality of violence in a postmodern society. Artaudian cruelty, after all, serves to attack the torpor of an audience culturally innured to violence, thus awakening its consciousness to the necessity of what Lefebvre calls “differential space.” Cate's voluntary practice of love, for instance, prods the audience into transforming their passivity into voluntariness in spatial practice for “the space of ‘yes', of the affirmation of life.” This voluntary moment becomes the force that will restore the integrity of an individual and his or her outside world, thus ending the chain of violence. In this sense, Blasted serves as “a space for change,” with special emphasis on the necessity of this moment for a “differential space.”