Loss Of Identity In Kennedy's And Fornes

Through their plays, Kennedy and Fornes represent a fellow up of identity formation process. Unlike the autobiography, the diary gives a constant record of everyday life. By creating characters that write their diaries on stage, they offer a precise investigation of the social and cultural obstacles that their characters face during their building up their identities. In fact, "the content and form of diaries disclose how we construct knowledge, and by helping us understand how we relate to ourselves, to others and to our culture through the mediation of language"(Bunkers and Huff 2). In fact, Kennedy 's and Fornes ' characters use writing diaries to portray their imaginative world, their fear, hopes and how the cultural and social rules

Through the play every time Marion hears something, she writes it in her diary. When her friend tells her about their neighbor 's scandal, she turns to her diary. Again, when her husband Justor reads a passage about the fertilization of the flower, she writes in the diary. Hence, Marion uses writing in her diary as an outlet of her bodily thoughts. Because of her limited experience, she feels the failure of her given language to express her body needs. Therefore, Marion creates her fictional lover Frank or "F" as she calls him. However, Marion in her diary is obligated to show the values forced on her by her society. For example, she writes in her diary that she does not meet her imaginative lover every day because a "married woman cannot see her lover often"(135). Moreover, she refuses to have a physical relationship with him, even in her diary. She cannot, even by imagination, defy the social restrains that are forced over women during that age. In fact, Marion 's diary writing proves that she is confined in the gender role that is previously set to her by the dominating patriarchal