| Edward Bond is a prominent contemporary British playwright,whose works mainly focus on the violence,humanity,politics and criticism of the capitalism system.Saved,written in 1964,tells a story about a group of young people violently killing a baby in a park.The play has been prohibited from being staged by the Theatre Censorship because of the violent,sexual scenes and vulgar words so that it could only get a production in the private club without a staging license.Later,the related performing company was prosecuted for staging the play.The prosecution intrigued an active campaign to overturn the theatre censorship.Finally,the theatre censorship was reviewed by the Parliament and was eventually abolished in 1968.Soon after that,Saved finally had a full production in Royal Court Theatre.The play has a vital role in abolishing the Theatre Censorship and it is with great research value.Given the fact that the ethical factors are prominent in Saved,there is still a great inadequacy in study on this issue.So this thesis attempts to make a research from the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism proposed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao.The thesis starts from the ethical environment of Saved’s writing and reception.Then by interpreting the social factors leading to the ban of Saved,analyzing the violence behaviors dominated by animal factor,and Bond’s dramatic strategy,the thesis mainly explores that people’s irrationality and violence are under the influence of the alienated capitalism society.And the playwright’s writing intention of the violence is to draw audience’s attention to the social factors of violence and then achieve the aim of ethical education.The thesis consists of five parts.The first chapter deals with the life experience and writing career of Edward Bond.This chapter also contains the literature reviews of Edward Bond abroad and at home.In addition,a brief overview of this thesis’ s research method—Ethical Literary Criticism is introduced.The second chapter explores the relationship between the ethical environment of creating,reception of the play and the ban of Saved.Saved is an artistic presentation of various alienation phenomena in the 1960 s.The performance ban of Saved triggers a reform of British theatre and plays a prominent role in abolishing the censorship in 1968.The third chapter discusses the ethical implication of baby-killing from three aspects.Firstly,the thesis discusses that the design of baby-killing is the concrete embodiment of Bond’s Rational Theatre Theory.Secondly,it interprets that the baby-killing behavior is caused by free will and reflects the animal factor without being restricted in human nature.Thirdly,through the plot of “baby-killing”,“extreme moment” and “aggro-effect”,the playwright creates the special acting-watching relationship with the intention to wake audience’s rational consciousness.The forth part mainly analyzes the changing of Len’s choices when facing with violent behaviors and analyzes the ethical significance of the changing,and Bond’s ethical literary choices.The return of Len’s rationality manifests the importance of rationality.Bond thinks that plays should have social critical function and should make didactic effect to audience or readers.In conclusion,the paper summarizes that the scene of killing the baby is not created to frighten audience but to indicate the urgency of the fact that the society without rationality should be “saved”.It is an inevitable product of repressed and chaotic capitalism society in the 1960 s after people losing their human nature and rationality.Bond tries to make audience confront the alienated relationship between individuals and society and then wake audience to realize and reflect on the irrationality of capitalism society behind violent scenes.The return of Len’s rationality at the end of the play manifests the necessity of the return of the society’s rationality,and also expresses Bond’s ethical thought that drama should have the function of moral teaching. |
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