Marina Carr, “By the Bog of Cats”

30_by-the-bog-of-cats-with-josie-1998I really recommend this adaptation of Euripides’ Medea by the Irish dramatist Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats. The classical themes of madness, love and despair are greatly put into scene in a totally new setting. The atmosphere represents an in-between of the land of the deaths and the alive; ghosts, witches, snow, gipsies and black swans revive the classical tragedy. Childhood trauma is the modern Freudian incursion in the new tragedy which substitutes Medea’s cold vanity for a traumatic Hester. Irish mythology also finds its place in the work together with some Greek elements. Parricide is displayed in a very different way and is linked to the cause of Hester madness, the abandon of the mother.

The question however remains the same: are children at the mercy of their parents? Could someone justify the murder of an own child?

I find a quite contemporary issue to analyse the position in which children are in relation to their parents or in a family. Until what extent are they used or manipulated by their parents’ emotions and to achieve what goals? Citing Girard, could we say about the children to be the scapegoat of our society or even of their own parents?


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Aina Marti (December 5, 2012). Marina Carr, “By the Bog of Cats” For there she was... Retrieved March 19, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/rj5b


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