Marginalization and the active margins in the plays of Ray Guy

Fralic, Michael Lloyd (1996) Marginalization and the active margins in the plays of Ray Guy. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The political, economic and cultural marginalization of human populations has become an important theme in post-colonial literary scholarship because it frequently has occurred in the context of colonial rule, and because colonial marginalization in various forms has in recent decades been the subject of widespread literary treatments. Such marginalization practices as objectification, commodification and stereotyping have been rooted in assumptions by colonial powers that they are also the sources of truth and value, and are the rightful rulers of the colonies they have held. Colonial powers frequently have marginalized colonial territories by discouraging cultural self-definition, through colonial authorities' and missionaries' imposition of cultural practices from the centres of power and the constant reinforcement of their superiority. Another frequent effect of colonial rule has been an inability within marginalized populations to escape economic or political dependency on the colonial powers-a state of affairs which frequently has been due to the economic exploitation of colonies by the colonial powers they rely on. -- The post-colonial study of marginalization is an appropriate basis for an exploration of Ray Guy's plays because all three of his plays emphasize marginalization, which has been a defining factor throughout Newfoundland's history. The plays are all set during the crucial period surrounding the 1949 regime change in which Newfoundland ended its life as a British colony and became a province of Canada. -- Guy's first play Young Triffie's Been Made Away With focuses on a history of ethnocentric and egotistic missionary activity in Newfoundland; his second play Frog Pond addresses a psychological dependency among many Newfoundlanders on exogenous cultures as the sources of cures to Newfoundland's economic and political ills; and his third play The Swinton Massacre focuses on the residue of colonial attitudes in the new regime, and on marginalization practices among Newfoundlanders. -- Guy also emphasizes the multifarious responses to processes of marginalization among marginalized people, drawing attention to the active margin as a site of struggle and change.

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