Jocasta's last hours: identity, responsibility, and violence in Martha Graham's Night Journey. (20th January 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Papathanasopoulou, Nina
• Is Part Of: Classical receptions journal. Volume 15:Number 1(2023)
• Page Start: 57
• Page End: 84
• Publication Date: 2023-01-20
• Subjects: Civilization, Classical -- Periodicals; Classical literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Philosophy, Ancient -- Periodicals; Classical antiquities -- Periodicals; 880.09
• DOI: 10.1093/crj/clac022
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1759-5134

Abstract

Abstract: This paper analyses Martha Graham's Night Journey in relation to its primary model, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos . Night Journey captivates us by drawing deeply on Sophocles' original and invites us to turn our focus to the last hours of Jocasta's life, a moment to which Sophocles' play gives comparatively little attention. I argue that Graham's focus on the last hours of Jocasta's life brings fresh illumination to our interpretation of the Oedipus myth. I first discuss the dance's narrative technique and then analyse three themes that are central to both Sophocles' and Graham's works: questions of identity; responsibility; and the deep-seated human urge toward violence in the face of anxiety. In each case I show how Graham transforms Sophocles' treatment of these themes and explores them through the character of Jocasta and a chorus of women, making women the focus of the narrative's meditations on the nature of identity, moral responsibility, and human emotion.