Representations of Rape and Gendered Violence in the Drama of Tomson Highway

Abstract

In The Rez Sisters (1986), Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (1989), and Rose (1999) renowned Cree dramatist Tomson Highway mounts a dramaturgical critique of colonialism, focusing most prominently upon the disenfranchisement of Native women and the introduction of Western gender roles into First Nations cultures. Within each of the three "Rez Plays," he employs the metaphor of rape to depict cultural, territorial and spiritual dispossession brought about by colonization. However, in hegemonic narratives of colonization, Indigenous women are similarly represented in connection with the land and the metaphor of rape is used to portray colonial takeover; as colonial domination heightened, literary portrayals of Indigenous peoples, particularly women, became increasingly demeaning. This thesis investigates the extent to which Highway's works can serve as truly subversive, liberating texts given that the recurring portrayals of sexual violence in the "Rez Plays" reinvigorate dangerous, misogynistic stereotypes. Situating Highway's plays within a framework of contemporary feminist postcolonial theory, this thesis problematizes the repeated use of gender specific representations of victimization in the "Rez Plays."