Violence in Sarah Kane's three plays: Cleansed, crave, and 4.48 psychosis

This study evaluates the life and works of Sarah Marie Kane, the most outstanding playwright of the 1990s who in total wrote five plays. In this thesis, Kane's last three works -Cleansed, Crave, and 4.48 Psychosis- are critically examined for the elements of violence .The first part of the thesis traces what violence is and why it emerged in life and drama. Various definitions of violence are introduced under the bright thoughts of the profound philosophers, thinkers and critics. The study also defines in-yer-face theatre which Kane has been credited with pioneering. Sarah Kane's childhood, her education at the University of Bristol and Birmingham, Jeremy Weller's play Mad, and the Bosnia genocide were some of the factors that affected her life and writing. In all her works, love stands out as the most superior concept, even though the violence in which it was cloaked often blocked the audiences' grasp of it. Violence, however, is the stand-out factor of Sarah Kane's plays as it enabled her to shock the audience into paying greater attention, giving the plays a greater impact and prompting the audience to re-evaluate themselves.