Volume 4, No. 1Volume 4, Issue 1

Drawing on theories by W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Gilroy, and
Bernard Bell, the article analyzes the nuanced identification
process of the black middle class in contemporary American
society through the close reading of Condoleezza Rice’s
Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family. The article
argues that the contemporary black American elite possess an
ambiguous relationship with the dominant white group and the
major subordinate black Americans, and their identification with
either group is largely driven by the interests of their own.
Moreover, in the post 9/11 era, race, gender, and class differences
are appropriated by these black elite to secure their own interests
in the power struggle in American society.

Shakespeare, influenced by the Medieval dream sequence seen in
Chaucer, uses dreams as “a dramatic device” in his history plays,
tragedies, romances and even comedies. In Richard III, Clarence’s
dream foreshadows his death by being stabbed and drowned in the
butt of Malmsey wine and has a prophetic quality, and also in
Julius Caesar Calphurnia’s dream before Caesar’s assassination at
the Capitol in Rome by the conspirators possesses the same
tendency. Hermia’s dream in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
reflects her fear of loss of virginity as well as the betrayal of
Lysander. In Shakespeare’s romance, Pericles at the last act
Pericles hears the music of the spheres and falls asleep. In his
dream, Diana asks him to come to her temple in Ephesus which
will later bring out the reunion of his family. In Othello, Iago’s
fabricated dream of Cassio has the purpose to provoke the anger
and to intensify the jealousy of Othello but this invented dream
also sheds light upon the inner psyche and the subconscious mind
of Iago. Coleridge mentions Iago’s passionless character and
points to his evil nature without any target at all. Both Wangh and
Adelman regard Iago as suffering from repressed homosexuality.
This article will deal with the ambiguity of Iago’s fabricated dream
of Cassio and explore the hidden reality in Iago’s subconscious
mind concerning his sexuality while examining the symbols and
use of language in psychoanalytical terms and taking into account
Jacques Derrida’s concept of language as “pharmakon” having
both the power of cure and poison. 

Niall McNeil and Marcus Youssef’s play Peter Panties (2011)
adapts J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (both the 1904 play and the 1911
novel), but unlike Barrie’s almost asexual Peter, McNeil and
Youssef create a sexually obsessive, if immature, version of the
boy who refuses to grow up. Both Peters are narcissistic and
capriciously demand that his/their own needs and desires be met
while shirking any responsibility to others—exemplifying what
psychoanalyst Dan Kiley termed Peter Pan Syndrome. McNeil
and Youssef shift from Barrie’s Edwardian industrial capitalist
context to a twenty-first century neoliberal capitalist context, and
this shift is deeply tied to Peter’s distinct psychology in Peter
Panties. This adaptation critiques late capitalism’s culture of
enjoyment and the negative consequences, both social and
psychological, that come with the inability to renounce or delay
gratification of desire in an economy dependent on continual
consumption.

Creative works are often framed as a ‘labor of love.’ Literature,
however, is produced by a person through many hours of work.
Not only is creative writing a labor—it is a labor that can serve
communities; the creation of literature can challenge readers to
work toward liberation. This paper examines liberation and
coalition building in fiction, with A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray
Belcourt, The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, and
The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry
Mitchell serving as particular examples for analysis.