Revisiting Antigone in Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan (1996)

1990s Contemporary British Drama is epitomized with plays over which violence, cruelty, and abject depictions of selfhood reign in an attempt to propel a renegotiation of imposed normativity on the subject. Marina Carr, as a prominent contemporary Irish playwright writes plays that are experiential on a deeper level as she delves into characters that walk on the liminal borders between life and death. Marina Carr’s play Portia Coughlan represents a family enmeshed in the incest taboo, re-negotiates the subversive familial subjectification enforced on Portia, and explores the theme of a broken self, which is condensed by the loss of an irreplaceable brother. Interpreting Portia Coughlan as a re-evaluation of Sophocles’ Antigone, this article initiates discussion on the play by applying contemporary arguments on the intersections between Antigone, gender normativity, taboos, kinship, familial ties, and interior objectification of the subject as were discussed in Judith Butler’s Antigone’s Claim (2000). By questioning why gender is so crucial to our understanding of the self and why Portia and Antigone as tragic characters are left with no option but to die, this article aims to examine the function of ambiguity and uncontainable nature found in the heroines in regard to their treatment in plays as well as their premise in their respective cultural setting.