Pinter, Kane, and Trauma Today

ABSTRACT On this occasion of remembering Sarah Kane’s passing, this presentation juxtaposes Kane with Harold Pinter by suggesting how we might use a specific conception of trauma to reconsider the potential meaning of their respective dramatic depictions of trauma. While Pinter’s and Kane’s representations of trauma are widely used to justify and define the plays’ critical and social value, ultimately this presentation underlines the importance, at this juncture in the twenty-first century, of interrogating widely held assumptions about the depiction of traumatizing behaviors and experience and the social value this is said to entail.