The Problem of Parenthood as a Constructed Role in Mark Ravenhill’s Handbag (1998)

Mark Ravenhill’s Handbag (1998) explores parenthood across two intersecting periods: the Victorian era and the contemporary era. The play presents a lesbian and a gay couple attempting to have a baby in the contemporary setting while juxtaposing their experiences with a Victorian family, whose rigid societal norms shape their parenthood roles and views. Through employing actors in double roles, Ravenhill draws parallels between past and present by focusing upon differences and continuities in societal expectations. Despite changing norms, the characters in both eras end up with performing dysfunctional parenthood roles. The play is examined through Judith Butler’s “the concept of gender”, explaining how gender roles are social constructs and how individuals are oppressed to conform societal expectations. Ravenhill criticises the notion of family, describes how characters force themselves into predefined roles dictated by society, and finally reveals the complexities of family and identity through challenging conventional perceptions of parenthood and exposing the constraints imposed by cultural norms over time. In Victorian society, parental roles are shaped and dictated by the class divisions: the expectations of aristocratic and middle-class families are to fulfil their parenting responsibilities by employing nannies and to maintain a deliberate emotional and physical distance from the world of their children. Therefore, the societal norms and rules of the Victorian setting serve as the primary force in defining and shaping parenthood. On the contrary, Ravenhill deconstructs these traditional norms and reconstructs the family unit with two mothers and two fathers for a baby in the contemporary era. Although introducing alternative rules and expectations, the contemporary setting is not devoid of challenges. This study aims to illustrate how the fundamental struggles of starting a family persists across time even though it is possible to change the elements and the members of the family unit throughout Ravenhill’s play.