Abstract
Understanding the human mind and its intricacies is what informs
the works of the prolific septuagenarian contemporary British
playwright, Edward Bond. His distinctive approach toward this
effort is redolent with historical and contemporary references.
These alert the readers and the audience to the evolution and
devolution of the human psyche as a result of cause and effect and
the intransigent nature of injustice and violence. The human
cultural memory is eidetic to the extent that it is itself capable of
understanding that humans are born radically innocent as Bond
writes in the “Commentary on the War Plays,” published in his
sixth volume of plays, “Radical innocence is the psyche’s
conviction of its right to live, and of its conviction that it is not
responsible for the suffering it finds in the world or that such things
can be” (251). According to Bond the human imagination,
combined with reason is the basis of all ideologies which create a
culture. The successful integration of these elements results in
humanism whereas the human imaginations failure to integrate
reason with itself leads to violence and injustice pervading the
annals of history and cultural epochs. In the book Edward Bond and
the Dramatic Child, Bill Roper in his essay titled “Imagination and
Self in Edward Bond’s Work,” writes, “Importantly, human value,
not fiction, is at the heart of the human mind’s use of imagination to
understand the world and society; imagination and reason together
construct the human self and open the routes of corruption and
innocence, through which the self is continually created” (Davis
126).
Aqsa Kaleem. (2006-2009) The Role of Imagination and Ideology in Defining Culture in the Works of Edward Bond , Journal of Research ( Humanities), Volume XLII-XLV, Issue 1 .
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