Abstract: The central thesis of this paper is that the authors, Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, manipulate the verbatim techniques in their play Guantanamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom' (2004) as pragmatics of communication and legitimation. Through these verbatim techniques, the authors construct a set of paralogies or petit narratives that destabilizes the totalizing nature of America's grand narrative on the absolute justice and freedom, which has shaped the post-9/11 politics and history. From the standpoint of Jean Francois Lyotard's postmodern discourse on the incredulity towards metanarratives, this post-9/11 narrative is revealed as flawed and inaccurate. In Guantanamo, the verbatim techniques are structured in a way to bring to view fact-based ‘petit' narratives that expose the human and legal violations committed against the Guantanamo Muslim detainees, putting the world's most powerful democracy on a moral trial. In addition, these petit narratives assert that historical accounts must always be perceived with skepticism, and that there is no such thing as a single, unique reality.
Keywords: The verbatim, Jean-François Lyotard, Grand Narrative, Petit Narrative, Paralogy, Guantanamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom'