404558

Setting as Character: The Poetics of Space and Human Anxiety in Stephen Karam’s The Humans

Article

Last updated: 13 Jan 2025

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Abstract

This research paper argues that Stephen Karam elevates the setting in his family drama, The Humans, from a mere physical backdrop for the narrative to an active participant in the play, mirroring the Blake family members' fears, anxieties, and insecurities. Drawing on Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, which explores the intimate relationship between physical space and one's psychological state, this paper attempts to analyze the dynamic relationship between the setting of The Humans and the psychological landscape of its characters. The New York ground-floor duplex in which the family gathers for celebrating Thanksgiving turns to be an extended metaphor for the Blakes' precariousness and vulnerability under the pressures of their external and internal worlds alike. With its creaking floors, eerie noises, flickering lights, and suffocating atmosphere, the apartment externalizes the characters' deepest psychological tensions and unresolved conflicts about aging, mortality, lack of recognition, and financial insecurity, while its basement level structure mirrors their own entrapment within their repressed fears and secrets. In this sense, boundaries between psychological and physical space are blurred and the setting becomes a living being that both aggravates and reflects the family's vulnerability, fragility, and anxiety.

DOI

10.21608/opde.2024.404558

Keywords

Stephen Karam, The Humans, Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, anxiety, Setting

Authors

First Name

Mahmoud Gaber

Last Name

Abdelfadeel

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Faculty of Education, Ain Shams University

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Volume

88

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

51483

Issue Date

2024-10-01

Receive Date

2025-01-12

Publish Date

2024-10-01

Page Start

493

Page End

512

Print ISSN

1110-2721

Online ISSN

2735-3591

Link

https://opde.journals.ekb.eg/article_404558.html

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http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=404558

Order

16

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,140

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education

Publication Link

https://opde.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Setting as Character: The Poetics of Space and Human Anxiety in Stephen Karam’s The Humans

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Article

Created At

13 Jan 2025