“Where do I go? What do I choose? Lipstick, rosary or gun?” The Analysis of Gender Representations in Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters through Brechtian Alienation Effect

Abstract

This paper discusses how, in Dogeaters (1990), Jessica Hagedorn depicts scattered and disintegrated representations of gender in order to show the rather constructed nature of gender identity. This is mainly in response to nationalism as a gendered discourse in which constructions like family are manifested as natural and innate. It will be argued that for this purpose, like some other feminist playwrights, Hagedorn uses Brechtian techniques, mainly Alienation Effects, in a non-linear narrative with occasional shifts in the language from English to Tagalog (vernacular Filipino) which create a sense of fraction and defamiliarising in the reader and audience.