Abstract

Naomi Wallace’s play in the Heart of America is about personal lives, human interactions, cultural metamorphosis, and identity formation. The play attempts to highlight the compatible alliance between power and racism that leads to marginalization of certain minority groups based on cultural background and gender identity. For no apparent reason other than neutralizing social class differences, authority operates at the socio-political level to affirm the alleged beneficial relationship between power and racism. This paper examines identity and belonging in Wallace’s play within the framework of Peggy Phelan’s Marked and Unmarked Theory. The compatibility between the two stems from the essential features of each: the play weaves around human interactions, and Phelan’s theory is about power operations and social perceptions. This alliance, thereby, assists in inactivating the aporetic paralysis in which inequality and racism are taken for granted.

Keywords

In the Heart of America, Marked and unmarked theory, Palestinian American, Identity and belonging.

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