Language as an Instrument of Transformation in De Groen's The Rivers of China

Abstract

If as Elizabeth Perkins has suggested, "more than any other aestheticians, feminist thinkers are concerned with the kind of transvaluation and transformation possible in no human activity other than art", then The Rivers of China exemplifies this. Transvaluation and transformation is the central theme of Rivers. Rivers urges us to embrace both transvaluation and transformation with an open mind: to make the journey for the journey's sake, not necessarily as a means to an end. The weakness, if indeed it is a weakness and not a major strength, is that this demands intense focus from the audience and a willingness to participate in a series of climaxes that are without a final straightforward resolution (catharsis). In other words it requires the audience to participate in the play's open text - an essentially feminine experience of a feminist philosophy, and the audience must take the journey "wrongfootedly".