Unravelling Diaspora in Heather Raffo’s Noura: A Postcolonial Perspective

Abstract

This paper argues that Heather Raffo’s Noura (2019) is an instantiation of the Iraqi-American theatre representing postcolonial diaspora. An attempt to bridge the gap between American and Middle Eastern cultures, the play is well regarded as a response to Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Drawing on the theoretical framework of diaspora, the paper reveals miscellaneous themes such as panic, hysteria, violence, nostalgia, alienation, and hybridity. In doing so, it attempts to answer the following question: How far is Raffo’s Noura delineated as an instantiation of the postcolonial diasporic Iraqi-American theatre? The paper has reached the following findings. First, cultural diaspora is argued to have led to utilizing a great deal of Arabic words/expressions that may be entextualized with the passage of time. Second, Raffo was demonstrated to have reconfigured Ibsen’s view of marriage and motherhood by posing her own novel one for discussion through the open-end technique. Third, it was revealed that the playwright has managed to upend the dramatic conventions of gender roles by expanding the role of the wife and marginalizing that of the husband.

Keywords

• arab-american
• belonging
• gender roles
• ibsen’s a doll’s house
• heather raffo’s noura