The War Zone is My Bed by Yasmine Rana is a play consisting of two one-acts, one taking place in Kubal, Kazakhstan and the other in Sarajevo. Although I do not think Yasmine Rana is native to Sarajevo, she began writing The War Zone is My Bed in an apartment in Sarajevo in 2000, when the war was still fresh in everyone's memories:
"The fields were still strewn with landmines, and the wall of the apartment where I was staying was still recovering after being sprayed with bullet holes. The daily newspaper was filled with faces of those killed during the conflict, calling for the absolute necessity to remember. Everyone I met had a story." The War Zone is in My Bed by Yasmine Rana is a play consisting of two one-acts, one taking place in Kubal, Kazakhstan and the other in Sarajevo. Although I do not think Yasmine Rana is native to Sarajevo, she began writing The War Zone is My Bed in an apartment in Sarajevo in 2000, when the war was still fresh in everyone's memories:
"Despite the elemental rawness of war, people still fall in and out of love, fight, make-up, speak, stop speaking, feel guilty, feel entitled and perhaps regret for the choices they have made. None of that goes away, and that's what I wished for this play to communicate."
Steven Galloway portrayed a sense of loss of humanity in his book, whereas Yasmine Rana wanted to emphasize that it was still present. In class we discussed how music was one of the only things that brings Dragan, Arrow and Kenan back to life, as well as numerous occurrences in the book when Galloway displays lack of humanity. In contrast, Yasmine Rana "wished for the play to communicate" the presence of "love, make-up, feeling guilty...etc."
Which do you think is more believable... that most people experienced a total loss of humanity or that they were still able to feel love and regret?
 A picture from The War Zone is My Bed. | | |||
Sources:http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v6n2/gallery/rana_y_play/war_zone_intro-gallery.htm | |
I think you raise a really interesting question about the balance of dehumanization and the omnipresence of human emotion. And I think that those two elements do retain some sort of balance even through the most extreme hardships. Take Vladek in Maus, for example. Even though he was starving and sick, he couldn't get Anja off his mind and worried about her well-being before his. Or in The Cellist of Sarajevo, although Arrow tries to turn herself into an unfeeling machine that she can cast away at the end of the war, she can't completely separate herself from the girl she used to be.
ReplyDeleteI think that as conditions worsen, people become less like people. But as things start to look up again, people are able to act "civilized" once again and reapply the morals they once stood by. So I think that eventually, the good and bad reach a sort of equilibrium.
I wonder if it is harder for someone like Galloway, who writes from a(n emotional) distance, to imagine the persistence of life as Yasmine Rana sees it. Hmmm,,,
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