Pastiche as A Postmodern Technique in Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom (1976)

Abstract

This paper examines pastiche as a postmodern technique that is well-applied in Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom (1976). It is crucial when dealing with aesthetic of postmodernism aesthetic for both pastiche and superficiality. Pastiche permits for reproducing in a space in which stylistic novelty is no longer possible. It means that all is left for imitating old-fashioned styles, to speak their voices with the styles in the imaginary manner. However, Churchill wrote other plays such as Traps (1978), Cloud Nine (1979), Top Girls (1982) and A Mouthful of Birds (1986). Most of Churchill’s plays tackled theme of violence against women for her being a feminist playwright and her own interest in destabilizing dominant ideologies. This play is analyzed from postmodern perspective in general and in how postmodern techniques such as irony, parody, fragmentation, self-consciousness, minimalism, maximalism and the like were applied to show the skillfully Caryl Churchill and her contemporaries have employed such techniques in their plays. This study adopted a poststructuralist critical method to analyse the play in the light of Derrida’s elements of destruction as for signifier and signified in Vinegar Tom. It was indicated that the playwright made use of pastiche in the play as it was found in The Crucible by Arthur Miller.