MEMORIES OF PAIN AND THE QUEST FOR HEALING IN POST-APARTHEID DRAMA: A NEGOTIATION OF ETHICS OF FORGIVENESS IN YAEL FARBER’S MOLORA

Abstract

The South African Truth and Reconciliation project, officially instituted in 1996 following the collapse of apartheid, and socially encouraged since then, continues to attract imaginative and critical scholarly interests, with attention to different issues pertaining to the project. This article selects two of such issues, namely revenge and forgiveness, for critical engagement. It examines the dilemma over which of the two offers a better way of dealing with the painful memories of past injustices and oppressions, using Yael Farber’s Molora, an adaptation of Aeschylus’s classical play, Oresteia. Drawing insights from Jacques Derrida’s conception of forgiveness, the article argues that not just forgiveness, but unconditional forgiveness offers a more enduring balm to sooth the pains of dehumanization, past injustices, oppressions and allied indignities.