1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«In this paper, I read th[e] destabilization through the notion of “queer time” and argue that the play’s [The Orphan Muses] subversive potential originates in its disruption of the organizing logic of reproductive and family time.» (p. 102)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
The author uses the play The Orphan Muses of Michel Marc Bouchard. The author also uses some studies on the queer theory.

Type de traitement des données :
Réflexion critique

3. Résumé

This article concluded that «[t]he figure of the queer orphan, as typified here by the characters of The Orphan Muses, inhabits a familial space that is defined by its queer relation to origins while still being situated outside of the necessarily reproductive futurity of family time. In this sense, The Orphan Muses suggests that queer time can be both anti-linear and familial, a contention that alters Halberstam’s understanding of queer time as always properly oppositional in relation to the family. The orphan’s origins cannot be materialized or replicated through reproduction and yet can in fact operate as a site or location of return. In The Orphan Muses, the manner in which the Tanguay siblings reproduce their own origins in order to depart from them occurs in a temporal framework that is not only deeply linked to the spatiality of the family home but also to theatricality. As I have argued, such a displacement of the dynamics of familial performance destabilizes the performativity inherent in the narration of prescribed familial narratives without necessarily functioning as a direct and oppositional critique of the family form.» (p. 108)