Duygu Caferoğlu

British Drama

Sarah Daniels’ Critiques in Neaptide

In one of her interviews, Daniels points out that she doesn’t like plays where the
audience goes out feeling purged. Instead she aims at challenging the reader, thus she writes
issue plays. Accordingly, in Neaptide, she deals with a controversial issue: lesbianism and the
rights of a lesbian mother. While seeing the life of Claire, Daniels also reflects her critiques of
sexology and psychoanalysis which fail to give an adequate explanation of lesbianism. She
also reflects the approach of society to lesbianism and criticizes it because society sees the
close relationships between women as negative and limiting.
Sexology is the scientific study of human sexual behaviour. What Daniels criticizes
about sexology and psychoanalysis is the approach of this branch to lesbianism. The
sexologist Havelock Ellis and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud reflect lesbianism as “disease”.
Ellis believed that the reason of lesbianism is “cerebral anomalies”, that is related with brain.
He saw lesbianism as “the sign of an inherited diseased condition of the central nervous
system and a functional sign of degenertaion”. As to Freud, he sees lesbianism as “abnormal
path to womanhood”. Also many medical men believed that noncongenital,that is not by birth,
homosexuality may be treated with psychic treatment.
The other example is seen in Part One, Scene Seven. When Ms Bea says that Diane is
a lesbian, Claire offers that Diane should see a psychologist. And the head mistress says she
will call Mr Forthingay. Claire offers Jean Boyd because she knows that a male can’t help
her. Also, Claire’s offer echoes the notion that lesbianism is a psychiatric disease.
In the play, we see the reflection of these notions. In Part One, Scene Twelve; when
Claire reveals that she is a lesbian, too, Ms Beatrice the headmistress calls lesbianism an
epidemic. At this point, Daniels shows the 1920’s fear about the spread of lesbianism as
disease.
The other critique of the playwright is the negative stereotyping of “butch” and
“femme” role- playing in lesbianism. This is reflected in the relationship of Diane and Terri.
Firstly, I want to mention the meanings of the concepts. “Butch” means behaving and
dressing like a man, that is, in lesbian relations butch takes on masculine role while “femme”
plays feminine role. In the play, Diane is the butch because she is more aggressive and
masculine in appearance. In Part One, Scene Four, we understand that teachers also notice
Diane’s butch behaviours and she is seen as a threat. Also, in Part One, Scene Six, while Terri

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denies, Diane accepts that she is a lesbian. Diane is bold enough to come out and she fights
for her choice. Her another act is that she writes articles for school-end of term magazine that
calls another lesbians to come out and harshly criticizes the education system for hypocrisy
and sexism.
Lastly, in Neaptide, Sarah Daniels presents her critique of the society. In my opinion,
we can best understand the approach of the society in the words of Diane in Part One, Scene
Six:
“If I don’t say, who will? We are nowhere in history books, sex education leaves us
out, the media makes us into gross caricatures, when society does recognise us, it is only to
oppress”.
Moreover in the same scene, the adjectives Ms Bea uses for Diane are all negative:
wretched child, despicable(unpleasant), sexual pervert ( person whose sexual behaviours
found abnormal).
In Part One, Scene Four and Five, we see the lesbian crisis in school and the
stereotyped prerjudices of the teachers against lesbianism. They gossip about Diane and Terri
because they were found while kissing each other in the cloakroom. None of them, except
Claire, finds this occasion natural and says negative things.
As you see, the society sees lesbians as diseased people and does not accept them as its
part. But lesbians may be even not accepted by their family. Let us see Joyce, the mother of
Claire. She is disgusted by the thought that her daughter, the one with whom she closely
identifies her is a lesbian. In the play, we see that she always crticises Claire. She says that she
has to bear the questions of the neighbors on her lesbian daughter.
Beside her mother, we see Claire as dealing with her ex-husband Lawrence. Claire and
Lawrence are fighting for the custody of their daughter Poppy. Lawrence’s case is based on
Claire’s abnormal sexual choice, that is, he lesbianism. He and his lawyer are sure that this
fact will be the deciding factor for their side. During the play, we see Claire hiding her
lesbianism because she wants to secure the verdict of the court. In Part One, Scene Ten during
the dialogue between Claire and Val, Claire says that: “Here I am trying to prove what a
normal mother I am.” Here comes the question: Who decides this normal? It is obvious: the
patriarchal society and system.
In the court scene, we learn form the voice of the judge that Poppy will stay with
Lawrence. But in the very last scene, this ending becomes reversed and from the telephone
message for Val, it is understood that Claire and Poppy escape to USA.

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