Thematic Research
“Introduction.” Soul Murder Revisited: Thoughts about Therapy, Hate, Love, and Memory, by LEONARD SHENGOLD, Yale University Press, 1999, pp. 1–16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bsv7.3.
I stumbled across the idea of "soul murder" when researching infamous serial killers for an unrelated project. The term, interestingly first coined by Ibsen and Strindberg, refers to abuse so significant that it kills the personality, the potential, the inner life of its victim. How can someone who was a victim of abuse turn around and inflict that same brutality on another human being? Answer: Soul Murder. It's clear that Lang has suffered substantial trauma, and I think that this psychological concept provides interesting context for her cold, morbid demeanor and her eventual explosion of violence.
“Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine : Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Routledge, 1993. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bucknell/detail.action?docID=683972.
Witches are an important horror motif in I'm Alive, particularly in the way they are represented in Lang's perspective. This chapter discusses the traditional associations between witches, feminine power, and media representation. I'm Alive, actively engages with these archetypes, but instead of simply representing a poisoned, too powerful version of femininity, Dex and Tweek are exalted, terrifying, and ultimately natural.
Karr-Morse, Robin. Scared Sick : The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease, Basic Books, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bucknell/detail.action?docID=844419.
Colin and I are playing a lot with notions of fear in this production, both within the play and its role in audience experience. In creating on stage horror, I've found it extremely useful to know the biological processes involved in the production of fear and how extreme repeated experiences can literally cause physical harm. We want to keep the audience in a place where the fear is comfortable, perhaps even enjoyable. We also want to understand how a lifetime of terror might have affected Lang.
The Psychology of Social Conflict and Aggression, edited by Joseph P. Forgas, et al., Taylor & Francis Group, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bucknell/detail.action?docID=692338.
Much of the tension in I'm Alive occurs between socialized performances of gender and deviations from that performance. Jak may experiment with being "bad", but ultimately, she still feels a desire to belong and to be accepted socially. In contrast, Lang finds difficulty in performing these conventions authentically, and as a result, rejects them completely. We see her ostracized for her oddness and isolated at multiple points. I like this article because it analyzes the effect that ostracism and loneliness has on expressions of social aggression.