Joan Oliver’s Cain: Rebellion and Biblical Reinterpretation

Posted on Jan 24, 2025 in Modern Philology. English

Three Main Themes in Joan Oliver’s Work

Authoritarianism, Scriptural Use, and Nonconformism

First, it is represented through paternal and divine authority. Firstly, Adam exercises arbitrary manners and his decision to give Abel descendants leads to fratricide.
As regards divine authority, various personages dare to intend to sustain themselves, either voluntarily or involuntarily: Lucifer, Adam and Eve, Cain. All are punished in a hard manner, more or less pronounced, but Cain continues to rebel, saying that these prohibitions do not affect him and will not adjure the possible punishments imposed.
Second, the use of themes is in line with scripture. It is not the only work by Joan Oliver based on the Bible; here the author takes advantage of the first chapters of Genesis and offers his particular version of scripture, which he uses symbolically to criticize family relations in the bourgeoisie. He presents the most negative aspects of the family: Adam, who produces authority because he does not know how to handle problems well; his constant complaints end up breaking the family. Of all, the only one who is saved is Cain, because he never wanted to submit to the life laid out for him. Joan Oliver also refuses the vision of Christian morality that proposes that work is seen as human realization. Work is presented as the creator of suffering, threats, hunger, and ultimately, death.
Third, nonconformism is incarnated, as I have seen, in Cain. The other personages are more in conformity with their lives or resigned to the prevailing limitations. Cain, at no moment in the work, resigns himself to accepting. He analyzes and understands everything before accepting it, which is made clear in many episodes of the creation, the classifications of Lucifer and Yahweh, and the role that these two forces play in the unjustified prohibitions of all things. This nonconformism, however, condemns Cain and converts him into a rebel and nonconformist, like the author, Joan Oliver.

Contextualizing Joan Oliver’s Text

1. Location of the text in its context
It is a travesty of the biblical chapters 1-4 of Genesis: the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, the original sin, the loss of Paradise, and the fratricide of Cain.
It uses critical humor, a common resource in all of Oliver’s literature, who was considered an enfant terrible of his social class, the bourgeoisie. Recurrence in their production, too, is the ironic manipulation of biblical stories. Concerning what may be considered the pre-war stage of Oliver’s theater: the work of the most successful period, in the opinion of critics. Genre: bourgeois comedy, a formula born on the French stage in the mid-19th century. Elaboration, like the other plays by Oliver, is a caustic comedy version, designed to challenge the model of bourgeois life and values, instead of ratifying them and thus perpetuating them.
2. Structure
  • Appropriation of the canons of bourgeois comedy genre: units of time, space, and action, love triangle; frequent entrances and exits; dynamic counter-replies and mirrors;
  • Times of verbal wit, nimble and refined dialogues.
  • Single act, without division into scenes.
  • Internal partition into three sections, comparable to the classical division into the introduction, climax, and denouement. They charge, respectively, the drawing of characters and the setting of the game of relationships, the realization of the rebellion of Cain, and conflict resolution.
  • Open ending—lives that continue beyond the curtain and you will have to imagine.