Using Lara Foot Newton's Reach! and Craig Higginson's Dream of the Dog,
this study explores the manner in which this selected South African
playwrights deploy the themes of memory, trauma and therapy in their
works as a means of recounting the horrific experiences of the apartheid
regime, and the effects of these experiences on personal, social and
political life and relationships in post-apartheid South Africa. Since
Literary themes are sometimes burdened with open ended meanings and
motifs. They are therefore always open to interpretations guided by
concepts and theories of literature. The study proceeds on the
assumption that the selected plays like other Post-apartheid South
African plays embody sensitive issues that relate to memory, trauma and
therapy. This is achieved through the use of Freudian psychoanalytic
perspective which facilitate an affinity between the influence of memory
and trauma on an individual's social behaviour and literary creativity.
It also investigates how interiorities motivate actions in characters
in the selected South African post-apartheid plays. The study argues
that playwrights occupy a central position in not only locating the
South African experience within literary discourse but their plays
illustrate the therapeutic approach to the study of South African
experiences. The study, therefore, finds that psychoanalysis offers a
unique perspective to the study of characters in South African plays. It
also finds that memory, trauma and therapy influence the inner working
of characters in some post-apartheid South African plays. The study thus
concludes that psychoanalytic criticism is relevant in delineating how
interiorities motivate actions in post-apartheid South African plays.