Abstract Through an analysis of Martin McDonagh’s play The Pillowman, this article explores the roles children play as avatars of futurity and tragic personages whose actions bid us to reflect on repetitive patterns of suffering. To this end, I suggest that we might productively engage with The Pillowman through the dramaturgical structures of tragedy, particularly insofar as tragedy revolves around catastrophic events in the family. While most previous scholarship on The Pillowman has focused on the protagonist, Katurian, and his social or moral obligations as an author, my work places the children of Katurian’s stories at the center of the play’s philosophical cruxes. Not yet fully socialized into societal paradigms that frame the replication of present circumstances, ideologies, and inequities as “progress,” the children of this play disrupt dominant tragic structures, offer catastrophic responses to abuse, and emphasize the absurdity of certain cultural narratives of justice and salvation. My readings are widely informed by the fields of tragic theory, childhood studies, critical posthumanism, and performance studies.

中文翻译：

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灾难性的未来：马丁·麦克唐纳的《枕头人》中的悲剧儿童

摘要 本文通过对马丁·麦克唐纳 (Martin McDonagh) 的戏剧《枕头人》(The Pillowman) 的分析，探讨了儿童作为未来和悲剧人物的化身所扮演的角色，他们的行为促使我们反思重复的苦难模式。为此，我建议我们可以通过悲剧的戏剧结构与枕头人进行富有成效的互动，特别是就悲剧围绕家庭中的灾难性事件展开而言。虽然以前关于枕头人的大部分学术研究都集中在主角卡图良及其作为作家的社会或道德义务上，但我的作品将卡图良的故事中的孩子们置于该剧哲学症结的中心。尚未完全社会化为将当前环境、意识形态和不平等现象复制为“进步、“这部剧的孩子们破坏了主导的悲剧结构，对虐待做出了灾难性的反应，并强调了某些关于正义和救赎的文化叙事的荒谬性。我的阅读内容广泛涉及悲剧理论、童年研究、批判性后人类主义和表演研究等领域。