Howard Brenton’ın The Churchıll Play Adlı Eserinde Devlet Eliyle Uygulanan Toplumsal Şiddet

Howard Brenton who is one of the leading socialist playwrights of contemporary British Literature has written more than thirty plays most of which are concerned with the question of violence. Though individual acts of violence have a great impact on both the members of the society and the structure of the society as a whole, they are transitory and can be predicted and somewhat eliminated. But collective violence which occurs especially between the different groups in the society has much more lasting impact than the individual violence.  Especially the collective violence committed by the state is the most important and the most dangerous of all. Brenton focuses on this type of violence in his plays, especially in The Churchill Play, which constitutes the subject of this study. In this play, he deals with the exercise of state powers on its own society, negative consequences of social and economic inequalities. With the help of this play Brenton shows us that violence is the ultimate means maintaining power and keeping whole citizens under control.