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addition, this composition forms an aesthetical language, a language of narration and expression
which uses the language of subconscious, which utilizes the stream of consciousness and which
stands against masculine language of expression. As for feminist attitude and style of writing, Bilgesu
Erenus, breaks down the masculine dominated discourse of historical narrative and autobiography
with such various techniques and departs away from this discourse. She does this in plays with a
composition that she formed with symbolic and fantastic elements, stream of consciousness
technique, by creating moments which are out‐of‐time, out‐of‐space where time‐space perception is
demolished, by jumps in time and space, by creating a sense of being in the interwoven sameness of
all times and spaces. Thus, these plays create a different aesthetics and perception and provides an
alternative way of thinking.
Under the light of our evaluations now let us look at the plays briefly.
Kırmızı Karaağaç‐Red Elm essentially objects the way that Virginia Woolf is described and
represented according to the point of view of her husband Leonard. The play also questions what is
written in A Writer’s Diary which was published by Leonard after a certain censorship. Therefore the
construction of the play tries to show the contradictions between what was written and said about
Virginia. On one side it emphasizes the intellectual attitude of Virginia who stands against and
questions patriarchal and political ideologies. It highlights the intellectual identity of the writer as a
woman. With the help of humoristic and fantastic elements, the play ridicules the discourse of lunacy
which was used to mask the radical and reactionary character of Virginia Woolf and the play ridicules
the marriage which was used to mask her sexual, physical and emotional differences which are not in
harmony with the common social image of femininity.
The play is written with technique of stream of consciousness. Interwoven times form the
composition of the play as alienation elements. In this play, rather then reflecting Virginia’s life story
as it was, Bilgesu Erenus attempts to search for Virginia’s reality, as an intellectual woman, as a
writer and as a woman. As Erenus is trying to trace the reality of Virginia Woolf, she uses also the
characters of her novels in this play. Three characters from Virginia’s works, anti‐militarist Septimus
of Mrs. Dalloway, Judith from A Room One’s Own who can not exist in patriarchal system and
socialist Mary Datchet of Night and Day accompany Virginia in the play as her creations, and help her
in settling her accounts with her husband, society and the past. Virginia wishes to liberate herself
from fictious images made for her. However, Leonard can not stand hearing the facts, his selfconfidence
is shaken by the reality and he becomes increasingly hysterical. Actually Virginia’s diary
was published after her husband’s censor. Reality is shady and misty.
When the play starts, we find Virginia Woolf’s husband Leonard, getting prepared just before he is
on a TV program. He was going to be on the TV program to represent his wife and to talk about her
life. Exactly at that point Virginia’s specter comes in and wants to take her last note and go away. The
clock in the room and the time stops and a play within a play, a settling of accounts begin. Virginia
demonstrates what kind of an image there is about herself in the mind of Leonard, the person who is
just about to represent her and she is not happy about her husband representing her. All her words
are exaggerated and mocking and she speaks totally ironically. She wants to settle accounts with her
past and her husband. She accuses Leonard of making money on her legacy and she questions what
he had done. In the play, whenever Leonard gets angry at Virginia or whenever he tries to drive away
her criticisms, he mentions Virginia’s lunacy. Besides the fact that lunacy is the suspense element of
the play, it gains irony at the end of the play when Leonard by mistake wears the jacket for lunatics.
On the other hand, at the end of the play, Virginia becomes an androgynous person with her face
painted in black and with Leo’s costumes. Afterwards she turns into an elm. Elm, where the name of
the play is taken from, becomes a reference to androgyny in this play, being a kind of a tree with its
androgynous flowers. Virginia “believes that being solely women or solely man deprives the writer of
creativity and the person called as the writer has to be “feminine man or masculine women” 1 , which
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