Page 222 - แด่ศักดิ์ศรีเสมอกันทุกชั้นชน : วรรณกรรมกับสิทธิมนุษยชนศึกษา

วรรณกรรมกับสิทธิมนุษยชนศึกษา 221

Thongrob Ruenbantheong

This article examines how David Henry Hwang’s one-act play, Bondage, illustrates

the metaphorical relationship between the dominant culture and minority subjects. The
play seems to use S&M parlor as a site of encounter between the colonizer and the
colonized. However, by understanding theatricality and performativity of race, the racialized
subjects can potentially challenge and question the validity of the historical construction of

ethnic ‘other.’ The articles concludes that if ethnicity, like gender, is performative, the
challenge of racial hegemony and stereotype is highly possible. Ethnicity is no longer fixed

or biological but capable of being negotiated, redefined and performed.

Wanrug Suwanwattana

This essay aims to explore the debates on the issue of capital punishment as it was
being practiced in France through an analysis of Albert Camus' essay titled “Réflexions sur

la guillotine”. With his clear stance against capital punishment, Camus convincingly and
systematically dismissed the rhetoric of “exemplary nature” of this punishment embraced
by the proponents of capital punishment. The issues of legitimacy, mistakes and
responsibility were explained through common sense, psychological and moral principles

and by humanist virtues intrinsic in the personal belief in human values of Camus himself.
Analysis of the said piece would lead to the question of what actually was the true and

authentic purpose of capital punishment in the context of post-World War II’s French
society. As we go further, it will become evident that this most severe form of punishment,
far from serving to deter potential criminals from committing crimes as its proponents had
always claimed, was actually legitimized through its other social and political functions

fabricated by mythology of historical reasons and political ideologies.