Easily erasing history: ‘Orra’, the obliteration of the female voice and the tragedy in madness

Abstract

Perversity in the 19th century society goes beyond the simple definition of what is perverse in the dictionary; perversity lied on the oblivion not only of the feminine voice, but on the oblivion of the act of hiding society problems that could be discussed in the English scene. Suppress, hide, take off the stage voices, which had something to say, and erase what could have been presented to the public in order to make them think. Joanna Baillie’s theater tried to be different while argued that the woman, alone, was not prone to a superstitious fear. This article questions the fact that the play Orra: A Tragedy treads a path opposite to what the playwright defended in her theory of the tragedy. When Orra, Baillie’s independent and strong woman, goes mad at the end of the play, she turns herself into the standard 19th century weak woman and the oblivion, in its turn, is a double oblivion: the playwright’s memory in history and her female character.