SOURCE: Plunka, Gene A. “Victor Turner and Jean Genet—Rites of Passage in Les Nègres.” Theatre Annual 45 (1992): 65-88.

In the following essay, Plunka describes Genet's use of ethnological rites of passage in Les Nègres.

In Jean Genet's oeuvre, the single element that unites all of his works and provides identity for his risk-taking outcasts is the rite of passage from one mode of living to another. In particular, Genet presents metamorphosis, an apotheosis for his outcasts, who move form [sic] game playing (the world of illusion) to a renewed sense of Being. Genet's protagonists, willfully degraded, begin their self-imposed exile by imitating, in a ceremony or in some sort of role-playing capacity, those who have power over others. The characters soon realize that game playing only produces negative results. Eventually, the game playing ceases, and the protagonists refuse to become a reflection of the Other. The...