| Zusammenfassung: | The essay looks at Edward Albee's The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? (Notes toward Definition of Tragedy), employing Victor Turner's and René Girard's interdisciplinary theories of ritual, scapegoating, and drama as well as concepts and terms of current theories on subjectivity formation. The analysis focuses on the protagonist family's drama as a Turnerian liminal situation within which the Grays are displaced from their former subject positions and find themselves lacking any new basis for constructing new identities for themselves. The essay also argues for a reassessment of Girard's concept of the single scapegoat, interpreting all three family members as sacrificial victims within the context of their betwixt-and-between state. The essay also sets out to identify those elements of classical tragedy that Albee re-actualizes, demonstrating that through the merger of styles, linguistic registers, and genres The Goat transgresses the limits of traditional tragedy and subverts any attempt at fixing the play within the limits of a single valid interpretation.
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