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English Language and Literature

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University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

2013

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Portrayals Of The Dehumanization Of The American Prisoner In Miguel Piñero's “Short Eyes” And Tom Fontana's “Oz”, Gerardo C. Martinez May 2013

Portrayals Of The Dehumanization Of The American Prisoner In Miguel Piñero's “Short Eyes” And Tom Fontana's “Oz”, Gerardo C. Martinez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis analyzes the way in which Miguel Piñero, through his 1974 play Short Eyes, and Tom Fontana, through his television series Oz, portray the way in which American prisoners are transformed by a racially-defined code of behavior. This code of behavior, defined by Miguel Piñero as “the program” encourages inmates to over-identify themselves in terms of race and leads them to engage in behavior that contributes to their dehumanization. In the first chapter, the introduction, I establish the social, political, and theoretical concepts through which it is possible to analyze the process of prisoner identity transformation in these two …