The drama triangle in Tess of the D’urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The drama triangle, a modern concept of psychology that involves three roles, the victim, the rescuer and the persecutor, occurs in many dysfunctional relations. This study aims to analyze how the drama triangle reveals itself in the selected novels and its main reason, which is a system of power dynamics that labels one as “the superior” and the other one as “the inferior.” The power dynamics and the drama triangle in Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison will be explained and evaluated through Feminist, Marxist and postcolonial theories. In fact, these theories are the most efficient in explaining why specific characters have certain roles in these novels. To clarify how the characters of the novels experience the drama triangle in their relationships with their dysfunctional families and others, prominent psychologists’ definitions and explanations will be used. The clarifications of other concepts, which are ‘the Switch,’ learned helplessness, addictions and dependency, will also enlighten how the drama triangle works in the novels. With these analyses, the thesis aims to indicate that the drama triangle is not a cultural concept proposed by various scholars and psychologists but a common concept of psychology, which is clearly apparent in all of these novels although they were written in different centuries. All these analyses emphasize that the drama triangle should be applied to more literary works and should not be overlooked in the field of comparative literature, as it is widespread in both literature and true life.