美国文学史及选读AmericanDrama课件.ppt

1、American Literature Chapter 19 American Drama Revision Who are the three women writers we talked about in the last lecture?Name some of their famous works.Questions to Answer!What Is Drama?Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.It is derived from a Greek word meaning action

2、 derived from o do.Play Overview The theater of the Depression(1930s)was not depressing.Like other branches of literature the drama was preoccupied with social concerns.All through the 1940s and the post war period,new playwrights and new plays kept appearing.Overview The early fifties touched Ameri

3、can audiences to the quick.The late fifties saw a temporary decline in dramatic productions.In sixties,American drama picked up a good deal of fresh energy.From the end of the sixties American theater entered a new phase in its development when diversity became one of its salient features.Overview R

4、epresentatives Eugene ONeill(1888-1953)Tennessee Williams(1911-1983)Edward Albee(1928-)Arthur Miller(1915-2005)Eugene ONeill(1888-1953)尤金奥尼尔 Eugene ONeill(1888-1953)In 1936,he won Nobel Prize for Literature.“for the power,honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works,which embody an original

5、concept of tragedy.”Eugene ONeill(1888-1953)尤金奥尼尔 American Shakespeare EUGENE ONEILL ONeill (1888-1953),is Americas greatest playwright.With his father,James ONeill,being a famous actor,love of drama ran in the blood of the man.He is the first universally recognized world dramatic American produced.

6、He virtually established the modern American theatre.Eugene ONeill(1888-1953)尤金奥尼尔 ONeills Literary Career Three periods:The early period(1916-1920):Bound East for Cardiff(1916)东航卡迪夫 Beyond the Horizon(1920)天边外 The Emperor Jones,1920 琼斯王 ONeills Literary Career The second period:Anna Christie(1921)T

7、he Hairy Ape,1922;毛猿 All Gods Chillun Got Wings,1924;Desire Under the Elms,1924;The Great God Brown,1926;Lazarus Laughed,1928;Strange Interlude,1928;Mourning Becomes Electra,1931;Days Without End,1934;ONeills Literary Career The Third Period:The Iceman Cometh,1946;送冰的人来了 Long Days Journey into Night

8、,1956;进入黑夜的漫漫旅程 A Moon for the Misbegotten,1957.月照不幸人 Major themes in his play Mens struggles with his own fate Loss of self Alienation The Hairy Ape ONeill explained The Hairy Ape by saying that it was a symbol of man,who has lost his old harmony with nature,the harmony which he used to have as an

9、animal and has not yet acquired in a spiritual way.Thus,not being able to find it on earth nor in heaven,hes in the middle,trying to make peace.Throughout the play,Yank is struggling to find the place to which he belongs.The struggle of this kind is the struggle for ones identity.In this play we can

10、 say that in Yank we see modern man desperately in search of his identity within industrial society.Quotations“Yuhre de champ of de world.But me I aint got no past to tink in,nor nothin dats comin,ony whats noq and dat dont belong”“Even him didnt tink I belonged.”(and,perhaps,the hairy ape at last b

11、elongs.)Long Days Journey into Night 进入黑夜的漫漫旅程 Long Days Journey into Night is an autobiographical play.The story took place at the home of the Tyrones in 24 four hours.Character Introduction Edmund Tyrone:Son of Mary and James Tyrone.Brother of Jamie Tyrone.Edmund is Eugene ONeills double,a sensiti

12、ve,sickly and morbid young man.Edmund,as a part,has no more stage time or lines than any of the other Tyrones.But he is nonetheless the center of the play:his forgiveness of his brother and father are the plays climax.He has aspirations of becoming a writer.Mary Tyrone:Wife of James Tyrone.Mother of

13、 Edmund and Jamie Tyrone.Mary is a morphine addict,and throughout the course of the day we watch as she sinks farther and farther into a morphine-induced fog.Her hands are nervous,and they reveal her constantly agitated state.She is in deep denial about Edmunds illness.As the play progresses,she ret

14、reats farther and farther into the past.James Tyrone:Husband of Mary Tyrone.Father of Edmund and Jamie Tyrone.James Tyrone is a Broadway actor and alcoholic.He is a religious Catholic,although he no longer attends Church.He is appallingly stingy,and his miserliness has led to many problems for the T

15、yrone family over the years.Jamie Tyrone:Son of Mary and James Tyrone.Brother of Edmund Tyrone.Jamie is a cynical alcoholic.He is ten years older than Edmund,but he has never amounted to anything.He spends his days in New York chasing whores and drinking.Main Themes The Past,as refuge and burden For

16、giveness Breakdown of communication Religion Drug and alcohol abuse Isolation Tennessee Williams(1911-1983)Tennessee Williams(1911-83)田纳西威廉姆斯 Playwright,poet,and fiction writer,Tennessee Williams left a powerful mark on American theatre.At their best,his twenty-five full-length plays combined lyrica

17、l intensity,haunting loneliness,and hypnotic violence.He is widely considered the greatest Southern playwright and one of the greatest playwrights in the history of American drama.Important Plays Written by Williams The Glass Menagerie(1945)玻璃动物园 A Streetcar Named Desire(1947)欲望号街车 Cat on a Hot Tin

18、Roof(1955)热铁皮屋顶上的猫 The Glass Menagerie(1945)玻璃动物园 Amanda Wingfield:Once a Southern belle who was the darling of her small towns social scene,Amanda is now an abandoned wife and single mother living in a small apartment in St.Louis.She dreams of her past and of her daughters future,but seems unwillin

19、g to recognize certain harsh realities of the present.She is a loving mother,but her demands can make life difficult for Laura and unbearable for Tom.Laura Wingfield:Crippled from childhood,Laura walks with the aid of a leg brace.Laura is painfully shy,unable to face the world outside of the tiny Wi

20、ngfield apartment.She spends her time polishing her collection of tiny glass animals,her glass menagerie.Her presence is almost ghostly,and her inability to connect with others outside of her family makes her dependent on Tom and Amanda.Jims nickname for her,Blue Roses,suggests both her odd beauty a

21、nd her isolation,as blue roses exist nowhere in the real world.Tom Wingfield:Tom is an aspiring poet who works in the Continental Shoemakers warehouse.He is the narrator of the play:the action of the play is framed by Toms memory.Tom loves his mother and sister,but he feels trapped at home.They are

22、dependent on his wages,and as long as he stays with them he feels he can never have a life of his own.Nightly,he disappears to go to the movies.Jim OConnor:The long-awaited gentleman caller.He is outgoing,enthusiastic,and believes in self-improvement.He kisses Laura and raises her hopes before revea

23、ling to her that he is engaged.Tom describes him as a person more connected to the real world than any of the other characters are,but Jim is also a symbol for the expected something that we 楬敶映牯尮 Themes The Difficulty of Accepting Reality The Impossibility of True Escape The Unrelenting Power of Me

24、mory Symbols Lauras Glass Menagerie The Glass Unicorn “Blue Roses”Symbolic Meaning of Glass Menagerie As the title of the play informs us,the glass menagerie,or collection of animals,is the plays central symbol.Lauras collection of glass animal figurines represents a number of facets of her personal

25、ity.Like the figurines,Laura is delicate,fanciful,and somehow old-fashioned.Glass is transparent,but,when light is shined upon it correctly,it refracts an entire rainbow of colors.Similarly,Laura,though quiet and bland around strangers,is a source of strange,multifaceted delight to those who choose

26、to look at her in the right light.The menagerie also represents the imaginative world to which Laura devotes herselfa world that is colorful and enticing but based on fragile illusions.unicorns As Jim points out,unicorns are“extinct”in modern times and are lonesome as a result of being different fro

27、m other horses.Laura too is unusual,lonely,and ill-adapted to existence in the world in which she lives.The fate of the unicorn is also a smaller-scale version of Lauras fate.Blue Roses Like the glass unicorn,“Blue Roses,”Jims high school nickname for Laura,symbolizes Lauras unusualness yet allure.T

28、he name is also associated with Lauras attraction to Jim and the joy that his kind treatment brings her.Arthur Miller(1915-)亚瑟米勒 Arthur Miller is the most important postwar realistic playwright in the United States.He puts the idea of social duty and responsibilities into the center of his plays,and

29、 has brought back in the theatre,in an important way,the drama of social questions.Arthur Miller(1915-2005)life:born on October 17th in New York City 1934 Enters University of Michigan in the Fall to study journalism.1949 Death of a Salesman premiers and receives the Pulitzer Prize,the New York Dram

30、a Critics Circle Award,the Antoinette Perry Award,the Donaldson Award,and the Theater Club Award,among others.Arthur Miller(1915-2005)2005 Miller dies of heart failure in his Connecticut home on 10th February.Character List:Willy Loman:A sixty year old salesman living in Brooklyn,Willy Loman is a gr

31、egarious,mercurial man with powerful strivings and aspirations for success.However,after thirty-five years as a traveling salesman throughout New England,Willy Loman is tired and defeated by his lack of success and difficult family life.Although he has a dutiful wife,his relationship with his oldest

32、 son,Biff,is strained because of Biffs continual failures.As a salesman,Willy Loman focuses on personal details over actual measures of success,believing that it is personality and not results that garner success in the business world.The Tragedy of Willy Willy is the victim of the American dream.Hi

33、s tragedy is caused by his faith in accomplishing it,which means success through working hard and obtaining others acceptance by popular personality.He believes“a man can end up with diamonds here on the basis of being liked.”Though he has carried out this doctrine for nearly forty years,he has to c

34、ommit suicide to declare the complete bankruptcy of his life-long dream.Willy is the victim of society,particularly a victim of a harsh economic system that first uses and then discards him.Biff Loman:The thirty-four year old son of Willy Loman,Biff was a star high school athlete with a scholarship

35、to UVA,but he did not attend college after failing his high school math course and not attending summer school.He did this primarily out of spite after finding his father having an affair with a woman in Boston.Since then,Biff has been a continual failure,stealing from every job he has had and even

36、spending time in jail.Despite his failures and anger towards his father,Biff still has great concern for what his father thinks of him,and the conflict between the two characters drives the narrative of the play.Happy Loman:The younger of the two Loman sons,Happy Loman is seemingly content and succe

37、ssful,with a steady career and none of the obvious marks of failure that his older brother displays.Happy,however,is not content with his more stable life,because he has never risked failure or striven for any real measure of success.Happy is a compulsive womanizer who treats women purely as sex obj

38、ects and has little respect for the many women he seduces.Themes The American Dream Abandonment Betrayal Quotation Because Biff thinks Im nothing,see,and so he spites me.But the funeral straightening up:Ben,that funeral will be massive!Theyll come from Maine,Massachusetts,Vermont,New Hampshire!All t

39、he old-timers with the strange license platesthat boy will be thunder-struck,Ben,because he never realized I am known!Other Dramatists and Dramas Elmer Rice(1892-1967)_The Adding Machine(1923)Susan Glaspell(1881-1948):regarded by some people as“mother of American drama”-founded the first influential

40、 noncommercial theater troupe in America.Clifford Odets(1906-1963):Waiting for Lefty Edward Albee(1928-):Theater of the absurd 荒诞派戏剧荒诞派戏剧 Whos Afraid of Virginia?exercises 1.“American Shakespeare”refers to .2.The founder of the American drama is_.A.Arthur Miller B.Clifford Odets C.Tennessee Williams

41、 D.Eugene ONeil 3.“He got me,aw right.Im trou.Even him didnt think I belonged.”In these sentences taken from The Hairy Ape,the words“he”and“him”both refer to_ A.Yank B.God C.The ape in the zoo D.A person unnamed 4._ won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the only dramatist ever to win a Nobel Pri

42、ze.He is widely acclaimed“founder of the American drama,”and recognized even more as a major figure in world literature.A.Miller B.William C.Heller D.ONeill 5.Which of the following are dramatists?A.Tennessee Williams B.Eugene O Neill C.John Steinbeck D.Arthur Miller 1.American Puritanism (4 points)