Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, 1940. / At head of title: Institut français de Washington. Bibliography: p. 245-257.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1989. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 237-245).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1965. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego and University of California, Irvine, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 285-297).

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2007. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Aeschylus wrote that we learn through suffering. Whether one agrees with this statement or not, one has to recognise that it has given rise to a great deal of discussion about tragedy. What kind of suffering we can associate with tragedy will be considered in the chapters which follow. The more immediate concern is the business of learning. Man can learn a good deal about the problems that confront him, but he cannot learn all there is to know about anything. His knowledge is relative. He may postulate the absolute, but it is beyond the grasp of the human mind to perceive the absolute in its absoluteness. The relativist can avoid an epistemological quagmire by simply accepting that a relativistic attitude is only of relative value; he has the intellectual humility to recognise that whatever he thinks or says is likely to reveal only part of the truth. Arthur Miller has suggested that the best serious literature is concerned with the absolute, in that he criticises one of his contemporary playwrights for writing a work which "fails to extend itself so as to open up ultimate causes". Chap. 1, p. 1.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar a representação dramatúrgica da família na peça A Lie of the Mind, do dramaturgo estadunidense Sam Shepard, e os recursos por meio dos quais essa representação, tal como realizada, configura elementos de crítica à ideologia dominante relacionada ao papel da família no contexto sócio-histórico do país. Serão levantados, aqui, os aspectos formais da peça, principalmente os que se relacionam com a estética expressionista e com outros expedientes de criação que a distanciam do drama convencional. O objeto do estudo é o texto dramatúrgico original da peça (e não sua encenação). A análise tratará dos aspectos textuais e contextuais da peça e com base neles examinará as relações familiares figuradas em A Lie of the Mind como representativas e intrínsecas à situação social das personagens. / This dissertation aims at analysing the dramaturgical representation of family in the play A Lie of the Mind, by the North-American playwright Sam Shepard, and the means through which this representation, as developed in the text, brings forth elements of criticism to the dominant ideology related to the role of the family in the countrys socio-historical context. Formal aspects of the play will be approached, mainly the ones related to Expressionism and to other creative resources that drive it away from conventional drama. The study object is the original text of the play (and not the play in performance). The analysis will deal with textual and contextual aspects of the play and, based on them, will examine the familial relations that are represented in A Lie of the Mind as representative and intrinsic to the social situation of the characters.

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar a figuração dramatúrgica do indivíduo em duas peças produzidas pelo grupo teatral The Provincetown Players: Suppressed Desires (1915), de Susan Glaspell e George Cram Cook, e Before Breakfast (1916), de Eugene ONeill. Consideramos que o estudo da produção desse grupo norte-americano traz importantes reflexões acerca da representação de questões históricas, políticas e estéticas recentes naquela época , e que vieram a ter desdobramentos em diversas direções no teatro contemporâneo. / This work aims at analyzing the dramaturgical figurations of the self in two plays produced by The Provincetown Players: Suppressed Desires (1915), by Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook, and Before Breakfast (1916), by Eugene O\'Neill. We believe that the study of the production of this American group introduces important reflections on the representation of historical, political and aesthetic factors recent then , which came to have developments in several directions in contemporary theater.

This thesis argues that twentieth-century American women playwrights spearhead the drama of transformation, and their plays become resistance discourses that protest, subvert, or change the representation of the female self in community. Many create antisocial, deviant, and self-reflexive characters who become misfits, criminals, or activists in order to lay bare women's moral-psychological crises in community. This thesis highlights how selected women playwrights engage with, and question various dominant, regional, racial, or ethnic female communities in order to redefine themselves. Sophie Treadwell's Machinal and Marsha Norman's 'night, Mother are representative texts that explore how the dominant culture can pose a barrier for radical women who long for self-fulfillment. To cultivate their personhood, working class Caucasian women are forced to go against their existing community so as to seek sexual freedom and reproductive rights, which are regarded as new forms of resistance or transgression. While they struggle hard to conform to the traditional, gendered notion of female altruism, self-sacrifice and care ethics, they cannot hide their discontent with the gendered division of labor. They are troubled doubly by the fact that they have to work in the public sphere, but conform to their gender roles in the private sphere. Different female protagonists resort to extreme homicidal or suicidal measures in order to assert their radical, contingent subjectivities, and become autonomous beings. By becoming antisocial or deviant characters, they reject their traditional conformity, and emphasize the arbitrariness and performativity of all gender roles. Treadwell and Norman both envision how the dominant Caucasian female community must experience radical changes in order to give rise to a new womanhood. Using Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun as examples, this thesis demonstrates the difficulties women may face when living in disparate communities. The selected texts show that Southern women and African-American women desperately crave for their distinct identities, while they long to be accepted by others. Their subjectivity is a constant source of anxiety, but some women can form strong psychological bonds with women from the same community, empowering them to make new life choices. To these women, their re-fashioned self becomes a means to reexamine the dominant white culture and their racial identity. African-American women resist the discourse of assimilation, and re-identify with their African ancestry, or pan-Africanism. In the relatively traditional southern community, women can subvert the conventional southern belle stereotypes. They assert their selfhood by means of upward mobility, sexual freedom, or the rejection of woman's reproductive imperative. The present study shows these women succeed in establishing their personhood when they refuse to compromise with the dominant ways, as well as the regional, racial communal consciousness. Maria Irene Fornes' Fefu and Her Friends and Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles are analyzed to show how women struggle to claim their dialogic selfhood in minoritarian communities (New England Community and Jewish Community). Female protagonists maintain dialogues with other women in the same community, while they choose their own modes of existence, such as single parenthood or political activism. The process of transformation shows that women are often disturbed by their moral consciousness, a result of their acceptance of gender roles and their submission to patriarchal authority. Their transgressive behaviors enable them to claim their body and mind, and strive for a new source of personhood. Both playwrights also advocate women's ability to self-critique, to differentiate the self from the Other, to allow the rise of an emergent self in the dialectical flux of inter-personal and intra-personal relations. The present study reveals that twentieth-century American female dramatists emphasize relationality in their pursuit of self. However, the transformation of the self can only be completed by going beyond, while remaining in dialogue with the dominant, residual, or emergent communities. For American women playwrights, the emerging female selves come with a strong sense of "in-betweenness," for it foregrounds the individualistic and communal dimensions of women, celebrating the rise of inclusive, mutable, and dialogic subjectivities.