영 문학의 블로그. 환영합니다 ~~ ^^: A Research on Major Playwrights

Susan Glaspell

Susan Keating Glaspell was an American famous playwright and writer with the winning of Pulitzer Prize. She was born on 1^thJuly 1876 at Davenport, Iowa. She enrolled and graduated from Drake University. She then worked as a journalist in a newspaper before her works started to appear in magazines. Glaspell’s major works especially plays were focused on feminism, which dealt with the role of the women plays in society, marriage or family.

Trifles (1916)

An early feminist play by Glaspell because of its two main women characters, Mrs.Hale and Mrs.Peter. These two women were sympathized with the suspects, Mrs.Wright, who was accused for murdering her husband, Mr.Wright. This play was to claim that men are not that attentive and blind during the investigation. Unlike the women were able to sense and knew the truth that the murdered was Mrs.Wright through the evidence in the kitchen, which the men assumed that “Nothing here but kitchen things”. These two women ended up empathized with Mrs.Wright and decided to hide the evidence from the men. Glaspell wrote this play to raise the issue about the role of women in society and the solidarity of women in society as well.

Woman’s Honour (1918)

A satiric comedic play by Susan Glaspell during World War I. Glaspell wrote this play for her hometown, Iowa, in which she satirically critiqued that women at that time must maintain their reputation or honour no matter how in order to retain their social status. This play was satiric depicted a man, Gordon Wallace who was accused of murder reluctantly provide an alibi which he claimed that this alibi will destroyed a woman’s honour. However, his lawyer made known to the public about this news for he thought this was the way to save Wallace. Surprisingly, a long line-up of women willing to save him by sacrificed their honour in providing an alibi, in which the night Wallace spent with.

Work Cited for Susan Glaspell:

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Glaspell .

Annenberg Foundation, http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/notread/author.html .

Ntu.edu, http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~bcla/e_book/78/7808.pdf .

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifles .

Arthur Miller

Arthur Asher Miller was an American famous playwright in Twentieth century. He was born at New York City to a poverty family on 17^th October 1917. He started to write plays during his study in University of Michigan. After graduated, he continued to write plays and radio dramas. Miller tends to focus on the consequences or corruption of morality when one’s betrayed the conscience under the exerted pressure by family and society.

All My Sons (1947)

Miller wrote this play based on a true story told by his mother-in-law during World War II. This play portrayed on how the main character, Joe Keller suffered deconstruction and suicide due to his crime on shipping in a batch of cracked machine parts to the military that ended up caused the death of 21 pilots during World War II. Joe betrayed his consciousness to avoid financial ruin, however, died under his consciousness too.

ACT 1 watch from this link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqcL1XzlFhw

Death of A Salesman (1949)

A significance play by Miller to criticize the American Dream, and the competitive and materialistic in the American society. Willy Loman, an old salesman who tends to hide his failure and strives for success. He was old enough to unable to differentiate the real life and his imagination. He had had an American Dream, imagined to make a high salary by selling things and get a good salary. However, the real life was not like what he imagined, and because of his American Dream, confliction emerged between him and his son, Biff. He eventually killed himself by crashing his car after noticed that his imagination was unreal and realized his son, Biff had forgave him. This play was to satire that American Dream looks beautiful on the surface but ones should undertake the consequences in order to achieve the dream.