Memory, Narrative, and Identity in Buried Child, The Iceman Cometh and The Glass Menagerie
Date of Award
2003
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Myhill, Nova
Keywords
Narrative, Identity, Memory
Area of Concentration
British and American Literature
Abstract
This thesis examines how various treatments of the past in modem American drama can both create specific identities for the present and lead to an absence of that identity. My first chapter deals with the result of a denial of the past, leading to a fragmented present in Sam Shepard's Buried Child. My second chapter is concerned with storytelling, versions of the past that are created in order to produce meaning for life in the present, and what happens when those views are compromised by an outsider in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. My third chapter deals with family past that cannot be broken down to produce individual identities for the members of the family in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. Ultimately these three plays provided me with the understanding of how integral the past is in providing meaning for the present in drama. However, my project also taught me that obsession with the past disables characters from progressing in the future. This thesis searches for and does not find the necessary balance. Yet, it is the absence of such a balance of past and present, individual identity and communal identity, which is important.
Recommended Citation
Sandler, Anne, "Memory, Narrative, and Identity in Buried Child, The Iceman Cometh and The Glass Menagerie" (2003). Theses & ETDs. 3304.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/3304
Rights
This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.