A Land of Despair and Change: Landscapes of Wealth and Poverty in Selected Plays of Naomi Wallace

A Land of Despair and Change: Landscapes of Wealth and Poverty in Selected Plays of Naomi Wallace” examines Wallace’s use of a utopian dramaturgy to articulate the desire for a better future throughout her plays. The plays I examine are The War Boys, Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Huff, Helen
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2011
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/18369
Acceso en línea:http://institucional.us.es/revistas/estudios/15/art_3.pdf
http://hdl.handle.net/11441/18369
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Literatura anglosajona
Literatura norteamericana
Teatro
Utopía
Esperanza
Descripción
Sumario:A Land of Despair and Change: Landscapes of Wealth and Poverty in Selected Plays of Naomi Wallace” examines Wallace’s use of a utopian dramaturgy to articulate the desire for a better future throughout her plays. The plays I examine are The War Boys, Slaughter City, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, and Things of Dry Hours. While the despair and poverty of body and spirit in Wallace’s plays has received critical attention, I argue in my essay that Wallace’s plays also contain a utopian spirit of change and hope that has not been critically examined. It is the passion and intensity, even romanticism, of this hope that negates the dreariness of the mundane and everyday and leads to final scenes of salvation in Wallace’s plays. By illuminating these moments of utopic romanticism, Wallace reveals political and social possibilities for change.