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Images of Loss in Tennessee Williams's the Glass Menagerie

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Images of Loss in Tennessee Williams's the Glass Menagerie Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 11-13-2007 Images of Loss in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Marsha Norman's night, Mother, and Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive Dipa Janardanan Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Janardanan, Dipa, "Images of Loss in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Marsha Norman's night, Mother, and Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/23 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Images of Loss in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie , Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Marsha Norman’s ‘night , Mother , and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive by DIPA JANARDANAN Under the Direction of Matthew C. Roudané ABSTRACT This dissertation offers an analysis of the image of loss in modern American drama at three levels: the loss of physical space, loss of psychological space, and loss of moral space. The playwrights and plays examined are Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1945), Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949), Marsha Norman’s ‘night, Mother (1983), and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive (1998). This study is the first scholarly work to discuss the theme of loss with these specific playwrights and works. This dissertation argues that loss is a central trope in twentieth-century American drama. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how the image of loss is modified and transformed in each playwright’s work leading these images to reveal an emotional truth that transcends the plight of particular individuals or families and casting a universal appeal to a diverse audience. Chapters examine specific themes related to the theme of loss. As part of the critical methodology, the live spectacle of performance has been acknowledged. This study analyzes how Williams, Miller, Norman, and Vogel modify and transform the image of loss by focusing on the myth of the American dream, illusion versus reality, empowerment, and the complexity of human relationships. Although these plays are meant first and foremost to be appreciated as theater, that is to say “live performance,” this study deals with these plays as drama, that is, as written texts. The audience observing the “live” spectacle and the reader of the text are both challenged to define their “own space.” Williams, Miller, Norman, and Vogel, modify and transform the image of loss to reveal a common humanity that is not only a force in their work, but also a strong presence in the works of American dramatists as diverse as Eugene O’Neill and Adrienne Kennedy. From domestic drama to the drama of social and political criticism, Williams, Miller, Norman, and Vogel along with a medley of American playwrights, have taken the genre of American drama from backseat status (secondary to the novel and poem) into the forefront of recognized American literature. INDEX WORDS: Images of loss, Loss of physical space, Loss of psychological space, Loss of moral space, Contemporary American drama, Twentieth-century American drama, Myth of the American dream, Complexity of human relationships, Reality, Illusion, Empowerment Images of Loss in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie , Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Marsha Norman’s ‘night , Mother , and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive by DIPA JANARDANAN A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2007 Copyright by Dipa Janardanan 2007 Images of Loss in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie , Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Marsha Norman’s ‘night , Mother , and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive by DIPA JANARDANAN Committee Chair: Matthew Roudané Committee: Pearl McHaney Nancy Chase Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University December 2007 iv Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Pat and Indira Janardanan and my children, Viraj and Alisha. Mom and Dad, I would not have been able to complete the Ph.D program without your kindness, generosity, and cooperation. Your faith in me and your unconditional love have inspired me to follow my dreams. Thank you for believing in me. Viraj and Alisha, I hope you both always follow your dreams. v Acknowledgements I would like to thank the members of my committee, Drs. Matthew C. Roudané, Pearl McHaney, and Nancy Chase, for their support and guidance during the writing of this dissertation. I am grateful for their wonderful instruction, counsel, and assistance in all my endeavors throughout my years at Georgia State University. I am impressed by their willingness to help their students achieve their goals. I would especially like to thank Dr. Roudané for his immense support, sage advice, and infinite patience throughout this process. The guidance and encouragement of this outstanding committee made the process of writing this dissertation both challenging and rewarding. On a personal note, I would like to thank my parents, Pat and Indira Janardanan, and my children, Viraj and Alisha for their love, cooperation, and patience during this process. I would also like to thank my fiancé, John for his love, support, and encouragement through each step of this incredible journey. Additionally, I would like to thank my brother, Govind, my sister-in-law, Bina, and my nephew Nick for their words of encouragement and support. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements v Chapter One: Introduction 1 Notes to Chapter One 21 Chapter Two: Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie 24 Notes to Chapter Two 60 Chapter Three: Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman 65 Notes to Chapter Three 96 Chapter Four: Marsha Norman’s ‘night, Mother 104 Notes to Chapter Four 133 Chapter Five: Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive 137 Notes to Chapter Five 166 Chapter Six: Conclusion 170 Notes to Chapter Six 182 Works Cited 184 1 Chapter One: Introduction [T]ime is short and it doesn’t return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition. Tennessee Williams, “The Catastrophe of Success” Scholars, critics, and theatergoers contend that modern American drama is characterized by a sense of loss. C.W.E. Bigsby and Matthew C. Roudané were among the first to recognize the theme of loss in modern American drama at three major levels: loss of physical space, loss of psychological space, and loss of moral space. While there is an enormous amount of scholarship on this “sense of loss” in the works of American playwrights ranging from Eugene O’Neill to Adrienne Kennedy, this dissertation focuses on four specific playwrights and one play by each. The playwrights and plays that are examined are Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1945), Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949), Marsha Norman’s ‘night, Mother (1983), and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive (1998). The focus of this dissertation is to analyze how the image of loss is modified and transformed in each work by each playwright to reveal a quality that transcends the plight of the particular individual or family examined in these plays. While the primary emphasis of my study is an informed reading of these four plays, I also use appropriate interviews with the playwrights and initial theater reviews as well as the extant scholarship and major critical statements on these writers. Indeed, with such canonical writers as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, I am selective regarding the scholarship but with the newer playwrights, especially Paula Vogel, where 2 considerably less scholarship is available, I bring to bear mainly my own critical faculties. As part of my critical methodology, I not only carefully analyze these four particular plays, Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Norman’s ‘night, Mother, and Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive by focusing on the theme of loss, but also enter into a larger cultural debate vis à vis the ongoing narrative history of American drama since World War II to the present. One chapter is devoted to each play in order to explore the significant themes related to loss. As part of my critical methodology I acknowledge the live spectacle of performance. Indeed, while these plays are meant first and foremost to be appreciated as theater, that is to say “live performance,”1 my study deals primarily with these plays as drama, that is, as written texts. The significant themes of each play are explored because they form the subtext and add layers of meaning to my primary focus--loss of physical space, loss of psychological space, and finally loss of moral space. I contend that the primary themes in the works of Williams, Miller, Norman, and Vogel work in the areas of text and performance, creating the multi-dimensional texture that is necessary to “strip the layers and get to the marrow”--in hopes of coming to a better understanding of self. As George states in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? “when you get down to the bone, you haven’t got all the way, yet.
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