THE EXISTENTIAL QUEST: FAMILY AND FORM IN SELECTED AMERICAN PLAYS (EUGENE O'NEILL, ARTHUR MILLER, TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, NON-BEING)

Modern American dramaturgy has been scrutinized and evaluated in terms of the distinguishing features exhibited in the works of this country's foremost playwrights. An implied disparity in the critical literature addressing the works of Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams infuses the critical literature and distorts it. It is the contention of this study that O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, Miller's Death of A Salesman and Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof exhibit strikingly similar characteristics in regard to each playwright's manipulation of dramatic form. The purpose of this study was to prove that each of these plays presents an identical vision of reality which is translated into concrete form such that subject, theme, dramatic action, characterization, dialogue, symbol, set design, lighting and sound are all projections of an existential ideology.; A close examination of the text of each play along with an analysis of the critical literature addressing each play was compared to ten existential tenets. These tenets: consciousness, alienation, the affirmation of life, freedom and man's capacity to create his own being, angst, dasein, the call of care and spiritual growth, authentic values, and a presentation of the concrete; were employed in comparing production constituents with an existential ideology. By utilizing a comprehensive definition of the term and avoiding the generalized references in the critical literature, a clear picture of the relationship between this influence and modern American dramaturgy was established.; Chapter I develops an overview of the existential perspective. Chapter II develops a connection between the modern family and existentialism. Chapter III examines O'Neill's reliance upon an existential-familial dramatic form. Chapters IV and V follow a similar approach in regard to Miller's play and Williams' Cat . Chapter VI examines fragments of the existential model discovered in the three plays examined in the study, in the more contemporary works of American playwrights.; This study was confined to the three plays previously mentioned. It substantiates a connection between Long Day's Journey Into Night, Death Of A Salesman, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and an existential dramatic form concerned with consciousness and nonbeing.