| Drama has been an important literary genre, as to which American Feminist Drama claims a growingly strong and influential presence since the late 1960s. Whereas the male playwrights remain the most recognized voices, a series of female playwrights are demonstrating their theatrical flairs not inferior to their male counterparts. These brilliant women dramatists, represented by Lillian Hellman, Wendy Wasserstein, Beth Henley, Marsha Norma and Paula Vogel, make their appearance on American stage and become major speaking voices for the long-marginalized and silenced women. Through producing an outstanding array of plays focusing on female experiences, concerns and issues, they invite the American society and the world as a whole to see, understand and reflect on women as a subjugated other sex prescribed by patriarchal laws.As a typical feminist play of Henley, The Debutante Ball (1985) presents a realistic picture of marginalized women who struggle against the unjust and dehumanizing patriarchal regulations so as to embrace a better future. Living in the patriarchal American South, the four female protagonists, Jen, Teddy, Bliss and Frances, are all cornered and entrapped, in response to which they make efforts to get out of their predicaments. This study aims to analyze these four women characters in The Debutante Ball, including their predicaments and solutions, from the feminist perspectives. Materialistic feminism, with its focus on how material conditions affect male-centered social arrangements, and psychoanalytic feminism, which examines the psychological aspects of patriarchal oppression, will be applied as theoretical lens to make an in-depth discussion of the caged situations of women in the male-supremacist universe. Based on the analysis, how women can construct an independent female identity and solve their own problems will be explained. This study consists of three chapters, the main contents of which are as follows:In The Debutante Ball, Beth Henley dramatizes four women’s transformation from self-denial to self-recognition, from silence to assertion, from passive acceptance of oppression to active search for meaning in life, from lonely fighting to collective bonding. As a socially conscious female playwright, Henley expresses sincere concerns to women-related issues and problems. This study concludes that Henley’s women characters suffer from patriarchal victimization and dysfunctional family, as a consequence of which they are commonly unable to realize their own needs, shoulder responsibilities or make decisions for themselves, not to mention leading an independent life in a society sanctioned by patriarchy and the oppressive American Southern customs; fortunately, female bonding, namely, sisterhood rapport, and clear awareness of oneself help them get rid of their predicaments. |
