Vows, Veils, and Masks: The Performance of Marriage in the Plays of Eugene O'Neill (Studies in Theatre History & Culture) - Softcover

Beth Wynstra (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1609389034 ISBN 13: 9781609389031

Publisher: University of Iowa Press, 2023

Synopsis

Vows, Veils, and Masks offers a bold and timely approach to the plays of Eugene O’Neill with its attention to the engagements, weddings, and marriages so crucial to the tragic action in O’Neill’s works. Specifically, the book examines the culturally sanctioned traditions and gender roles that underscored marital life in the early twentieth century, and that still haunt and define love and partnership in the modern age.

Weaving in artifacts like advice columns, advertisements, theatrical reviews, and even the lived experiences of the actors who brought O’Neill’s wife characters to life, Beth Wynstra points to new ways of seeing and empathizing with those who are betrothed and new possibilities for reading marriage in literary and dramatic works. She suggests that the various ways women were, and still are, expected to divert from their true ambitions, desires, and selves in the service of appropriate wifely behavior is a detrimental performance and one at the crux of O’Neill’s marital tragedies. This book invites more inclusive and nuanced ways of thinking about the choices married characters must make and the roles they play, both on and off the stage.

About this title

About the Author

Beth Wynstra is associate professor of English at Babson College. She lives in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Iowa Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1609389034
• ISBN 13: 9781609389031
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 228