KURDISTAN REGIONAL GOVERNMENT MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION & SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH FACULTY OF EDUCATION/KALAR UNIVERSITY OF SULAIMANI

CONDEMNATION OF PERSONAL AND SOCIAL EVILS IN LILLIAN HELLMAN'S PLAYS

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE COUNCIL OF FACULTY OF EDUCATION/ UNIVERSITY OF SULAIMANI IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIRMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

BY NESSREEN OTHMAN DARWESH SUPERVISED BY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR DR. NAJDAT KADHIM MOOSA

NOVEMBER 2012

I certify that this dissertation "Condemnation of Personal and Social Evils in Lillian Hellman's Plays" was prepared under my supervision at the University of Sulaimani as a partial fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature.

Signature: Supervisor: Dr. Najdat Kadhim Moosa Date: 24/11/2012

In view of the available recommendations, I forward this dissertation for debate by the Examination Committee.

Signature: Name: Dr. Muhammad H. Ahmed Head of English Department Date: 24/11/2012

ii

We certify that we have read this dissertation and as examining committee examined the student in its contents, and that in our opinion, it is adequate with the standing

as a dissertation for the degree

of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature.

Signature:

Signature:

Name:

Name:

Chairman

Member

Signature:

Signature:

Name:

Name:

Member

Member

Signature:

Signature:

Name:

Name:

Member

Supervisor

Approved by the Council of the Faculty of Education.

Signature: Name: Dean of Faculty of Education. Date: 24/11/2012

iii

‫بسم اهلل الرمحن الرحيم‬

‫من‬ ‫م ْثقالَ َذرَّةٍ خَ ْيرًا يَ َرهُ وَ َ‬ ‫ل ِ‬ ‫م ْ‬ ‫ع َ‬ ‫من يَ ْ‬ ‫* َف َ‬ ‫م ْثقالَ َذرَّةٍ شَرًا يَ َرهُ *‬ ‫ل ِ‬ ‫م ْ‬ ‫ع َ‬ ‫َي ْ‬

‫صدق هللا العظيم‬ ‫(سورة الزلزلة‪-‬االيات ‪7‬و‪) 8‬‬

‫‪iv‬‬

To The meaning of innocence: *DIYAR*

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Assistant Professor Dr. Najdat Kadhim Moosa for his invaluable instructions, guidance, skillful notes and remarks, and also for his careful reading of the drafts of my dissertation.

Also I would like to express my deep gratitude to Professor Dr. Hamdi H. Al-Duri for suggesting the topic of my dissertation and for his help, instructions, and encouragement.

I am also indebted to Dr. Muhammad H. Ahmed, Head of English Department- Faculty of Education for his sympathy and support.

I express my gratitude and indebtedness to all the great scholars, the Assistant Professors of English literature who taught me at the Ph.D courses, I am really thankful.

My thanks extend to all my colleagues in the Department of English for their continuous assistance.

Special thanks go to the staff members of The Central Library in Yale University for their generous help and support.

vi

ABSTRACT Lillian Hellman (1905-1984), is an American playwright whose name is associated with the moral values of the early twentieth century. Her plays are remarkable for the moral themes that they deal with and the evils that they condemn. They are distinguished, as well, for the depiction of characters who are still alive in the American drama for their vivid personality, effective role and realistic portrayal.

This study is an attempt to shed light on the major personal and social evils in three of Hellman's plays; evils such as lying, greed and fascism that plagued the American society and the world as a whole, especially in the first half of the twentieth century. These are the evils that Hellman attacks and condemns in her plays. This study falls into four chapters and a conclusion.

Chapter One is introductory; it is divided into four sections. Section One deals with modern American drama focusing on the major modern American male playwrights. Section Two is about modern American women playwrights with their major works which were marginalized during their time. Section Three is about Hellman' life and works, while Section Four deals with her political ideas because she is famous for her humanitarian activities that are attributed, by some of the critics, to her political commitments.

Chapter Two studies Hellman's famous play The Children's Hour. This chapter is divided into four sections. Section One is a summary of the play. Section Two analyzes the major characters of the play who vii

represent the opposite powers in the struggle between good and evil. Section Three tackles the main themes that Hellman adopts to depict and criticize the evils in her society and any other place in the world. Section Four is a critical study of the evil of lying as a destructive power in the play and hence in reality.

Chapter Three is devoted to the study of The Little Foxes, one of Hellman's successful plays. The chapter falls into four sections. Section One is a summary of the play. Section Two studies the major characters of the play, especially the evil nature of the Hubbards and the innocence of their victims. Section Three tackles the main themes of the play, mainly the evils of greed and capitalism. Section Four is about the struggle for money, as it is depicted in the play and about Hellman's condemnation of this evil.

Chapter Four is concerned with Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, her anti-Nazi play. The chapter is divided into four sections. Section One is a summary of the play. Section Two gives an analysis of the main characters; it studies their distinguishing characteristics, their motives, and shows the evil side of the characters. Section Three is devoted to the main themes of fascism and the contrast between the Americans and the Europeans, through which Hellman criticizes her nation for their naivety. Section Four deals with the evil of fascism and the danger of political passivism. It sheds light on the individuals' failure to try to fulfill the demands of conscience; freedom, liberty and justice due to their naivety. The section shows how Hellman strongly attacks and condemns that evil in the play. The last part of the study is the Conclusion that sums up the main findings of the study followed by the Bibliography. viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Subject

Page

Acknowledgments

vi

Abstract

vii

Chapter One: Modern American Drama

1

1.1 Modern American Drama

2

1.2 Modern American Women Playwrights

11

1.3 Lillian Hellman: The Woman, The Playwright

23

1.4 Hellman's Political Ideas

43

Notes

46

Chapter Two: The Children's Hour

60

2.1 The Summary of the Play

61

2.2 Characterization

64

2.2.1 Mary Tilford and Mrs. Lily Mortar

65

2.2.2 Karen Wright and Martha Dobie

70

2.2.3 Mrs. Amelia Tilford and Dr. Joseph Cardin

73

2.3 Themes

77

2.3.1 Good versus Evil

77

2.3.2 Lesbianism

79

2.4 The Destructive Power of lying

81

Notes

86

Chapter Three: The Little Foxes

92

3.1 The Summary of the Play

93

3.2 Characterization

97

3.2.1 The Hubbards "Evil Doers"

97

3.2.2 The Innocent Characters

106 ix

3.3 Themes

111

3.3.1 Greed

112

3.3.2 Capitalism

113

3.4 The Struggle for Wealth and Worship of Money: The Absence of the Spiritual Side of Life

117

Notes

122

Chapter Four: Watch on the Rhine

128

4.1 The Summary of the Play

129

4.2 Characterization

133

4.2.1 Active Characters

133

4.2.2 Evil Characters

137

4.2.3 Passive Characters Turn into Active Members

139

4.3 Themes

141

4.3.1 Fascism

141

4.3.2 The Contrast Between Americans and Europeans

143

4.4 Fascism and Political Passivism: Dictates of Conscience; Freedom and Liberty

145

Notes

150

Conclusion

155

Bibliography

159

x

CHAPTER ONE MODERN AMERICAN DRAMA

1

2

1.1 Modern American Drama American drama, like other branches of American literature, has been influenced by the various sweeping economic , political, social, and cultural changes of the modern world. Playwrights in particular and writers in general depend heavily on the varied sources and changes in the world which happened during and after the two world wars. Different types of political and social movements and trends inspired different themes and stories; changed the identity of the protagonist from an idealized hero into an isolated and annihilated individual. Moreover, the notion of heroism entered a new realm; the hero no more finds glory in war or triumph in fighting, the victory is to overcome the psychological trauma of the age. All the new themes and stories motivated the writers to search for new

designs and forms to articulate their new

perspectives. Focusing on drama, each playwright tried to search for a new outlet to deliver his new experience in a world, which above all other descriptions can be called chaotic. Hence, not only literature but also the other modernist artistic categories such as "painting , sculpture, dance , musical composition" as Roger Lathbury says, "seem deliberately chaotic" and thus, Lathbury adds "...the first reaction to works of modernist art can be disorienting because it is often difficult to know even where they begin"1.

Studying or writing about modern playwrights with different notions, techniques, approaches to the problems of the age, and forms of their work needs a wide coverage due to the innumerable perspectives on life and the entanglements which the modern individuals

in general

and

the

modern

playwrights in particular are trapped in.

No literary treatment of modern American drama will be a sufficient one without the usual survey of the most notable American playwrights, those who characterized American drama with its best distinct features . They

3

endowed American drama with its peculiar identity through the use of American English, theme, way of characterization, setting, image, and style. Employing these distinctive features, the

playwrights critically commented on their

changing society and country. One of the unifying themes that, not only the dramatists but also the writers as a whole portrayed in their works, is the theme of the American Dream and the disillusionment it caused for the modern American man. "To

the dramatists of the twentieth

century", as

Arthur

Hobson Quinn in his essay about modern American drama argues, " liberty alone has not been sufficient. To them the preservation of the rights of the individual has been all important…but above all the pursuit of happiness has been an enthralling theme"2.And thus because of that, the American playwrights, those who were engrossed by the conditions of the American citizen "were faced with alienated characters whose conflicts were not dependant upon external events but internal psychological ones"3. Sharing the European dramatists the themes of love, doubt, failure, sympathy..etc. does not mean to accuse the American drama of no peculiarity or of no distinctive features of its own . One of the basic qualities of any art is freedom. The American playwright:

... must be free to base his play upon a study of the great universal passions, love, hate, jealousy, fear, and doubt, or upon the universal sentiments of pity, terror, and sympathy. These are not the exclusive possessions of British or Continental dramatists, and the American playwright must not be driven into the peculiar, the odd, or the trivial because he has to do things differently from any of his distinguished predecessors across the 4 water .

Any study of the twentieth century American drama should begin with a general survey of the main drama forms and its condition in the nineteenth century for the America witnessed multifactorial changes; social, economic,

4

and political especially the civil war and its consequences. The growth of nineteenth century drama in America did

not match the progress that the

European drama witnessed especially in the last decades of the nineteenth century. In Europe Ibsen followed by Bernard Shaw established a new trend in the theatrical experience called 'theatre of discussion' . Besides, August Strindberg's naturalistic plays along with other great works made their way towards the radical changes in drama. And because any form of artistic production depends on the history of the country and

the changing

circumstances because art in general and literature in particular is the mirror of life and changes with the changes in life, the development of the literary forms in America was delayed, and as the drama critic Brander Matthews said , American drama at the beginning of the nineteenth century was "shabby in structure and shambling in action" and those who worked in the field had not "taken the trouble to learn [their] trade"5. And hence the drama preceding the civil war: …tended to be derivative in form, imitating European melodramas…playwrights were limited by a set of features, including the need for plays to be profitable, the middlebrow tastes of American theatre goers, and the lack of copyright protection and 6 compensation for playwrights . Because of the rapid growth in industrialization, facilities in transportation system, and increase in population, American drama took the form of trade. The producers played a great role in choosing the type of plays to be performed and the demand was heavily on entertainments especially before the midnineteenth century and the dominant form was melodrama. But gradually the nation, which faced serious problems of racism and slavery and because of the new focus in drama on realism, became aware of the need for realistic drama rather than mere entertainment. Thus plays with serious plots appeared. The plays of the time were native in content and to a great extent adaptations from other literary forms. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

5

was one of the biggest theatrical events of the nineteenth century for the plot served the circumstances; the life and the rights of the slaves, and the inhumane treatment they were receiving from their masters. It is worth mentioning that it was "not until about 1915 that the whole American theatre began to play catchup with the terrific advances that European drama had been making already since the 1870's and 80's"7. Concerning the theatrical forms in the 19th century, the Ethnic theatre was a popular one for: …despite the nagging sense that theatre was potentially subversive, Americans, during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, had begun to lay aside their religious concerns and accept theatre as a significant means of cultural expression8. Each group brought its cultural forms and native folks to be performed. They performed plays which showed aspects of their culture and their race. Each cultural group of immigrants; Germans, Irish, Jewish, or Chinese tried to have their ethnic play or more specifically their minstrelsy in which the characters,

usually Irish, were painting their faces to imitate African

Americans. Mostly the aim of minstrelsies was entertainment. Portraying the African American in such a lowly state did not last so long for in some plays the "noble savage" appeared and affected the audience. Metamora (1829) written

by

American

John character

Augustus Stone portrayed who

dies

the heroism

of

a Native

after recording his chivalric and gentle

attitude in his war against the white man. The Jewish immigrants were among the ethnic groups who established their Yiddish theatre and among their playwrights was Joseph Latteiner (1853-1935). Latteiner in his David's Violin (1897) delivers a message that music is a powerful factor for healing9. Entertainment was not the only need of the era for, as it was previously mentioned, the need for a realistic embodiment of the conditions in America

6

was an urgent demand. That is why by the end of the nineteenth century realism appeared

as a new trend in American drama. Realism "was a

revolt against the melodramatic excesses of the romantic style, which had gone from bad to worse as the century progressed"10. And while the American society in the nineteenth century was enforced "to conform to a single, fundamental, homogeneous overarching moral paradigm"11, the twentieth century America opposed such attitudes and the playwrights began to deal with the problems of their society including sexual matters and women's rights.

One of the prominent figures of modern American drama is Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953), the father of serious twentieth century American drama and the son of an Irish immigrant actor called James O'Neill. In his plays O'Neill tried to revolt against what he experienced as a child with theatre through his father; his revolt was against the artificiality of the romantic substances. What he disliked was the artificial treatment of human suffering to turn to romantic materials that no more suited the mood of the age. His plays are a mixture of realism and expressionism though in many occasions he denied any influence of the German movement of "Expressionism". His expressionism is a peculiar one since for him expressionism "is a means of universalizing human experience" rather than reducing "character to an abstraction, a cipher, a mere symbol"12 as the artists of the German theatre tended to do. And thus, O'Neill's expressionism "provided him with a formal vocabulary for creating his early psychological

portraits of

humanity in

conflict with the spiritual universe"13. His characters are ordinary people trapped in the innumerable problems of existence; social, political, economic, and many others to lead them towards their 'pipe dreams' and consequently towards disillusionment.

7

Modern American drama is indebted to Provincetown Players , a company of noncommercial theatre established in 1915 mainly by Susan Glaspell and her husband to produce new American plays for introducing O'Neill to the world as an American dramatist. Along with other American

dramatists,

O'Neill produced many one-act plays such as Bound East for Cardiff to assert his own and his group's great reputation. Associated with the realistic trend O'Neill's most successful plays deal with the theme of family life and the estrangement among its members. This attitude towards life and existence was articulated by the influences of his family life; his relationship with his parents and brother, his brother's alcoholism and death, his own life with his wives and children. Tom Scanlan

in

his

book,

Family, Drama,

and

American Dreams, suggests that O'Neill in most of his plays tried to illustrate that the broken relationship and struggle among the family members and the cause of an individual's destruction are all caused by the influences of the family

upon the individual

which

lead him to his isolation

and

destruction. In Beyond the Horizon (1920) the wrong decision and judgment in following one's ambitions leads to "a self-defeating" life. Robert declines his ambition ,which is going off to sea, and stays in the family farm and hence his health is ruined and death becomes his final station. While Andrew's involvement in getting material goals turns his life into an illusion and thus spiritually he dies14.

Such realistic elements and domestic dilemma that O'Neill dealt with in his plays are inseparable from the life of the Americans who realized by the time that their dream of happiness, success, and equality had been corrupted by material indulgence. In The Hairy Ape (1922) he shows the audience one of the tragic stories that humanity has ever known. The play tells the story of Yank, a lower class man and a stoker in a steamship. Yank's job turns him into a machine but in his inner world he still yearns for a better life on land and at the same time he asks the "existential question; Where do I fit in?" and like

8

most of O'Neill's characters " is destroyed by his inefficacy in a world that has no use for him … [he] may be the force behind technology, but once his usefulness expires he is just an 'ape'"15. O'Neill's success resides in such psychological and effective portrayal of human tragedy, of man's insufficiency to be adapted to the new and phony life. His characters are universal characters who can be seen everywhere and as he says" Yank is really yourself, and myself. He is every human being"16. They are individuals in struggle with life who are doomed to failure due to the various forces that suppress their power to resist.

Another

modern

playwright

in

American

history

is Tennessee

Williams(1911-1983) whose work proves to be a reflection, in a way or another, of at least one aspect or element of his life. The autobiographical elements are quite evident in his plays. Born into a sexually dysfunctional family in

Mississippi, Williams and his siblings, Rose and Dakin, were

emotionally and psychologically affected by the struggle between "the deeply repressed, puritanical mother" and "a hard-drinking, profane, restless"17father. Each one of the three children faced problems concerning sex and sexual identity. Williams struggled for years to identify his sexual tendencies until he became a homosexual in his late twenties. The world of a home full of crises, mental breakdowns, isolation, violence and hatred provided Williams with most of the themes of his plays and formed an inescapable background for his characters. The environment of the rigid society of the south remained with him in all stages of life and to say that: …this environment did him no psychological harm, or that Williams lacked any trace of homophobia, would be foolish. The society that provided Tennessee Williams with so much of his material also did him considerable psychic damage18.

9

Williams carried out a task of revealing and discussing what the individuals were suffering from in the modern world. He began his career with a

collection of one-act plays but his major success came with The Glass

Menagerie in 1945.It is a play about isolation and escapism , about living in the glorious past to avoid the harsh reality embodied in the character of Amanda who, as the

author says, "having failed to establish contact with

reality, continues to live vitally in her illusion"19. Amanda, a former southern belle, tries to find 'gentlemen callers' for her crippled daughter, Laura, who lives in isolation with her glass animals. Tom who escaped the unbearable family life, recollects his memories about his mother and sister regrets and feels sad for leaving them alone20. Unable to forget his own family plight and emotional trauma, Williams expressed his

anxieties

and repressed

feelings about his mother and sister in this play through the character of Tom who " escapes from [the] interfusion of mankind, as well as from his family, and attains some individuality by traversing the globe"21. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) Williams again tackles the theme of guilt and dysfunction

to

show

the

human

sexual

suffering and annihilation from his

surroundings that impose choices on the individuals while they have not the slightest desire to adopt. Brick Pollitt is suffering

from sexual dysfunction

and a sense of guilt towards a gay friend, Skippe, who commits suicide after being rejected by Brick. Tom and Brick like William's other characters are memorable characters because of their psychological suffering that makes them tragic heroes sharing everyone's feeling of rage, isolation, and lack of courage to continue or to overcome the difficulties and hence living in bewilderment and confusion.

Another American playwright of the twentieth century is Arthur Miller (1915-2005) whose contribution to American drama had enriched its national identity. Miller's plays centre on the problems that family members face because of different causes associated with the rapid changes of the world but

01

particularly the material factors that dragged the individual out of his family to face an endless alienation and psychological plight. In most of his plays Miller tries to mix and keep the balance between two impulses "one related to the question of making the world into a home ; and the other… impulse to show the struggle of the individual escaping from the family"22. Miller was born into a German-Jewish family. His father's

prosperous job, cloth manufacturing,

collapsed during the Great Depression in 1929. Miller's attempts to earn money for his college education and his work in a warehouse of automobile-parts provided him with materials for his artistic work as a playwright. In the 1930s the world as a whole witnessed the Spanish civil war, the rise of Hitler and his fascism, and the Marxist movement. It was during this period that Miller grew into an active and educated individual who delivered his ideas through his plays23.

Death of a Salesman (1949) is Miller's Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award for best play, and New York Drama Critics' Circle Award winning play. In this play the name of the protagonist 'Loman' is suggestive. The name suggests Willy Loman's low class level and the play is a fusion of Willy's day dreams and flashbacks. And thus Miller blends realism with expressionism to deliver Willy's experiences and desperation with life. Willy tries unsuccessfully to teach his sons how to be successful salesmen and well-liked in society. But being unable to face reality and to grasp the unlimited possibility that his ancestors enjoyed, Willy finds refuge in daydreams and hallucination, which end with his death, to embody the tragic end of the American Dream. Moreover, in his endless attempts to be a family provider and supporter Willy turns his family life into a failure24. Thus the play, in addition to the other issues it raises, "is a criticism of society for using Willy and failing to provide him with outlets for his creativity˗˗symbolized by his gardening and his carpentry"25. In spite of his suicide, Willy Loman became one of the vital characters in American literature.

00

Thus, the drama of

the

three previous playwrights portrayed

criticized the American

life in all its aspects, the disintegration

American

the

family, and

failure

of

of

the American Dream. For

and the such

depictions they employed various elements and themes; "the lost protagonist confronting apparitions from the past, the isolated individual

seeking

connection in a godless 'wasteland' of modern technocracy"26. Many other names of potential

playwrights appeared in the scene during the twentieth

century and they established their dramatic foundation with an eye on the art of their predecessors. Reading the previous pages, it seems that the modern American drama had

been articulated, given

peculiarity and

developed by the production of the male playwrights. But the fact is that along with the male playwrights of the twentieth century, there were numerous names of women playwrights who had participated in the development of American drama

but

their

literary contribution had

been marginalized

by literary historians and critics. Most of the women playwrights began writing when American drama was on its way towards establishment as a worldwide drama, while the result was to magnify the works of men playwrights. With the coming of the twentieth century numerous women took playwriting as their job, earning the cost of their living but also adding to the development of American theatre. Their efforts and achievements were either neglected or under attacks not because of literary deficiency but because they were written by women.

1.2 Modern American Women Playwrights Most of the women playwrights of the early twentieth century have depicted the life of the 'New Woman' of the era; her problems of working outside home, the struggle between marriage and career, the hostility towards the working woman and many other problems. Through their works they are "documenting

the

personal

and professional

problems faced by

career

02

women and protesting social conditions that interfered with women's pursuit of economic independence"27. Such issues were and still constituting the core of the works of most of the women writers.

Rachel Crothers (1876?-1958) is one of the

most prominent women

playwrights in the early twentieth century who skillfully wrote commercially successful plays which were concerned with the social and domestic problems of women. She was born into an educated family and even as a teenager, Crothers wrote a play. Graduated from the high school at about 13 and then got an M.A at the New England School of Drama. Crothers continued her career as instructor, playwright, actress, and director. As a playwright, she began with one ‫ـ‬act plays. Her success came with The Three of Us (1906). This early play centers on the protagonist, Rhy, who confronts many problems and insists that women's honour is in her hands not any other one's hands. The image of Rhy as a female protagonist having independent opinions was Crothers' innovation; she broke with the dramatic tradition of obedient and submissive females. Her females do not hide themselves in the shadows of the males when

they

face the troubles of life. They face their problems; they are the image of the new woman who seek freedom and independence and this attitude was not a conventional one for the era28.

Crothers depicted the social problems of her age in her realistic plays. Being influenced by Ibsen and his realistic treatment of his subject matters, she saw theatre as a mirror of life. In her own opinion the stage: …reflects life, it doesn't invent it....The change of codes, morals, and manners that we find now shocking in the theatre, could not be there and would not be tolerated if it were not already a pervading thing in the world. The theatre is made up of all of us. Everything we are

03

and do and think and believe gets into the theatre˗˗it is the mirror of life29. Throughout her career she wrote about forty plays in which she discussed woman's issues but mainly her equality with men. Her plays ,especially her late plays are

with humorous, comic plots to entertain the audience

because entertainment was one of the needs of the people at that time .But she skillfully blended humor with seriousness to raise questions about woman's rights and her position in society. In Susan and God (1937) Crothers treats Susan's religious conviction in a comic way. The play "satirizes the attempt to import meaning into the empty lives of the idle rich by latching onto 'spiritual' fads and enthusiasms"30. Following the rising actions of the plot "Susan finds that her newly found religious convictions is a sham, but that she can fill her empty life with a real family relationship with her husband and daughter"31. In spite of all her achievements and contribution to modern American drama, Crothers' work was marginalized by her contemporary critics and

reviewers. The influential academic critics of American drama

continued that marginalization during the thirties by setting Crothers' work outside the "main stream of male playwrights and dismissing it as a 'feminine' footnote"32. But the women playwrights did not give up the career as it is shown in Susan Glaspell's

career (1876-1948).

She was the founder of

Provincetown Players and a prominent playwright, journalist, short

story

writer, director, novelist, actor, and theatrical producer. After graduation from Drake University, Glaspell

worked in journalism but after two years

she abandoned journalism to be a fiction writer. In 1913 she married George Cram Cook, a writer and theatrical producer. Together they founded the Provincetown Players company in 1915 which aimed at producing plays by American playwrights to be an experimental field for them. Many great dramatists sprang from Provincetown Players and Glaspell was one of them. She wrote plays, acted, directed, and produced them.

04

For her Alison's Room she got Pulitzer Prize for drama (1930). It is a play based on Emily Dickinson's life33. The play centers on Alison, the poetess who had died 18 years earlier. Alison suppresses her love for a married man and isolates herself to write poetry while her niece, Elsa, elopes with her lover, a married man. The play portrays the conflict between the values of two different generations; the "conservative narrow-minded American values [that] Glaspell rejected throughout her writing career"34 and the new values of the twentieth century generation which are based on personal freedom, individual's right in love and marriage, and women's search for self-definition. Like most of the playwrights of the era, Glaspell employed realism and expressionism as her style for the depiction of women's life in the modern age. Concerning her expressionistic method, she emphasized the importance of subordinating "exterior forms…in favor of inner reality"35, the inner mind of her female protagonists those who, in some of her plays, "resist [the] new cultural imperative in their attempt to bring the best parts of the past forward while attempting to create new forms in the present that will, in turn, benefit the future"36. She created her type of heroines whose aim was not to reject the values of the nineteenth century altogether but to employ what is beneficial to improve the present and brighten the future to secure a better position for the American woman in society. But at the same time the author and the protagonists are "aware that they transgress the laws of society and the retribution will follow"37. In

Trifles (1916) Susan Glaspell

explores the world of an absent woman who is in jail and is accused of murdering her husband. The play's event is 'crime' but its focus is the real crime of the protagonist, Mrs. Wright's destruction and subjugation by the restriction of a loveless marriage. The play is: …an attempt to awaken audiences to the dilemmas of womanhood at a time when women were still considered second-class citizens. Feminism was in its infancy, and even its supporters were

05

at times lead38.

ambivalent about where it might

Mrs. Wright's absence, in addition to being a theatrical device to

get

information about her life and the crime, allows the author to make the audience feel and share her feelings and motives. But what should be said if the men, those who investigate the crime, are convinced formerly before finding any evidence that Mrs. Wright is guilty? They do not listen to what the two women, the wives of two of them, might say about the crime and they treat their opinions with scorn and regard it as 'trifles'39.With such themes of feminist concerns Susan Glaspell asserted her role as a modernist and feminist playwright but unjustly she was erased, like other women playwrights of the first half of the century, from the literary canon. Veronica Makowsky in "Susan Glaspell and Melodrama" asserts this idea saying:

In the aftermath of the First World War, modernism became associated with largely conservative male artists and essayists, the New Critics, who, paradoxically, wanted to define a modernist tradition based on once startling, but now codified techniques, not further innovation. The canon valorized Ezra Pound, not H.D.; Ernest Hemingway, not Gertrude Stein; and of course, Eugene O'Neill, not Susan Glaspell, one of American literature's greatest but least-known writers40. Though she is the least-known playwright, Susan Glaspell's contribution to American drama and literature as a whole is not less than those of her contemporary male playwrights as nowadays the interest in her works validates her position among the great American playwrights.

Another woman playwright whose work had been neglected is Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970). She was born into a family of a weak, dependent

06

mother and a careless, neglectful father. The type of the relationship between her father and mother and the image of her mother as a weak, dependent woman affected Sophie's life and career. Not only her parents but also her grandmother's image as an independent woman deeply affected Sophie for she was the opposite of Sophie's mother concerning her power to maintain her estate after her husband's death. These two different images of strong and weak women provided Sophie with two different models for her own characters. As a mature girl she wished to be an independent woman like her grandmother but at the same time she was aware that she might inherit her mother's weak character. This ambivalent attitude can be traced in her plays especially depicting her women characters. In 1902 she attended the University of California at Berkeley. During her years in the university she developed her skills in acting, playwriting, and journalism. In 1910 she married William O. McGeehan, a sports writer. Though her marriage was not void of problems, it was not the kind of marriage that she detected in her plays but her parent's marriage was the model41.

Concerning her ideas as a young woman and a writer having a kind of independence, the type of 'The New Woman', "Treadwell believed passionately in the progressive advances in sexual equality and women's independence. Yet many of her plays often reveal ambivalence about the actualization of such equality"42. Sophie Treadwell's plays mainly, like her contemporary women playwrights, deal with women's life and suffering especially those who are entrapped in a loveless marriage. In her most successful play Machinal (1928) she employs expressionistic techniques through the "theory of Unconscious Projection, using sounds, monologues, lighting, and fragmentary dialogue to suggest rather than to define the action for the audience"43. What Treadwell tried to do was to make the audience know about the Young Woman's life condition. Also to be aware about the social and economic factors that pushed her to marry her employer and then to murder him after having an affair with a

07

man of adventure who leaves her alone. This loneliness and her feeling of being confined in a loveless marriage full of rage and hatred, lead her towards murder and conviction. The play ends with the protagonist's execution. This nine- scene play was based on a real case of Ruth Snyder's murder of her husband and the conviction of the two; Mrs.Snyder and her lover Gray44. Treadwell did not aim at legitimatizing a crime but aimed at presenting a woman's case "who feels pressured by the 'rules' of the traditional marriage to be intimate with a man against her will"45. In her treatment of the protagonist's case, Treadwell named her ' The Young Woman' to suggest that this young woman is every young woman who lives in such a condition. She gave her heroine a universal identity to represent any woman who lives in a brutal society which does not seek the real and hidden reasons behind the crime and does not offer the women opportunities equal to those offered to men. Treadwell's drama asserts its place as a modern drama dealing with the psychology of the female protagonists; their inner frustrations, and isolation in a materialistic, spiritless world. She had her own theatrical voice in a patriarchal society in which primacy was always for men. Like most of her contemporary women playwrights she was excluded from the literary canon. Her talents in employing modern and experimental tools in theatre never disappointed her. Her use of "distorted stage sets, lighting and

costumes…symbolic

setting,

short,

jerky

speeches…machine-like

movements"46and other expressionistic methods proves that she was a woman writer of experience who did not withdrew from the conflict against patriarchy.

One of the women playwrights who wrote structurally tight, thematically meaningful and purposeful, and technically modern plays is Lillian Hellman (1905-1984). Though her name and her works had been obscured by some patriarchal critics in their critical judgment of modern American drama, Hellman's contribution is not less than that of the male playwrights. Her plays deal with life and its psychological, economic, social, and political concerns. If other women playwrights were involved in women's issues and their rights and

08

duties, their equality with men and their independence, Hellman has gone beyond all these to deal with the issues of humanity as a whole. She preferred to tackle the themes of human beings' problems rather than women's alone; the themes of the modern individual who is in a continuous struggle with a materialistic surroundings. To illustrate the destructive nature of the evil factors mainly

social, personal, and political, Hellman wrote purposeful plays that

gained popularity in the first half of the twentieth century.

In The Children's Hour (1934) her first hit play, Hellman demonstrates the power of a lie in the destruction of human's career and life. The play is about two school teachers, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, who run a boarding school for girls and whose life and job are destroyed by a lie told by one of their evil students, Mary Tilford. Mary has run from the school and in order not to be sent back to school she tells a lie to her grandmother that her headmistresses are lesbians. The lie ruins the life of the two. And thus Mary's lie and community's readiness to believe and spread this lie destroy the lives of innocent individuals47. Hellman's second successful play is The Little Foxes (1939). This domestic play shows the nature of greed and wild ambitions in a materialistic society in which no sign of spirituality can be traced, but all that can be found is materialism as a goal in life. The play portrays the members of the Hubbard family and their relationship with each other. It also depicts the influence of money upon them and how it strips them of their humanity. The merciless members of the family are inspired by Hellman's maternal relatives. They compete with each other to control the family business to the extent of committing blackmail and murder48.

Hellman's plays represent life and show the influence of the dominant realistic trend of the era. In each play, she faithfully depicts the life of the American family and the dangers that surround it from different sides especially that of capitalism, fascism, and the growth of social ills and evils. And due to

09

her powerful personality as a playwright, who strove to find her way among men playwrights of the era, she was acknowledged as a skilful and successful woman playwright in most of the theatrical studies of the twentieth century. Hellman's reputation as a serious playwright lies behind the fact that "she never wrote a play merely to entertain an audience, to win fame, or to make money, she never wrote a line without trying to say something that would help man to escape or offset the effects of ignorance and wrong thinking"49. What she dealt with was the illustration of good versus evil; two powers associated with the values of the past and the artificial values of the modern age each trying to overcome the other. And as Hellman said about herself, she was "a moral writer, often too moral a writer"50.Thus her plays are pieces of moral demonstrations about life and the wrong doings in life.

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (1930-1965) is one of the African American women playwrights and the first to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Hansberry's family was a middle-class family living in the southern side of Chicago. When she was at seven her family moved into a restricted white neighborhood. They were rejected and courted for that movement and also hurt by white mobs. The story provided her with the main idea of her best play A Raisin in the Sun (1959). Through her university education she became familiar with the works of Strindberg and Ibsen and learnt the craft from the masters. During her life time she worked for the civil rights and women's issues. In 1953 she married Robert Nemiroff, a white writer who encouraged her to write51.

Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun contains autobiographical elements such as the family movement into a white neighborhood and the suffering of a black family. The struggle begins when Lena's husband leaves $10,000 for his family after his death. Walter, Lena's married son wants the money for investment in liquor business while the rest members; Beneatha, the daughter,

21

Ruth, Walter's wife and their son Travis, plan to buy a house in a white neighborhood. But eventually Walter comes into a sudden realization and stands beside his family when they refuse to sell the house and face the white community52. Thus in one play, Hansberry dealt with more than one topic. She shed light on the challenge that the black families faced in a white community and showed the strength of the black woman in managing and securing a better life for her family and herself. In addition to Lena's character, Beneatha symbolizes the strong willed character of the black woman. She is the type of 'evolving black woman' that Hansberry depicted in her plays. Beneatha plans to become a doctor and she refuses to marry and submit to men because in the two suitors she comes to see the image of patronizing, selfish and shallow men who think that women's normal position is home. She insists on pursuing her education to have a successful career53. And thus Hansberry through her female protagonists wanted to assert that her: …mothers…repudiate the negative image of black women as passive and/or destructive. Indeed, the playwright has created women who contribute not only to the survival of their families and communities, but also to the active resistance often necessary to that survival54. In spite of her short life (35 years), Hansberry succeeded in adding a number of well constructed and successful plays to American drama's masterpieces. She contributed to the black drama as she was the first African American woman playwright to be rewarded with the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

The last of this list of women playwrights is Wendy Wasserstein (19502006). She was born into a Jewish family and was educated in New York. She studied at Mount Holyoke College and the Yale School of

Drama.

Wasserstein's concerns in her plays are the modern American woman's issues

20

especially her struggle in a materialistic, male dominated society and her attempts to assert her position as an active member. Her play Uncommon Women and Others (1977) depicts the theme of women evaluating their lives in terms of achieving their aims. She wrote about realistic subject matters in the shape of comedies. Her best known play is The Heidi Chronicles (1988). The play deals with the life of Heidi Holland, a professor of art history in Columbia University, depicting decades of her life in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s55. It centers on her struggle against society's dominant attitude towards women and its negligence of women artists. The play also shows Heidi's disillusionment and disappointment that she witnesses throughout her life concerning the distortion of the idealism of the early phase of feminism that existed in the sixties. She is mainly disillusioned when she sees, after years, that her friends are excited and taken by the new material values of the eighties accepting and practicing what they previously had rejected 56. Her closest friend Susan, gives up her ideals and searches for a man to marry and "ends the play a successful business woman with a hit show, but she leads a shallow, unhappy, and intrinsically unfulfilled life"57 while Heidi at the end of the play "wins what she has most desired all along, confidence in her own ability to choose what she does with her own life, regardless of social expectations"58 when she adopts a baby to embody her ambitions and beliefs in life. And thus as a main concern of Wasserstein, the play: …exposes the marginalization of women artists, egregious sexism, women's loss of identity, the collapse of marriage as a sacred contract, the difficulty that women face in negotiating between fulfilling professional and personal lives, and the lost idealism of early feminism59. Her career as a playwright of comedies defies the idea that women

have

no sense of humour60. Wasserstein and her fellow women playwrights of the twentieth century, proved their ability in writing various types of plays;

22

comedies, tragedies with various kinds of political, social, economic, and racial themes in different styles. But because of their main concern, that of feminism (except for Hellman whose concern was mostly humanism rather

than

feminism) most women playwrights, especially those of the first half of the twentieth century, have followed the trend of realism. Moreover, most of them have been interested in and influenced by Ibsen's feminist attitude and his type of realism. Crothers, Glaspell, Treadwell, Hellman, Hansberry, Wasserstein, and many other women playwrights: …were mirroring the society of their time in the plays and also taking part in the development of realism in the American theatre…[Ibsen's] influence on Crothers and other twentieth century women playwrights is …clear and set them apart from the many women writing artificially contrived, 61 conventional plays . But although the women playwrights of the twentieth century have contributed much with their great plays to American drama, they have not received what they deserved. Their works are not a part of the literary critical discussions; they are marginalized in favor of the works of the men playwrights. And as Bigsby says: There is no doubting the justice of observations about the marginalizing of women and women's experience in American drama, no doubting either the degree to which the American theatre has, in terms of theatre ownership, authorship, direction, design and reviewing, been a substantially male affair62. For the women playwrights it was not an easy task to secure their place as serious and influential playwrights in a male supremacy world. It took much of their life and efforts but they strove against the current and won. With their themes and their focus on woman's issues, playwrights like Crothers and others

23

engraved their names in the literary canon of American drama. Also with such playwrights like Hellman American drama embraced the new female perspectives about humanity and the collapse of the old and established values of the Americans. Hellman through her plays aims at diagnosing the social and personal ills that plighted her society and condemns them when she, fearlessly, illuminates its danger upon humanity as a whole.

1.3 Lillian Hellman: The Woman, The Playwright It is not a secret that Hellman's life and memoirs more than her plays were, and are still a spotlight for the critical circle and a state of grandeur for the American public, for a set of reasons. Some reasons are related to her powerful personality, some to her adventures and experiences but more to her humanitarian, moral, and political posture. Lillian Florence Hellman was born on June 20, 1905 in New Orleans as the only child to Max Hellman and Julia Newhouse. Max's family had come to New Orleans from Germany between the years 1845and 1848. He worked as a bookkeeper then a salesman and after that the president of Hellman Shoe Company in 190563. Max and his two unmarried sisters won Lillian's love as a child, for they, as she says in her An Unfinished Woman, "were free, generous, funny"64. And as an only child she was surrounded by love and given the uttermost freedom that the only child always enjoys.

Her mother's family had come from Demopolis, Alabama and Cincinnati, Ohio to settle in New Orleans and then in New York. Julia's mother Sophie Marx married Leonard Newhouse, a rich business man, to become Sophie Newhouse and, later, to be a model for her granddaughter's tough female characters. She dominated her three daughters and son but not her brother Jake who was a successful wealthy banker65. Hellman's forebears from her mother and father's side had come from Germany during the 1840s and as William Wright states "[a] good many of these mid-nineteenth century settlers in

24

Alabama were Jewish"66. But she never took her Jewishness seriously or even she "frequently made anti-Semitic remarks. Her sentiments were revealed by her utterance that her apartment building in Manhattan was home to 'an awful lot of kikes' "67. What is clear is that Hellman defended and sympathized with people's plight all over the world but she felt stronger ties with her nation; her American nation.

The two different worlds of her father in New Orleans and her mother's family in New York affected the little child deeply. But even as a small girl, Hellman could make the difference and as she says,"[i]t was not unnatural that my first love went to my father's family" (An Unfinished Woman, p.5) since with her two aunts and their boardinghouse, she enjoyed the warmth, love, and simplicity that she needed as a child. She was able to see that the Newhouses were rich while her father was poor, and as a result she was living in a state of ambivalence or what can be called 'a double vision' and she kept that vision when she grew up. With the Newhouses and their rich house and moneyobsessed dinner meetings, Hellman was both angry and resentful but at the same time she was impressed by their independence and strength especially that of her grandmother and uncle Jake who said to Hellman, when she sold the ring he bought her to buy books, that she has got spirit after all, unlike the rest who are made of sugar water. Being engraved in her mind, Hellman used his words in The Little Foxes68. She admired the power of his personality and his intelligence. Unlike her mother, Julia preferred love to money; she loved Max and agreed to be with him in his falls and ups. Her character being described by Hellman as "a sweet eccentric", provided her with the model of a weak but dreamy and innocent character in her plays, she was, Hellman continues: …the only middle-class woman I have ever known who had not rejected the middle class˗˗that would have been an act of will˗˗but had skipped it altogether. She liked a simple life and simple people. (An Unfinished Woman p.5).

25

Hellman loved her parents but she was more drawn to her father. Her love for her mother and her appreciation of her came late; after five years of her death. Hellman's sense of morality was inherited from her mother for Julia was a moral person. She never accepted what might bring injustice and had a strong ability to differentiate between right and wrong; good and evil69. She was a simple religious woman who calmly influenced her daughter's sense of morality. When her father's business collapsed, the family moved to New York and at that time Hellman was six years old. And thus he spent the remaining years of his life as a salesman. He was obliged to leave his family a lot and that is why it became, for years, a pattern for Hellman and her mother to stay six months of each year in New Orleans and another six in New York. As a result of that pattern of life, Hellman did not do well in school. For her New York meant loneliness, parental problems and hard schools. It also meant family dinners at her grandmother's house where money occupied a large part of the talk. On the contrary New Orleans meant fun, adventure, and seeing her two lovely aunts; Hannah and Jenny. They devoted a part of their adoration for their only brother to his only daughter. The boardinghouse that they ran, and Jenny, Hellman's favorite aunt, influenced her and her opinions about people later in her future70. Due to the instability of residence, Hellman could not follow her study systematically. She used to neglect her lessons to read books on a fig-tree which was near the house and hid by an oak tree. She had her own world on the tree and yet another world hidden among the pages of the book which advanced her age usually71. In that way she stored knowledge about characters, speeches, and writing in general.

As a child, before moving to New York, Hellman had a black nurse, Sophronia. This black woman, Hellman says, "was the first and most certain love of my life"( An Unfinished Woman p.14). Her love for Sophronia opened her eyes on the bitter reality of racism. Even as a child, Hellman was aware of the injustice by which the black people were treated. She was a rebellious girl

26

and later a rebellious playwright and "her first rebellion is her refusal to deny the importance of Sophronia in her life"72, and her guidance and support when she was in need of her and even when she grew up. Hellman was unwilling to reduce the significance of Sophronia in her life. She did not follow the public attitude towards the black; she did not reject Sophronia, She rejected racism and rebelled against the idea of separating herself both physically and mentally from her beloved nuuny73. An event in her early life asserts Hellman's refusal of discrimination and racism when she tried to push Sophronia into a seat specified for the whites. When the driver contemptuously stared at them, Sophronia took the girl's hand to move to the back of the street car. Being unable to stand the situation, Hellman's eyes filled with tears and jumped out of the car74. She wanted to change things, but she achieved that when she grew up into a liberal and independent individual and playwright. As a teenager Hellman's rebellious nature brought her troubles and evoked her surrounding's complaint. But what was positive about her was her capacious ability and love for reading to escape from a world she did not understand to the world of books. In an annoyance with her father she ran away from home to wander alone in the city and then to rent a room by telling the landlord, in a Negro neighborhood, that she was part Negro and after that to be found by her father.

When she reached 16 the regular half years had ceased but she was paying visits to New Orleans till she married at twenty-one75. When she graduated from Wadleigh High school, New York city in 1922, she attended New York University. But she did not do well and treated her classes with indifference except for some lessons in literature and art. After quitting her university education in 1924, Hellman attended a summer semester at Colombia University. Staying at home she tried to find a job and she succeeded in finding a manuscript reader job with the famous publisher Horace Liveright as she was getting around socially76. Till the end of her life, Hellman was interested in

27

holding parties and attending dinners with friends. And it was during a party that she got her job: At a party one evening in the fall of 1924, she fell into a long conversation with a somewhat ponderous and thoughtful man, Julian Messner, who was a top editor at Boni and Liveright, then New York's most exciting publishing house. Messner was impressed with Hellman's intelligence and knowledge of literature; at the end of an evening's conversation, he offered her a job77.

Though she was not so enthusiastic about her clerical works at the beginning, Hellman made a painstaking effort to be part of the publishing organization of Boni and Liveright, where she became familiar with talented writers and participated in the office parties and occasions. The publishing house had the atmosphere of a clubhouse full of editors, writers, publishers, and friend visitors78. During her work at Boni and Liveright, Hellman was dating Arthur Kober, a young writer and theatrical agent. It was also during her work that she got pregnant by him. They did not marry till Hellman had an abortion because she refused to make Arthur feel that he was obliged to marry her. Thus in December 31, 1925 and months after the abortion and leaving her job, they married. They liked each other and worked hard together to save money for theatrical productions. Being new to married life, Hellman at the beginning took her role, as a wife, seriously; cooking, encouraging her husband in his work and writing short stories which she always found not very good. But for her still there was something wrong with her free spirit; her personal life lacked adventure. She needed a work of her own79.

When they were back from Paris (being there for the first four months of 1926) to the States, Hellman tried her hand at book reviewing, reading manuscripts for Leo Bulgokov, Harry Moses, Anne Nicholas, and Herman

28

Shumlin. Her most valuable discovery was Grand Hotel which became a great success, produced and directed by Shumlin. In the spring of 1925 she got a four-month job in Rochester, New York as a publicist in a stock company. Living away from her husband, Hellman practiced reading, drinking, gambling, and hearing stories about Rochester's underworld. After having enough money for a European trip, she went to Germany in the summer of the same year and there she decided to stay for a year to study at the university in Bonn. But after finding herself in the company of anti-Semitic, Nazi youth and students group who did not know about her Jewishness, she left Germany and went back to New York. Her experience in this excursion provided her, later, with the seed for two of her plays, Watch on the Rhine, and The Searching Wind80.

Hellman loved her husband and he adored her and despite the ill times and her fits of boredom, she "was generous with her husband's family and deeply concerned about his career. She was wholly supportive of his decision to give up press agent in favour of playwriting"81.But as it was the Great Depression, the market crash, as Arthur Kober said, "crashed all my plans and wiped out everything Lillian and I saved"82. Soon after that Arthur got a good job in Hollywood as a script writer for $450 per week. In the fall of 1930 Hellman joined her husband and in Hollywood she explored the places and made herself busy with reading. But again she felt the usual restlessness and asked Arthur to find her a job. He found her the work of manuscript reader for MetroGoldwyn-Mayer and it was during her work there that she met Dashiell Hammett, her life long companion83. When they met that evening, Hellman was Mrs. Kober, twenty five years old with no recognition of any literary achievement. But Hammett was at his thirty six, a well-known novelist and the master of detective stories. His three famous and great novels; Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, and The Maltese Falcon had been published. But he was also a married man and the father of a girl of his own and the legal father of another

29

one of his wife. Hammett was born in 1894 into a Catholic family and being older and wiser than herself; Hellman immediately felt the need of such a man in her life as she was an ambitious woman in need of a guide to blossom. Hammett's work embodied his own personal qualities of directness, brutal honesty, bluntness and an impatience and hatred for pretension. Besides, what added to his charm was his silence and secretive nature when he was sober for Hammett was a heavy drinker84. That kind of grand personality attracted Hellman much and it was mainly manifested in his stoical behaviour. And that is why, in later years, he would imply in a comment to Hellman, that "a man's suffering should be a private matter, not to be shared by others"85.

After their first meeting, they began to spend times together. They fell in love with each other: They fell in love unaccountably, unexpectedly. In Hellman's romantic view of truth, love existed and always would for Dashiell Hammett. At seventeen she had written in her diary,"Oh God˗˗if I could only find a human being with both attractions", physical and mental. Hammett certainly had both86.

For the times when they were in Hollywood, Hellman was keeping her relation with the two men; Kober, her husband and Hammett, her lover, attending parties with both of them. But with the beginning of 1932 Hellman got divorced and was in New York living with Hammett. As she always tried to write successful short stories, Hellman got Hammett's encouragement when she published some of her short stories in American Spectator magazine but again it was an unsuccessful attempt for her star was shining in another sky. She told Hammett that she wants to write a play of her own but there was a need for a fine theme or plot. The guidance was there and the star was found 87. But before writing The Children's Hour and even before publishing her two

31

satirical stories I Call her Mama Now and Perberty in Los Angeles, Hellman wrote a play called Dear Queen. She wrote the play with her friend Louis Kronenberger which was about "an eighteenth- century queen who became so bored with her royal routine that she determined to become a commoner"88. The play was not produced because no producer showed any interest in the comedy. When she began her career as a playwright she abandoned comedies to write serious plays dealing with the core of her society.

The idea of The Children's Hour came when Hammett recommended William Roughead's Bad Companions as a source especially the chapter of 'Closed Doors or The Great Drumsheugh Case' which concerned the plight of two Scottish headmistresses of a girl's school being accused of having lesbian affaire together. In the beginning he thought to write it himself but then he decided to give it to Lilly who was so eager to write a play and the production was a hit89. Produced and directed by Shumlin, opened on Broadway and ran for more than six hundred performances, the play won Hellman celebrity and a great deal of money in the years of the Depression. With her name as a successful playwright, Hellman grew more independent and liberal but still loved Hammett and they shared each other their mutual interests in writing and politics. They continued living together till the end of Hammett's life though interrupted by periods of temporary separations due to the nature of their careers and also due to periods of fights or flings. It was the same reason of infidelity and their pursuit of sexual independence that they could never get married to each other.

In 1935 Hellman accepted a work offer and went to Hollywood but this time not as an employee with a little fee but rather as a playwright who was on her way to establish her name as a well-known playwright in a male-dominated field. She worked as a screenwriter for $2500 a week, for Sam Goldwyn90. Her first adaptation was Dark Angel a film produced in 1935 adapted from Guy

30

Bolton's play. It was described as "one of those agony films that may kill you, but it's going to get you sobbing first"91. Her next adaptation was that of her own play The Children's Hour which entitled These Three and its lesbian affair was replaced by a love triangle. And again the film was well received by both audience and critics. Hellman from her early childhood tried to live her life to the extremity of the possibilities offered to her especially in her fondness of adventure. She never missed an urgent desire or a casual attraction. But of course that kind of whimsy and unruly world is not the world of her conscientious characters. Her plays are characterized by a strict moral notion in which evil is condemned and good is heightened. During one of her flights, when she was working for Goldwyn and on her way to New York, a dust storm obliged Hellman to stay in New Mexico. During this stay she had an affair with Ralph Ingersoll, an intellectual journalist. Their affair continued for years but it was not taken seriously on both sides because of Hammett's existence in Hellman's life and because of Ingersoll's sick wife92. Still being in Hollywood Hellman began to write a new play through getting Hammett's support.

In December 1936 the play was performed but it was a disappointment for Hellman because most of the audience and critics raised questions about what the play was really about. They were simply troubled. Days to Come was a failure. It was obvious that the work was not done expertly93. The play took its topic from the declining conditions of the workers during the Depression. Clearly Hellman had used some autobiographical elements in her play. Her participation in organizing the Screen Writer's Guild along with Hammett, Dorothy Parker, Theodore Dreiser, and some other writers, and urging some other writers to join the guild in order to improve the working climate for all the writers, stood behind her choice of the topic. The play deals with a conflict between the owner of a brush factory, Arthur Rodman and the workers. Running in financial troubles, Rodman cuts the wages of the workers and brings strikebreakers to end the strike. The workers are unionized by Leo

32

Whalen. But Whalen is blamed for the death of a strikebreaker who dies in a drunken fight. Consequently the strikebreakers and the workers attack each other and everything is destroyed94. As Hellman herself confessed, she had spoiled the play by "amateur's mistake: everything you think and feel must be written this time, because you may never have another chance to write it"95. Hellman was disappointed but she did not give up. Her third screenplay Dead End came in 1937, an adaptation of Sidney Kingsley's Dead End. The play is about the evil outcomes of the social differences between rich and poor people. Though the censorship of the time was very intrusive, Hellman won in making Dead End succeed.

1937 was a year of activities and events in her life.

Developing her

communist political ideas during those years, Hellman sympathized with the newly elected Spanish Republican government, which fought against fascism, and involved in making a documentary film about the war in Spain. The Spanish Earth came in collaboration with Hammett, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway and some other intellectuals. They aimed at supporting the Spanish government and the Loyalists financially. In the same year she travelled to Paris and visited Russia to attend a theatre festival and then went to Spain to witness the civil war herself 96. But the accounts about these trips are somehow vague because Hellman wrote about them in her memoirs after a long time.

Obsessed by writing a new play with the same glamour of The Children's Hour, Hellman set out to write a play about greed and selfishness of the rich and the influence of capitalism on the individuals in a materialistic society. She based her play on her mother's relatives; the Marxes and Newhouses as the Hubbards, the southern family of early twentieth century. Being recovered from a bad health, Hammett helped Hellman with The Little Foxes. In this play she used what was deeply stored in her inner world; the dinners in her

33

grandmother's big house, the money-obsessed talks of her great uncles and aunts. The play was another hit added to Hellman's success. The audiences were satisfied and the critics: …praised vivid characters, shrewd writing, and expert technique, much of which seemed taken from Ibsen, yet found the work occasionally more melodramatic than necessary. An improvement over the first two plays, however, Hellman had learned how to handle the interplay between her highly individualized characters and their environment97. Hellman was, now, reassured about her literary abilities, about her intelligence and her power to use them in commercially and dramaturgically successful plays. The Little Foxes was run for four hundred performances. She was happy with her play but "her disappointment seemed to stem from the acceptance of her play on the wrong terms. By not admitting the evil inherent in everyone reviewers were able to label her a melodramatist"98. In May of 1939 Hellman bought a large farm house, Hardscrabble. It was surrounded by woods with deers and wild rabbits, a house big enough for Hellman and Hammett to have separate parts and enough space for their guests among whom were Arthur Kober, Dorothy Parker, Max 'Hellman's father', Herman Sumlin, Kronenberger and his wife Emmy, and some others.

After his novel The Thin Man in 1934, Hammett could never write a book. He spent his time in the farm drinking, living in exile-like life and suffering from fragile body and bad health. While Hellman, though frustrated some times, kept on writing screenplays for her The Little Foxes. She was not far from the political issues of her day especially the Second World War. She had her own political views about social injustice and fascism. By "1940 she joined a number of anti-fascist organizations, many of which contained

34

considerable Communist representation"99. Hellman was a strong supporter of the Soviet Union. Unlike the previous years of her life when she was moving from place to place and renting houses, Hellman seemed to live a stable life by keeping her farm during 1939-1952 and excluding the brief absences, she stayed at her Hardscrabble farm100. It was in her farm that she began to write her anti-Nazi play Watch on the Rhine. Like The Little Foxes, Hellman made a hard work of searching and reading materials for her play. She kept notes and items she was in need to know.

About the necessity of such extensive

research, she explained; "to be sure I know what I'm talking about"101. The play was produced in April 1941 to win the New York Drama Critic's Circle Award for that year. Its subject matter 'fascism' obviously was related to the condition of the world during the Second World War and how fascism as an evil power would conquer the whole world unless it was terminated. The play's story centers on Kurt Muller who is a preserver of freedom. Kurt kills Count Teck, a Nazi agent, after being blackmailed by him and returns to Europe to continue his work; to fight fascism when he finishes his mission in the United States. The play remained alive for its depiction of universal characters like Kurt who is a freedom protector. He embodies the patriotism of an ordinary man who represents any philosophy, trend, religion, or cause established for the improvement of mankind102. Before her country's stand against fascism, Hellman rejected and condemned fascism and portrayed it as an evil power that gradually devours every sign of humanity.

Editing Hammett's screen version of Watch on the Rhine, Hellman's mind was busy with arranging thoughts for a new play. Hammett who was fortyeight years old and ill enlisted for the army. He was sending her letters and reports about the war and the environment of the different stations that he was sent to. During his absence Hellman continued her activities through helping the anti-fascist projects. She became indulged in making a documentary film about the bravery of the Russian people in their confrontation of fascism103.

35

The film was entitled The North Star, and it "was one of three Hollywood pictures made that year that would later be accused of fostering communist propaganda"104. In spite of its shortcomings the film was praised by critics but dismissed by others on political ground.

After The North Star, Hellman's attention was drawn all to her second political play, The Searching Wind. The play deals with the political and emotional sides of an American diplomat in Rome who "follows an isolationist policy during the rise of Mussolini and Hitler in order to escape from the ugly reality. His political philosophy is carried over from his unresolved emotional life, which he also avoids facing"105. The play was produced and directed by Shumlin and opened in April 1944. Though it was criticized for its many settings and big number of characters, The Searching Wind was to win Drama Critic's Circle Award if it had only one more vote. In the same year Hellman was invited to Russia on a cultural mission encouraged by the government. The trip, she recalls in her An Unfinished Woman, "took fourteen days because the crew had been instructed to take no chances with their guest. These two weeks were, physically, the hardest time of my life"(p.126). Hellman tried to get the best from her trip to fulfill what she was going for, that she never stated clearly. She had been tired from the cold weather and her pneumonia but soon when she arrived at the Spasso House, she was involved in a romantic affair with John Melby, a career foreign service officer. And though Melby was a father of two sons, he could never forget Hellman and their affair lasted for a long time or more clearly never ended. By the time when she was in Russia, Hellman was "a passionate and emancipated woman…a brilliant and witty conversationalist… an esteemed playwright; a Communist fellow traveler; but above all, an antifascist of burning intensity"106. Thus it was inevitable for Melby not to be attracted to this intelligent woman and not to love her; "I love you very very much", he told her

36

in a letter, "and…I want you to marry me"107. But the marriage never took place for Melby was sent far to China in one of his job's assignments.

At the end of her adventure, in which she attended rehearsals of The Little Foxes and Watch on the Rhine and visited and met the front-line Russians, Hellman returned to New York passing through England and Egypt. Back in her Hardscrabble farm in February 1945, Hellman eagerly began to write the movie script for The Searching Wind. Then soon she began to write her sixth play, dedicated to her friend and psychoanalyst Gregory Zilboorg. By the end of August Another Part of the Forest was ready for rehearsals. Produced by Kermit Bloomgarden, and directed by herself the play opened on November 1946108. The play recalls the moral and spiritual emptiness of twenty years younger Hubbard family. They are "introduced in their evil, selfish youth"109. Like her other plays Hellman wanted to show the evil side of her devilish characters by situating them in a world with innocent souls just to show the ugliness of their behaviour and thought. Marcus, the rich father who has a fortune through exploiting others, hates his two deceitful sons but likes his daughter who is as corrupt as her brothers. Patricia Neal, the actress who acted the daughter Regina, in a letter to her aunt says "I'm still so just up in the clouds. I can't eat, sleep or think. You know that Lillian Hellman is just about the most wonderful American playwright. She and O'Neill and a couple of others"110. Thus with such powerful plays Hellman was standing by the side of the male playwrights refusing to grade her less than them.

In the times after Another Part of the Forest and the beginning of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Hellman's life was getting difficult. She witnessed her father's collapse, hospitalization, and his eventual death in 1948 (her mother had died of cancer some years ago), her separation from Melby and their dispute over Communism and Stalin. All these attributed to making her life not pleasant as before, but what was coming

37

was even harder for her. In 1947 the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began to investigate Communism in Hollywood and heard a series of 'friendly' and 'unfriendly' witnesses. Refusing to adhere to what the studio would allow (concerning the political activities), she was blacklisted111. In spite of all that Hellman continued her literary and political activities. In 1948 she was sent in an assignment for New York Star newspaper to interview the communist leader Tito in Yugoslavia about his break with the Soviet Union. Among her other activities; the participation in the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace in 1949 which was held to call for a better and peaceful relation with the Soviet Union. While concerning the literary activities, she adapted the Spanish playwright, Emmanuel Robles's Montserrat with the same name. The play evokes the question whether the lives of innocent individuals should be sacrificed to support a revolution that might be useful to millions of people112 . Though the play did not receive much attention, yet it was not a failure.

Hellman's The Autumn Garden came with her determination to insert what she had got from her experience in theatre. As she always loved her southern part and the memories of her childhood there, Hellman turned to her aunts' boardinghouse and its environment in her new play. The play "is a study of the defeats, disappointments and diminished expectations of people reaching middle age"113. Hammett who had been discharged from the army in 1945, helped her with her play to be opened in 1951, but it was not as successful as her first plays. The critics traced the influence of Chekhov's plays rather than that of Ibsen's realism114. The 1950s were not good times for Hammett and Hellman for Hammett was imprisoned for six months when he refused to name the contributors to the bail fund for those who were prosecuted under Smith Act. Also he was questioned by the McCarthy Committee. They both owed huge money to the Internal Revenue Service, and thus she sold her Hardscrabble farm house when she faced the bitter reality. But this was not the

38

end for in 1952 she was summoned to appear before HUAC to testify about her communist acts. When Hellman appeared before HUAC, she refused to mention names and stated that she would speak only about herself. For her brave act, Hellman became a national figure of great bravery115.

Her preoccupation with the Russians and their social system and her admiration of Chekhov evoked her to edit a selection of Chekhov's letters. She was impressed by him and wished to be described, just like Chekhov, that she was a playwright of "deep social ideas and an uncommon sense of social responsibility"116. After the publication of The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov in 1955, Hellman bought a house at Vineyard Haven, Martha's Vineyard and adapted The Lark from the French play L'Alouette by Jean Anouilh. The following year she adapted Candide which was based on Voltaire's satire. Being financially recovered for the revivals of her first plays, Hellman turned again to write a new play, Toys in the Attic117. In this play she relied on her views and memories about her father, mother, and two aunts and their love and devotion for their brother and his wife. Employing Hammett's suggested idea, Hellman began to write about a man who achieves success and becomes rich for the sake of those who love him. Discovering that it does not please them and they do not like him that way he spoils his achievements and ends a failure118. The play opened in New York in February 1960 and it was a high success to win the New York Drama Critic's Circle Award. With her achievement, Hellman firmly established her place as one of the great American playwrights. She was honoured by a membership in the American Academy of Arts and Science. Throughout the 1960s she was continuously honoured with Doctor of literature degrees and asked to deliver lectures about drama in the various colleges and universities of the United States such as Harvard and Yale and was awarded many times for her contribution to American drama.

39

In 1961 Hellman's attention was devoted to Hammett who was suffering from lung cancer and on his way to die. She took care of him and treated him with love as he always loved her and supported her in spite of his whimsies. He died on January 10, 1961 after thirty years of shared love and understanding with Hellman who described him as a man of great courage and dignity119. She lovingly portrayed him in her memoir An Unfinished Woman and her "portrayals of him˗˗too hero˗based, too romantic, too reductive˗˗typified a wife's reflection of a husband now gone"120. Hellman's last play My Mother, My Father and Me, was adapted from Burt Blechman's novel How Much?. Hellman was not successful in writing about her Jewish background in her autobiographical satirical play; the story of Berney Halpern who wants to challenge conventions and to be himself. Just like her first play; Dear Queen, her last play, performed in March 1963, was not a success121.

Over the next few years Hellman's political views were witnessing changes. She made trips to Europe and the Soviet Union and became aware of the persecution of the writers but she never stated it clearly until she moved into a new genre; writing memoirs. Throughout her career as a playwright Hellman always held a high position among the literary minds of her time and when she shifted to write her memoirs she still held that position. In an unusual style for autobiographies she wrote about herself, her experience in life, politics, love..etc. She also admirably wrote about those who occupied much space in her life without the usual chronological order of events. She wrote about her family, her southern background, her movement to Hollywood, her houses, her trip to Russia and more vividly about her friend Dorothy Parker, her companion Dashiell Hammett and her black housekeeper Helen. The book was another hit that drove Hellman towards celebrity in a new field of writing. It "won the National Book Award in 1970"122, and ran the best-seller book for a

long

time.

And

as

Kermit

Bloomgarden

said

"of all

the

big

playwrights˗Tennessee, Inge, Arthur Miller˗˗ none of them are going anywhere.

41

She's the only one still doing something"123. The book was criticized on the grounds that Hellman had omitted important events and people from her memoirs to portray herself as a heroine and accused her of falsifying the truths. But she defied the accusations through her own perception of the word 'truth' when she said, in the preface to her collected memoirs, "[w]hat a word is truth. Slippery, tricky, unreliable, I tried in these books to tell the truth, I did not fool with the facts"124. And her reply for omitting accounts about certain people was that she did not write about living people and that was a fact.

Throughout the 1970s Hellman was more busy than before with her teaching and the academic life of the colleges and universities especially that of Harvard. But even though she did not give up her political and humanitarian activities, for with a group of intellectuals she formed the Committee for Public Justice, an organization for preserving human rights and cautioning them about the threats to their freedom125. She always wanted to, either through her plays or organizations, make people aware about their rights and the evil threats which persecute them. Continuing what she had begun with in her first memoir, An Unfinished Woman, Hellman published another book of her memoirs. Pentimento was published in 1973. And: …in using this paintery term, combined with the subtitle A Book of Portraits, Hellman emphasizes the biographical, rather than the autobiographical, nature of her effort. And in Pentimento, she has managed to produce portraits that constantly reflect on the photographer, self-portraits in a convex mirror126.

This controversial book includes the portraits of a number of people who influenced her in the stages of her life. Hellman used flashback as a device to reveal a story of her anti-Nazi friend Julia and their cooperation to help the anti-

40

fascist underground. The book achieved high success and was on the best-seller book list, but also received critical reviews accusing the author of using fiction rather than facts in her accounts. About her political beliefs and her appearance before HUAC and about McCarthy era Hellman wrote her third book of memoirs, Scoundrel Time, published in 1976. Like the two previous books, Scoundrel Time received praises and attacks and the critics responded, in various tones, to the issues that she raised in her book:

Hellman's charge that magazines that were in the position to denounce McCarthy and his tactics failed to do so; her theory about the children of immigrants and their cultural assimilation; her contention that liberal anti-Communists played into the hands of the men who led the nation to Vietnam…and what was frequently taken to be her ignorance about the real nature of communism127.

By 1980 Hellman was suffering from a very bad health and declining eyesight but even though she set out to write her last memoirs in the shape of a story, the story of her friend Sara Cameron. But Sara's chronicle is interrupted "with a second and longer meditation on the mutability of human experience and the impossibility of capturing its truth in this˗˗or any˗˗text"128. Maybe: A Story, published in 1980, was the last piece of writing to be done by Hellman herself. In 1981 she suffered a heart attack. But in spite of the installation of a pacemaker, Hellman, with her friend Peter Feibleman, worked on another book on food; Eating Together: Recollections and Recipes. To the very end of her life Hellman kept her social appearances till the day before her death in June 30, 1984 at the age of 79. Hellman was buried in Albel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark, Massachusetts, on Martha's Vinyard129. Lillian Hellman, the woman and the dramatist remains fascinating even after her death. Her great achievements remain part of American nation's theatrical and political history

42

and literature. "As a dramatist, author, screenwriter and activist", William Wright says, "Hellman was a commanding presence in America's cultural life for half a century. Even her failures were carried off with attention-getting panache"130. As an intelligent playwright she employed her southern background to shape her most successful plays by which she formed her way ahead

among the male playwrights at a time women were inferiorly looked at

regardless of their achievements.

What was a source of annoyance for her was calling her a woman playwright. She disliked that attempt of discrimination. The other source of her annoyance was to call her plays melodramas for Hellman's use of melodramatic devices (suicide, violence, and blackmail) does not mean to reach that conclusion. She did not use them as ends in themselves but as a part of a larger end which is the moral effect as she elaborates:

By definition it [melodrama] is a violent dramatic piece, with a happy ending. But I think we can add that it uses its violence for no purpose, to point no moral, to say nothing, in say-nothing's worse sense….But when violence is actually the needed stuff of the work and comes toward a larger enough end, it has been and always will be in the good writer's field131.

The moral scope of Hellman's plays is wider and greater than the mere aim of excitement and entertainment. It goes beyond all that to touch the human soul and goes deeper to rest there and enlighten the mind and make it aware of its humanity and urge it to defeat whatever evil it encounters. Hellman's moral sense was her own, and though she was affected and guided, in her writing, by Hammett, she was a personality with an inherited moral sense. For Hammett "life was absurd, capitalism so entrenched that nothing much made any sense. Nothing was more meaningful than a black bird sending people scurrying to the

43

far corners of the earth" while Hellman did not share him the same view for she "added the promise of moral rigor"132. Her rage was an outcome of her moral sense and, as the novelist John Hersey says, it "was the rage of the mind against all kinds of injustice˗˗against human injustice"133.

Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov influenced her writing of plays in the way that she depicted reality and created fictional characters that can be found anywhere and at any time. Like them she broke with the conventional dramatic speech and plot. But again her plays do not lose their peculiarity of being written by an American playwright in favour of the influences because for her, writing is a mysterious action imitators cannot do it, as she explains in Pentimento: "[h]ow the pages got there, in their form, in their order, is more of a mystery than reason would hope for. That is why", she continues," I have never wanted to write about the theatre and find the teaching of English more rewarding than teaching drama"134. Her subject matter in most of her plays is money. She was interested in showing the effects of money on the characters. Hellman "sometimes seemed to divide the world according to how people's loyalties were affected by money…her plays do seem to be a confrontation between good and evil"135. But again her goal was not to attract the attention to money itself but to what money can do to the established values; to make people aware of its destructive power, its dangerous effect on human virtue.

1.4 Hellman's Political Ideas It is obvious that the source of any politics is an act of rebellion. This or more specifically this instinct was there in Hellman's life as a part of her nature. She was rebellious from childhood. Her act of pushing Sophronia, her black nurse, to take a seat limited for white people was a rebellion against racism. It was her rebellious nature that refused discrimination and cherished equality and freedom. Clearly she stated the idea in her Scoundrel Time:

44

I do not know the year when I, who had always been a kind of aimless rebel˗˗not only in the sense that was true of most of my generation, but because I had watched my mother's family increase their fortune on the borrowings of poor Negroes˗˗found that my rebelliousness was putting down few young political roots136. When she grew up her rebellion took shape and was formulated. The outcome was her political beliefs which were, before anything else, humanitarian rather than partisan. And that is why when her name was associated with communism no one or no authority could afford any evidence concerning her membership. Hellman supported the real principles of communism that of equality, preservation of human right, and rejection of racism regardless of names or leaders. She worked for a better world and found in the Soviet Union's promises of liberty, peacemaking, and anti-fascism, her target.

Hellman's political attitude was mainly attributed to Hammett's influence. But her rebellious nature and her attempt to organize the readers in MetroGoldwyn-Mayre to ask and keep their rights, before meeting Hammett suggest the contrary. Another strong evidence can be found in her speech when she says: "I think that [political roots] began with the discovery of National Socialism when I was in Bonn, Germany, intending to enroll at the university"(Scoundrel Time, p.44). And this also happened before meeting Hammett when she was married to Arthur Kober. "The truth", Wright says, "may be that she arrived at radicalism on her own, but Hammett provided strong and perhaps essential reinforcement over the decades to come" 137. Hellman was not working for the application of her beliefs secretly; she was open about her procedure because her aim was not shameful or destructive. Her aim was to take the side of the oppressed to organize and make their sounds heard. In the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) Hellman like most of the

45

American liberals, stood against fascism and joined other American writers to support the Communists138. Not only through political activities such as organizing unions, holding conferences and taking trips to Europe and Russia to be close to the war against fascism did Hellman materialize her beliefs but also through her plays one of which is Watch on the Rhine. It is an attack against the militant enemy 'fascism', a glorification of the sacrifice of antifascist underground. Despite all the accusations against her and her honesty, Hellman's cause remains humanitarian taking the force of politics in favour of its achievement. Her letter to the HUAC before her appearance asserted Hellman's triumph over her denigrators. At her hand the Committee suffered "one of its most severe and long- remembered public relations defeats"139. In the letter Hellman asserted what she worked for and aimed at: …I'm not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completely innocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive. I do not like subversion or disloyalty in any form and if I had ever seen any I would have considered it my duty to have reported it to the proper authorities. But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashion, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group (Scoundrel Time, p.98). Hellman refused to talk about others, to drag them indirectly into troubles. Her attitude gained her another kind of fame; the fame of the maverick whose sole commitment was to improve humanity. And thus whether through drama or politics Hellman's code in life was the condemnation of malice and evil starting from a lie to reach to a world cause like fascism.

46

Notes 1-Roger Lathbury, American Modernism (1910-1945): American literature in its historical, cultural, and social contexts (New York: Facts On File, Ince, 2006), p.6.

2-Arthur Hobson Quinn, "Modern American Drama: I. The American Spirit in Drama and the Drama of Revolt". The English Journal, Vol. 12, No.10 (Dec., 1923):658-659.

3- Martha Gilman Bower, "Review of The Presence of the Past in Modern American Drama". American Literature, Vol.61, No.4 (Dec., 1989):718.

4- Quinn, p.655.

5-Quoted in David Krasner, "Introduction: The Changing perceptions of American Drama", in David Krasner, ed., A Companion to Twentieth- Century American Drama (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), p.1.

6-WWW.Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2011," Theatre of the United States". Retrieved on 20/ June / 2011. 7- WWW. Paul Gabriner,"20th Century American Drama: A Background for Albee and Others". Retrieved on 15/ June / 2011. , p.3.

8- John H. Houchin, Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p.26.

47

9- Rachel Shteir, "Ethnic Theatre in America", in David Krasner, ed., A Companion to Twentieth- Century American Drama (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), pp.19-23.

10- Gabriner, p.2.

11- Houchin, p. 37.

12- Julia A. Walker, Expressionism and Modernism in the American Theatre: Bodies, Voices, Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p.153.

13- Ibid., p.154

14-Tom Scanlan, Family, Drama, and American Dreams (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1978) pp., 84-88. See also Therese Jones, " As the World Turns on the Sick and the Restless, So Go the Days of Our Lives: Family and illness in Daytime Drama". Journal of Medical Humanities, Vol. 18, No. 1 (1997):8.

15- David Krasner, "Eugene O'Neil: American Drama and American Modernism", in David Krasner, ed., A Companion to Twentieth- Century American Drama (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), p.147.

16- Quoted in Walker, p. 153.

17- Michael Paller, Gentleman Caller: Tennessee Williams, Homosexuality, and Mid-Twentieth- Century Drama (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 7.

48

18-Ibid., p. 9.

19-Quoted in Winifred L. Dusenbury, The Theme of Loneliness in Modern American Drama (Florida: The University of Florida Press, 1960),p.138.

20- Nina Baym, ed., The Norton Anthology of American Literature Vol. E (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2003), p. 1977.

21- Dusenbury, p. 140.

22- Scanlan, p. 128.

23-Baym, p. 2110.

24- Susan C. W. Abbotson, Thematic Guide to Modern Drama (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Inc., 2003), p. 270.

25- Scanlan, p. 140.

26-WWW.George P. Castellitto," Connection Between Modern American Drama and Contemporary Drama: Sociological and Metaphysical Correlations". Retrieved on 12/ June / 2011., P. 1.

27-Patricia R. Schroeder, " Realism and Feminism in the Progressive Era: Women in the Workforce", in Brenda Murphy, ed., The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 37.

49

28-Yvonne Shafer, American Women Playwrights, 1900-1950 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1997), pp. 15-16.

29-Quoted in Felicia Hardison Londre,"Many-Faceted Mirror: Drama as Reflection of Uneasy Modernity in the 1920s", in David Krasner, ed., A Companion to Twentieth- Century American Drama (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), p.88.

30-Brenda Murphy, " Feminism and the marketplace: the career of Rachel Crothers", in Brenda Murphy, ed., The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 96.

31- Ibid.

32- Ibid., p.82.

33- Nina Baym, ed., The Norton Anthology of American Literature Vol. D (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2003), p. 1202.

34- Shafer, p.55.

35- Farah Yeganeh, Literary Schools (Tehran: Rahnama Publications, 2002), p.344.

36- Veronica Makowsky, "Susan Glaspell and modernism", in Brenda Murphy, ed., The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.50.

51

37-Barbara Ozieblo, " Rebellion and Rejection: The Plays of Susan Glaspell", in June Schlueter,ed., Modern American Drama :The Female Canon (London: Associated University Presses, Inc.,1990),p.74.

38- Abbotson, pp.263-264.

39-Barbara Ozieblo and Jerry Dickey, Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell: Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists (New York: Routledge, Tylor & Francis Groups, 2008), p.68.

40- Makowsky, p.50.

41- Ozieblo, Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell: Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists, p.97.

42- J. Ellen Gainor and Jerry Dickey," Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell: Staging Feminism and Modernism, 1915_1941", in David Krasner, ed., A Companion to Twentieth- Century American Drama (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), p.45.

43-Jerry Dickey, "The expressionistic moment: Sophie Treadwell", in Brenda Murphy, ed., The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999),pp.75-76.

44- Barbara L. Bywaters, " Marriage, Madness, and Murder in Sophie Treadwell's Machinal ", in June Schlueter, ed., Modern American Drama :The Female Canon (London: Associated University Presses, Inc.,1990), p.99.

45-Ibid., p. 103.

50

46-Yeganeh, p. 346.

47-Plays by Lillian Hellman: The Little foxes, the Children's Hour, Toys in the Attic, the Autumn Garden, Another Part of the Forest (Tennessee: Books LLC, 2010), pp.9-11.

48-Jessica Bomarito and Jeffrey W.Hunter, eds., Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion volume 6: 20th Century, Authors (H-Z) (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005) , p.64.

49-Barrett H. Clark, "Lillian Hellman". College English, Vol. 6, No.3 (Dec., 1944):127.

50-Ibid.,p. 129.

51- Bomarito, pp. 1-2.

52- Sharon Friedman, "Feminism as Theme in Twentieth-Century American Women's Drama". American Studies, Vol. 25-26 (1984-85) :84-85.

53-Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, " Black Women Playwrights: Exorcising Myths". Phylon (1960- ), Vol.48, No.3 (3rd Qtr., 1987):235.

54- Friedman, p.86.

55- WWW. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2011, "Wendy Wasserstein". Retrieved on 20/ June / 2011. See also Julius Novick, Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish American Drama and Jewish American Experience (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 131-132.

52

56-Jan Balakian, " Wendy Wasserstein: a feminist voice from the seventies to the present", in Brenda Murphy, ed., The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp.219-220.

57- Abbotson, p. 254.

58- Ibid., p.252.

59- Balakian, p.221.

60- Shafer, p.372.

61-Ibid., p.150. 62- C.W.E. Bigsby, Modern American Drama, 1945 –2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.326.

63-Carl Rollyson, Lillian Hellman: Her Life and Legend (New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2008), p.13.

64-Lillian Hellman, An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), p.5.Further citations from the memoir are to this edition and referred to by page number within the book.

65- Rollyson, p. 13.

66-William Wright, Lillian Hellman: the image, the woman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), p.19.

53

67-Justus Reid Weiner, "Lillian Hellman: The Fiction of Autobiography". Gender Issues, Vol. 21, No.1 (2003):79. See also Ralph Melnick, The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank: Meyer, Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Staging of the Diary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). In this book Melnick discusses the Hacketts and Lillian's stage production of the diary of Anne Frank, stating that they had eliminated the Jewish references in the diary.

68- Richard Moody, Lillian Hellman: Playwright (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1972), p. 15.

69- Rollyson, pp. 15-16.

70- Wright, pp.23-24.

71-Ruth Turk, Lillian Hellman: Rebel Playwright (Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1995), pp. 10-12.

72-Kelly Lynch Reames, Women and Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing: From Faulkner to Morrison (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p.52.

73-Ibid.

74- Turk, pp.16-17.

75- Wright, pp.31-34.

76- Barbara Lee Horn, Lillian Hellman: A Research and Production Sourcebook (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998), pp. 8-9.

54

77-Wright, p. 36.

78- Turk, pp.33-35.

79-Deborah Martinson, Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels (New York: Counterpoint, A Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2005), pp. 44-47.

80- Rollyson, pp. 24-25.

81-Ibid., p.26.

82-Ibid.

83-Moody, pp.27-28.

84-Joan Mellen, Hellman and Hammett: The Legendary Passion of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1996), pp.18-28. See also Robert L. Gail, A Dashiell Hammett Companion (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000), p.3.

85- George J."Rhino" Thompson, Hammett's Moral Vision (San Francisco: Vince Emery Productions, 2007), pp. 160-161.

86- Martinson, p. 74.

87- Turk, pp.45-49.

88- Moody, p.33.

55

89- Wright, pp.81-86.

90-Horn, p. 10.

91-Moody, p. 62.

92-Rollyson, p. 59.

93- Moody, pp.64-65.

94-Turk, pp. 55-56.

95- Quoted in Moody, p. 67.

96-Wright, pp. 134-137.

97-Horn, p. 11.

98- Rollyson, p.99.

99-Ibid., p. 103. See also Franklin Folsom, Days of Anger, Days of Hope: A Memoir of the League of American Writers (Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1994), pp. 53-54. The author recounts how Hellman was ready to assist and helped a political, anti-fascist writer in his plight.

100-Moody, p. 112.

101- Ibid., p.115.

56

102- Bernard F. Dick, Hellman in Hollywood (London: Associated University Presses Inc., 1982), pp. 83-85. See also Ronald Radosh and Allis Radosh, Red Star over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance with the Left (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2005),p. 238.

103- Moody, pp. 138-140.

104- Wright, p. 187.

105-Horn, p. 12.

106- Robert P. Newman, The Cold War Romance of Lillian Hellman and John Melby (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Press, 1989), p. 2.

107-Quoted in Ibid., p. 73.

108-Moody, pp. 158-162.

109- Stephen Michael Shearer, Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life (Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), p. 36.

110- Quoted in Ibid., p. 35.

111- Rollyson, pp. 191-195.

112- Turk, pp. 84-88.

113- Plays by Lillian Hellman, p.5.

114- Ibid., p.6.

57

115- Turk, pp. 92-98. See also Milly S. Barranger, Unfriendly Witnesses: Gender, Theatre, and Film in the McCarthy Era (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008), pp. 73-77. Barranger recounts Hellman's appearance before the HUAC in detail.

116- Quoted in Rollyson, p. 261.

117-Mary Marguerite Riordan, Lillian Hellman: A Bibliography 19261978(Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1980), p. xxiv.

118- Wright, p. 279.

119-Turk, p. 105.

120- Martinson, p. 288.

121- Rollyson, pp. 297-298.

122- Riordan, p. xxxi.

123- Quoted in Wright, p. 334.

124-Quoted in Ibid., p. 324.

125- Rollyson, p. 326.

126- Timothy Dow Adams, Telling Lies in Modern American Autobiographies (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), p.140.

58

127-Will Brantley, Feminine Sense in Southern Memoir: Smith, Glasgow, Welty, Hellman, Porter, and Hurtson (Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 1993), p. 167.

128-Paul John Eakin, Touching the World: Reference in Autobiography (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 223.

129-Turk, p. 120.

130-William Wright, "Why Lillian Hellman Remains Fascinating". New York Times, (November 3, 1996):1.

131- Quoted in Jacob H. Adler, Lillian Hellman (Austin: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1969), pp. 15-16.

132-Mellen, p. 65.

133- Quoted in Barranger, p. 84.

134-Lillian Hellman, Pentimento: A Book of Portraits (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973), p.152. Further citations from the memoir are to this edition and referred to by page number within the book.

135-Peter Feibleman, Lilly: Reminiscences of Lillian Hellman (New York: William Morrow and Company, inc., 1988), p. 359. See also Norman Podhoretz, Ex-Friends: Falling out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer (New York: The Free Press, 1999), p. 120. Podhoretz illustrates that Hellman was generous with him .She offered him her house to work on his book.

59

136- Lillian Hellman, Scoundrel Time (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976), pp.43-44. Further citations from the memoir are to this edition and referred to by page number within the book.

137-Wright, Lillian Hellman: the image, the woman, p. 116.

138- Gail, p. 42.

139-Milly S. Barranger, Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theatre (Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2004), p. 241.

CHAPTER TWO THE CHILDREN'S HOUR

06

16

2.1 The Summary of the Play The Children's Hour (1934) is Hellman's first successful play or even the play was viewed as " more than a success; it was a sensation, particularly for audiences and censors who were shocked by the subject matter"1. The title is taken from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, 'The Children's Hour'. It "can be seen as an ironic commentary on the assumption of childhood innocence" 2 since Mary Tilford proves that some children are as dangerous as evil adults. Such children should be watched because when they grow up their threat becomes greater. The idea of the play as it has been mentioned before is based on an actual case in William Roughead's Bad Companion especially a chapter entitled "Closed Doors; or, the Great Drumsheugh Case" in which an evil student accuses her two headmistresses of being lesbians and ruins their lives.

The play consists of three acts; each act dramatizes an aspect of the life in the boarding school and foreshadows the play's coming episodes. The first act begins with the scene of the girls practicing various activities; sewing, trimming hair, reciting Latin verbs and reading Portia's speech in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Vince while Mrs. Mortar, Martha's aunt, is there to supervise them. Hellman puts emphasis on ' mercy' in Portia's speech and 'pity' that Mrs. Mortar asks Peggy, the school girl who reads the speech, to read the lines with. It is clear that the coming events and the big lie of Mary, the evil student, is devoid of mercy since it damages the lives of her teachers and no one can feel pity towards the victims of the lie. The tension of the scene is realized when Mary enters with some wilted flowers in her hand claiming that she has picked them for Mrs. Mortar who is flattered enough to forgive her for being late. But though Mary is clearly deceitful, Karen Wright, one of the two teachers, can see her tricks and her deception; the flowers had been discarded by the teachers themselves sometimes before. Karen enters and rebukes Mary for her bad behaviours and Mary complains about being treated in a bad way and blamed

16

for everything. She is punished and prevented from leaving the school grounds for two weeks. Out of rage and vengeance Mary pretends a sudden faint. The headmistresses, Martha Dobie and Karen Wright call Dr. Joseph Cardin, Karen's fiancé and Mary's uncle for the urgent case. Being alone in the room Martha and her aunt Mrs. Mortar have a quarrel when Martha informs her aunt that she has to leave the school for London with enough money for her living. In the quarrel Mrs. Mortar accuses Martha of being jealous of Dr. Cardin and describing her feelings for Karen as "unnatural'. The play's "crisis hinges on the use and misappropriation of the word 'unnatural' "3 when two school girls, Peggy and Evelyn, overhear Mrs. Mortar's words. After that Karen asks Martha to call Mary who was just pretending heart sickness, and the two students who were eavesdropping .Karen asks the girls to change their room in order to avoid Mary's influence upon them. When the students are left alone Mary enforces the two girls to tell her what they heard and also forces Peggy to give her money in order to leave and make use of her evil plans. 4

In the second act Mary is in her grandmother's house (Mrs. Tilford, the wealthy and influential woman) after running away from school. In this act Mary practices her evil influence over her grandmother to achieve her aims. She, as Hellman illustrates in the play, plays on her grandmother's affection and love for her. In front of the mirror she takes the saddest expression on her face to convince her grandmother that she is treated badly in the school and that is why she ran away and also to tell her about her heart sickness. As Mrs. Tilford orders her to go back to school, Mary tells her that they will kill her. But when her grandmother insists Mary tells her that Peggy and Evelyn had heard Mrs. Mortar saying to Martha that her affection for Karen is unnatural. Also she tells her that they (the students) hear noises and see strange things at night. Then she whispers in her grandmother's ear to tell her the most terrible

lie about her

two teachers accusing them of being lesbians. Hearing that, Mrs. Tilford begins to call Dr. Cardin and asks him to come. Then she begins to phone the

16

children's parents asking them to drop their children out of the school and the first one is Evelyn's mother.5

As the play is "really about the ways in which human relationships are often devoid of mercy and compassion"6, everybody is going immediately to believe and spread the lie. No one tries to investigate the truth. And hence the play illustrates its aim of "a forceful, moral study of what happens when adults behave like children"7; when adults blindly believe what they are told falsely. In the second scene Rosalie Wells, another school girl, comes to spend the night in Mrs. Tilford's house as she is withdrawn from the school to be sent to her home the next day. When Mary asks Rosalie to help her in her evil doing, Rosalie refuses but Mary blackmails her for taking another girl's bracelet and threatening her to tell everyone. She enforces her to testify against the teachers at the end of the scene. When Karen and Martha come to Mrs. Tilford to face her because of spreading such outrageous lie about them in Dr. Cardin's presence ,Mary shows her overall evil face. Her malignant hope comes true when she says that she had watched her two teachers kissing each other through a keyhole in Karen's room. But when Karen clarifies that there is no keyhole on her door, Mary changes her story saying that it was Martha's room, but as Martha states that she shares the room with her aunt Mary again lies, telling them that Rosalie had seen them. Being blackmailed, Rosalie desperately tells them that she had seen her two teachers together. The charges affect all of the characters and leave them puzzled.

Half a year later when the curtain rises on act three Karen and Martha are sitting "together in the school, stunned, apathetic, seemingly broken"8. And psychologically the two women are defeated since they could not prove that they are innocent. And they lose their libel suit against Mrs. Tilford because the only helpful witness, Mrs. Mortar was not ready to testify; she did not come back and left them alone. Mrs. Mortar abandoned her niece, Martha, who

16

suffers and hence confesses with vague motivations, that she has such "unnatural" feelings for Karen. Mrs. Mortar returns very late but just to intensify the bad and the destructive effect of the lie on Karen and Martha. The lie's effect also ruins the marriage plan of Karen and Dr. Cardin because "they can no longer communicate with each other. Trust has been broken between them" and both of them "will always have doubts about each other and doubts about themselves"9. After long days of suffering and in a moment of despair, after knowing of the breaking of relations between Karen and Cardin, Martha goes out of the room and shoots herself. Martha's suicide brings out the truth that a whole society is ready to believe a lie told by a child and not ready to show mercy for the victims. The evil power that destroyed the lives of Karen and Martha comes as a personal evil that is spread in a whole society to ruin innocent spirits. Ironically in the final scene Mrs. Tilford goes to the two poor teachers to apologize and relieve her conscience for Mary has confessed finally that she has lied to all. She offers money to Karen to compensate her. Karen, shocked and defeated psychologically by all that happened to her friend Martha and not knowing what to do, decides to accept Mrs. Tilford's offer.

2.2 Characterization The Children's Hour is Hellman's first masterpiece not only because of its tidy structure or its significant and effective themes, but also because of the excellent characterization. What Hellman wanted to deliver through her memorable characters is the moral side of life. Hellman confirms that the two plays "The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes were designed as dramas of morality first and last and that any one who reads too much cynicism into them is being misled"10. Each two of the main characters in the play represent a moral attitude. Mainly through characterization Hellman set out to heighten the good qualities and condemn the evil ones. Thus, Mary Tilford and Mrs. Mortar are the two evil characters who ruin the lives of others without calculating the

16

consequences of their lies and irresponsibility. Karen Wright and Martha Dobie are the two victims of the viciousness of the wicked characters. The last two Mrs. Amelia Tilford (Mrs. Tilford) and Dr. Cardin are two passive characters whose personalities are fragile enough to be affected by a mere lie and to lose their faith in their surroundings including those who love and respect them.

2.2.1 Mary Tilford and Mrs. Lily Mortar Mary Tilford is the embodiment of evil in the play. Her viciousness and lies are inexplicable for she tells lies from the beginning till the end of the play without being obliged or having a specific reason. She has no clear motivations except for her evil nature and an unlimited ability for harming. To investigate a psychological interpretation for lying or to try to find a justification for Mary's lying one might state that her grandmother's overemphasized affection and attention for her, actually, has added to her selfishness and evilness. She hurts whoever stands in her way since she gets all she wants. But this does not erase the fact that in Mary's inner world the evil power has overcome the good instinct; that is to say she behaves viciously and does harm to others because the evil intentions are stronger than the good ones. The good impulse is weakened by the devilish power inside Mary. Her lies are not limited to those who are with her; they include children, adults and institutions or the society as a whole. Thus, her wickedness cannot be overlooked or looked at merely as the behavior of a mischievous child. Mary is a " 'Satanic child' and 'a poisonous young viper', whose whole disordered life is devoted to cruelty, falsehood and appalling mischief…. [She] is 'a miniature genius of wickedness"11. Mary is the villain antagonist "and was, for most audience members and for Hellman herself, the most compelling character in the play"12, but her role should not be discussed as a mere evil child for as R. C. Reynolds explains, Mary has a symbolic role. He says that Mary "stands for something pernicious in

11

society, an element which is innocently disguised as 'right' but in reality is utterly destructive. It can spread suspicion and destroy anyone or anything it wants in the name of morality"13. Though Hellman shows and condemns the evil nature of her characters, she blames the adults or society as a whole for its tolerance of the evil and its shaken faith in truth.

To reach her goals Mary lies, blackmails, threatens, and exploits others' affection for her. She playfully gets her aim when she likes to gain a specific thing, but dangerously and with all her weapons she tries to get what she wants when she determines to have something. In both ways, Mary does not care about others; she smashes up things and creatures. It is evident that to make her grandmother believe her and not to send her back to school, she, (Mary) plays on Mrs. Tilford's affections for her: MRS. TILFORD: We don't celebrate my birthday, dear. You'll have to go back to school after dinner.

MARY: But--- [ She hesitates, then goes up to MRS. Tilford and puts her arms around the older woman's neck. Softly.] How much do you love me?

MRS. TILFORD [ smiling] : As much as all the words in all the books in all the world.14

But when she realizes that her grandmother insists on sending her back to school Mary tries her most malignant and destructive method when she lies about her teachers. She contrives the most harmful story about her innocent teachers:

MARY: Well, a lot of things I don't understand. But it's awful, and sometimes they fight and then they make up, and Miss Dobie cries and Miss Wright gets mad, and then they make up again, and there are funny noises and we get scared.

16

MRS. TILFORD: Noises? I suppose you girls have a happy time imagining a murder.

MARY: And we've seen things, too. Funny things. [Sees the impatience of her grandmother.] I'd tell you, but I got to whisper it. (p.54)

What makes Mary repulsive and inhuman is not her bad character alone, but the consequences of her evil doings which bring death to her surroundings. Regarding the character of Mary, Hellman affirms:

On the stage a person is twice as villainous as, say, in a novel. When I read that story [Roughead's story] I thought of the child as neurotic, sly, but not the utterly malignant creature which playgoers see in her. I never see characters as monstrously as the audiences do˗˗in her case I saw her as a bad character but never outside life. It's the results of her lie that make her so dreadful.15

The consequences of Mary's lie and the damage that it brings, do not work within a limited time and place because that evil of lying drags along with it a series of other evils. And as John Brockington argues, "Mary is not the agent of wicked forces, she is evil itself" and that "other evils are exposed", he continues "[a]s a result of her actions"16. Mary's lie as a monstrous force causes gossip and this gossip forcefully and rapidly creates social evils such as scandal mongering and whispering which authority cannot heal. If Mary's behavior

and

evil nature were understood at the beginning as childish capriciousness, her continuous evil acts prove that she is far more than a schoolgirl with "sullenly dissatisfied expression on her face"(p.7). She is dangerous and harmful for whoever tries to discipline her or simply contradict her or even without any particular reason or out of satisfying sheer desire for harming. In the school she "makes the days of her schoolmates hideous with horrible deeds of evil. She

16

traps them in childish thefts and thereafter enslaves them through threats of exposure", not only that but also "takes their money, the pitiful little allowances sent by their parents, and she bullies them when they revolt and refuse further to be hurt by her"17. With her teachers, she devastates them through a horrible lie and for her grandmother Mary causes an eternal, psychological pain and a sense of guilt that remains with her till the end of her life. And with society she plights it with various evils such as scandalmongering which brings ruin to

both the

scandalmonger and those who are scandalized.

Mrs. Lily Mortar (Martha's aunt) is another evil character. In her viciousness she is not less, if not more, than Mary. She has planted the seed of the big lie to be found out, fed and trimmed by Mary. In the school what she does is to tell the girls about the fabricated stories of her past; "she lives in romanticized delusions of her past triumphs as an actress. She is also vain and very susceptible to flattery, an easy pasty for a conniving student like MaryTilford"18. When Martha and Karen decide to send her to London with enough money to be paid to her, Mrs. Mortar comes to embody the true evilnatured character who acts out of revenge. She "exhibits her unhappiness through malicious accusations"19 when she accuses her niece of being fond of her friend in an 'unnatural' way and being jealous of her fiancé. And it is her malignant speech which causes all the devastation in the play:

MARTHA: Aunt Lily, the amount of disconnected unpleasantness that goes on in your head could keep a psychologist busy for years. Now go take your nap. MRS. MORTAR: I know what I know. Every time that man comes into this house, you have a fit. It seems like you just can't stand the idea of them being together. God knows what you'll do when they get married. You're jealous of him, that's what it is. MARTHA: [her voice is tense and the previous attitude of good-natured irritation is gone]: I'm very fond of Joe, and you know it.

16

MRS. MORTAR: You're fonder of Karen, and I know that. And it's unnatural, just as unnatural as it can be. You don’t like their being together. You were always like that even as a child. If you had a little girl friend, you always got mad when she liked anybody else. Well, you'd better get a beau of your own now- a woman of your age.(pp.24-25) Mrs. Mortar's attitude towards those who provided her with home and financial support proves that she is a selfish woman. She never took the right side in fear of losing her own interests. And as Eric Bentley states, "Mrs. Mortar is a tailor-made personification of cowardice"20. When Karen and Martha need her for the libel suit, Mrs. Mortar fails to return and to support them, to testify and be on their side, until they lose the case simply because she was "on a tour; that's a moral obligation"(p.91).

The greater chance of winning the case depends on her testimony but her selfish and malicious nature prevents her from any involvement in the case, while a great part of the accusation is based on her remarks:

MARTHA: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Well, a great part of the defense's case was based on remarks made by Lily Mortar, actress in the toilets of Rochester, against her niece, Martha. And A greater part of the defense's case rested on the telling fact that Mrs. Mortar would not appear in court to deny or explain those remarks. Mrs. Mortar had a moral obligation to the theatre. As you probably read in the papers, we lost the case.(p.92) Mrs. Mortar's " solipsistic nature reveals the reality that she loves herself too much to have any room for her niece, and this is apparent by how long she stays away"21. Thus, Mrs. Mortar shares Mary that sin of lying or even she is blamed more for it is her duty to stop it through testifying in the court. But instead of that Lily is romping "around the country visiting play houses"22. She considers visiting play houses a moral obligation while supporting Karen and Martha, through refuting the accusation, is not a moral obligation. It is the new

67

world in which everything is turned upside down; the meaning of the moral obligation is to neglect and avoid what is right and to move around the country aimlessly. The real meaning is to be on the side of justice and to correct and remedy the ill doings in life. Mrs. Mortar causes the damage and has her own part in spreading the big lie. She is the evil who acts irresponsibly out of selfishness.

2.2.2 Karen Wright and Martha Dobie Karen and Martha are the two teachers, the headmistresses who are about the same age, 'twenty-eight', and the two innocent souls who become victims of Mary's big lie. They are the victims of the cruelty of the society in which they tried hard to keep justice and system through running a boarding school

for

girls. They are unjustly punished for a lie; something that does not exist. They are not victimizers, as Philip M. Armato states according to his "victimvictimizer syndrome"23. They are the 'good' who stand against the 'evil' but "their innocence can never be a weapon to fight the powers of evil"24. Karen and Martha are the model for honesty and seriousness for the two established their business and managed to develop it more if it was not corrupted by the big lie. Karen's punishment for Mary proves that she is running the school justly without discrimination or prejudices even if Mary's grandmother, Mrs. Tilford, is the financial supporter of the school. Her courage and reasonable understanding of her surroundings is shown in her discipline of Mary and her patience with Mary's lies though she and Martha know that her evil nature is not a simple case:

MARTHA: Well, we can't, and we might as well admit it. We've tried everything we can think of. She's had more attention than any other three kids put together. And we still haven't the faintest idea what goes on inside her head.

66

KAREN: She's a strange girl.

MARTHA: That's putting it mildly.

KAREN: [laughs]: It's funny. We always talk about the child as if she were a grown woman.

MARTHA: It's not so funny. There's something the matter with the kid. That's been true ever since the first day she came. She causes trouble here; she's bad for the other girls. I don't know what it is˗˗˗it's a feeling I've got that it's wrong somewhere˗˗˗.(p.16)

Even after the damage of her career and life, Karen remains courageous to set things right especially when she senses her fiancé, Dr. Cardin's doubts about her. She does not " avoid the painful reality that her relationship with Joe is no longer tenable and, with compassion for his anguish, [she] releases him from their engagement"25. She does not want to oblige her fiancé to remain with her because she knows that he has believed the lie just like those who believe in gossip though he is supposed to believe her since he loves her. Though, psychologically destroyed by the big lie, Karen, unlike Martha, survives the crisis. Her "spirits simply sag into a kind of stoic acceptance of her fate"26.

Martha's deep injury cannot be healed easily because she thinks herself the one who is responsible for the disaster and the one to be blamed because it was her aunt's accusation that was overheard and spread as a malice gossip. Even her confession that she has passion for Karen comes as a compelling consequence of the big lie even if it is with a small amount of truth. She comes to believe the lie because "one of the awful powers of such a lie is to convince its victims to believe the image of themselves devised by their oppressors"27. In the course of the events, Martha's collapse is emotional, psychological and finally a physical one for she is the loser in almost all the cases raised in the

66

play. Though not intended, she becomes a reason behind the destruction of Karen's marriage, a close and an only friend. In the lesbian accusation she is the accused one for accusing her of

having 'unnatural' feeling for Karen, in

addition to her aunt's unfaithfulness and betrayal for her. Mrs. Mortar insults Martha and it affects her deeply but it is Mary's big lie which destroys her. Explaining Martha's final action; her suicide, Hellman says, "suspecting herself of lesbian desires, not lesbian acts, but lesbian desires, and thus feeling that the charge made against her had some moral truth, although no actual truth [she] kills herself "28. Hellman suggests that Martha never thought of having lesbian acts with Karen, but the charge made her think that her strong love for her, since Karen was her close friend and the only supporter in life, might be a kind of lesbian desire; the malicious power of the lie and the society's ruthless attitude towards them made her suspect herself, lose faith, and finally to believe what is said about her. And hence as Judith Olauson remarked, the" allegations are believed first by the town, then by friends, and finally by the two women themselves"29 and their lives become a nightmare:

KAREN: I don't know. I don't know about anything any more.[ After a Moment.] Martha, Martha, Martha˗˗˗

MARTHA [gently]: What is it, Karen?

KAREN: What are we going to do? It's all so cold and unreal and awful. It's like that dark hour of the night when, half awake, you struggle through the black mess you've been dreaming. Then, suddenly, you wake up and you see your own bed or your own nightgown and you know you're back again in a solid world. But now it's all the nightmare; there is no solid world. Oh, Martha, why did it happen? What happened? What are we doing here like this? MARTHA: Waiting.

KAREN: For what?

66

MARTHA: I don't know.(pp.88-89)

Thus, in the world of The Children's Hour the innocent and good characters; Karen and Martha are doomed to annihilation. Mary's big lie turns Karen's life into oblivion-like state; she remains alone, after her friend's suicide and her broken engagement. Martha's decision comes when she realizes that she will live and suffer because of society's damnation for them. The big lie makes her lose any ability of reasonable thinking and hence she quits everything; everything that is related to life because life, for her, becomes a heavy burden since it no longer provides her with promises of a happy future.

2.2.3 Mrs. Amelia Tilford and Dr. Joseph Cardin Mrs. Tilford's character has a significant role in spreading the gossip about Karen and Martha. The old, wealthy, and authoritative woman in society, Mrs. Tilford fails to use her reason to reach the truth about her granddaughter's lie. In spite of showing no mercy on the two teachers, she cruelly damages their lives, and hence damages all her own good deeds with them through her financial support for the school. The weakness of her character and her passivity lie in the fact that she is easily deceived by a child whose evil nature should be known to her well before any other one. And hence it is her fatal flaw to believe and spread such a dreadful lie told by a deceitful child. She is not evil but directed and moved easily by the evil:

Mrs. Tilford is not an evil woman. She is in fact too good a woman. Acting in the name of good, she instigates and promulgates the gossip that ruins the lives of Karen and Martha. She is moral but moral in the wrong sense. She makes the wrong choice. She is also a stupid woman, sufficiently gullible to jump to a conclusion with no evidence other

66

than a whispered accusation. And so her stupidity, her gullibility, her over-anxious moral indignation lead her to extend an evil that originally had no roots from which to grow30.

What critics observed about her character and the community in which she lives, is that she "is led astray by self-righteousness" and that it is not only Mrs. Tilford who believes that "her opinions are infallible, but so does the community: when she accepts Mary's lie as truth and alerts the parents: they immediately withdraw their children from the school"31. And thus in the course of the play, Hellman depicts Mrs.Tilford's character in a way to represent not only a wealthy grandmother of a student in Karen- Martha's school but also to represent the whole society. This representation is clear in act three when she discovers the fact that Mary had told them a lie. She acts her society when she shows her regret and sense of guilt; " I knew there wasn't any relief for me, Karen, and that there never would be again"(p.112). There would not be any relief for a community that enjoys spreading and repeating lies and blindly believes in gossip.

The other character who resembles Mrs. Tilford is Dr. Joseph Cardin, Karen's fiancé. Dr. Cardin "is a large, pleasant-looking, carelessly dressed man of about thirty-five"(p.19). He resembles Mrs. Tilford in his passivity. He loves Karen, supports them during their dilemma and plans for his marriage; "we're getting married this week. Then we're going a way˗˗˗all three of us"(p. 94). His compassion extends to see Martha as their forever companion even after marriage. But this sense of responsibility and understanding does not last till the end and because "he cannot take the radical view˗˗˗that a lie is just that, a false insupportable assertion˗˗˗he is doomed to half-believing in the lie he would try to persuade Mary to reject"32. As everything goes towards the false proof of the lie; after loosing the libel suit doubts began to creep into Dr.Cardin's mind. He

66

cannot resist the poisonous power of the evil. Like Mrs. Tilford he leaves himself being carried away by society's fake stories and disastrous gossip. Also like Mrs. Tilford in her inability to know Mary's true nature in spite of being her granddaughter, Dr.Cardin is Mary's cousin and yet he cannot realize that the child is acting out of malice and viciousness because his "liberal mentality", as Carl Rollyson suggests, "goes only half-way toward opposing evil"33. Thus, asserting his weak character and shaken confidence in his own beliefs and in his decisions, Dr. Cardin questions Karen about her relation to Martha:

CARDIN: I don't know what you're talking about.

KAREN: Yes, you do. We've both known for a long time. I know surely the day we lost the case. I was watching your face in court. It was ashamed˗˗˗and sad at being ashamed. Say it now, Joe. Ask it now. CARDIN: I have nothing to ask. Nothing˗˗[Quickly.] All right. Is it˗˗˗was it ever˗˗˗

KAREN [ puts her hand over his mouth]: No. Martha and I have never touched each other.[ Pulls his head down on her shoulder.] That's all right, darling. I'm glad you asked. I'm not mad a bit, really.

CARDIN: I'm sorry, Karen, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I˗˗˗

KAREN: I'll say it for you. You wanted to wait until it was all over, you really never wanted to ask at all. You didn't know for sure; you thought there might be just a little truth in it all. [With great feeling.] You've been good to me and loyal. You're a fine man.[ Afraid of tears, she pats him, walks away.] Now go and sit down, Joe. I have a lot of things to say. They're all mixed up and I must get them clear. (pp.97-98)

He accepts Karen's decision to end their engagement and thus he accepts society's damnation of two innocent souls. He fails to realize the truth; to

61

conclude it by the power of his reason. Dr. Cardin is the type of the individual that Hellman blames in her plays. She blames him for not investigating the truth; he suffers because of his ignorance and inability to differentiate between good and evil. And thus, all the characters in the play are suffering because of the lie. They are all: …defeated either physically or metaphorically: Martha commits suicide; Karen becomes a wasted person who will always live with the suspicion that others will have for her; Joe loses Karen's love and trust; Mrs. Tilford loses self-respect; Mary will grow up into an adult who can never be trusted; and Mrs. Mortar loses her single opportunity to prove herself worthy of trust and affection by refusing to testify34.

It is the devastating power of lying that defeats every character in the play even its maker Mary. What should be emphasized is the fact that lying does not only destroy the material environment of the man in this play, but also his psychology; Martha suffers and kills herself and Karen lives with a broken faith in the promises of life and accepts to continue her life with no aim of her own. While each one of the other characters has his or her share of the pain; the psychological pain of lying and its effects. All the characters in this play are not merely personas in a play; they are representing the real life in which human beings are mercilessly treating one another. Mary can be found everywhere to destroy many people like Karen and Martha. And there are great numbers of Mrs. Tilford and Dr. Cardin who are passive and ignorant, who take the wrong decision and action. The Children's Hour is a call to reject gossip and believe in truth.

66

2.3 Theme What is mostly known about Hellman as a playwright is her daring and courageous theme which concerns "a crisis of choice, a moral challenge,…the dangers of American innocence in the face of evil and injustice"35. Hellman's themes in The Children's Hour are not the usual themes of her time, but rather "the daring of the theme and the brilliance of the treatment-and most of all, the fury it provoked...immediately gave Hellman a special place in the affections of progressive intellectuals, something she kept until her death"36. Her two major themes in the play can be discussed as good versus evil and lesbianism.

2.3.1 Good versus Evil As Hellman said, The Children's Hour is a play about good and evil. It deals with the devastative power of gossip; that of the big lie 37. In most of her plays , Hellman presents evil characters who are ready to destroy their surroundings with their viciousness and wrong doings. And that is why in Hellman's plays the good characters invariably suffer because of the evil characters and their aggression. She deepens her inspection of the damage caused by evil to demonstrate its danger; to condemn it and its power. Through the play Hellman presents the struggle between what can be called 'vice and virtue'. The vice is represented mainly by Mary Tilford and Mrs. Lily Mortar, while the virtue is represented by Karen Wright and Martha Dobie mainly for their innocence and their serious attempts to have what is right and good. Mary is the representation of vice. Though not collaborating but working privately Mary and Mrs. Mortar create the big lie and destroy Karen and Martha's life. Mrs. Mortar's selfishness and malignant accusations and her deliberate absence when she was needed in the court assert her evil nature. Mary practices her malicious behavior and tells destructive lies to everybody. She is not the

66

persecutor of only her two headmistresses, but also of her classmates. Rosalie is one of her victims; she blackmails and forces her to cooperate with her in the big lie38. Peggy, too, comes under her power when she enforces her to give her money to get home by:

MARY: Go upstairs and get me the money.

PEGGY [hysterically, backing away from her]: I won't. I won't. I won't.

[MARY makes a sudden move for her, grabs her left arm, and jerks it back, hard and expertly. PEGGY screams softly. EVELYN tries to take MARY'S arm away. Without releasing her hold on PEGGY, MARY slaps EVELYN'S face. EVELYN begins to cry.] MARY: Just say when you've had enough.

PEGGY[ softly, stiflingly]: All˗˗˗all right˗˗˗I'll get it.[MARY smiles, nods her head as the Curtain falls.].(p.39) And thus Hellman's focus in this play is mainly on vice; she "emphasizes the effect of the malicious slander to make audience sympathize with the helpless teachers who are ruined by a vicious child"39, and to show the audience how evil works and devastates the good. Hellman wants to show what evil can do if it is left alone and believed in when it is disguised. Because of her emphasis on evil and its depraved role Hellman's portrayal for it is fascinating. To her "evil is a positive, active, malignant thing. Good is passive. Evil is strong. Good is weak. Evil is fascinating. Good is colorless. Evil is dramatic. Good is sentimental. Evil is bad and we must fight it but good is too goody–good and never a real match for evil"40. It is for the cruelty and depravity of evil that it acquires Hellman's attention. And it is for warning people about its danger that evil wins over good in the play as in some of her other plays; to show the necessity of fighting evil.

66

2.3.2 Lesbianism Though Hellman stated many times that the main theme of The Children's Hour concerns good and evil represented by the big lie, lesbianism appears to be also one of the controversial themes of the play. In 1934 when the play was performed its daring subject matter of lesbianism attracted the attention of audience and critics because lesbianism or homosexuality in general was a taboo and homosexuals were persecuted especially in the first half

of the

twentieth century. "By the 1920s, charges of lesbianism had become a common way to discredit women professionals, reformers, and educators"41, and that is the case in the play. And as the historian john D' Emilio illustrates "it took little effort to incorporate lesbian women and gay men into the demonology of the period"

42

. When Hellman was asked about lesbianism; whether it was, at the

time of the play's production, an accepted topic or not in an interview in 1975, she replied: No, I don't think it was an accepted topic….[I]t [the play] was banned in many cities. It was banned in Boston for many years. It was banned in Chicago for many years….We finally won both Chicago and Boston suits, but after many, many years. Yes, it was a forbidden topic43.

When Hellman adapted her play for the movie, the lesbian affair was replaced by a love affair between Dr. Cardin and Martha. By "removing the lesbian plot from the narrative, however, a significant part of its social commentary was lost (albeit a commentary unintended by the author)"44. Concerning the play's social commentary Brett Elizabeth Westbrook suggests that "the play offers a valid social critique by linking hetero-normativity to class hierarchies. Mary and Mrs. Tilford…use their social position to 'enforce a sexual norm' "45. The lesbian topic in the play and its significance as a social criticism

67

with its controversies is inevitable because of the sensitive nature of the topic especially in that period of the 1930s. To provide a concrete image of her criticism for the social conventions, Richard Hayes states, Hellman tries " to map out the prison in which the characters find themselves", for the play, Hayes continues," concerns itself with imprisonment within social convention.[it] draws attention to the limited nature of its space"46. Also because of "the subtle treatment of a sensitive theme that had been often sensationalized, this play enjoyed an unusually long and successful run of over two years. It was saluted as the 'Thunderbolt of Broadway'"47. In spite of its success the play failed to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1935 and the reason once again was its subject matter of lesbianism. But the supporters of the play especially New York theatre critics, disapproved of that judgment and responded by forming the Drama Critics' Circle Award48.

Martha's suicide regardless of its cause is the tragic outcome of the big lie and society's prejudices. Within the social context, "women in authority have always been vulnerable to slander. In this position, as victims of society which can be blinded by implacable evil forces the characters, emotionally and mentally, take a tragic stature"49. Hence by her confession and suicide, Martha records her state as a tragic protagonist in the fictitious world. But with her character's suicide, Hellman forwards "a challenge to the phallocentric canon, wherein the traditional tragic female protagonist kills herself for a man" 50. Hellman's ambitious nature assisted her in her confrontation "with a male literary tradition that equated masculinity with authority and authorship and a society that equated female independence with sexual deviance" 51.

Thus the

play as a whole is a controversial one, and raises various orientations beginning with its first performance and continuing with its revivals many years later. It is through her The Children's Hour that Hellman raises issues related directly to the life of the individuals; issues in which the evil power overcomes all other powers. And it is through her drama that she "attempted to develop a theme

66

common to all her plays, that the world we live in is the sum total of the acts of each individual in it. Ignorance, dishonesty, and cowardice in personal lives affect social events"52. Each of these evils begins privately with the ill-natured souls to spread and devour the whole society.

2.4 The Destructive Power of Lying Unlike the other young playwrights, and writers in general, Hellman began her career with a play not about herself but about one of the personal evils that quickly occupies the minds of the people, shakes their beliefs, and spreads its dangerous and corrupting effect in society to be a social evil. Hellman's first play is not an autobiography or a play with autobiographical elements but a play about the destructive power of lying; that evil which, if not controlled would ruin a society as a whole. In this regard she says: "anyone young ordinarily writes autobiographically. Yet I picked on a story that I could treat with complete impersonality. I hadn't even been to boarding school_I went to school here in New York"53. The core of the play, the substance, and the evil that the author condemns is (a lie). Hellman emphasizes that the play is "about a lie. The bigger the lie the better, as always"54. To concentrate on lying is to show its devastating consequences which are more destructive than the lie itself because they penetrate all moral fortifications, conquer and change the minds. When it is uttered, the lie is one destructive power but begets countless damaging results:

The lie assumes the proportions of uncontrollable cancer, its malignant cells, human hypocrisy; its end, the destruction of innocent people. The power of gossip is infinitely more frightening an evil than Mary's….The evil of gossip is far more insidious. It oozes through the fabric of human life, blending like the chameleon with

66

its surroundings, posing under guises of selfrighteousness or moral indignation but wreaking havoc wherever it goes55.

The danger of the lie lies in the fact that even if it is proved to be a lie, the society will remain in suspect because not all the individuals are ready to believe the proof; "when the 'big lie' is involved, even proving innocence cannot completely erase the smear that remains from the accusation"56. The malignancy of the big lie is so powerful that it becomes a fact-like case because it is easier to believe what is bad or wrong than to believe what is good or right. The reason behind that is the modern world in which suspicion and mistrust are among its characteristics because of the various changes that altered everything including the established values of life, and in which most of the people no more believe in truths because of the economic, social, and political false promises. They have a shaken faith in life itself before any other specific field of it; they expect the evil to appear everywhere and every time. It is a very difficult task for the righteous man to assert his righteousness in this modern life. What can be added to the reasons behind society's readiness to believe and spread gossips is the leisure time that the people have. But this reason is limited to a specific section of people; the old women who have nothing to do except for concentrating on gossip. Mrs.Tilford's eagerness to spread the lie and phone the mothers of the school girls, when Mary tells her the lie, is so great that she never thinks about investigating the truth:

MRS. TILFORD: I'm not mad at you. Now go upstairs and get ready for dinner. [MARY kisses her and runs happily out Left. MRS. TILFORD stands staring after her for a long moment; then, very slowly, she puts on her eyeglasses and crosses to the phone. She dials a number.] Is Miss Wright˗˗˗is Miss Wright in? [Waits a second, hurriedly puts down the receiver.] Never mind, never mind. [Dials another number.] Dr. Cardin, please. Mrs. Tilford. [She remains absolutely motionless while she waits. When she does speak, her voice is low and tense.] Joseph? Joseph? Can you come to see me right away? Yes, I'm perfectly well. No, but it's important, Joseph, very important. I must see you right away-----------

66

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[Hangs up the receiver, sits for a moment undecided. Then, taking a breath, she dials another number.] Mrs. Munn, please. This is Mrs. Tilford. Miriam? This is Amelia Tilford. I have something to tell you˗˗˗something very shocking, I'm afraid˗˗˗something about the school and Evelyn and Mary˗˗˗ (pp.55-56)

And hence, "the ascendance of the wickedness which springs from the lie of the child is weighed against the descending capacity for the truth to survive", and as Judith Olauson adds to the argument, "with relentless momentum, deception outbalances truth and the irreparable damage is done to the two main characters"57. The two main characters become the focus of the people who look at them as criminals or terrifying monsters:

[A GROCERY BOY appears lugging a box. He brings it into the room, stands staring at them, giggles a little. Walks toward KAREN, stops, examines her. She sits tense, looking away from him. Without taking his eyes from KAREN, he speaks.] GROCERY BOY: I knocked on the kitchen door, but nobody answered.

MARTHA: You said that yesterday. All right. Thanks. Good-by.

KAREN [unable any longer to stand the stare]: Make him stop it.

GROCERY BOY: Here are the things. [Giggles, moves toward MARTHA, stands looking at her. Suddenly MARTHA thrusts her hand in the air.]

MARTHA: I've got eight fingers, see? I'm a freak. (p.88)

Another controversial point about the play is that most of the critics preferred the play to end with Martha's suicide because they regard this action

66

as the tragic end of the story that makes the play more effective. But Hellman had her own reason behind adding the last scene: The play probably should have ended with Martha's suicide: the last scene is tense and over-burdened. I knew this at the time, but I could not help myself. I am a moral writer, often too moral a writer, and I cannot avoid, it seems, that last summing-up. I think that is only a mistake when it fails to achieve its purpose, and I would rather make the attempt, and fail, than fail to make the attempt.58

She added the last scene when Mrs. Tilford comes with a hurt conscience to apologize and compensate the two teachers, to show that the self-righteous persons are suffering like those who are persecuted by the slander, to show that the outcomes of the big lie spare no one and all are destroyed either psychologically or physically or both. Also to demonstrate that " the slander is doomed as thoroughly as those who have been slandered, and that righteousness is a ruthless form of vanity and that there is no way of undoing a wrong committed out of a sanctimonious attitude"59. This is the moral lesson through which Hellman condemns the evil in society, either personal or social, and shows how it should be terminated for it affects and devastates every material and moral obligations in life. It is the destructive power of the big lie that damages the life of all the characters in the play's realm. Karen and Martha's story is the story of innocent souls inflicted with the poisonous evil; the big lie and its outcome of scandalmongering:

KAREN [crying]: Go and lie down, Martha. You'll feel better.

MARTHA: [looks around the room, slowly, carefully. She is very quiet. Exits Right, stands at door for a second looking at KAREN, then slowly shuts the door behind her]: Yes. I think I will feel better. [KAREN sits alone without moving. There is no sound in the house until, a few

66

minutes after MARTHA's exit, a shot is heard. The sound of the shot should not be too loud or too strong; the act has not been sensational. For a few seconds after the noise has died out, KAREN does not move. Then, suddenly, she springs from the chair, crosses the room, pulls open door Right. Almost at the same moment footsteps are heard on the staircase.] MRS. MORTAR. What was that? Where is it? [Enters door Center, frightened, Aimlessly moving about.] Karen! Martha! Where are you? I heard a shot. What was˗˗˗[stops as she sees KAREN reappear Right. Walks toward her, still talking. Stops when she sees KAREN's face.] What˗˗˗what is it? [KAREN moves her hands, shakes her head slightly, passes MRS. MORTAR, and goes toward window. MRS. MORTAR stares at her for a moment, rushes past her through door Right. Left alone, KAREN leans against the window. MRS. MORTAR re-enters crying. After a minute.] What shall we do? What shall we do? KAREN: [in a toneless voice]: Nothing. (pp.105-106)

But these two innocent souls, Hellman wants to deliver, even in their collapse, are dignified. In the final scene when she forgives Mrs. Tilford, Karen "demonstrates that even in her defeat she is superior to those who blindly persecute others because of such things as the 'big lie' "60. Dealing with this destructive evil of lying indicates that The Children's Hour is " an engrossing drama and a serious study of abnormal psychology, demonstrating as it does the playwright's ability to weave tough-minded expressions of liberal social attitudes into a suspenseful plot"61. The play is the effective outlet through which Hellman condemns the evil of lying and through which she makes everyone "learn [how] to avoid the sin of scandalmongering, the sin of self-righteousness, and the sin of hypocrisy"62. Everyone should know that in society men, as social beings, are "in need of correction" and also that "through the pity we feel for the plight of the innocent we can learn not to do what Mrs. Tilford has done. We can develop a social conscience. And in this way, by not doing a wrong thing, will good have a chance to flourish"63. Thus, in that way good will have the to challenge evil since it cannot manage all that by itself alone.

ability

61

Notes 1-Moody, p.38.

2- Chris Vials, Realism for the Masses: Aesthetics, Popular Front Pluralism, and U.S. Culture, 1935-1947 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009), p. 61.

3-Alan Ackerman, Just Words: Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, and the Failure of Public Conversation in America (New Havens: Yale University Press, 2011), p. 92.

4- David Galens, ed., Drama for Students vol. 3(Detroit: Gale Research, 1998), p. 83.

5- Moody, pp. 47-48.

6-Mark W. Estrin, Lillian Hellman: Plays, Films, Memoirs: a reference guide (Massachusetts: G. K. Hall & co., 1980), p.8.

7-Ibid.

8- Lorena Ross Holmin, The Dramatic Works of Lillian Hellman (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1973) , p. 22.

9- Ibid., p. 23.

10- Quoted in Lucius Beebe, " Stage Asides: Miss Hellman Talks of Her Latest Play, The Little Foxes", in Jackson R. Bryer, ed., Conversations with Lillian Hellman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986), p.7.

66

11- Quoted in T. Nagamani, The Plays of Lillian Hellman: A Critical Study (New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2001), p. 46.

12-Ackerman, p.105.

13- R.C. Renolds, Stage Left: The Development of the American Social Drama in the Thirties (New York: The Whitston Publishing Company, 1986), p. 136.

14- Lillian Hellman, The Children's Hour (New York: Alfred. A. Knope, 1936), pp. 48-49. Further citations from the play are to this edition and referred to by page number within the text.

15- Quoted in Harry Gilroy, "The Bigger the Lie", in Jackson R. Bryer, ed., Conversations with Lillian Hellman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986), p.25.

16- John Brockington, "A Critical Analysis of the Plays of Lillian Hellman". An Unpublished Dissertation. University of Yale, 1962. p. 104.

17- Nagamani, p. 46.

18- Galens, p. 87.

19- Nagamani, p. 48.

20- Quoted in Holmin, p. 26.

21- Thaddeus Wakefield, The Family in Twentieth _ Century American Drama( New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2004) , p. 73.

66

22- Ibid.

23- Philip M. Armato, " Good and Evil" in Lillian Hellman's " The Children's Hour". Educational Theatre Journal, vol. 25, No.4( Dec., 1973):444 In this essay Mary is described as the "victim" of her teachers' harsh treatment. And hence, according to Armato's opinion, each victim turns into a victimizer according to a victim- victimizer syndrome. Armato ignores the fact that Mary is the evil student who lies to everyone in the play. And she also torments her school mates; blackmailing them to tell lies, talking their allowances , and hurting her grandmother and rewarding her love and care for her with a strong psychological agony and sense of guilt. Mary is not a victim. She is from the beginning the victimizer and the source of every evil action in the play.

24-Brockington, p. 106.

25-Allice Griffin and Geraldine Thorsten, "The Children's Hour", in Jessica Bomarito and Jeffrey W. Hunter eds., Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion Volume 6: 20th Century, Authors (H-Z)( Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005), p. 84.

26- Galens, p. 88.

27- Griffin, p. 84.

28- Fred Gardener, " An Interview with Lillian Hellman " , in Jackson R. Bryer, ed., Conversations with Lillian Hellman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986), p.110.

66

29- Quoted in Griffin , p. 84.

30- Brockington, pp. 104-105.

31- Griffin, p. 83.

32- Rollyson, p. 52.

33-Ibid.

34- Reynolds, pp. 132-133.

35- Richard Gray, A History of American Literature (Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004), p. 491.

36- Paul Johnson, Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky (New York: Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 1988), p. 293.

37- Doris V. Falk, Lillian Hellman (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1978), p. 37.

38- Nagamani, p. 37.

39- Quoted in Ibid.

40- Brockington, p. 107.

41- Mary Titus, " Murdering the Lesbian: Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour". Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Vol. 10, No. 2( Autumn, 1991): 216.

67

42- Larry Gross, Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 22.

43- Jan Albert, "Sweetest Smelling Baby in New Orleans", in Jackson R. Bryer, ed., Conversations with Lillian Hellman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986), p.167.

44-Vials, p.62.

45- Ibid.

46- Richard Hayes, " 'These Three': the Influence of William Wyler and Gregg Toland on Lillian Hellman". Literature/Film Quarterly, Vol.37, Issue: 3(2009):180.

47-Serene Anderlini-D'Onofrio, "The Lie with the Ounce of Truth: Lillian Hellman's Bisexual Fantasies". Journal of Bisexuality, Vol.3, Issue 1(2003): 89.

48- Griffin, p.82.

49-Nagamani, p. 38.

50- D'Onofrio, p.14.

51- Titus, p. 228.

52-Katherine Lederer, , Lillian Hellman (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1979), p.35.

66

53- Quoted in Gilroy, p.25.

54- Ibid.

55- Brockington, p. 104.

56- Reynolds, p. 134.

57- Quoted in Nagamani, p. 34.

58-Quoted in Lederer , p. 30.

59-Quoted in Ibid., p.27.

60- Reynolds, p. 135.

61- Nagamani, p. 8.

62- Brockington, p. 108.

63- Ibid.

CHAPTER THREE THE LITTLE FOXES

29

39

3.1 The Summary of the Play The Little Foxes (1939) is Hellman's second success and one of her finest plays. It was performed 410 times and ran for about two years in the country. Due to its excellent qualities, the play remains a dramatic and classic masterpiece of the American theatre and the most revived of Hellman's plays 1. The title, suggested by Dorothy Parker, is taken from the Bible "Song of Solomon 2:15, 'Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes'"2. The title foxes refer to the Hubbards for " [i]n fact, in no Hellman play is there a single protagonist; hence the titles are either thematic or symbolic references to a group of characters"3. The biblical citation can be interpreted as a symbolic reference to the vicious natures of the Hubbards. It indicates that greed devastates human's sense of humanity, wrecks the mildnatured people, and causes havoc for the greedy people themselves 4. Hellman's play is set in three acts with the setting of the aristocratic house of rich southerners.

The story of the play is set at the beginning of the twentieth century in a small town in the deep South when the American society was developing a rapid indulgence in materialistic and capitalistic interests. The members of Hubbard family, Regina Hubbard Giddens and her two brothers Ben and Oscar Hubbard, embody the new generation of Americans who are exploiting others and even each other for the sake of materialistic gains. They plan to cooperate with a rich man from Chicago, William Marshall, to erect a cotton mill in which the poor workers will be exploited in hard working and low wages. They need the financial help of Regina's heart-sick husband, Horace Giddens, to make Regina a partner in the business. But Horace's knowledge about the Hubbards' cheating in business and ruthless nature prevents him from sharing them their business 5. Act one begins with the black maid, Addie, and the black porter, Cal, busy serving the dinner for the Hubbards guest Mr. Marshall. Birdie Hubbard, a

39

well-bred but weak woman enters the dinner room followed by her husband Oscar. Oscar rebukes her for disturbing their guest; talking about music. After a while Regina and Ben come with their guest to the dinning room after making a deal to erect a cotton mill which makes them richer. Regina's husband Horace is in Baltimore under the supervision of specialists in heart sickness. Mr. Marshall flirts with her openly and she responds positively for she has material aims and her brothers approve of her behavior. When the guest leaves each one of the Hubbards puts a plan for spending the money he or she gets. The brothers urge Regina to gain her third of the needed money from her husband who has refused to answer her request letters. But she skillfully says that Horace rejects the idea for he wants a bigger share. The brothers agree on one condition which is to let Regina's seventeen years old daughter, Alexandra, marry Leo, Oscar's son, since Oscar will lose a part of his share to Regina. Regina

promises to think about the deal. Later on she informs Alexandra to

prepare herself for she travels the next day morning to Baltimore to bring her father home. Alexandra agrees with astonishment for her mother's sudden decision6.

Act two begins a week later with the Hubbards waiting for Horace's arrival. At first Oscar and his son Leo, who is working in Horace's bank, discuss the idea of bringing an outsider to be their partner. During the discussion Leo tells his father that uncle Horace has $88,000 in Union Pacific bonds in his safedeposit box but though denying it at first, Leo confesses that he had opened the box himself. Instead of being angry, Oscar advices his son to "borrow" i.e. steal the bonds from the box to use them in their business since Horace usually does not check his bonds before three months. Later on their plan is interrupted by Regina and Ben. When the Hubbards meet on breakfast Horace and Alexandra arrive. He prevents Addie from telling anyone about his arrival because he feels tired and wants to drink a coffee. Then he inquires from Addie why Zan (Alexandra) came to bring him home. Addie informs him that big issues of

39

money are going on and that there is talk about a marriage between Zan and Leo. After a while his arrival is announced and the Hubbards greet him but only Birdie shows a real affection for him. Then being alone Regina expresses her fake feeling for her husband telling him that she wants him home in order to take care of him after being away for five months. Horace confronts her for hearing such a talk about Zan's marriage to Leo and blames her for neglecting him and refusing him in her bed for more than ten years. Regina answers him smoothly with some false reasons just to persuade him to give her the money she needs. Again being surrounded by the Hubbards and told about the business, Horace knows that Zan's marriage proposal is a part of that business. He prefers to stay aside and watch them growing rich. Regina's anger grows as she follows him upstairs. Ben, Oscar and Leo hurry to put their plan and "borrow" the bonds for they need it urgently. Then Ben, deceiving her, informs Regina that Oscar is leaving tonight for Chicago for securing the money since Horace refuses to participate, he also tells her that they do not need her any more. Regina's rage is directed again towards Horace when Ben leaves. Horace being harassed by his wife and her brothers' cruelty faces Regina to tell her that he is sick of them. Regina does not keep silent for she shows her husband and the audience her true nature when she says to Horace that she wishes him die 7.

Act three begins two weeks later with all the innocent characters meeting together. Horace on a wheel chair, in front of him a safe deposit box and the bottle of his medicine, Birdie and Alexandra playing on the piano while Addie is sitting with them, sewing, to indicate the equality that this group of characters believes in. This calmness can be described as the one which precedes the storm. The storm is the confrontation between Horace and Regina which leads to Horace's death. Hellman makes use of Birdie's recollection, when she is drunk, about her ugly past when she married Oscar. Through Birdie's confession Alexandra knows much about the evil and ruthless nature of her family8. To indicate that he knows about the theft, Horace sends Cal to the bank

39

to tell Mr. Manders that he is much obliged to him for delivering the box safely and to bring attorney Fowler with him for he wants to change his will. Horace knows that when Cal is going to say his piece Leo will be there with Manders and hence it will be a message for Leo and the Hubbards that he knows everything. Horace's new will comes to benefit Alexandra mostly and Addie who will be responsible of Zan after his death. Birdie's drinking exhausts her and hence Zan leads her home. Regina comes home and the big confrontation begins when Horace tells her that Leo has stolen the bonds and that he will keep silent and call it a loan from Regina. He also informs her that he is going to change his will to give everything to Zan but only the bonds to her and hence she is now obliged to deal with her brothers for the bonds. When Regina hears all that she begins to express her contempt for him and how she married him out of loneliness and out of her desire to have fortune, and how she lied to him about her sickness when she refused him in her bed claiming that it is the doctor's order. Her ruthless speech affects Horace deeply; he collapses and in an attempt to reach his bottle of medicine he breaks it. Regina does not make any movement to help him because his death keeps the will unchanged. His voice does not rise to call for Addie. That is why he struggles to go upstairs to reach his other bottle but on the stairs he falls and again Regina does not move to help him. Being sure that he has collapsed completely, Regina calls for Addie and Cal. They carry him up and call for the doctor. Alexandra returns and runs to her father9.

To prepare for the last confrontation among the Hubbards, Leo, Oscar and Ben arrive. Regina tells them that she knows about their theft but they put the blame on Leo. Showing her brutality, Regina blackmails her brothers for a seventy-five percent share. They agree in order to avoid jail because she threatens them to tell the police about stealing the bonds. But a piece of information from Alexandra comes to change her mother's state as a winner. She asks her mother what her father was doing on the staircase when he collapsed.

39

Ben, having the same vicious nature, uses that suspicion about Horace's death as a threat to get back the large share which Regina tries to get. Before the end of the play, Regina is going to have another blow when Alexandra refuses to accompany her to Chicago because she wants to prevent the evil people like her mother and her uncles from eating the earth10. She becomes aware of the threats of such people who are ready to hurt even their families in order to get money and power.

3.2 Characterization As in most of Hellman's plays the characters are actually set into two opposite groups. One contradicting the other and sometimes a third group between the two. In The Little Foxes the characters are of two groups: a group in which no sympathy or humanity can be traced; their only feature is wickedness, while the second group has what can be described as innocence but a blamed innocence which means that they are too weak to be aware of

their

surroundings and to confront the evils(except for Alexandra). But in general the characters can be categorized as evil doers and victims or innocents.

3.2.1 The Hubbards "Evil Doers" The Hubbards embody the ruthlessness that characterizes the new age and also exemplify "the inhumanity and vices of capitalism", and for such reasons and many others "[i]t would be difficult to find a more malignant gang of petty robber barons than Miss Hellman's chief characters"11.Regina represents both the main evil doer and character of the play. She is a beautiful woman of forty. Her beauty is not her only feature for, throughout the events, she proves to be a skillful manipulative woman ambitious and anxious to have power represented by money and authority over her brothers and her surroundings: "There'll be

39

millions, Birdie, millions. You know what I've always said when people told me we were rich? I said I think you should either be a nigger or a millionaire. In between, like us, what for?"12. Regina never accepts what is little or less than the share of others, she always wants the bigger share; she does not want to be in-between. It is her ambitions that make her consider money as a sign of dignity. That is why she plans to leave to Chicago when the cotton mills bring them the great money for Chicago is the big world that she aspires to .Hellman makes Regina the female with a quick understanding who is able to overcome her brothers in their viciousness. When the brothers get bored with Horace's silence, she turns her husband's unresponsiveness into a deceptive tactic; she demands a very big percentage and suggests being the reason behind Horace's unresponsiveness. She uses different masks to play her role well; the role of an innocent woman who does not know about business, and who cares about her husband's interest:

REGINA: Well, I don't know. I don't know about these things. It would seem that if you put up a third you should only get a third. But then again, there's no law about it, is there? I should think that if you knew your money was very badly needed, well, you just might say, I want more, I want a bigger share. You boys have done that. I've heard you say so. BEN: (After a pause, laughs) So you believe he has deliberately held out? For a larger share? (Leaning forward) Well, I don't believe it. But I do believe that's what you want. Am I right, Regina? REGINA: Oh, I shouldn't like to be too definite. But I could say that I wouldn't like to persuade Horace unless he did get a larger share. I must look after his interests. It seems only natural˗˗˗(p.33)

Money forms almost everything for Regina. It fulfills all the needs in her life. For her "the financial power has become a substitute for sex"13 and a form of familial ties and warmth and that is why she prefers the loss of her husband and daughter to the loss of money. She is the "impressively shrewd

33

businesswoman who will lie, steal, or murder to achieve her dreams of an independent life of luxury"14. Her relationship with her husband embodies the most emotionless relationship, especially between a husband and wife, because when Horace tells her about his plan to leave her only "the borrowed" bonds, she responds in a manner which causes a fatal heart attack for him. Her behavior is the most merciless one; nothing can stop her from getting her aim even if she is obliged to kill as she does with her husband. Regina overcomes Horace in their struggle; she defeats him, makes him bury with himself the good intentions that he had along with the plans that he thought of for the future of their daughter:

REGINA: (Nods) Remember when I went to Doctor Sloan and I told you he said there was something the matter with me and that you shouldn't touch me any more? HORACE: I remember.

REGINA: But you believed it. I couldn't understand that. I couldn't understand that anybody could be such a soft fool. That was when I began to despise you.

HORACE: (Puts his hand to his throat looks at the bottle of medicine on table) Why didn't you leave me? REGINA: I told you I married you for something. It turned out it was only for this. (Carefully) This wasn't what I wanted, but it was something. I never thought about it much but if I had (HORACE puts his hand to his throat) I'd have known that you would die before I would. But I couldn't have known that you would get heart trouble so early and so bad. I'm lucky, Horace. I've always been lucky. (HORACE turns slowly to the medicine) I'll be lucky again. (HORACE looks at her. Then he puts his hand to his throat. Because he cannot reach the bottle he moves the chair closer. He reaches for the medicine, takes out the cork, picks up the spoon. The bottle slips and smashes on the table. He draws in his breath, gasps.)

011

HORACE: Please. Tell Addie˗˗˗The other bottle is upstairs. (REGINA has not moved. She does not move now. He stares at her. Then, suddenly as if he understood, he raises his voice. It is a panic-stricken whisper, too small to be heard outside the room) Addie! Addie! Come˗˗˗(Stops as he hears the softness of his voice. He makes a sudden, furious spring from the chair to the stairs, taking the first few steps as if he were a desperate runner. On the fourth step he slips, gasps, grasps the rail, makes a great effort to reach the landing. When he reaches the landing, he is on his knees. His knees give way, he falls on the landing, out of view. REGINA has not turned during his climb up the stairs. Now she waits a second. Then she goes below the landing, speaks up). (pp.124-126)

Such a ruthless action brings many questions about human psyche into the mind. One of these questions is that whether good may turn into evil because of circumstantial reasons? Or in other words, can good remain good under any kind of pressure? It is common to state that human beings are of different natures with different opinions and attitudes towards the point in question. But it is likely that those who are with a good instinct from the beginning; to have inborn goodness and a pure conscience, might never turn into evil even in the hardest circumstances, while those with a sleeping conscience might show their evil personality with the simplest stimulus. In her case, Regina faced and is facing some problems but they are not severe enough to the degree of killing. She, as it becomes clear throughout the events, had been deprived of her father's fortune because he distributed his money among his sons. Moreover, she is in struggle with her brothers, Ben and Oscar, because each one of the Hubbards wants to have more money. But all these, deprivation and struggle, do not give her the right to kill and hurt all those around her because what she was deprived of was money and what she struggles for is also money; what conquers her mind is the material wealth not something spiritual or emotional.

This fact about Regina's life asserts the idea that the evil power in side her might be (or more likely, it is) so strong that it seeks an outlet, whatever it is, to rage and to show itself ,which means that no circumstantial reasons can justify

010

her greedy nature and ruthless behavior, except for her devilish motivations. The course of her actions affirms that Regina's good instinct is weak; it cannot supersede the evil power inside her. And although the struggle between good and evil is an old and controversial one, it is clear that in Regina's inner world it was settled since good gave up so early; surrendered to evil easily because she belongs to those who are inborn evil. It is the authority of conscience that she lacks. Not only Regina but also all the Hubbards are

in complete control of their destinies….Nothing around them in their physical or social world compels them to act as they do. As opportunists, vicious and without conscience, they proceed entirely on their own, make their own decisions, and have no one but themselves to whom they must render account. The drama of their ugly lives is believably real. Hellman sees the Hubbards as funny in their role-playing and scheming but dangerous15. In this play, the way that Hellman punishes her evil characters is not by making them die or surrender. Her punishment for Regina is that to let her remain a lone. Regina is likely to get the share she wants but she is no longer a wife and a mother. She "is biologically the mother, she doesn't fulfill the traditionally defined maternal / feminine role of comforting her children"16. She loses her daughter's affection and respect because Alexandra decides to go away from her because such a malicious personality is not worth to be her mother. And also because she "has no maternal instinct˗˗˗only her avaricious instinct of outdoing her brothers in their 'race' to become rich. Regina has no true love for her husband and daughter˗˗˗they are commodities or things…to be used to gain wealth"17. And thus, it is quite evident that Regina's notion of love is literally equated with matter or 'things' and this materialistic notion of life actually comes as an aspect and "a result of the value system propagated by a

011

capitalistic American society"18 in which everything in life is reevaluated according to its materialistic significance.

Benjamin or Ben Hubbard, the bachelor brother, is equal to Regina in his viciousness. He is "fifty-five, with a large jovial face and the light graceful movements that one often finds in large men"(p.6). Ben shows no interest in the spiritual side of life; shows no desire or interest in love, emotion, and the other human relations. What catches his attention is what can be used to achieve material gains. In his small southern town he has exploited and cheated the workers. And in his new business with Mr. Marshall he assures him about the profits; promising low wages and no strikes for he (the predatory capitalist) knows how to use the workers against each other19. Ben's character differs from his siblings in being funny and extremely harmful, and as Hellman describes him in her notebook, he is "rather jolly and far less solemn than the others and far more dangerous"20. His threat of danger lies in his hypocritical manner; the ability to observe others and plot against them without showing his real feeling or, in other words, lies in his ability to play tricks on them. When Oscar gets furious at reducing his share to be given to Regina, Ben easily persuades everyone:

BEN: (Turns slowly to look at Oscar. Oscar breaks off) My, my. I am being attacked tonight on all sides. First by my sister, then by my brother. And I ain't a man who likes being attacked. I can believe that God wants the strong to parade their strength, but I don't mind it if it's got to be done. (Leans back in his chair) You ought to take these things better, Oscar. I've made you money in the past. I'm going to make you more money now. You'll be a very rich man. What's the difference to any of us if a little more goes here, a little less goes there˗˗˗it's all in the family. And it will stay in the family. I'll never marry. (ADDIE enters, begins to gather the glasses from the table. Oscar turns to BEN) So my money will go to Alexandra and Leo. They may even marry some day and ˗˗˗(ADDIE looks at BEN.). (p.37)

019

Along with Oscar and Leo, Ben plans for the robbery and hides everything from Regina. But when Regina outwits them by telling them about their act of theft; threatening to send them to jail or to have a bigger share and larger profits, Ben reacts in a more cruel way but typical of the Hubbards:

BEN: Then, too, I say to myself, things may change. (Looks at ALEXANDRA) I agree with Alexandra. What is a man in a wheel chair doing on astaircase? I ask myself that. REGINA: (Looks up at him) And what do you answer?

BEN: I have no answer. But maybe some day I will. Maybe never, but maybe some day. (Smiles. Pats her arm) When I do, I'll let you know. (Goes towards hall.). (pp.148-149) Thus, he threatens his sister to accuse her of killing her husband since he hears Zan asking or indirectly accusing her mother of killing her father. He employs this speech for his own benefit, using it as a means to defend himself against Regina's attacks. Ben and Regina are foxes fighting each other to get the best always; each one is as dangerous as the other. They are similar in their poisonous thoughts and devious ways of getting what they want. They are ready to ruin each other in order to win the big money. Ben is evil and his evil has a face of hypocrisy in addition to many devilish faces. He is hypocritical and "a part of the hypocrisy is so practical and usual that he is no longer aware of it"21. Hence to cure Ben or save him from his evil nature is a controversial matter that Hellman does leave open.

Though unlike Regina and Ben in his quick understanding, Oscar is even worse than them. "He is a man in his late forties"(p.3), who abuses his wife 'Birdie' mentally and physically. He married her for her father's plantation:

BIRDIE :(Speaking very rapidly, tensely) My family was good and the cotton

019

on Lionnet's fields was better. Ben Hubbard wanted the cotton and (Rises) Oscar Hubbard married it for him. He was kind to me, then. He used to smile at me. He hasn't smiled at me since. Everybody knew that's what he married me for. (ADDIE rises) Everybody but me. Stupid, stupid me. (p.112) Oscar is a villain not only with his wife but also with his son. He often betrays his parental responsibility; he encourages Leo, his son, to steal Horace's bonds22. He shamelessly plans for him to betray the man (Horace) he works for in the bank. He is a coward and selfish, both he and Ben deny taking responsibility for the robbery and putting the blame only on Leo when it is uncovered:

OSCAR: (Mildly) Nothing. You done your almighty best. Nobody could blame you if the whole thing just dripped away right through our fingers. You can't do a thing. But there may be something I could do for us. (OSCAR rises) Or, I might better say, Leo could do for us. (BEN stops, turns, looks at OSCAR. LEO is staring at OSCAR) Ain't that true, son? Ain't it true you might be able to help your own kinfolks? LEO: (Nervously taking a step to him) Papa, I˗˗˗

BEN: (Slowly) How would he help us, Oscar?

OSCAR: Leo's got a friend. Leo's friend owns eighty-eight thousand dollars in Union Pacific bonds. (BEN turns to look at LEO) Leo's friend don't look at the bonds much˗˗˗not for five or six months at a time. (pp.92-93) His son Leo, "a young man of twenty, with a weak kind of good looks" (p.5), easily agrees to be involved in the theft for he and his father are "weakwilled persons. They lack individuality and are dictated by the elder brother Ben"23. Leo, like his Hubbard family, is ready to lie, steal, and do whatever is bad to lies:

get money. When they ask him whether he opened the box himself he

019

LEO: (Stops, draws back, frightened, realizing what he has said) Oh, well. Well, er. Well, one of the boys, sir. It was one of the boys at the bank. He took old Manders' keys. It was Joe Horns. He just up and took Manders' keys and, and˗˗well, took the box out. (Quickly) Then they all asked me if I wanted to see, too. So I looked a little, I guess, but then I made them close up the box quick and I told them never˗˗˗(p.59).

Leo, the little fox, is "a lying toady with all of the greed and deceitfulness of his father and none of his mother's cultural refinement"24. He is also a villain and has an evil nature but unable to outwit his father and uncle when they put the blame on him when the theft is revealed. Thus, Hellman's portrayal of the Hubbard clan shows the depth of their corruption. Her "emphasis is upon the characters who in a material sense make a success of living, but who are as void of social or moral or spiritual values as a nest of vipers"25. The Hubbards have their root in Hellman's imagination and memory of her relatives. She has the image of her mother's family dinners when she writes about Regina and her brothers. In Pentimento she says:

The Little Foxes was the most difficult play I ever wrote….Some of the trouble came because the play has a distant connection to my mother's family and everything that I had heard or seen or imagined had formed a giant tangled time-jungle in which I could find no space to walk without tripping over old roots, hearing old voices speak about histories made long before my day.(pp.172-173)

Hence it is clear that in addition to her own observations about the old days of the South and the new Southerners, Hellman employs her knowledge of her relatives "in creating the Hubbard clan, characters who achieve both a universally

human

dimension

and

a

specific

social

identification

as

representatives of a new post-bellum Southern class of ambitious and opportunistic nouveau riche"26. Thus, the Hubbards' root in some aspects goes

019

back to the author's relatives but they are not specific individuals with limited dimension, they have the universal dimension; they are representatives of the greedy, vicious, and ruthless human beings that can be found everywhere at any time.

3.2.2 The Innocent Characters Hellman's innocent characters are those who suffer at the hands of the evil doers. They are harassed and tormented physically and psychologically by the evil characters. Horace Giddens, Regina's husband is "a tall man of about fortyfive. He has been good looking, but now his face is tired and ill"(p.66). He is one of the tormented characters. Horace comes to be Regina's victim, and his death is anticipated by her. He suffers a lot at the hands of his wife and her brothers; he never approves of their misdeeds but also is unable to stand against them or to stop them because their mischievous acts are so huge that they overcome any resistance. But when he becomes close to death he expresses what he feels about them frankly:

HORACE: ----------------(Holding to the rail) I'm sick of you, sick of this house, sick of my life here. I'm sick of your brothers and their dirty tricks to make a dime. There must be better ways of getting rich than cheating niggers on a pound of bacon. Why should I give you the money? (Very angrily) To pound the bones of this town to make dividends for you to spend? You wreck the town, you and your brothers, you wreck the town and live on it. Not me. Maybe it's easy for the dying to be honest. But it's not my fault I'm dying. (ADDIE enters, stands at door quietly) I'll do no more harm now. I've done enough. I'll die my own way. And I'll do it without making the world any worse. I leave that to you.(p.100).

Hellman makes Horace's death an indication that the evil doers are left with an open road to continue stealing, cheating, and spoiling the vines of life but even though, they are inflicted with the viciousness and the disastrous plans for

019

each other. It is from Horace that "the most poignant political and moral critique of the Hubbards' plans comes"; he

is consistently calm, sincere, and understanding; and it is he who devises a clever means to foil Ben and Oscar's theft....His absence from the household is what has allowed wickedness to flourish, which is precisely why the good-natured characters Alexandra, Addie, and Birdie view him as a savior upon his return…his physical weakness gives him added moral authority27.

This savior's help for his daughter and Addie is that to leave them money, though his death prevents him from doing so, to escape from the world of the foxes. He is kind with Addie and the other servants; they respect him and love him but pity him for his poor health and consequently his suffering because of weakness. He wants Alexandra to know everything about her mother's family in order to sail far from them to reach the harbor of safety. He advices Addie to let Alexandra know about the Hubbards:

HORACE:------------------Let her listen now. Let her see everything. How else is she going to know that she's got to get away? I'm trying to show her that. I'm trying, but I've only got a little time left. She can even hate me when I'm dead, if she'll only learn to hate and fear this. (p.114) Birdie, Oscar's wife, the only old southern aristocrat, "is a woman of about forty, with a pretty, well-bred, faded face"(p.2). She is a pathetic character and a real victim of her husband's cruelty. Birdie is an innocent but a weak woman and mother. "She has not prevented her son from becoming even worse than his father, and she drowns her misery in a "secret" drinking habit that the family cloaks under the euphemism of 'her headaches' "28. She is hit by Oscar when she tries to warn Alexandra against the marriage plan. Her humanitarian attempts to stop his non human acts of killing animals are all in vain;" I want you to stop

019

shooting. I mean, so much. I don't like to see animals and birds killed just for the killing. You only throw them away˗˗˗"(p.27). Birdie's escape from the severity of the Hubbards' world comes in two ways; the first is in her love for music. She often plays music with Alexandra to remind her of the beautiful world of the past. Her other way to escape from her miserable reality and regain the lovable days of Lionnet, "the best cotton land in the south"(p.13), is drinking. Being drunk, Birdie reveals everything; for the first time she utters what is there in her inner world:

BIRDIE: (Turning away) Even you won't like me now. You won't like me any more. ALEXANDRA: I love you. I'll always love you.

BIRDIE: (Furiously) Well, don't. Don't love me. Because in twenty years you'll just be like me. They'll do all the same things to you.( Begins to laugh hysterically) You know what? In twenty-two years I haven't had a whole day of happiness, Oh, a little, like today with you all. But never a single, whole day. I say to myself, if only I had one more whole day, then˗˗( The laugh stops) And that's the way you'll be. And you'll trail after them, just like me, hoping they won't be so mean that day or say something to make you feel so bad˗˗˗only you'll be worse off because you haven't got my Mama to remember˗˗˗(Turns away, her head drops. She stands quietly, swaying a little, holding onto the sofa. ALEXANDRA leans down, puts her cheek on BIRDIE'S arm.) .(p.113)

Birdie, the weakened character, "the magpie chatterer who seems financially

dominated

and

personally

insignificant,

utters

the

central,

empowering moral judgment in the play"29. Her moral judgment comes when she describes the Hubbards as people "who made their money charging awful interest to poor, ignorant niggers and cheating them on what they bought"(p.110). And the same Hubbards " Regina, Ben, Oscar˗˗are the foxes of the play's title. Rapacious and unscrupulous, they easily crush the fragile Birdie, the delicately nurtured flower of antebellum plantation"30.

013

Addie, "a tall, nice-looking Negro woman of about fifty-five"(p.1), is the Negro servant who provides Alexandra with the warmth and love of a mother and takes care of the sick Horace. In contrast to Regina, "Addie comforts and nurtures Alexandra, and attempts to shelter her from the cruelty of the Hubbards"31. Her role is not merely that of a woman servant, it goes beyond that limited role. She is on the side of the innocent characters as she is one of them. Through Addie, Hellman illustrates her thesis that evil should not be looked at indifferently:

ADDIE: Yeah, they got mighty well off cheating niggers. Well, there are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. Then there are people who stand around and watch them eat it. (Softly) Sometimes I think it ain't right to stand and watch them do it. (p.110) It is not only because of the villains that the innocents are suffering and are exposed to injustices, but also because "so many placid, frightened bystanders turn their heads and refuse to become involved"32. So Addie's speech emphasizes the importance of fighting evil because it is the responsibility of the society and the people to terminate evil. Hellman attacks passivity in every field of life especially the moral and ethical issues. In each play she illuminates a moral theme and shows the effect of the passivity of the bystanders and thus, she delivers her message. Alexandra or Zan, "a very pretty, rather delicatelooking girl of seventeen"(p.6), is an object in the hands of the Hubbards rather than a human being with personality and feeling. The first person who uses her is her mother. Regina agrees to think about her daughter's marriage to Leo as a part of her business deal with her greedy brothers. And also she uses her as a bait to get Horace home. She knows that Horace does not refuse Alexandra's request to get back home. That is why she sends Zan to Baltimore to bring her sick father home to secure her share in the cotton mill business. Her most important role comes at the end of the play when she refuses to be one of those who stand to watch the evil doers eat the earth; when she refuses to stay with

001

her mother any more. She promises to fulfill her father's desire to go away from the Hubbards because she "has watched all these goings-on with continuing alarm and with growing insight"33:

ALEXANDRA: You couldn't Mama, because I want to leave here. As I've never wanted anything in my life before. Because now I understand what Papa was trying to tell me. (Pause) All in one day: Addie said there were people who ate the earth and other people who stood around and watched them do it. And just now Uncle Ben said the same thing. Really, he said the same thing.( Tensely) Well, tell him for me, Mama, I'm not going to stand around and watch you do it. Tell him I'll be fighting as hard as he'll be fighting (Rises) some place where people don't just stand around and watch. (pp. 152-153) And thus, as the audience and Hellman felt; "deeply only about the girl. I felt very strongly that she had to leave the Hubbards"34, Alexandra shows her readiness not only to leave them but also to stand against them. Her escape from her family is to terminate the evil and to begin a new life void of the Hubbards. Her escape is a demand for action: …the cry for social justice and the demand for action are expressed as the escape from family. The oppressive family with its power struggles is the paradigm for a rapacious social order that needs to be changed. Alexandra is out to start a new life for herself and for the world. She will not make the mistake of her father, whose fatal attraction to Regina and a life of compromise with the Hubbards of the world left him with no authority, physically and morally spent, without the power to effectively oppose his wife. The best he can do is turn things over to the younger generation35. That is what Hellman wants to deliver; the evils should not be left alone, they should be fought. The earth eaters should be stopped from doing more harms and the world should be changed. Hellman's condemnation of the various

000

masks of the evils in her plays is through taking action; not to stand around and watch them. It is her way to save the world from the evils. It is evident that Hellman's characterizations "are dramatically unique, however, in that the evil agents become increasingly evil and move to triumph over the good. They are static in category but not in degree"36. Her innocent characters represent larger and more important ideas than merely characters in a play; they represent something beyond themselves:

Birdie represents the pathetic and decadent aristocracy, incapable of action. The black servants are the exploited workers who are too fearful to resist their dominators. Horace represents those in the capitalistic class who are impotent and can eventually be destroyed. And Alexandra represents˗˗especially because of her final denial of her mother˗˗the one element of hope for any possibility of good in the future37.

And hence one can say that each character stands for a larger and bigger world or they acquire a universal significance since they embody those who are exploited or destroyed by the huge evil powers; mainly the evil power of capitalism and its device, money. The only hope of rebellion and action can be seen in Alexandra.

3.3 Theme If Hellman's main concern in The Children's Hour is the destructive power of lying, The Little Foxes deals with more destructive powers where lying constitutes only one aspect of their devastations. Again Hellman employs individuals to present universal calamities related to human beings as a whole. Greed, capitalism, and family problems and violence are all themes, deliberately or not, Hellman, effectively, deals with in The Little Foxes.

001

3.3.1 Greed The time of writing the play in 1939, in the wake of the Great Depression is important since the world witnessed a drastic decline in its economy. And hence the subject of money and its dangerous influences constituted a great part of Hellman's interest. In the play Hellman chooses the Hubbards to illustrate how greed and personal pursuit of wealth can damage the greedy people and their surroundings. The Little Foxes, as Wright states, "is an angry denunciation of greed, the ruthlessness it inspires and the havoc it spreads" 38. Watching or reading the play, the audience and the readers become aware that the overwhelming desire to have more and more money is a ruinous desire since it deteriorates the humane side of the psyche. And what happens with the Hubbards is that in their plan to get wealthier they lose every sign of humanity; they violate each other's right, they forget and betray their duties, and even they kill whoever stands in their way. Though they have a comfortable financial life, the Hubbards sacrifice everything to get richer. In their business deal with Mr. Marshall each one of them dreams about his or her life after getting money. Regina, in her ruthless pursuit of money and her interest in Chicago, kills her husband and loses her daughter's love and respect. Ben has a very bad reputation as he cheats and exploits all those who deal with him in his business and, as Regina tells him, he cannot find twelve men in this town he has not cheated.

Oscar's greed leads him towards a more destructive case which is encouraging and asking his son to steal Horace's bonds, and put the blame on him when the theft is revealed39. It is through the Hubbards that Hellman employs individuals with rapacious nature to illustrate that every personal evil does not remain personal because it spreads its aggressive and devastative influence to cover the whole society not for a specific time or place but wherever and whenever evil-natured people is found. And thus, it is through

009

the Hubbards that Hellman forms "an indictment of greed, hate, and the lust for power at any time, in any place"40. The representative of those who are of the same type, Regina, Ben, Oscar, and Leo are "a class of people who manipulate society and the lives within it with a ruthless eye toward greater personal wealth and power"41. The desire for wealth replaces almost everything in the life of the Hubbards; replaces emotions and familial ties. And "[in] fact envy and greed replace the desire for sexual satisfaction in Ben and Regina" 42. Thus The Little Foxes is a scathing criticism of the greed and avarice that control those who have it to destroy them and others.

3.3.2 Capitalism Hellman situates her play in the South at the very beginning of the twentieth century because she knows about the south and its people, relying on her mother's relatives. The beginning of the twentieth century, 1901, was a period in which workers were exploited and fortunes were piled ruthlessly by different tools. Depicting the family life of the Hubbards, Hellman sheds light on significant subject matters; the effects and consequences of the civil war, industrialization, and capitalism. In The Little Foxes she illustrates what money can do to the mentality of the people in an age of changes in the different fields of life. She portrays the underlying vicious motives of "unscrupulous industrialists who infiltrated the New South and nourished a form of predatory capitalism that [she] considered a threat to the American ethic"43. Hellman depicts the story of the Hubbards and their exploitation of the poor workers; she shows the audience how they persecute those who are in need of money. They torture those are socially and financially beneath them to make the millions:

BEN: (Laughs) There'll be no trouble from anybody, white or black. Marshall said that to me. "What about strikes? That's all we've had in Massachusetts for the last three years." I say to him, "What's a strike? I never heard of one. Come South, Marshall. We got good folks and we don't stand for any fancy fooling."

009

HORACE: You're right. (Slowly) well, it looks like you made a good deal for yourselves, and for Marshall, too. (To BEN) Your father used to say he made the thousands and you boys would make the millions. I think he was right. (Rises.). (p.87) The Hubbards are the capitalists who creep to spread persecution and dominate the lower classes. They use the power of money to control their surroundings and as Sam Smiley says: ˗˗Regina, Ben, Oscar, and Leo˗˗represent the rising industrial capitalists in the South around 1900. They display the rapacious nature of those responsible for the beginning of contemporary capitalism. With this play Hellman attempted to alert the audience to the significance of ambition and greed in the capitalistic system, and she tried to stimulate her audience to ask what can be done to control such evils44.

To raise the issues of capitalism and its corrupted means, Hellman raises questions about the ways that can end the corruption it spreads and stop its increasing damage. But what is more interesting about the play is that"[t]hrough its thoughtful indignation The Little Foxes becomes a scornful and heartfelt parable of the rise of the industrial South in all its ruthlssness"45. And hence the play "admirably reflects the devastating effects of those socio-economic changes in both the old families and the wealthy new families"46 represented by Birdie and the Hubbards respectively. Birdie, from the old families, has been "enslaved by the new breed of entrepreneurs", while the new wealthy families "like the Hubbards did turn on each other"47. Capitalism as an evil power which swept over the world caused great damage for the helpless and financially weak people. And as a social playwright Hellman finds it necessary, as a part of her responsibility, to protest and condemn such evil powers. And hence The Little Foxes comes to express: "the truism that the advance of capitalistic exploitation

009

is made possible by people who are greedy, rapacious, and selfish. Uncontrolled capitalism", hence, "will continue to destroy the weak and the meek. Love is no deterrent, for it is lacking in the exploiters. What can be done to stop the injustices of capitalism?"48. The open-end of the play raises this question and many other questions about the injustices and oppressions that the innocent people are suffering from at the hands of the ruthless people like the Hubbard clan. It is obvious that any realistic play may concern itself with one or two main themes that are faithfully elaborated by the playwright throughout the story unintentionally. And "since [Hellman's] characters do not live in a vacuum, her 'implied' themes and suggested history may well represent more various views than she had intended"49. Family violence is one of the implied themes that Hellman intentionally or not, sheds light on. In her play she examines the effects of family violence on the psychology of the members. According to Lagretta Tallent Lenker, Hellman "examines manifestations of learned helplessness, aggression, manipulation, and violence, all significant factors in documented cases of spouse abuse"50. And even, Lenker continues, "[she] deviates from the most common situation wherein the male partner is the physical or psychological batterer to include both men and women as abuser and abused, violators and victims"51. The Little Foxes provides examples of such spouse abuses including both man and woman as abusers. One of the main examples is that of Regina, the abuser and Horace, the victim. Regina actually violates the traditional perspective that men are always abusers. When she torments her sick husband psychologically, Regina shows vividly her evil nature. And when she stays motionless as he suffers from a fatal heart attack and strives for his medicine, she embodies the role of a merciless abuser. The other pair of violator and victim is Oscar and Birdie. Throughout the play Birdie suffers from psychological and physical violence at the hand of her husband. When she tries

009

to interfere in Leo and Alexandra's supposed marriage, Oscar slaps her on the face:

ALEXANDRA: All right. (Then softly, embracing BIRDIE) Good night, Aunt Birdie. (As she passes OSCAR) Good night, Uncle Oscar. (BIRDIE begins to move slowly towards the door as ALEXANDRA climbs the stairs. ALEXANDRA is almost out of view when BIRDIE reaches OSCAR in the doorway. As BIRDIE quickly attempts to pass him, he slaps her hard, across the face. BIRDIE cries out, puts her hand to her face. On the cry, ALEXANDRA turns, begins to run down the stairs) Aunt Birdie! What happened? What happened? I˗˗˗

BIRDIE: (Softly, without turning) Nothing, darling. Nothing happened. (Quickly, as if anxious to keep ALEXANDRA from coming close) Now go to bed. (OSCAR exits) Nothing happened. (Turns to ALEXANDRA who is holding her hand) I only twisted my ankle. (She goes out. ALEXANDRA stands on the stairs looking after her as if she were puzzled and frightened.). (pp.48-49) As an example of the battered wife, Birdie does not tell Alexandra about Oscar's vicious behavior. And as a result of her silence and weakness "Birdie's life has become a nightmare of physical, psychological, and alcohol abuse. She is a woman completely dominated by her husband and his conniving, condescending family"52. Thus, Hellman's The Little Foxes treats various themes that can be applied to various times and places. And as Ackerman states, the play is "the story of godless world in which individuals must solve their own problems"53. But about its subject particularly, different questions can be raised: Is it…the social evil of rugged individualism? Is it the corruption of a brilliant woman by her desire for financial independence, the defeat of the weak- hearted Old South, the growth of Alexandra as a feisty figure for America in time of war? Is it an allegory of capitalist alliance, of the will to power, of the relationship of greed to violence?54

009

It is quite clear that all these themes can be found in The Little Foxes since it is a realistic play that deals with the social problems of people including evils and innocents. And since Hellman's world at that time was witnessing great changes, rapid developments, and many other crises.

3.4 The Struggle for Wealth and Worship of Money: The Absence of the Spiritual Side of Life With The Little Foxes Hellman asserts her place among those premier writers who write about the struggle for wealth and the spiritual aridity that characterizes the modern age. The play can be seen as a study of

the

psychology of a group of people exploiting, blackmailing and, like foxes, eating each other for money. No sign of love or respect or any other humane feeling can be traced among them. Driven by greed in an age in which materialism goes down deep to the heart of life, the Hubbards illustrate what avarice can do to the manners, principles, beliefs, and above all of the psychology of mankind. Concerning their vicious manner with each other and with their fellow citizens it becomes clear that:

The ruthless Hubbard siblings break both moral and criminal laws in their ruthless quest for ever more money. Not content with cheating and gouging the townsfolk on interest charges, they strive to exploit them even further with insulting wages and heavyhanded management. The new mill will bring prosperity to no one but the Hubbards, which can be seen as a betrayal of the town, but what shocks us even more is their capacity to betray one another55. Revenge is the only way that they treat each other by. When Horace refuses to give her money for the mill business, Regina responds with revenge. She kills him by her ugly words, especially when she asserts that she wishes him to

009

die, and then by neglecting his request for his medicine during his heart attack. Her brothers also make their revenge upon the Giddens when they steal the bonds. The Hubbards, throughout the play, plan to have revenge and win more money and power because greed is always there an everlasting companion for the Hubbards. And hence, the outcome is always evil as Hellman herself asserts in Pentimento, " I began to think that greed and the cheating that is its usual companion were comic as well as evil"(p.181). The Hubbards' evil is embodied vividly in their materialistic view of the world. They see everything and everybody as 'thing' to be evaluated in materialistic terms. They use each other and others for their benefit; Ben uses Oscar to get Lionnet from Birdie's family, Oscar marries Birdie and Ben gets their plantation, Oscar uses his son Leo to get the bonds, he does not bother himself to steal them 56. They are representing, as Hellman says, "the sort of person who ruins the world for us"57.They ruin anything that stands in their way to get wealth since for them money is the "first and only love, to which everything else˗˗husbands, children, brothers, sisters, and all 'others' become distant seconds"58. This struggle for wealth and power will soon be practiced on a larger and grander scale to include the whole nation. Instead of individual evils the whole nation will be an evil nation and this is what Hellman delivered through Ben's speech:

REGINA: You're a good loser, Ben. I like that.

BEN: (He picks up his coat, then turns to her) Well, I say to myself, what's the good? You and I aren't like Oscar. We're not sour people. I think that comes from a good digestion. Then, too, one loses today and wins tomorrow. I say to myself, years of planning and I get what I want. Then I don't get it. But I'm not discouraged. The century's turning, the world is open. Open for people like you and me. Ready for us, waiting for us. After all this is just the beginning. There are hundreds of Hubbards sitting in rooms like this throughout the country. All their names aren't Hubbard, but they are all Hubbards and they will own this country some day. We'll get along. (p.148)

003

The universality of the Hubbards case is clearly meant by the author. In this regard she states in Pentimento ," I had meant the audience to recognize some part of themselves in the money-dominated Hubbards"(p.180). Hellman also clarifies that, though Southerners, the Hubbards can be found everywhere: "I simply happened to write about the south because I knew the people and I knew the place….but I didn't mean it to be just for the south"59. She wants to suggest that "[i]n the world of business without ethics 'these fictional turn of the century robber barons bear an all too close resemblance' to greedy 'fine gentleman' of any time and place"60. It is the duty of the people to stop the Hubbards of the world because to prevent the little foxes "to go freely…is all mankind's responsibility, and the tragedy of Zan…is the tragedy of all gentle people who fall prey to the predatory and of all those who merely stand by"61. Hellman invites the

people to take action; not to stand by or to be silent, to

prevent the evil to

spread. She sends a message through Addie's speech;

"Sometimes I think it ain't right to stand and watch them do it"(p.110). It is not right to stand motionless in front of such abuses of all types. To stand passively is "a cardinal sin in Hellman's morality"62. In the play only Alexandra gets rid of that sin. She asserts that there will be fighters, even if few in number, fighting the earth eaters, the villains who forget everything about the spiritual side of life and indulge in its materialistic side. The fighters are the defenders of righteousness and justice. The play "is a demonstration", Henry Hewes says, because " it concentrates on showing us the graceless behavior of a society in which the more ambitious become scoundrels and the more decent stand by and let them get away with exploiting the poor"63. It is the responsibility of the whole society to stand against the despoilers. Hellman uses and condemns passivity "in its variegated forms as a catalyst for truth-telling, deception, and most importantly, self-deception: all recurrent themes in her plays"64. Like her own manner in life, she wants people to act; to stand against the evil doers whose number increases day after day.

011

What is interesting about her foxes who are void of social or moral or spiritual values, is their portrayal as fascinating evils. Evil as they are, "they have nerve. They have intelligence. They have self command", but above all, "they know themselves, and each other, for what they are….Their very evil has a fascination"65. Hellman portrays their evil attractively to show the extremity of their danger and influence upon the

society. She makes her evil characters

"vivid and engaging, as well as plausible and dimensional˗˗perhaps so that they will be worthy adversaries to whatever force she has set in opposition to them"66. Thus, in order to be worthy

opponents and great in their danger, Hellman

portrays her evil characters in such fascinating way. But some minor reasons might be explored about such kind of portrayals especially that of Regina. Such attractive portraits spring from Hellman's own ambivalent attitude towards the rich; they are disgusting because of their inhumanity but still she admires the power that they enjoy, the easiness of their lives. And hence, it is hard to find Hellman admitting her admiration for Regina, "yet something akin to admiration, perhaps unconscious, seems to have been present to energize the creation of a character who holds

our attention so completely"67. It is her vivid

danger, her admirably devious nature, and her manipulative personality that make Regina one of the

remarkable and memorable female characters in

Hellman's drama. Through such a portrayal she condemns her villain characters severely. Through them she "explores the nature of evil, the dark side of human nature: greed, lust and unfulfilled desire"68.

The Little Foxes is a reaction against the corruption of the early twentieth century America. Hellman as a social playwright condemns the evils that emerge individually and spread their poison in society, and encourages the bystanders to take action. The play is "the most effective kind of protest", Louis Kronenberger says, it:

010

…sends us out of the theatre, not purged, not released, but still aroused and indignant….[Hellman] has made her writing follow her conscience, and with all the force she owns has lashed out against that egregious race of foxes who have caused so much of our age's dislocation69.

And thus Hellman as a social playwright succeeds in diagnosing the main diseases of her society and her age. And she calls for instant remedies because allowing the foxes, of which the Hubbards are a representation, move freely causes great damages for humanity as a whole and might get out of control.

011

Notes 1- Horn, p.36.

2- Quoted in Falk, p. 51.

3-Lederer, p. 41.

4- Holmin, p.30.

5- Wakefield, p. 50.

6-David Galens and Lynn Spampinato, eds., Drama for Students Vol.1 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1998), pp. 161-162.

7-Moody, pp. 92-98.

8- Holmin, pp. 48-49.

9- Moody, pp.99-101.

10- Galens, Drama for Students Vo.1, p. 163.

11- Nagamani, p. 74.

12- Lillian Hellman, The Little Foxes (New York: The Viking Press, 1971), p. 21. Further citations from the play are to this edition and referred to by page number within the text.

019

13- Thomas P. Adler, "Lillian Hellman: feminism, formalism and politics", in Brenda Murphy ed., The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 120.

14- Vials, p.64.

15- Nagamani, p. 79.

16- Wakefield, p.52.

17- Ibid.

18- Ibid., p.53.

19- Galens, Drama for Students Vo.1, pp.164-165.

20- Quoted in Lederer, p.42.

21- Adler, Lillian Hellman, p.21.

22- Abbotson, p.55.

23- Nagamani, p. 82.

24- Galens, Drama for Students Vo.1, p.165.

25- Dusenbury, p. 143.

019

26- Ritchie D. Watson, Jr., " Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes and New South Creed: An Ironic View of Southern History", Southern Literary Journal, 28: 2(Spring: 1996): 66.

27- Vials, p. 66.

28- Galens, Drama for Students Vo.1, p.165.

29- Mary Lynn Broe, " Bohemia Bumps into Calvin: The Deception of Passivity in Lillian Hellman's Drama", in Mark W. Estrin, Critical Essays on Lillian Hellman (Massachusetts: G.K Hall & Co., 1989), p.83.

30- Watson, p. 62.

31- Wakefield, p.52.

32- Moody, p. 99.

33- David Rush, A Student Guide to Play Analysis (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005), p.150.

34- Holmin, p. 51.

35- Scanlan, p. 183.

36- Sam Smiley, The Drama of Attack: Didactic Plays of the American Depression (Colombia: University of Missouri Press, 1972), p. 102.

37- Ibid., p. 103.

019

38- Wright, Lillian Hellman: the image, the woman, p.44.

39- Galens, Drama for Students Vo.1, p.165.

40- Quoted in Lederer, p.49.

41- Reynolds, p. 138.

42- Lederer, p.47

43- Galens, Drama for Students Vo.1, p.166.

44- Smiley, p. 100.

45- Quoted in Nagamani, p. 88.

46- Ibid.

47- Moody, p. 104.

48- Smiley, pp. 103-104.

49- William T. Going, Essays on Alabama Literature (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1975), p. 153.

50- Lagretta Tallent Lenker, " The Foxes in Hellman's Family Forest", in Sara Munson Deats and Lagretta Tallent Lenker, eds., The Aching Hearth: Family Violence in Life and Literature( New York: Plenum Press, 1991), p. 242.

019

51- Ibid.

52- Ibid., p. 247.

53- Ackerman , p. 224

54- Ibid.

55- Abbotson , p.54.

56- Wakefield, p.54.

57- Beebe, p.8.

58- Wakefield, p.54.

59- Quoted in Martinson, p.144.

60-Quoted in Ibid.

61- Going, p.152.

62- Falk, p.70.

63- Quoted in Lederer, p.40.

64-Broe, p. 79.

65- Adler, Lillian Hellman, p.19.

019

66- Wright, Lillian Hellman: the image, the woman, p. 155.

67- Ibid., p.154.

68- Charlotte Headrick, "New Orleans and Its Influence on the Work of Lillian Hellman". CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 5.3(2003) :6.

69- Quoted in Holmin, p. 64.

CHAPTER FOUR WATCH ON THE RHINE

821

921

4.1 The Summary of the Play What is remarkable about Watch on the Rhine is its date. At a time of hot debates about American neutrality and its isolationism during World War II, Watch on the Rhine was opened on Broadway in the spring of 1941, a right time for a play dealing with the issues of Fascism, its evil threat, and the danger of passivity in fighting this evil. About the play's right time Hellman says in Pentimento: "It was a pleasant experience, Watch on the Rhine. There are plays that, whatever their worth, come along at the right time, and the right time is the essence of the theatre and the cinema"(p. 190).The play won the New York Drama Circle Award. Writing about fascism as an international evil comprising the history of European countries, Hellman made a great amount of research including several notebooks of background information1.She states in an interview "I made digests of twenty-five books before I started writing Watch on the Rhine. Political argument, memoirs, recent German history"2. Her notebooks for the play, as Hellman continues, "run to well over 100,000 words and….I used material from the notes for only two speeches"3.

The title like most of her plays is a borrowed one. It is taken from "a marching song sung by German soldiers returning home in 1918", and during the Spanish civil war, as Lorena Ross Holmin continues in The Dramatic Works of Lillian Hellman, "German volunteers with the Republican forces in Spain…sang it with different words, which expressed…their determination for victory. Miss Hellman doubtless heard it on her travels there in 1937"4. The structure of the play comes in three acts. The events take place in the Farrellys' great country mansion outside Washington in a spring morning of 1940. The first act begins in the Farrellys' marvelous living room which contains furniture "of many periods: the desk is English, the couch is Victorian, some of the pictures are modern, some of the ornaments French"5. And as an aspect of Hellman's dramatic style, the play begins with the view of two servants who

931

play more than the role of mere servants. Anise, "a thin Frenchwoman of about sixty, in a dark housekeeper's dress, is standing at a table sorting mail"(P.4) and Joseph "a tall, middle-aged Negro butler, wheels a breakfast wagon"(p.4). Then Fanny Farrelly, "a handsome woman of about sixty- three"(p.4) and the matron of the house comes in from the hall to order Joseph to ring the bell to awaken her son David, "a pleasant-looking man of thirty nine"(p.11), and her house guests; her friend's daughter, Marthe, and her Romanian husband Teck de Brancovis. Fanny is anxious as she checks the mails and asks about the time every few minutes for the plan is that David should go to the station to bring home his sister Sara who has not been home for twenty years, her husband whom they did not meet, and her three children. Being awakened David comes down to blame his mother for the harsh sound of the bell. Marthe de Brancovis, "an attractive woman of thirty one or thirty-two"(p.15), appears and the actions on the stage reveal that she is in love with David and waits for a chance to leave her husband whom she married just to satisfy her mother. As the Count Teck de Brancovis, "a good-looking man of about forty-five"(p.20), joins his wife in the hall they reveal their situation; they are badly in debt. And they know something about Sara's family; Sara's husband is a poor, an anti-Nazi engineer and he has left Germany. Teck is a gambler who gambles in the German embassy and has connections to it. He is a Nazi sympathizer and this makes him at odds with his wife since she distrusts and dislikes the Nazis. But the source of Teck's disturbance is his wife's flirtation with David6.When they are all having their breakfast on the terrace, the family arrives. Sara Muller is "fortyone or forty-two a good looking woman, with a well-bred, serious face. She is very badly dressed"(p.26).Behind her are her three children; Joshua a fourteenyear old boy, Babette a twelve-year old girl, and Bodo a boy of nine. Behind them appears Kurt Muller "a large, powerful, German-looking man of about forty-seven"(p.26). They are all in the hall with their bags.

939

Anise enters the hall and to her surprise she finds them and learns that the later train was too expensive so they came with the cheaper one. Then Fanny comes to embrace the family. After sometimes when every body comes to introduce himself Kurt explains that he has not worked as an engineer since many years and that he is an anti-Fascist. Sara explains that they have had bad times but they have lived as they wanted. The political background of the play is now established. Sara and David go out to talk about the memories of their childhood. Kurt and Teck study each other and speculate about each other. After revealing his good manners and polite speeches about his father-in-law, Joshua, Kurt wins Fanny's heart. He is honest, loves his family and aims at peace and fighting evils especially Fascism. Teck has his own suspicions about Kurt and the bullet scares on his face. When the Mullers have their breakfast Teck checks their luggage to find a locked briefcase among their unlocked bags. He orders Joseph to carry the luggage upstairs to have a better look at the bags and especially the locked briefcase behind close doors7.

Act two begins ten days later in a warm evening. In this act the characters make long conversations and during their speeches Kurt's story is gradually revealed and Teck's connection to the German embassy is more clarified. The struggle between Kurt and Teck is intensified when Kurt begins to play the piano and sing the war song showing his devotion to his cause. As the actions progress and Teck hints that he knows about his wife's affair with David, Marthe reveals that she is going to leave him. Kurt comes in from the study room and the course of the speech and actions grow in more tension. Kurt looks uneasy and tells his wife that he should go to California for few weeks. The Count interferes and tells them that the chief of the anti-Nazi underground movement has been arrested and that a newspaper article implies that Kurt also is wanted. Teck reveals his evil nature and demands 10,000 dollars. They think that he blackmails David but Kurt immediately knows that he blackmails him. Teck affirms that by saying he has checked their luggage and knows that Kurt

932

carries money and gun. Kurt explains the situation and the secret nature of his work for Fanny and David; he carries 23,000 dollars gathered from the poor families who are against Fascism and he should go to Germany to rescue his colleague by that money. The danger comes from different sides; Teck threatens Kurt to inform the embassy about him and he also has problems concerning his passport. With all that Hellman gives the audience the impression that Kurt's chance to be safe is small8.

Act three begins after half an hour. Fanny, Sara, and Kurt are all in the hall and David is pacing on the terrace. They speculate and talk about the Fascists and their cruelty. From their speeches it becomes clear that Fanny and David, who were far from the battle against Fascism are now involved and that they become active anti-fascists as they provide Kurt with great support to reach home in order to save the anti-Nazi friends. As he gets himself ready to leave, Teck comes down with Kurt's briefcase in his hand. He puts it in front of Kurt telling him that nothing is touched. Then he begins to recount Kurt's history of fighting and resisting the Nazis and blackmails him for 10.000 dollars. Kurt tells him that the money in the briefcase is not his money and that he will not touch it for even his children. After some hot discussions Fanny and David go to arrange the money for Teck. Kurt knows that Teck cannot be trusted and will not keep his word so that he strikes him on the face and, assisted by Joshua, drags him out to the garden where he shoots him.

When Fanny and David return to the hall they know that Kurt has killed Teck. Sara explains to them how Teck's murder is necessary then expresses her grief for her husband and their separation. Also she realizes that her husband's task is dangerous and difficult. In the course of the actions, again Fanny and David affirm their new and courageous state when they stand with Kurt in his plight. They will wait two days before telling the police about the missing of the two men; Kurt and Teck and by that time Kurt will be out in his way to

933

Germany. In the denouement Kurt justifies his act of killing, telling his children that it came because he wants to save the lives of the children of the world but he also tells them that killing is always bad but sometimes it is necessary to keep the lives of innocent people. The last moments of the play are so moving when Kurt leaves with his briefcase. Sara goes upstairs with her children, Fanny and David are left alone in the hall to realize that they are no more far from the danger of fascism and that they have to fight against it.

4.2 Characterization The characters in the play like the characters in The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes are divided into groups according to their beliefs and reactions to their surroundings but mostly according to their attitude towards the two notions of good and evil. In Watch on the Rhine the characters are of three groups: those who are good, active and fight the evil everywhere, those who are evil by nature and have no moral principles in life, and finally those who are passive in their reaction to the evil but turn, in the course of the play, to assert their determination to act enthusiastically against the evil doers and the evil threats that can destroy the life of the individuals in any part of the world. They take action positively when they come to understand what is surrounding them; what danger is close to them.

4.2.1 Active Characters Kurt Muller is an anti-fascist, who has fought in Spain as well as in Germany against the cruelty of the Nazis. Kurt can be regarded as the lone and the brilliant protagonist of the play "not only because Hellman wrote the role with passion and admiration, but because he acts with decision and courage and is Hellman's most eloquent spokesman for human rights and liberty"9. His anti-

931

Nazi activities come when he realizes that Nazism and Fascism in general are a real threat to every kind of peace and security. In a moving and honest speech to Fanny he illustrates his motives:

KURT:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Pauses. Looks up, smiles) There is a holiday in my town. We call it Kirchweih. It was a gay holiday with games and music and a hot white sausage to eat with the wine. I grow up, I move away˗˗to school, to work˗˗but always I come back for Kirchweih. It is for me, the great day of the year.(Slowly) But after the war, that day begins to change. The sausage is made from bad stuff, the peasants come in without shoes, the children are too sick˗˗(Carefully) It is bad for my people, those years, but always I have hope. In the festival of August, 1931, more than a year before the storm, I give up that hope. On that day, I see twenty-seven men murdered in a Nazi street fight. I cannot stay by now and watch. My time has come to move. (pp.53-54) Kurt's nobility is clear from his devotion to his cause. He does not care about money unless it is used for fighting Fascism. When Teck blackmails him demanding money he affirms: "This money is going home with me. It was not given to me to save my life, and I shall not so use it. It is to save the lives and further the work of more than I. It is important to me to carry on that work and to save the lives of three valuable men"(pp.144-145). He risks his and his family's life for the sake of getting a better life for all those who suffer from the injustices of Fascism. He is one of the men who are never sure about being alive for the coming days; they expect death every day and in every mission. Sara describes, with grief, her husband's sacrifice for the sake of getting freedom and ending the evil of Fascism:

SARA: For seven years now, day in, day out, men have crossed the German border. They are always in danger. They always may be going in to die. Did you ever see the face of a man who never knows if this day will be the last day? .(pp.156-157)

931

He abandons his job as an engineer to work in the underground movement. His attitude towards Fascism has nothing to do with personal aims or gains, what he wants is to make the world a better one. He cannot stand and watch the evils destroy the world; he acts courageously to stop them and terminate them. Close to the end of the play when he is obliged to kill Teck, the Nazi sympathizer, he explains to his children that sometimes people should act responsibly and hence they may do bad things, like killing, in order to save and keep the life of others and provide the children with a better childhood10:

KURT:-----------------------------------.The world is out of shape we said, when there are hungry men. And until it gets in shape, men will steal and lie and˗˗(A little more slowly)˗˗kill. But for whatever reason it is done, and whoever does it˗˗ you understand me˗˗ it is all bad. I want you to remember that. Whoever does it, it is bad. (Then very gaily) But you will live to see the day when it will not have to be. All over the world, in every place and every town, there are men who are going to make sure it will not have to be. They want what I want: a childhood for every child. For my children, and I for theirs.( He picks BODO up, rises) Think of that. It will make you happy. In every town and every village and every mud hut in the world, there is always a man who loves children and who will fight to make a good world for them. (pp.165-166) Thus, Kurt knows that "murder is immoral. Nevertheless, he feels it is necessary to combat the violently sick world of the Nazis, even if taking Teck's life might be a sign of Kurt's own sickness"11. Hellman's hero is "a hero who combined a capacity for violence with commitment to moral virtue"12. He "not only opposes the evil, he destroys it. He is also a character of understated yet clearly towering nobility"13. His "distinction comes from his love for Sara Farrelly, his humanitarianism, his courage and devotion to the cause of antifascism, his affection for his children"14. Thus Kurt's stand against Fascism springs from his humanitarian but not a political attitude. And in him, as Jacob H. Adler says, " Miss Hellman has created one of the few real heroes, and one of the still fewer believable heroes, in modern drama"15.

931

Sara Muller is also anti-fascist but her "anti-fascist political stance finds its expression in her loving support of Kurt's need to return to Germany"16, to rescue his colleagues of the underground movement. When her mother tells her that she had a bad time only trying to live, Sara negates firmly:

SARA: (Slowly) We've lived the way we wanted to live. I don't know the language of rooms like this any more. And I don't want to learn it again. KURT: Do not bristle about it.

SARA: I'm not bristling.( To FANNY) I married because I fell in love. You can understand that. (pp.52-53) Sara is faithful to her husband; she loves him, supports him and leaves her comfortable family state to be with him in his cause. She "has embraced the life of the anti-fascist activist and has idealized it as a matter of mental selfdefense"17. She abandons every privilege to be with her husband and hence she is "the American girl of independent spirit who defied her mother and chose her husband for love, not status and wealth"18. Her experiences in life give her an insight to the world around her. She is the wife who shares her husband's burden and the mother who can undertake the responsibility of her children while her husband is away on a mission. When Teck reveals his true nature she is not shocked because she expects the evils to be every where since they can penetrate even the most secure places. Addressing Teck she says:

SARA: (Gets up, moves to the window, looks out) You mean my husband and I do not have angry words for you. What for? We know how many there are of you. They don't, yet. My mother and brother feel shocked that you are in their house. For us˗˗ we have seen you in so many houses. (p.150) It is Hellman's habit to portray the character of independent women of great determination. In Watch on the Rhine she depicts Sara to be the model

931

that she "envisions for the United States: a multinational antifascist alliance across class barriers"19. She is the activist that Hellman always calls the audience to follow. If Alexandra decides at the end of The Little Foxes to stand against the evil, Sara and from the beginning stands against the evil and determines to fight it.

4.2.2 Evil Characters Under this title there is only one character that shows his villainy through his behavior and that meets his fate also because of his villainy. Teck de Brancovis, the Romanian Count is the only evil character. He is fascinating like most of Hellman's villains since they "[a]t their best…are fascinating, however, because they represent the highest degree of proficiency in and actualization of certain social models that have succeeded one another under differing economic systems", or more definitely " Hellman gives us fascinating villains who are worthy opponents for her socialists to battle"20. Teck is evil because he has no moral principles and has been associated with a universal dangerous evil like Nazism through his connection to the German embassy. He is a Nazi sympathizer and hence he represents the evil of Nazism particularly and the evil of Fascism generally. The Romanian aristocrat has lost his money in gambling and has no moral integrity in life. He is, as Fanny says, "a man selling the lives of other men"(p.144), a deteriorated man "[o]nce the symbol of culture and class…is a down-at-heels refugee, gambler, and Nazi sympathizer "21. When his wife tells him that she cannot stand him and their loveless marriage, he responds coldly: "[g]ood-bye, Marthe. You will not believe, but I tried my best, and I am now most sorry to lose you"(p.113). He does not insist on keeping their marriage safe. What he cares about is his loose way of life. His most shameless act comes when he tries to sell the life of Kurt; plans to take the money from him and then to sell him to the German embassy. When one of Kurt's friends is caught Teck begins to blackmail him:

931

TECK: They told me of it at the Embassy last night. They also told me that with him, they had taken a man who called himself Ebber, and a man who called himself Triste. They could not find a man called Gotter. (He starts again toward the door) I shall be a lonely man without Marthe. I am also a very poor one. I should like to have ten thousand dollars before I go. (p.115)

Depicting the confrontation between Kurt, the hero, and Teck, the villain, Hellman depicts the confrontation between "commitment and opportunism. Kurt…takes his stand; it is against fascism. But Teck has no stand to take…he is uncommitted, morally apathetic"22. And thus "the antagonism between Kurt and Teck is not the usual kind that exists between hero and villain; it is a moral confrontation between one who possesses ideals and one who has none"23. Hence one is put to be the opposite of the other, each man's mentality is sharply illustrated; one has faith in justice and takes action to fight evil

and

rescue the world as a whole from it, while the other has faith only in selfinterest and cooperates with greater evils for personal gains. When Marthe asks him not to investigate about Kurt secretly, he says to her "[a]nything might be my business now"(p.62). Anything might be his business since the aim is one; money. In his vicious manner and his materialistic view, Teck demonstrates that he "is an up-to-date version of the Hubbards from The Little Foxes, and like them, he is constantly concerned with striking deals, making money, and collecting information for bribery and blackmail"24. But he differs from them in a very important point which is that of the way of his punishment. Teck is not left alone or merely condemned by his surroundings like Hellman's other evil characters, he is killed; stopped forever by the hero who refused to stand by and watch the evils destroy the world.

931

4.2.3 Passive Characters Turn into Active Members Fanny Farrelly is Hellman's strong female character. She resembles the women protagonists in Hellman's plays in her independency and vivid personality. Her father and her husband had been ambassadors and so she enjoyed the rich life of the high class. Fanny lives with the happy memories of her husband for they shared a great love that still lives in her heart. Her son David has no great role at the beginning of the play because he has not the ability to assert himself as a man of thought and action. He loves Marthe and this love gives him a push to take stand and prevent Teck from doing harm to her any more and also not to allow his mother to interfere in his affairs25. What is noticeable about his character is that he "is slow to learn ways to deal with villains such as Teck, but by the end of the play he is undergone a transformation toward strength"26. Fanny is also slow to learn because she receives evils like Teck in her house while she is unaware about his motives and his true nature; Kurt tells her: "[i]t was careless of you to have in your house a man who opens baggage and blackmails"(p.121). Thus it is clear that in addition to portraying the image of American innocence, Hellman wants to illustrate the American naivety through Fanny and David at a time in which action or awareness about the problems of the time was necessary. The two characters: …embody characteristics generally recognized as American, and most of these are flattering to the national image. Fanny's candor and individuality, her self-confidence, and her generosity are such. However, Hellman's intention in Watch on the Rhine is not simply to mirror that which is admirable in the American character but to move Americans from a stance she considers dangerously naive27.

911

"Fanny and David are Americans", Kurt says to Teck, "and they do not understand our world-as yet"(p.142).Fanny and David do not know about Europe and about the evil that threatens it and the whole world. But as the play progresses the Farrellys become active, they come to understand what is going on around them and to realize that the threat is no more an outdoor case. When Teck demands 10,000 dollars, they begin to take Kurt's side by offering to pay the money to Teck. They support Kurt to get out of his plight:

DAVID: It doesn't matter. You're a political refugee. We don't turn back people like you. People who are in danger. You will give me your passport and tomorrow morning I'll see Barens. We'll tell him the truth˗˗(Points to the door) Tell de Brancovis to go to hell. There's not a damn thing he or anybody else can do. (p.123)

After all that happens to their son-in-law the Farrellys' realization of the truth becomes evident. They come to know that one should not remain inactive since the world has witnessed great changes that caused the death of the old values and how such changes bring threat with them along with the benefits. Quoting her husband's words, Fanny states how she came to realize that the old American values are dead:

FANNY: Me? Oh, I was thinking about my Joshua. I was thinking that a few months before he died, we were sitting out there. (Points to terrace) He said, "Fanny, the Renaissance American is dying, the Renaissance man is dying." I said what you mean, though I knew what he meant, I always knew. "A Renaissance man," he said, "is a man who wants to know. He wants to know how fast a bird will fly, how thick is the crust of the earth, what made Iago evil, how to plow a field. He knows there is no dignity to a mountain, if there is no dignity to man. You can't put that in a man, but when it's really there, and he will fight for it, put your trust in him." (pp.160-161)

Thus, they come to get rid of the passivity and the naivety of the period to act courageously because they are shocked at the beginning when Kurt kills

919

Teck, but they "finally realize that evil based on violence, that is Nazism, can be fought only on its own terms"28. Through Fanny and David, Hellman emphasizes "personal responsibility in the face of the dangers of fascism"29. Being involved in Kurt's crisis, Fanny and David "are forced out of their selfcentered world by the political realities their European visitors represent, and they become a small but active part of the resistance to fascism in Europe"30. They are, as Fanny says, "shaken out of the magnolias"(p.169), they are out of the decorated world and the fake safety because the evil of fascism is creeping towards them or actually reached them.

4.3 Theme 4.3.1 Fascism As many critics reviewed the play especially during its performance, Watch on the Rhine demonstrates "how deeply fascism penetrates into the hearts and minds of human beings"31.Fascism forms one of the main themes that Hellman deals with in the play because she was deeply disturbed by the spread of fascism in Europe and through the play she warns the Americans that the danger of fascism is not so far from them. She tells the audience "the fact that the world's evil cannot be kept from our own front doors"32. Watch on the Rhine is not void of autobiographical elements for Hellman's history of "personal encounter with Germany provides the impetus for the manner of her writing and for the urgency with which she delivers the activist antifascist message embodied in the character of Kurt Muller"33.During World War II a great section of the American people was against involving in that war. They preferred to stand by and observe the other countries fighting each other and fighting fascism. During that time Watch on the Rhine clearly illustrated what that war means and what a dangerous evil fascism is. The play brought the conflict into the American living room to show how close the evil is, how the danger of totalitarianism is close to home.

912

In the mid-1930s the Americans regarded fascism and its devastative ideology as a European case and after the full and bitter realization of Hitler's plans for war and the termination of the Jewish race; they perceived it as a limited German problem34. But the German problem was not limited because Nazism and its evil exercises spread dangerously to involve everything and every country in the world. When Kurt confronts Teck, it occurs in the living room of the Farrellys, a setting that every American can identify easily as his own room since fascism is no longer a European problem. It is close to their houses and fighting it is a duty. What is interesting about Hellman and her hero, Kurt, is that she makes him take the issue as a personal responsibility. When Fanny and David try to prevent him from going to Germany and to think about his family, he remarks that each man in order not to fight has a reason and thus, each should sleep with his conscience because the demand for fighting fascism is the demand of the conscience35. Her aim is to put forward "the heavy- handed moral dilemma facing America at that time", and to ask, as William Wight says: "[w]as a confrontation with fascism inevitable and at what point?"36. She makes the audience live the situation and leaves them to imagine themselves facing fascism. Hence she describes the fascists to them; demonstrating their evil nature. She does so when she lets her protagonist describe the mentality and the kinds of the fascists to Fanny and David; they are of different levels and their danger is also on different levels:

KURT:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------All Fascists are not of one mind, one stripe. There are those who give the orders, those who carry out the orders, those who watch the orders being carried out. Then there are those who are half in, half hoping to come in. They are made to do the dishes and clean the boots. Frequently they come in high places and wish now only to survive. They came late: some because they did not jump in time, some because they were stupid, some because they were shocked at the cruelty of the German evil, and preferred their own evils, and some because they were fastidious men. For those last, we may well some day have pity. They are lost men, their spoils are small, their day is gone. (pp.142-143)

913

Hellman awakens the Americans to the threat of the fascists and she delivers her message through Fanny when she says that they are shaken out of the magnolias, to sum up the basic idea; "the mortal danger fascism represents to even the most insular and privileged"37. Representing the Americans, the Farrellys, by the end of the play, begin to be aware that there is an enemy lurking behind their door. And thus the play "emerges through despair, bitterness, fear, and danger, into nobility, hope, courage and poignancy"38. It is the journey of self-realization that enables the characters to prepare themselves for the inevitable encounter with the evil.

4.3.2 The Contrast Between Americans and Europeans As she states in Pentimento, Hellman intended to write about the life of liberal Americans whose life has been shaken up by Europeans. And hence the play comes out as a contrast between the two groups and their way of living:

I wanted to write a play about nice, liberal Americans whose lives would be shaken up by Europeans, by a world the new Fascists had won because the old values had long been dead. I put the play in a small Ohio town. That didn't work at all…then I moved the play to Washington, placed it in the house of a rich, liberal family who were about to meet their anti-fascist son-in-law, a German, who had fought in Spain.(pp.186-187)

It is obvious that in Watch on the Rhine Americans and Europeans are put together in one house to contact each other and show their values and manners. Hellman through this contact says something about not only good and evil but also about their values and customs which are different from each other. When she reviewed her old diaries Hellman discovered that she had Henry James's

911

two novels, The Americans and The Europeans, in mind when she wrote the play39. In Pentimento she says:

Only two diaries written at the end of 1938 could convince me now that Watch on the Rhine came out of Henry James, although, of course, seeds in the wind, the long journey they make, their crosses and mutations, is not a new story for writers and even make you hope that your seeds may scatter for those to come. I was driving back to the farm…when I began to think of James's The Americans and The Europeans (p.185)

Hellman's reading of Henry James was "on the subject of complacent, well-meaning, and all too tolerant Americans who did not recognize how much their comfortable, self-indulgent existence removed them from the recognition of evil"40. So what is sharpened in the play is the way that the Americans live; they live in a naivety since they indulge themselves in their domestic affairs unaware of what is going on outdoors. Fanny burns herself in her memories about her husband while her son David is busy with his love affairs and even he does not care about having a serious relationship ends with marriage since his age is suitable enough for taking the responsibility of marriage. The Farrellys do not know about Europe and how the evil of Nazism threatens the people all over the world. On the other hand, Teck represents the evil that the new world has produced. He is ready to sell the blood of other men just to gain personal advantages. Katherine Lederer critically explains that"[w]hat [the play] contrasts are two ways of life˗˗ours with its unawakened innocence and Europe's with its tragic necessities"41. But the Farrellys and hence the Americans do not remain passive or unaware of their world's affairs. They "learn what Alexandra learned in The Little Foxes", Lederer continues her explanation, "that the fundamental clash in civilization is between those bent on

911

self-aggrandizement and those who are not and that 'it doesn't pay in money to fight for that in which we believe' "42. It is the choice of the individual to take the path that leads him to the satisfaction of his conscience since there are the two notions of good and evil in life that the living conscience can differentiate them easily.

Watch on the Rhine also sheds light on the issues of Love and Marriage. In the play there are pairs of married people through whom another type of contrast is made. The contrast this time is between a marriage based on love and understanding and a marriage based on wealth and status which is, more clearly can be called society marriage. Marthe's loveless marriage is an example of the society marriage for her mother has forced her to marry Teck de Brancovis who "manipulated his social status to invade the top stratum of American society in marrying Marthe"43. But the marriage ends as Marthe gets on her feet and finds in herself the power to reject Teck and his irresponsibility. Kurt and Sara's marriage which is based on love is strong in its ties and inspires integrity and strong feelings for the family members. Also Fanny in her love for her dead husband and her faith in his convictions "represents a certain idea of the feminine that audience at that time found particularly sympathetic, that of a woman who, while very much a distinctive personality in her own right, is yet quite happy to defer to her husband and to play a subordinate role"44. Through her references to him she makes him present in the play, by his words, ideas and picture, as if he is one of the personae.

4.4 Fascism and Political Passivism: Dictates of Conscience; Freedom and Liberty Regardless of their form and type ,"Hellman's plays are best known for probing social and psychological concerns, including the nature and various manifestations of evil"45. Watch on the Rhine is a typical play in this concern.

911

It is remarkable not only because of its date but also because of the daring treatment of its subject matter. Hellman's message in her drama is delivered with various forms and methods but in this play it is stated directly; evil should be fought, should be executed. Every individual in society should act, should not stand by to watch the evil eat the earth. The play is "decidedly international in focus" and its author defines herself "within a community that is not circumscribed by regional borders"46. It demonstrates the nature of a dangerous evil that does not limit itself to a specific society or country. The evil this time is an international one and a great effort is needed to resist and defeat it. Hellman "recognizes Fascism as a psychological force that could be unleashed in the mass mind by its proponents' conscious manipulation of racial hatred"47. Her anti-fascist protagonist, Kurt, knows well that fascists are too far dangerous to be treated merely as enemies in a war but yet they are of various types and levels that one should be aware of. They are not heroes but ordinary people who turn into fascists for reasons of "self-interest and greed. Thus, Fascist society merely replicates the capitalist society from which it sprang"48.The two evils, Capitalism and Fascism, are interrelated and their system and ideology are alike:" [t]here are those who give the orders, those who carry out the orders, those who watch the orders being carried out"(p.142).

Hellman's skillful employment of characterization to deliver her massage of the necessity of fighting fascism because it threatens the world as a whole is illustrated through the Farrellys. Fanny and David, like Kurt, are characters but they embody, beyond their personal responsibilities, larger and important ideas. They stand for all the Americans who should know that the crisis in Europe cannot be restrained and that, whether they want it or not, they should take sides. Nazism as an evil power forced them to take part in fighting, to stand against it. Even the most reasonable and peaceful man like Kurt is obliged to act severely; to kill his evil opponent because Fascism does not let anyone with dignity to stand away. Thus, the Farrellys and hence the Americans are no more

911

safe in their rapacious mansions they have to fight back49. Hellman does not intend to suggest that killing is the only solution for the problem of Fascism but when it is related to justice and man's life it is justified or in other words she "does not condone the notion of killing unless essential human dignity is denied"50. And hence, when there is a serious and dangerous violation of human's life and rights, convictions are not enough because action is required:

FANNY: Are you radical?

KURT: You would have to tell me what that word means to you, Madame.

FANNY: (After a slight pause) That is just. Perhaps we all have private definitions. We all are AntiFascists, for example˗˗˗ SARA: Yes. But Kurt works at it.

FANNY: What kind of works?

KURT: Any kind. Anywhere.(p.51)

The Americans should know, as Sara urges, "where we are and what we have to do. It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip"(p.74). It is the time of the actualization of the beliefs; the time of fighting back the evil enemy, as the play indicates, because its author "feared that the repression, brutality, and anti-Semitism that characterized the Nazi regime might one day menace the United States"51. In 1940 Hellman delivered a speech in which she explained her ideas further: I…want to be able to go on saying that I am a Jew without being afraid of being called names or end in a prison camp or be forbidden

911

to walk down the street at night….Unless we are very careful and very smart and very protective of our liberties, a writer will be taking his chances if he tells the truth, for as the lights dim out over Europe, they seem to flicker a little here too52.

Though she employs a political subject matter, Hellman's aim again is humanitarian. She is "a humanist, not a determinist; she believes in free will and personal responsibility for one's actions or failure to act"53. She condemns the evil of Fascism not because she supports a particular party or authority but because she sees in Fascism a dreadful sinister that devours and threatens the lives of innocent people. In Thomas Meehan's interview with her, Hellman asserts her humanitarian perspective as a writer. When Meehan asks her: "Your own play, Watch on the Rhine, was in the political tradition, wasn't it?", she replies: "I don't know. I don't think so. I guess I don't think there's any such thing as really good political play. Good writers have a look at the world around them and then they write it down. That's all"54. Hellman was "[a]lways motivated more by personal loyalties than by any clearly considered political program"55. What proves that is the fact that Watch on the Rhine was "written and produced with the Soviet- Nazi Pact still in effect"56. It means that the only goal that Hellman wants to reach through her play is the condemnation of Fascism in any place and any time because it is every man's duty to resist and fight and as Sara says:"[f]or everyman who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt"(p.98). And that is why "Hellman was so general in her characterization that Kurt could represent any philosophy, ideology, movement, or religion devoted to the betterment of mankind"57. Kurt is the hero who … never speaks of the class struggle; he fights against fascism, not for the destruction of the bourgeoisie. He is not a radical, not a Communist, not a Socialist, but a resistance fighter who seems left-wing because the

911

enemy is so totally right-wing. Politically and ideologically, he is an everyman whom any group believing in solidarity, community, and egalitarianism can claim as one of its own58.

Thus, it is the response to the call of conscience that motivates Hellman to write Watch on the Rhine and to make Kurt act morally without being affiliated with any particular political party. He is "an everyman, representing the potential in each person to respond to the call of conscience"59. Watch on the Rhine is "[a] trumpet call to throw off isolationism and actively respond to the threat of fascism"60. The protagonist's concerns are serious attempts to make the world a better place; a world unthreatened by killing, racism and poverty because it is the duty of everyman who has a living conscience to listen and respond to its dictates; freedom and liberty.

911

Notes 1- Dick, pp.81, 83.

2- Quoted in Robert van Gelder, "Of Lillian Hellman: Being a Conversation with the Author of Watch on the Rhine", in Jackson R. Bryer, ed., Conversations with Lillian Hellman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986), p.13.

3- Quoted in Ibid.

4-Holmin, p. 68.

5- Lillian Hellman, Watch on the Rhine (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1941) p.4. Further citations from the play are to this edition and referred to by page number within the text.

6- Moody, pp. 116-118.

7-Ibid., pp. 119-123.

8- Holmin, pp. 74-75.

9- Lederer, p.54.

10-Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., The Fourth Ghost: White Southern Writers and European Fascism, 1930-1950(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), p. 293.

919

11- Carl Rollyson, Lillian Hellman: Her Legend and her Legacy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), p.174.

12- Leo Schneiderman, The Literary Mind: Portraits in Pain and Creativity (New York: Human Sciences Press, Inc., 1988), p.55.

13- Wright, Lillian Hellman: the image, the woman, p.176.

14-Thomas Carl Austenfeld, American Woman Writers and the Nazis: Ethics and Politics in Boyle, Porter, Stafford, and Hellman (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001), p. 93.

15- Adler, Lillian Hellman, p. 25.

16- Booker, p.81.

17- Austenfeld, p. 94.

18- Alice Griffin and Geraldine Thorsten, Understanding Lillian Hellman (Colombia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999) ,p.69.

19- Austenfeld, p. 94.

20- Timothy J. Wiles, " Lillian Hellman's American Political Theatre: The Thirties and Beyond", in Mark W. Estrin, Critical Essays on Lillian Hellman (Massachusetts: G.K Hall & Co., 1989), p. 94.

21- Booker, p.80.

22- Dick, p.84.

912

23-Ibid.

24- Brinkmeyer, p. 293.

25- Griffin, Understanding Lillian Hellman, pp.71,73.

26- Austenfeld, p. 94.

27- Griffin, Understanding Lillian Hellman, p.72.

28-Nagamani, p. 103.

29- Jennifer A. Haytock," Lillian Hellman", in Laurie Champion, ed., American Woman Writers, 1900-1945: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000) ,p. 157.

30-Ibid.

31- Quoted in Steven H. Bills, Lillian Hellman: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Garland Publishing. Inc., 1979), p. 95.

32- Adler, Lillian Hellman, p. 23.

33- Austenfeld, p. 92.

34- Ibid., p. 87.

35- Griffin, Understanding Lillian Hellman, p.69.

36- Wright, Lillian Hellman: the image, the woman, pp.176-177.

913

37- Ibid., p. 177.

38- Quoted in Bills, p. 95.

39- Falk, p. 64.

40-Rollyson, p. 172.

41-Quoted in Lederer, p.52.

42- Quoted in Ibid., p. 53.

43- Booker, p.81.

44- Griffin, Understanding Lillian Hellman, p.71.

45- Haytock, p. 156.

46- Brantley, p. 137.

47- Griffin, Understanding Lillian Hellman, p.67.

48- Brinkmeyer, p. 294.

49- Adler, Lillian Hellman, pp.24-25.

50- Booker, p.80.

51- Saundra Towns, American Women of Achievement: Lillian Hellman, Playwright (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989), p. 66.

911

52- Quoted in Ibid.

53-Lederer, p. 57.

54- Thomas Meehan, "Q: Miss Hellman, What's Wrong with Broadway? A: It's a Bore.", in Jackson R. Bryer, ed., Conversations with Lillian Hellman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986), p.49.

55- Ackerman, p. 217.

56- Ibid., p.219.

57- Dick, p. 85.

58- Ibid., pp. 85-86.

59- Griffin, Understanding Lillian Hellman, p.68.

60- Adler, " Lillian Hellman: feminism, formalism, and politics", p.126.

911

Conclusion Modern American drama is a drama with peculiarity since it is characterized by the distinctive features, mainly concerning its subject matter, that distinguishes it from the European or any other drama. What it is also known for is the supremacy of the male playwrights. A great number of women playwrights and their works were neglected especially in the first half of the twentieth century. Lillian Hellman, by the power of her personality and her plays, proved that she is not less than the male playwrights. In addition to her plays, Hellman asserted her ability in many humanitarian activities though they were, unfairly, considered political by most of the critics. And hence her voice was heard more than her contemporary female playwrights.

Hellman wrote realistic plays in which she focuses on moral questions and people's response to the moral dilemmas in society. Her didactic plays are not melodramas with usual conflict of good confronting evil; they are plays with moral messages. She tries to awaken her society or people in general to understand and be aware of the danger of the evils around them. She condemns the evils in her society and the world as a whole. In The Children's Hour, Hellman's

artistic creation centers on the depiction of a little evil but with

unlimited viciousness. She depicts the threat of the evil of lying and gossip and shows how it creates distrust, chaos, and hence the psychological damage of innocent souls. It is the destruction of Karen Wright and Martha Dobie's lives that shows the severity and inhumanity of Mary Tilford's lie. Thus, Hellman condemns the evil and its deed through showing the audience and the reader the reality of the liar and the reality of a society which is ready to pass judgments without investigating the truth.

In The Little Foxes, greed and depraved desire for power, money and authority actually deprive the Hubbards of their humanity. Devoting a three-act

911

play to the depiction of that theme, Hellman succeeds in raising a moral question and at the same time she condemns the Hubbards for their evil character and vicious aims. Not only the Hubbards are condemned but also those who stay motionless when they witness such evil actions. In Watch on the Rhine the evil of fascism is doomed to death. Hellman does not only condemn it, but also puts an end for it at the hand of a hero whose goal in life, like the author, is humanitarian.

Hellman's treatment of such moral themes does not come only through condemnation but also through encouraging the audience to take action against the evil. In the three plays under discussion, Hellman condemns also those who are passive; those who do not fight the evil. She attacks those who live in ignorance and believe in the fabricated stories of the evils as it is shown through the characters such as Mrs. Tilford and Dr. Cardin who easily believe Mary's lie. They are passive but their passivity is, somehow, tolerated because they are dragged by the fake innocence of the evil to believe it. But those who know about the threat of the evils and yet keep silent or do not take action are those condemned by Hellman severely. She never tolerates them because they are dangerous more than the evil itself, while those who stand against evil are glorified and acknowledged as heroes and heroines worthy of respect and love.

The triumph of evil over good in The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes does not mean that good is defeated. The open ending of some of her plays suggests that people should know that good always survives the crisis till the day comes in which evil is terminated just like Teck de Brancovis, who represents the evil of Fascism in Watch on the Rhine. Mostly, Hellman's evil characters are inherently good or evil. They are not evil because of their circumstances. They are evil from the beginning of the play till the end which means that no action or speech can affect their evil nature. They are static in their characters except in their wickedness.

911

Through her play, The Children's Hour, what Hellman tries to show is that the influences of the personal evils are usually spread and extended to cover a whole society. Mary's lie begins as a personal lie but ends as a destructive power for a whole society which believes in and spreads gossip. In The Little Foxes the Hubbards are evils but they are not alone in their viciousness because they are representatives of generations of Hubbards that day by day devour the country, while the evil of Fascism in Watch on the Rhine goes beyond all that to be a worldwide evil.

The evils in Hellman's plays are of all types and levels of life. They include men, women and even children. They are not from one place or time which suggests that evil is everywhere and comes from every class and sex, and one should be aware of and do his best to fight.

In her realistic portrayals for her evil characters, Hellman tries to make some of them funny. But it is not for mere entertainment, it is for portraying their cold and emotionless manner in their treatment of the sufferings of their victims. With their funniness, the Hubbards show their evil nature. Hence, the aim is not to make the audience laugh but to condemn the evil and go out of the theatre determined to take action to stop those cynical evil people like the Hubbards.

Hellman's subject matters are daring subject matters. Fearlessly, Hellman depicts those ills in her society like lying, greed, capitalism, fascism etc. Her rebellious nature and her sense of wrong and right from her early childhood helped her to stand against what others did not dare to face. It is the same reason that helped her to be righteous and hence, to refuse what is not fair and what others unfairly accept as reality. In her plays, Hellman gives important roles and speeches to black characters and such treatment of black characters was not very common at that time. In The Little Foxes the speech of Addie, the

911

black servant, about those evils that eat the earth and the responsibility of everyone to stop them is the moral message that Hellman wants to deliver.

Thus, in life and art Hellman asserted her humanitarian perspective. In spite of her various methods and means, Hellman's aim was humanitarian; to get a better and securer future for the human beings. Her condemnation of the evils in her society comes as a basic task that she undertook in her life and artistic career. Hellman eagerly advices people to, along with her, condemn and terminate the personal and social evils.

911

Bibliography - Abbotson, Susan C. W. Thematic Guide to Modern Drama. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Inc., 2003.

- Ackerman, Alan. Just Words: Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, and the Failure of Public Conversation in America. New Havens: Yale University Press, 2011.

- Adams, Timothy Dow. Telling Lies in Modern American Autobiographies. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

- Adler, Jacob H. Lillian Hellman. Austin: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1969.

- Armato, Philip M. " Good and Evil" in Lillian Hellman's " The Children's Hour". Educational Theatre Journal, vol. 25, No.4( Dec., 1973):443447.

- Austenfeld, Thomas Carl. AmericanWoman Writers and the Nazis: Ethics and Politics in Boyle, Porter, Stafford, and Hellman. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.

- Barranger, Milly S. Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theatre .Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2004.

-_______________. Unfriendly Witnesses: Gender, Theatre, and Film in the McCarthy Era. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008.

- Baym, Nina ,ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature Vol. D. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2003.

- __________, ed.. The Norton Anthology of American Literature Vol. E . New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2003.

911

- Bigsby, C.W.E. Modern American Drama, 1945 –2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

- Bills, Steven H. Lillian Hellman: An Annotated Bibliography .New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1979.

- Bomarito, Jessica and Jeffrey W.Hunter, eds. Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion volume 6: 20th Century, Authors (H-Z). Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.

- Bower, Martha Gilman. "Review of The Presence of the Past in Modern American Drama". American Literature, Vol.61, No.4 (Dec., 1989): 718-719.

- Brantley, Will. Feminine Sense in Southern Memoir: Smith, Glasgow, Welty, Hellman, Porter, and Hurtson. Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 1993.

- Brinkmeyer, Robert H. Jr. The Fourth Ghost: White Southern Writers and European Fascism, 1930- 1950. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.

- Brockington, John. "A Critical Analysis of the Plays of Lillian Hellman". An Unpublished Dissertation. University of Yale .1962.

- Bryer, Jackson R., ed. Conversations with Lillian Hellman. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986.

- Champion, Laurie, ed. American Woman Writers, 1900-1945: A BioBibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000.

- Clark, Barrett H. "Lillian Hellman". College English, Vol. 6, No.3 (Dec., 1944):127-133.

919

- Deats, Sara Munson and Lagretta Tallent Lenker, eds. The Aching Hearth: Family Violence in Life and Literature. New York: Plenum Press, 1991.

- Dick, Bernard F. Hellman in Hollywood. London: Associated University Presses Inc., 1982.

- D'Onofrio, Serene Anderlini. "The Lie with the Ounce of Truth: Lillian Hellman's Bisexual Fantasies". Journal of Bisexuality, Vol.3, Issue 1(2003): 87-114.

- Dusenbury, Winifred L. The Theme of Loneliness in Modern American Drama. Florida: The University of Florida Press, 1960.

- Eakin, Paul John. Touching the World: Reference in Autobiography. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992.

- Estrin, Mark W. Lillian Hellman: Plays, Films, Memoirs: a reference guide. Massachusetts: G. K. Hall & co., 1980.

-_____________. Critical Essays on Lillian Hellman. Massachusetts: G.K Hall & Co., 1989.

- Falk, Doris V. Lillian Hellman. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1978. - Feibleman, Peter. Lilly: Reminiscences of Lillian Hellman. New York: William Morrow and Company, inc., 1988.

- Folsom, Franklin. Days of Anger, Days of Hope: A Memoir of the League of American Writers. Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 1994.

- Friedman, Sharon. "Feminism as Theme in Twentieth-Century American Women's Drama". American Studies, Vol. 25-26 (1984-85):69-88.

- Gail, Robert L. A Dashiell Hammett Companion. Connecticut: Greenwood

912

Press, 2000. - Galens, David ed. Drama for Students vol. 3. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998.

- Galens, David and Lynn Spampinato, eds. Drama for Students Vol.1. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998.

- Going, William T. Essays on Alabama Literature. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1975.

- Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004.

- Griffin, Alice and Geraldine Thorsten. Understanding Lillian Hellman. Colombia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

- Gross, Larry. Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

- Guillory, Elizabeth Brown. "Black Women Playwrights: Exorcising Myths". Phylon (1960- ), Vol.48, No.3 (3rd Qtr., 1987): 229-239.

- Hayes, Richard. " 'These Three': the Influence of William Wyler and Gregg Toland on Lillian Hellman". Literature/Film Quarterly, Vol.37, Issue: 3(2009):176+.

- Headrick, Charlotte. "New Orleans and Its Influence on the Work of Lillian Hellman". CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 5.3(2003) :1-11.

- Hellman, Lillian. The Children's Hour. New York: Alfred. A. Knope, 1936.

-_____________. Watch on the Rhine. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1941.

913

-_____________. The Searching Wind. New York: The Viking Press: MCMXLIV, 1944.

-_____________. Another Part of the Forest. New York: The Viking Press, 1947.

-_____________. An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969.

- _____________.The Little Foxes. New York: The Viking Press, 1971.

-_____________. Pentimento: A Book of Portraits. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973.

-_____________. Scoundrel Time. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976.

-_____________. Toys in the Attic. New York: DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE, INC., 1988.

-_____________. Six Plays by Lillian Hellman. New York: VINTAGE BOOKS, 1960.

- Holmin, Lorena Ross. The Dramatic Works of Lillian Hellman. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1973.

- Horn, Barbara Lee. Lillian Hellman: A Research and Production Sourcebook. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998.

- Houchin, John H. Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

- Johnson, Paul. Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky. New York: Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 1988.

911

- Jones, Therese. " As the World Turns on the Sick and the Restless, So Go the Days of Our Lives: Family and illness in Daytime Drama". Journal of Medical Humanities, Vol. 18, No. 1 (1997):5-20.

- Krasner, David, ed. A Companion to Twentieth- Century American Drama. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005.

- Lathbury, Roger. American Modernism (1910-1945): American literature in its historical, cultural, and social contexts. New York: Facts On File, Ince., 2006.

- Lederer, Katherine .Lillian Hellman. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1979.

- Martinson, Deborah. Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels. New York: Counterpoint, A Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2005.

- Mellen, Joan. Hellman and Hammett: The Legendary Passion of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1996.

- Melnick, Ralph. The Stolen Legacy of Anne Frank: Meyer, Levin, Lillian Hellman, and the Staging of the Diary. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

- Moody, Richard. Lillian Hellman: Playwright. New York: The BobbsMerrill Company, Inc., 1972.

- Murphy, Brenda, ed. The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

- Nagamani, T. The Plays of Lillian Hellman: A Critical Study. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2001.

911

- Newman, Robert P. The Cold War Romance of Lillian Hellman and John Melby. Chapel Hill: North Carolina Press, 1989.

- Novick, Julius. Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish American Drama and Jewish American Experience. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

- Ozieblo, Barbara and Jerry Dickey, Susan Glaspell and Sophie Treadwell: Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists. New York: Routledge,Tylor & Francis Groups, 2008.

- Paller, Michael. Gentleman Caller: Tennessee Williams, Homosexuality, and Mid-Twentieth- Century Drama. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

- Podhoretz, Norman. Ex-Friends: Falling out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel And Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer. New York: The Free Press, 1999.

- Quinn, Arthur Hobson. "Modern American Drama: I. The American Spirit in Drama and the Drama of Revolt". The English Journal, Vol. 12, No.10 (Dec., 1923): 653-662. - Radosh, Ronald and Allis Radosh. Red Star over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance with the Left. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2005. - Reames, Kelly Lynch. Women and Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing: From Faulkner to Morrison. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

- Renolds, R.C. Stage Left: The Development of the American Social Drama in the Thirties. New York: The Whitston Publishing Company, 1986.

- Riordan, Mary Marguerite. Lillian Hellman: A Bibliography 1926-1978. Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1980.

911

- Rollyson, Carl. Lillian Hellman: Her Legend and her Legacy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.

-____________. Lillian Hellman: Her Life and Legend. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2008.

- Rush, David. A Student Guide to Play Analysis. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. - Scanlan, Tom. Family, Drama, and American Dreams. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1978.

- Schlueter, June ed. Modern American Drama :The Female Canon. London: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1990.

- Schneiderman, Leo. The Literary Mind: Portraits in Pain and Creativity. New York: Human Sciences Press, Inc., 1988.

- Shafer, Yvonne. American Women Playwrights, 1900-1950. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1997.

- Shearer, Stephen Michael. Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2006.

- Smiley, Sam. The Drama of Attack: Didactic Plays of the American Depression. Colombia: University of Missouri Press, 1972.

- Thompson, George J."Rhino". Hammett's Moral Vision. San Francisco: Vince Emery Productions, 2007.

- Titus, Mary. "Murdering the Lesbian: Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour". Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, Vol. 10, No. 2(Autumn, 1991): 215- 232.

911

- Towns, Saundra. American Women of Achievement: Lillian Hellman, Playwright .New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989.

- Turk, Ruth. Lillian Hellman: Rebel Playwright. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1995.

- Vials, Chris. Realism for the Masses: Aesthetics, Popular Front Pluralism, and U.S. Culture, 1935-1947. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

- Wakefield, Thaddeus. The Family in Twentieth _ Century American Drama. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2004. - Walker, Julia A. Expressionism and Modernism in the American Theatre: Bodies, Voices, Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

- Watson, Ritchie D. Jr. "Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes and New South Creed: An Ironic View of Southern History", Southern Literary Journal, 28: 2(Spring: 1996):59-68.

- Weiner, Justus Reid. "Lillian Hellman: The Fiction of Autobiography". Gender Issues, Vol. 21, No.1 (2003):78-83.

- Wright, William. Lillian Hellman: the image, the woman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.

-______________. "Why Lillian Hellman Remains Fascinating". New York Times, (November 3, 1996):1-4.

-WWW.George P. Castellitto," Connection Between Modern American Drama and Contemporary Drama: Sociological and Metaphysical Correlations". Retrieved on 12/ June / 2011.

911

- WWW. Paul Gabriner,"20th Century American Drama: A Background for Albee and Others". Retrieved on 15/ June / 2011.

- WWW. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2011," Theatre of the United States". Retrieved on 20/ June / 2011.

- WWW. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2011, "Wendy Wasserstein". Retrieved on 20/ June / 2011.

- Yeganeh, Farah. Literary Schools. Tehran: Rahnama Publications, 2002.

‫جامعة السليمانية‬ ‫إدانة الشرالفردي واألجتماعي في مسرحيات ليليان‬ ‫هيلمان‬ ‫أطروحة تقدمت بها‬ ‫نسرين عثمان درويش‬ ‫إلى‬

‫مجلس كلية التربية‪/‬كالر‪ /‬جامعة السليمانية كجزء من متطلبات نيل شهادة‬ ‫دكتوراه فلسفة في األدب األنكليزي‬

‫بأشراف‬ ‫د‪ .‬نجدت كاظم موسى‬

‫‪(2172‬كوردي )‬

‫‪( 2172‬ميالدي)‬

‫‪5‬‬

‫إدانة الشرالفردي واألجتماعي في مسرحيات ليليان هيلمان‬

‫ليليان هيلمان (‪ )7091-7015‬كانبةة مسةرحية امريكيةة ارتةبم اسةمها بةالقيم األلالديةة لبةدايات القةرن‬ ‫العشةةرين‪ .‬إن مسةةةرحيات هيلمةةان معروفةةةة بتناولهةةةا للمواضةةيا األلالديةةةة وبهدانتهةةا لشواهرالشةةةر‪,‬كمةةةا ان‬ ‫مسرحياتها تمتاز بتصةويرها لشصصةيات زتةزاع معروفةة فةي المسةري األمريكةي وبلةخ بسةبم شصصةياتهم‬ ‫المتميزة وأدوارهم المؤثرة وتصةويرهم الةوادعي‪ .‬ان هةهه الدراسةة توةاوع تسةليم اللةوءعلى اهةم الشةرور‬ ‫الفردية وازجتماعية في ثال ث من مسرحيات هيلمان الشرور التي فتكت بالمجتما األمريكةي والعةالم اجمةا‬ ‫كالكهب والطما والفاشية ولاصةة فةي النصةأل األوع مةن القةرن العشةرين والتةي هاجمتهةا وادانتهةا هيلمةان‬ ‫من لالع مسرحياتها‪.‬‬ ‫تنقسم ههه الدراسة إلى اربعة فصوع ولاتمة‪ .‬الفصل األوع عبارة عن مقدمة عن المسري ازمريكةي‬ ‫الوديث وهو مقسم إلى أربعة مباحث ‪ ,‬يتناوع المبوةث األوع المسةري األمريكةي الوةديث مركةزا علةى أهةم‬ ‫كتاب المسري من الرجاع‪.‬ويتركز المبوث الثاني حوع كتاب المسري ازمريكةي مةن النسةاء وأهةم أعمةالهن‬ ‫التةةي همشةةت انةةها ‪ .‬يةةدور المبوةةث الثالةةث حةةوع هيلمةةان‪ ,‬حياتهةةا وأعمالهةةا امةةا المبوةةث الرابةةا فهةةو حةةوع‬ ‫أفكارها السياسية ألنهةا كانةت معروفةة بنشةاطاتها ازنسةانية والتةي تعةزه اسةبابها مةن دبةل بعةى النقةاد إلةى‬ ‫التزاماتها السياسية‪.‬‬ ‫الفصل الثاني دراسة لمسرحية ‪" The Children's Hour‬ساعة األطفاع" وهو مقسةم إلةى أربعةة‬ ‫مباحةث‪ .‬المبوةث األوع عبةارة عةن لالصةة المسةرحية‪ ,‬و يولةل المبوةث الثةاني أهةم شصصةيات المسةةرحية‬ ‫الةةهين يمثلةةون األطةةراف المتنازعةةة فةةي الصةةراو بةةين الصيةةر والشةةر‪ .‬يتنةةاوع المبوةةث الثالةةث بالدراسةةة أهةةم‬ ‫الموضوعات التي تناولتها هيلمان لتصوير ونقد الشرور في مجتمعها والعالم ككل ‪ .‬اما المبوث الرابا فهو‬ ‫دراسة نقدية لموضوو الكهب كشر ودوة تدميرية في المسرحية وفي وادا الوياة‪.‬‬ ‫أمةا الفصةل الثالةةث فهةو مكةةرة لدراسةة مسةةرحية ‪" The Little Foxes‬الثعالةةم الصة ار"‪ .‬ويقةةا‬ ‫الفصةةل فةةي أربعةةة مباحةةث‪ .‬المبوةةث األوع عبةةارة عةةن لالصةةة المسةةرحية والمبوةةث الثةةاني يةةدرة أهةةم‬ ‫شصصيات المسرحية وبةازل‬

‫طبيعةة الشةر لعا لةة هابةارد" ‪ "The Hubbards‬ويتلةمن أيلةا دراسةة‬

‫بةةراءة ضةةوايا الثعالةةم الص ة ار‪ .‬يتنةةاوع المبوةةث الثالةةث مةةن الدراسةةة أهةةم موضةةوعات المسةةرحية كةةالطما‬

‫‪6‬‬

‫والرأسمالية‪ .‬أما المبوث األلير من الفصل فهو حةوع الصةراو مةن أجةل المةاع كمةا هةو مةدروة ومصةور‬ ‫في المسرحية ويتناوع أيلا إدانة هيلمان لمثل ههه الشرور ‪.‬‬ ‫يتركز الفصةل الرابةا حةوع مسةرحية ‪ " Watch on the Rhine‬حراسةة الةراين" المعاديةة للنازيةة‪.‬‬ ‫والفصل مقسم إلى اربعة مباحث‪ ,‬يقدم المبوةث األوع لالصةة المسةرحية ويتنةاوع المبوةث الثةاني بالتوليةل‬ ‫أهم شصصيات المسرحية ومميزاتهم ودوافعهم ويشهر جانةم الشةر فةيهم ‪ .‬امةا المبوةث الثالةث فهةو مكةرة‬ ‫لموضوعات المسرحية ‪ :‬الفاشية والمقارنة بين ازمريكيين واألوروبيين ومن لاللها تنتقد هيلمةان المجتمةا‬ ‫األمريكي لسهاجتهم في مجابهة الشر‪ .‬المبوث الرابةا هةو حةوع الفاشةية وألطارهةا فهةو شةر يصةيم العةالم‬ ‫أجمةةا‪ ,‬ويعةةالأ أيلةةا السةةلبية إزاء الفاشةةية ويسةةلم اللةةوء علةةى فشةةل األفةةراد فةةي مواولةةة تلبيةةة متطلبةةات‬ ‫اللمير الوي في الورية والعدالة وبلخ بسبم سهاجتهم في مواجهة هها الشروعدم ادراكهم أللطاره‪.‬‬ ‫أما االقسم األلير من الدراسة فهو الصاتمة ويلصة‬ ‫المعتمدة في الدراسة ( البيبلوغرافيا)‪.‬‬

‫أهةم مةا توصةلت إلية الدراسةة ودا مةة بالمصةادر‬

‫زانكؤى سليَماني‬

‫ئيدانةكردني خراثةكاري تاكيي و‬ ‫كوَمةالَ يةتي لة شانوَييةكاني ليليان هيَلَمان‬ ‫نامةيةكة‬ ‫نةسرين عومسان دةرويَش‬ ‫ثيَشكةشي ئةجنومةني كوَليَجي ثةروةردةي كةالر‪-‬زانكؤي‬ ‫سليَماني كردووة وةك بةشيَك لة ثيَويستيةكاني وةرطرتين‬ ‫برِوانامةي دكتوَراي فةلسةفة لة ئةدةبي ئينطليزي‬ ‫بةسةرثةرشيت‬ ‫د‪.‬نةجدةت كازم موسا‬

‫‪ 2172‬ك‬

‫‪ 2172‬ز‬

‫‪2‬‬

‫ئيدانةكردني خراثةكاري تاكيي وكوَمةالَ يةتي لة‬ ‫شانوَييةكاني ليليان هيَلَمان‬ ‫ليليااان هيَلَمااان (‪ )7091-7011‬شانوَنووساايَكي ئةمريكاييااة و ناااوي وابةسااتةي بااةها‬ ‫رةوشتييةكاني سةرةتاي سةدةي بيستةم بووة‪.‬شانؤييةكاني لة بابةتة ئاكارييةكان دةدويَن و ئيدانةي‬ ‫دياردةكاني خراثةكاري دةكةن‪ .‬هةروةها ياةكيَك لاة تايمتةنةنديياةكاني شاانؤييةكاني هيَلَماان‬ ‫دروستكردني كارةكتةرطةليَطن كةتا هةنووكةش ناسراون لة ناو شانؤي ئةمريكاييدا‪ ،‬ئةمةش لةباةر‬ ‫ئةو كةسايةتيية تايمتةتانةي هةيانة و ئةو رؤلَة كاريطةرانةي دةيمتينن و رِةنطدانةوةي واقيا لاةناو‬ ‫كارةكانيدا‪ .‬ئةم ليَكؤلَينةوةية هةو َليَكاة باؤ دةستنيشاان كردناي طارنطرين خراثاةكاري تااكيي و‬ ‫كؤمةالَيةتييةكان وةك درؤ و ضلَيَسي و فاشاييةت‪ ،‬كاة كؤماةلَطاي ئاةمريكايي و جيهانيشاي ويَاران‬ ‫كردووة‪ ،‬لة سيَ شانؤيي هيَلَمان بة تايمتةتي لة نيوةي يةكةميي سةدةي بيستةمدا‪.‬‬ ‫ليَكؤلَينةوةكة دابةش دةبيَت بةسةر ضوار بةش و دةرئةجناماةكان‪ .‬بةشاي يةكاةم ثيَشاةكييةكة‬ ‫لةسةر شانؤي مؤديَرني ئةمريكايي و دابةش دةبيَت بؤ ضوار باس‪ .‬باسي يةكةم تةركيز لةسةر شاانؤي‬ ‫مؤديَرني ئةمريكايي و كةلَة نووسةرةكاني دةكاات لاة ثيااوان‪ .‬باساي دووةم تيشاك دةخاتاة ساةر‬ ‫ذنةشانؤنووسة ئةمريكاييةكان و كارةكانيان كة ئةو كات ثةراويَز خرابوون‪ .‬باسي سيَيةم لةسةر ذيان‬ ‫و بةرهةمةكاني ليليان هيَلَمانةو باسي ضوارةميش باةة رِامياريياةكاني هيَلَماان دةخاتاةرِوو ضاونكة‬ ‫هيَلَماان بااةناوبانو بااووة باة ضاااالكيية مرؤييااةكاني كااة هةناديَك رِةخنااةطر دةيطةرِيَننااةوة باوَ‬ ‫ثابةندبوونة سياسيةكاني‪.‬‬ ‫بةشي دووةمي ليَكؤلَينةوةكة لةسر شانؤيي كاتذيَري منداالَن و دةبيَت باة ضاوار باساةوة‪ .‬باساي‬ ‫يةكةم ثوختةي شانؤييةكةية‪ .‬باسي دووةم باسي طرنطرين كارةكتةرةكاني ناو شانؤييكة دةكاات كاة‬ ‫جةمسةرةكاني ملمالنيَي نيَوان باشة و خراثة دةنويَنن‪ .‬باسي سييَةم ديراسةي ئةو بابةتانة دةكات كة‬ ‫هيَلَمان باسيان ليَوة دةكات بؤ ويَناكردن و رِةخنةطرتن لةو خراثةكارييانةي لةناو كؤمةلَطاكةي خؤي‬ ‫و جيهانيش هةن‪ .‬باسي ضوارةم ليَكؤلَينةوةيةكي رِةخنةطرانةي بابةتي درؤية وةك ديارةيةكي خراث و‬ ‫هيَزيَكي رِوخيَنةر لةناو شانؤييةكةدا و لة ذياني واقيعيشدا‪.‬‬

‫‪3‬‬

‫بةشي سيَيةم تةرخان كراوة بؤ شانؤيي رِيَويية ضكؤلَةكان و دابةش دةبيَت بؤ ضاوار بااس‪ .‬باساي‬ ‫يةكةم ثوختةيةكي شانؤييةكةية و باسي دووةم ديراسةي طرنطرين كةسايةتييةكاني ناو شانؤييةكة‬ ‫دةكات بةتايمتةت سروشيت خراثةكاري لةنار خيَزاني (هابارد) و هاةروةها ديراساةيةكي بةرائاةتي‬ ‫قوربانييةكاني رِيَويية ضكؤلَةكان دةطريَتة خؤي‪ .‬باساي سايَيةم بااس لاة طارنطرين بابةتاةكاني‬ ‫شانؤييةكة دةكات وةك ضلَيَسيي و سةرمايةداري‪ .‬دوا باس لةسةر ملمالنيَية لةثيَناو ثاارةدا هاةروةك‬ ‫ضؤن لةناو شانؤييةكة باس و ويَنا كراوة و ضؤن هيَلَمان ئيدانةي ئةم ضةشنة خراثةكاريية دةكات‪.‬‬ ‫بةشي ضوارةم لة شانؤيي ثاسةوانيي رِاين دةكؤلَيَتةوة كاة دذ باة نازييةتاة و دةبيَات باة ضاوار‬ ‫باسااةوة‪ .‬باسااي يةكااةم ثوختةيااةكي شااانؤييةكةية و باسااي دووةم شاايكارييةكي طاارنطرين‬ ‫كةسايةتييةكاني ناو شانؤييةكة و تايمتةنةنديي و ثالَناةر و اليةناة خراثاةكانيان دةخاتاةرِوو‪.‬‬ ‫باسي سيَيةم تةرخان كراوة بؤ بابةتطةليَك وةك‪ :‬فاشييةت و بةراوردكردن لة نيَوان ئةمريكاييةكان و‬ ‫ئةوروثييةكان كة لة ميانيانةوة هيَلَمان رِةخنة لة سادةو ساويلكةيي كؤمةلَطاي ئةمريكايي دةطريَت لة‬ ‫رِووبةرِووبوونةوةي خراثةكاريدا‪ .‬باسي ضوارةم باس لة فاشييةت و مةترساييةكاني دةكاات ضاونكة‬ ‫خراثةكارييةكة دووضاري هةموو دونيا دةبيَتةوة‪ ،‬هةروةها باس لة مةترسييةكاني سساتيي سياساي‬ ‫دةكات‪ .‬ئةم باسة تيشك دةخاتة سةر نشوسيت تاكاةكان لاة هاةولَي باةديهيَناني داواكاريياةكاني‬ ‫ويذداني زيندوو وةك ئازاديي و دادثةروةريي‪ ،‬هؤكاري ئةم نشوستييةش ساويلكةيي كؤمةلَطاكةية لاة‬ ‫رِووبةرِووبوونةوةي ئةم خراثةكاريية و و بيَئاطاييان لة مةترسييةكان‪.‬‬ ‫دوابةشي ئةم ليَكؤلَينةوةيةش باس لة طرنطرين ئةو ئةجنامانة دةكات كة ثيَ طةيشتووة‪.‬‬