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LILLIAN HELLMAN: REVISIONING FROM DRAMA TO MEMOIR
Abstract
In my study I trace the evolution of Lillian Hellman's literary development and examine the influences responsible for the shaping of that development. My methodology includes an examination of Hellman's manuscripts and letters (Lillian Hellman Collection) as well as of pertinent secondary material, and a close critical analysis of the entire body of her dramatic work and autobiographical prose. Because of her historical circumstances and the influence of her mentor, Dashiell Hammett, Hellman was steeped in the forms and views of traditional theater. Hellman's plays conform to the strictures of dramatic realism and incorporate rigid moral codes that derive from an androcentric (male-centered) vision. Thus in the majority of her plays Hellman displays a dichotomous world view with a grand moral or 'truth' at the center. In line with such a view, her female characters function as adjuncts to the more important male figures at the center. Yet closer inspection reveals underlying thematic pulses connected to the experience of the women characters, suggesting dissatisfaction and tension between their designated role and a subtle push toward self-definition. Through her dramatic female characters, Lillian Hellman gropes with long-neglected aspects of her 'female' identity and moves closer to an understanding of herself. Hellman more fully explores this 'female' experience with its accompanying gynocentric vision in the autobiographical memoir. This occurred after Hammett's death, when Hellman had ceased writing for the theater. In the process of breaking through barriers of the past and 'old' values, Hellman discovered a form of writing that both affirmed her female experience and prompted further inner exploration--the female-identified form of the autobiographical memoir. As a result, the memoirs show Hellman entertaining a variety of perspectives and 'truths,' marking a radical departure from the absolutes or the 'truth' that inform her well-made melodrama.
Subject Area
American literature
Recommended Citation
WAITES LAMM, KATHLEEN ANNE, "LILLIAN HELLMAN: REVISIONING FROM DRAMA TO MEMOIR" (1986). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8624600.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8624600