Ethical Contours of the (Sub)urban Space-Time Relationship in the Early Postwar American Drama

Abstract

This paper analyzes the (sub) urban time-space relationship in the early postwar American drama. In so doing, special attention is given to how various dramatic forms give rise to different conceptions and experiences of (sub) urban time as it is manifested in dream and illusion and in memory and nostalgia. It also argues that the various dramatic canvasses on which time is materially embodied, in their totality, point to a multi-layered experience of time which in turn opens up, to different degrees, an ethical space of reading. In the immediate postwar American drama, we can observe an interesting relationship between dramatic form and time. Despite this interesting array of temporal conceptions, what is missing in all these plays is the acutely self-conscious sense of the theatricality of social life that is deeply embedded in the modern(ist) drama. The fundamentally conservative nature of the early post-war American drama and its general confidence in the representational validity of the realistic-naturalistic form reflects the overall sociocultural confidence in the American conception of the post-war world and itself.