Depiction Of The Marriage Crisis In 20th Century American Drama - Diploma Thesis

My diploma thesis introduces the topic of portrayal of married life by the most famous American playwrights of the past decades. The goal of my diploma thesis was to provide the information about the changing social trends in marriage and family in this period, which still remain, and mainly to discuss and analyse the marital crisis in the previous century through the chocen works of drama. In my diploma thesis I describe the sociological and psychological character of the difficulties in marriage in the 20th century. I focus on the introduction of some American 20th century playwrights and I analyse the marital problems depicted in the six chosen plays. This analysis is based on my own study and observations, while the ideas and arguments are supported by the quotations from the dramatic works. My diploma thesis clarifies the view upon the married life from 1920s till 1980s and its elaboration in works of drama –; A Lie of the Mind, A Streetcar Named Desire, After the Fall, The Death of a Salesman, The First Man and Who’;s afraid of Virginia Woof.

All of the selected works of drama deal with marital crisis and problems in relationships in the 20th century and I chose to approach this social issue in my diploma thesis through the analysis of these selected dramatic works.

In my research I try to clarify the reasons why the social issues started to appear in American drama of the 20th century more often than in the previous centuries and demonstrate this phenomenon by the analyses of selected works of drama. As I proceeded with the analysis, I discovered that these works have many similar aspects, through which the marital crisis is depicted, for example, the portrayal of partner abuse and problems with communication. These, and some other factors, illustrating the difficulties in married relationships are present in the most of the selected dramatic works. In the comparative analysis, I also tried to specify the differences in the depiction of marital problems in these plays. I decided to discuss marriage crisis in my diploma thesis, because it is one of the social issues that are still actual nowadays.