Melodrama and the Myth of AmericaIn nineteenth-century America, popular theatre acted as the vehicle for the construction of a national ideology. Melodrama and the Myth of America looks at five popular plays that took as their subjects important issues in American life: Metamora and the "Indian" Question, The Drunkard and the temperance movement, Uncle Tom's Cabin and slavery, My Partner and the American West, and Shenandoah and the Civil War. These plays present American history as a grand melodrama. |
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Page 7
... given social context , and the social role of theatre twists the question of its meaning into a consideration of how any given play legitimates or promotes a given ideology . IDEOLOGY AND MYTH As a concept and as a theoretical basis for ...
... given social context , and the social role of theatre twists the question of its meaning into a consideration of how any given play legitimates or promotes a given ideology . IDEOLOGY AND MYTH As a concept and as a theoretical basis for ...
Page 8
... given class , a perspective that supports the case that ideology is virtually organic to experience . I do not mean to suggest that ideology is the " center " that Derrida has revealed as delusory , any more than the Derridean space ...
... given class , a perspective that supports the case that ideology is virtually organic to experience . I do not mean to suggest that ideology is the " center " that Derrida has revealed as delusory , any more than the Derridean space ...
Page 54
... given to making fun of them , employing gossip - column witticisms to describe Black Hawk and his party- " objects of terror to females , of wonder to children , and astonishment to negroes ” —and relating how they superstitiously ...
... given to making fun of them , employing gossip - column witticisms to describe Black Hawk and his party- " objects of terror to females , of wonder to children , and astonishment to negroes ” —and relating how they superstitiously ...
Contents
Constructing American Ideology | 1 |
Metamora 1829 and the Indian Question | 23 |
The Drunkard 1844 and the Temperance Movement | 61 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
abolitionism abolitionist action actual Aiken American antebellum antislavery argued assures audience battle become California characters Christian civilization Clare colonial concept Confederate convention Cribbs culture death defined depicted discourse drama drinking drunkard Edward Edwin Forrest English evil experience fight flag Forrest George gold Howard idea ideology Indian Indian removal individual interaction Joe Saunders Kerchival King Philip's War land Legree Mary melodrama Metacomet Metamora miners moral myth Nahmeokee narrative nation natives New-York Evening Post nineteenth-century North northern novel offered performance play playwright political popular position present production race readers refer reform reinforce response rhetoric role romantic sachem savage scene Scraggs sentimental Sheridan slave system slavery social society South southern stage story Stowe Stowe's sympathy teetotalism temperance temperance movement theatre theatrical Topsy tradition Uncle Tom Uncle Tom's Cabin Union villain virtually virtue vision Wampanoag Washingtonian West woman writer York