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Abstract

The American drama of the 20th century portrays how gradually the social change, social problems and the cultural mutations took place. The importance of the American drama especially in modern and post-modern era is obvious in the various themes which are reflecting the American society in particular and the whole globe in general. Themes are varied including the horrors of the wars, biographies and autobiographies, the great depression, political hypocrisies, radical politics, personal issues such as fragmentation of the personality, self-realization, the struggle to preserve personal values, the outsider in a hostile group, anguish, despair; family issues such as family fragmentation, family relations, father-son relationship; social and moral issues such as the ambiguity of morality,  fear of death, the dehumanization of modern society, the individual resisting social values, social injustice; horrible diseases, the psychological disorder and its interrelated effects on the individual, family, and society.


Drama, being the most immediately responsive to the social context from which it emerges and in which it appears, vibrates to changing pressures in society. Many American playwrights have largely focused on tragic themes in their works. American writers who lived between World War II and the new millennium include writers like Eudora Wetly, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Sylvia Plath, Edward Franklin Albee, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Ralph Ellison etc.

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