| Stage directions are a vital, but often overlooked, part of drama, working in conjunction with dialogue to produce the play's text. There is very little research that exclusively examines the role that stage directions play in drama. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze one play's stage directions thoroughly to begin a look at how stage directions function in drama as another part of the rhetorical apparatus of the play.; This rhetorical analysis examines the stage directions in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie to prove that for this one play, at least, stage directions function as narration, supplying essential background and details about character, scene, plot, action, point-of-view, tone, and theme. The rhetorical analysis of this play completes just one more needed step in the examination of stage directions and serves as a model for looking at stage directions as narrative in other plays. |
