On The Existential Ideas In Beth Henley’s Two Plays:Crimes Of The Heart And The Miss Firecracker Contest

Beth Henley(1952--)is considered one of America’s preeminent modern dramatists.Most of her plays are set in the American South,primarily about women’s issues and families.She achieved fame with the Pulizer Prize-winning play Crimes of the Heart,which tells the story of how Magrath sisters survive the crises with the love and help of each other.The Miss Firecracker Contest is another great work of Henley,in which Carnelle Scott,the heroine,spares no effort to win the local pageant to restore her ruined reputation,but in vain.Existential ideas can be found in both of the plays in terms of the unyielding efforts the characters make to search for the meaning of existence in spite of the absurdity of the world and self-alienation they have to face.Previous researches on the plays of Henley were mainly done from the perspectives of feminism and regional studies,while this thesis tries with a new perspective of existentialism to study the works of Henley,hoping to make a little contribution to Beth Henley researches.Based on the four important concepts of existentialism,which are absurdity,alienation,freedom and authenticity,this thesis analyzes the existential ideas in Crimes of the Heart and The Miss FirecrackerContest.Chapter one discusses the absurd world presented in the two plays.In the plays,misfortunes befall one after another and all good wishes abort for no reason,indicating the indifference of the absurd world which ignores all the sufferings of people.Chapter two focuses on the self-alienation of the characters under external pressures.Oppressed by patriarchy,Magrath sisters in Crimes of the Heart obey the orders of the their grandfather blindly,gradually losing self-consciousness;the three cousins in The Miss Firecracker Contest,Carnelle,Elain and Delmount repress themselves in order to get the recognition of the society,thus estranged from themselves Chapter three makes an analysis of the choices the characters make to achieve an authentic existence.Facing the absurdity of the world and self-alienation,the characters make responsible choices to find the real self and pursue a meaningful life.In Crimes of the Heart,Lenny chooses to pursue true love,Meg decides to rebuild inner grace and Babe is determined to fight against unhappy marriage,while in The Miss Firecracker Contest,Carnelle sets to chase glory and Delmount starts to appreciate inner beauty,which reflects the ideas of the existential concepts of freedom and authenticity.According to existentialism,man is always free to choose what kind of life to live regardless of his situation,and man should choose to transcend the limitations in the given reality to find out what he really wants and make life meaningful,that is,achieving an authentic existence.According to existentialism,human beings have to bear a painful life because of the absurdity of the world and they tend to be alienated from themselves under external pressures,but they are granted the freedom to choose to live authentically.These existential ideas are well reflected in Crimes of the Heart and The Miss Firecracker Contest seeing that the characters try their best to fight against the absurd world and get rid of self-alienation,eventually finding out who they are and what they really want.