Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Inge, William (Vol. 19) - Ima Honaker Herron

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IMA HONAKER HERRON

The successful playwright, whose dramatic scope is never outwardly wide, whose characters are as commonplace as old shoes, and whose subject matter rarely rises above the ordinary routine of small-town life, necessarily must possess compensating gifts. William Motter Inge … has an abundance of such gifts. Possessed of extraordinary perception, sensitivity, and compassion, he has the rare and admirable trait of expressing the frustrations and dilemmas of "the so-called little man without being patronizing and without the sentimentalist's knack of killing him with a dubious sort of kindness, à la Saroyan." His dramatic aim, as expressed in a series of midwestern and southwestern community plays, is modest but almost invariably true. As the creator of a large number of well-realized, though ordinary men, women, and children, Inge has portrayed the fortunes and misfortunes of their domestic lives with integrity and sympathy…. [Beginning with...

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1. Introduction
2. Gerald Weales
3. Allan Lewis
4. R. H. Gardner
5. Ima Honaker Herron
6. Georges-Michel Sarotte
7. Copyright