The Dining Room (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: A. R. Gurney, Jr.
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Comedy
- Time of Work: The twentieth century
- Setting: A dining room, somewhere in the northeastern United States
- Genres: Drama, Comedy
- Subjects: 1950’s, Values, 1960’s, 1970’s, Family or family life, United States or Americans, Tradition, 1940’s, 1930’s, 1980’s, Servants, WASPs, Furniture, Dinners or dining
- Locales: Northeast (U.S.)
Characters Discussed
The Dining Room Table, the focal point in the formal dining room. It serves not only as the basic prop but also as the inanimate main character for the play’s eighteen vignettes analyzing “white Anglo-Saxon Protestant” (WASP) life in America in the twentieth century. The table is large, elegant, and deeply burnished, with armed chairs at either end, two armless chairs along each side, and several matching chairs against the walls of the room. The table sits on an elegant hardwood floor covered with a fine oriental rug. Into this archetypal dining room...
[The entire page is 869 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
