The Dining Room (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: A. R. Gurney, Jr.
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Comedy
- Time of Work: Approximately 1930 to 1980
- 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.)
Places Discussed
Dining room. Formal dining room in an upper-class or upper-middle-class home in an unspecific place in the United States. Although the play’s eighteen scenes involve eighteen different sets of characters conversing in eighteen different houses, A. R. Gurney’s stage directions call for one set of dining-room furniture—a table, some chairs, and a sideboard—to shape the room for all of the scenes. The room, therefore, has symbolic value beyond mere setting: It demonstrates that although the groups of characters are individual, they are also bound together...
[The entire page is 508 words long]
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