The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Lorraine Hansberry
- First Published: 1965
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Protest drama
- Time of Work: The 1960’s
- Setting: Greenwich Village, New York
- Principal Characters: Sidney Brustein, Iris Parodus Brustein, Alton Scales, Mavis Parodus Bryson, David Ragin, Gloria Parodus, Wally O’Hara
- Genres: Domestic realism
- Subjects: African Americans
- Locales: New York, NY
Form and Content
When Mavis declares, in response to an argument about modern drama between Sidney and David, “I just don’t know whatever happened to simple people with simple problems in literature,” one irony is that Lorraine Hansberry’s play itself shows complex people living in a world whose problems are complex. Ironically, much later in the play, even the apparently superficial and conventional Mavis turns out to be complex, concealing depth, feelings, and problems of her own that reveal that her statement arises not from aesthetic naïveté but from a longing for...
[The entire page is 2523 words long]
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