The Stick Wife (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Darrah Cloud
- First Published: 1987
- Type of Plot: Social realism; symbolist
- Time of Work: 1963
- Setting: Birmingham, Alabama
- Principal Characters: Jessie Bliss, Ed Bliss, Marguerite Pullet, Tom Pullet, Betty Conner, Big Albert Conner
- Genres: Social realism, Drama, Women’s literature, Symbolist literature
- Subjects: Civil rights, 1960’s, Power, personal or social, Class conflict, Racism, Gender roles, Social issues, Marriage, Yards or backyards, Domestic violence, Violence, Unemployment or unemployed workers, Working class, Ku Klux Klan, Women’s rights
- Locales: Birmingham, AL
The Play
The Stick Wife is a two-act play set behind the Bliss home in Birmingham, Alabama, during the autumn of 1963. Clotheslines haphazardly crisscross the stage, which is littered with what Cloud terms “the junk of marriage.” Rusting upturned tubs substitute for patio furniture and a rifle box serves as the back step. Such a set is appropriate for the debris of human lives that fall under examination throughout the play. In act 1 the play interweaves the lives of three unemployed working-class white men and their wives as they respond to the news of the...
[The entire page is 2095 words long]
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