Lillian Hellman Criticism
Lillian Hellman was a prominent American playwright, screenwriter, and memoirist whose precise diction and economical use of language captivated audiences with its sharp focus on moral and social themes. Her work, ranging from emotionally charged plays like The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes to contentious memoirs such as Scoundrel Time, explores the complexities of human character and ethical dilemmas. Hellman’s ability to weave personal and historical influences into her narratives has been noted by critics like Richard Moody, illustrating her skill in balancing autobiographical elements with broader social commentary.
Hellman's autobiographical works, including An Unfinished Woman and Scoundrel Time, reflect her complex relationship with historical truth. Critics such as Irving Howe and Sidney Hook have questioned the factual accuracy of her memoirs, as she often relied on memory over concrete evidence. This approach, as explored by Maurice F. Brown and Anita Susan Grossman, shaped the autobiographical genre by blending artistic narrative with personal history.
One of her most contentious memoirs, Scoundrel Time, delves into her experiences during the McCarthy era. While figures like William F. Buckley, Jr. have criticized it for its self-aggrandizing narrative, it has been praised for its emotional depth and moral insights by David Hunt. In her plays, Hellman employs a Chekhovian style that focuses on realistic character development. However, her work sometimes faces criticism for theatricality, as noted by Elizabeth Hardwick, who argues that Hellman’s reliance on plot devices can hinder the natural growth of her characters.
Despite such critiques, Hellman's oeuvre remains significant for its moral complexity and portrayal of human strengths and weaknesses. This is especially evident in her exploration of moral integrity, a recurring theme discussed by Devra Braun, who draws parallels between Hellman's plays and her resistance to McCarthyism. Her works delve into the challenges of maintaining personal responsibility and defending human decency, even as plays like Days to Come have been critiqued by Harold Clurman for lacking thematic clarity.
Hellman’s exploration of memory and truth is further examined in her memoirs, though they have been critiqued for their fragmented structure and rhetorical self-parody by Brina Caplan and Vivian Gornick. Nevertheless, Pam Bromberg appreciates her self-examination and moral introspection. Hellman’s legacy in both her plays and autobiographical works endures, marked by her meticulous use of language and profound engagement with the moral quandaries of her time.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Hellman, Lillian (Vol. 18)
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American Playwrights, Old and New: Lillian Hellman
(summary)
In the following essay, George Jean Nathan critiques Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, praising its restraint and intelligent handling of sensational material, but also arguing that the playwright compromises the play's credibility by avoiding direct articulation of the child's accusations, seemingly due to concerns about censorship.
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Richard Moody
(summary)
In the following essay, Richard Moody examines Lillian Hellman's incorporation of personal and historical influences into her plays, highlighting her ability to balance autobiographical elements with broader social and political commentary, and praising the emotional intensity and moral complexities present in her works such as "The Little Foxes" and "Watch on the Rhine."
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Lillian Hellman's Continuing Moral Battle
(summary)
In the following essay, Devra Braun examines Lillian Hellman's exploration of moral integrity in her plays and memoirs, arguing that Hellman consistently emphasizes the crucial importance of personal responsibility and the defense of human decency against societal pressures, drawing parallels between her dramatic works and her resistance to the McCarthy era's moral challenges.
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Theatre: 'Days to Come'
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In the following essay, Harold Clurman critiques Lillian Hellman's play Days to Come as a melodramatic depiction of industrial strife, ultimately revealing a deeper examination of the vacuous existence of a complacent middle-class family, yet finding the play lacking in fully conveying its thematic intentions.
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The Teller as the Tale
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In the following essay, Brina Caplan critiques Lillian Hellman's autobiographical work "Three" for its vivid portrayal of emotions and places while also highlighting the limitations of Hellman's retrospective vision and her tendency to impose hasty judgments that obscure the complexity of her observations and characters.
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From Ghostly
(summary)
In the following essay, John Simon criticizes Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine as an overrated and poorly constructed work, arguing that it relies on simplistic ideology, melodrama, and clichés, ultimately lacking the suspense and emotional depth of a well-made play.
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Popular Theatre: 'Watch on the Rhine'
(summary)
In the following essay, Brendan Gill critiques Lillian Hellman's "Watch on the Rhine" for its enduring moral and political questions while noting its reliance on melodramatic elements typical of well-made plays, which he finds increasingly outdated.
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'Maybe'
(summary)
In the following essay, Broyard critiques Lillian Hellman's book "Maybe" as a possible parody of contemporary fiction, highlighting its reliance on narrative techniques like ambiguity and fragmented memory, and questioning the book's genre as it oscillates between fiction and memoir, ultimately portraying a self-admittedly inattentive recollection of a femme fatale character.
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Rhetoric of Things Past
(summary)
In the following essay, Vivian Gornick criticizes Lillian Hellman's memoir Maybe for its lack of substance and coherence, describing it as an "impoverished" work that indulges in repetitive memories and rhetorical self-parody, ultimately failing to achieve the depth and literary merit expected of Hellman's writing.
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A Foray into the Self
(summary)
In the following essay, Robert Towers critiques Lillian Hellman's memoir "Maybe" for its failure to provide a coherent and meaningful exploration of memory, criticizing its scattered and inconsistent narrative and suggesting that Hellman's reluctance to engage with factual details undermines the work's potential significance.
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Books and the Arts: 'Maybe: A Story'
(summary)
In the following essay, Maggie Scarf discusses Lillian Hellman's Maybe, highlighting its themes of despair and unreliability in memory, a departure from Hellman's previous works, as it delves into feminine hurts and isolation, portraying characters who are unable to connect or find meaning in their experiences.
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Lillian Hellman's Uncertainties
(summary)
In the following essay, Pam Bromberg argues that Lillian Hellman's Maybe explores themes of memory and truth through a fragmented narrative structure, revealing Hellman's self-examination and moral introspection, while also addressing the challenges of aging and confronting painful personal truths.
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American Playwrights, Old and New: Lillian Hellman
(summary)
- Hellman, Lillian (Vol. 2)
- Hellman, Lillian (Vol. 4)
- Hellman, Lillian (Vol. 8)
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Hellman, Lillian (Vol. 14)
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'The Autumn Garden': Mechanics and Dialectics
(summary)
In the following essay, Marvin Felheim argues that Lillian Hellman's "The Autumn Garden" exemplifies Chekhovian drama by abandoning melodrama and "well-made" play structures for a realistic portrayal of complex characters, embodying artistic and moral principles akin to Chekhov's social drama while integrating poetic symbolism to achieve a modern tragedy.
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'The Little Foxes' Revived
(summary)
In the following essay, Elizabeth Hardwick critiques Lillian Hellman's plays for their awkward plot construction and excessive reliance on theatrical devices, arguing that these elements detract from the natural development of characters and diminish her genuine talent for characterization amidst the conflicting demands of didacticism and commercialism.
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Clean Conscience
(summary)
In the following essay, David Hunt examines Lillian Hellman's Scoundrel Time, highlighting the emotional resonance and Hellman's moral resilience during her appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, while noting the narrative's complexity and vagueness regarding her connections to communism.
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'Scoundrel Time': & Who Is the Ugliest of Them All?
(summary)
In the following essay, William F. Buckley, Jr., critiques Lillian Hellman's Scoundrel Time as a self-aggrandizing and morally questionable narrative, arguing that Hellman's portrayal of herself as a victim of McCarthyism lacks credibility and ignores the harm caused by her support of Stalinism.
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Doris V. Falk
(summary)
In the following essay, Doris V. Falk examines Lillian Hellman's plays and memoirs, arguing that Hellman's work is characterized by a moral perspective that delineates both active and passive evil, with her plays often presenting a dichotomy between despoilers and bystanders, and her memoirs offering a more personal, nuanced exploration of character and morality.
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'The Autumn Garden': Mechanics and Dialectics
(summary)
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Hellman, Lillian (Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism)
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Lillian Hellman and the McCarthy Years
(summary)
In the following essay, originally published in Dissent in 1976, Howe argues that Hellman's depiction of 1950s America in her memoirs is more mythology than fact.
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The Scoundrel in the Looking Glass
(summary)
In the following essay, originally published in Philosophy and Public Policy in 1980, Hook excoriates what he considers Hellman's total misrepresentation of history in her memoir Scoundrel Time, in particular her paradoxical vindication of Stalinism and vocal stand against McCarthyism.
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Autobiography and Memory: The Case of Lillian Hellman
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In the following essay, Brown argues that Hellman's dependence on memory rather than factual evidence in her autobiographies helped to transform the genre into a specific literary form.
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Art versus Truth in Autobiography: The Case of Lillian Hellman
(summary)
In the following essay, Grossman examines the common technique of autobiographers and memoirists deliberately dramatizing and occasionally falsifying information for the sake of artistic integrity and the ways Hellman used this method in her own memoirs.
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Another Part of the Country: Lillian Hellman as Southern Playwright
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In the following essay, Holditch discusses elements of Hellman's life in the South that are reflected in her dramas.
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Lillian Hellman: Standing in the Minefields
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In the following essay, Barranger discusses Hellman's influence on later women playwrights.
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Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine: Realism, Gender, and Historical Crisis
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In the following essay, Patraka discusses how gender is thematized in Watch on the Rhine.
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Lillian Hellman's American Political Theater: The Thirties and Beyond
(summary)
In the following essay, Wiles explores Hellman's political plays written from the Depression through the 1940s.
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Women in Lillian Hellman's Plays, 1930-1950
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In the following essay, Georgoudaki discusses Hellman's portrayal of women in her major plays during the 1930s through 1950s.
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The Foxes in Hellman's Family Forest
(summary)
In the following essay, Lenker argues that the major theme of The Little Foxes and Another Part of the Forest is the crippling effects of family violence.
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Murdering the Lesbian: Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour
(summary)
In the following essay, Titus discusses the ways The Children's Hour reflected changing thoughts about women's sexuality in the early to mid-twentieth century.
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Lillian Hellman and Katherine Anne Porter: Memoirs from Outside the Shelter
(summary)
In the following essay, Brantley examines similarities between Hellman's and Porter's attempts in their respective memoirs to portray themselves in the highly politicized atmosphere in which they lived.
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The Lesbian Rule: Lillian Hellman and the Measures of Realism
(summary)
In the following essay, Fleche explores the representation of lesbianism in language in The Children's Hour.
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Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes and the New South Creed: An Ironic View of Southern History
(summary)
In the following essay, Watson argues against the prevailing contemporary judgement of The Little Foxes as oversentimentalizing the postbellum American South, noting instead that the play is an astute critique of the New South's ultimate sterility of spirit.
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Lillian Hellman and the McCarthy Years
(summary)
- Further Reading