الفهرس 
CONTENTSOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Wasserstein had a quite interesting cultural, social and religious background that lies underneath her portrayal of the female characters. The current study has been primarily concerned with the traits and aspects of the American female character that she demonstrated on stage. Nevertheless, several autobiographical elements together with her personal observations in life are the basic constituents of the design of each play she wrote. To trace the aspects of Wasserstein’s redefinition of the American female character, three major plays have been selected for the study analysis. This redefinition considered three main elements of the dramatist’s female characterization. Each element has been discussed in a separate chapter where the three plays have been used.
The main female characters in Wasserstein’s Uncommon Women and Others, Isn’t It Romantic, and The Sisters of Rosensweig are women brought in from three successive decades. As the plays form a series of compassionately comedic dramas, the women are portrayed to enact the strivings and disappointments of the eras in which they lived. The ambitious group of the Mount Holyoke college graduates of Uncommon Women and Others are given enough leisure to meet and brattle to expose the variety of experiences and attempts that they have confronted for six years. In conclusion, whether they managed to lead a difficult or easy life; became successes or failures; they become mostly unfulfilled being unable to adapt within the social enclaves of their masculine surroundings. They refuse the forces which compel them accept to melt in their patriarchal crucible. Despite the fact that most of these characters end as unfulfilled, their sense of humor is emphasized by the dramatist’s intention to make the action comedic. Wasserstein believes that the sense of humor prevails in the behavior of the people who face troubles and obstacles in their lives; it is just a way to conceal pain. The spirit of comedy arises from the behavior of women facing obstacles, but they insist to change. The comedic design Wasserstein uses in her plays, according to King, ”is the energy to rise above malignant forces . . . to accept change without losing a sense of identity” (King 254).
In Isn’t It Romantic, Wasserstein exposes another set of characters among whom Janie and Harriet who play the larger part of the play’s significance. from the beginning of the play, Janie and Harriet express their willingness and desire for independence but for different reason; the former independent from her mother to lead her own way as a writer; and the latter, wishes to be independent like her mother. By the end of the play, Harriet makes up her mind and decides to marry; an action through which she can ”Have it all.” Their harmony and similar opinions, eventually, led to contradicting decisions that would change their fates to the rest of their lives. The sisters, in Sisters of Rosensweig, appear over the weekend and express their different attitudes and drives in order to make everyone ”understand who we are, who we have been, and I would add, who we might become, individually and as a family whose lineage is Wasserstein” (Brook 66). In her attempt to reveal the theme of female empowerment and its significance, Wasserstein has to define her characters with inner strength that always leads these characters to redefine the limits through which they can identify their aims in life and narrow them in case of necessity. Women’s self-empowerment is at its best when these females develop markedly from one stage to another.
To emphasize the women’s path of maturity, Wasserstein devotes the largest portion of her effort to the group of women with specific emphasis on the hardest path of the Mount Holyoke college students of Uncommon Women and Others. These women with their various feminist drives describe their journey from young womanhood to well-experienced maturity. In her Isn’t It Romantic, Wasserstein stands on a more definite spot to concentrate on the notion of impossibility for all women ”have it all.” To pursue the notion in The Sisters of Rosensweig, Wasserstein portrays three mature women with their successful careers so as to indicate that women may feel incomplete even if their accomplishments stand for their success.
Wasserstein, thus, develops the redefinition of her American female character in three successive plays in a way that stresses three main aspects of her characterization. First, her female characters are always well-educated, ambitious and humorous. These characters often experience moments of desperation and self-doubt because they are unsatisfied about certain issues in their lives, and therefore hope for change. Second, these characters derive their empowerment from their ability to make decisions and change matters that disappoint them and impede their inner strength and self- fulfillment. Finally, her character’s maturity lies in realizing that ”Having it all” does not necessarily guarantee satisfaction and happiness. On the other hand, maturity and spiritual growth is only fulfilled when her characters accept their selves as they are, and quit seeking false appearances. Wasserstein’s redefinition of the American female character is an enormous transition in the history of the American feminist drama. Her growth as a female playwright who conceives women’s nature is deeply affected by her personal growth as a woman. Therefore, Wasserstein’s female character is distinguished as it reflects the reality of women and assists others in understanding and appreciating them.