THEATRICALITY AND NARRATIVE PERFORMANCE IN MODERN AMERICAN FICTION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DRAMATIC SPACE, DIALOGUE, AND INNER CONFLICT
Abstract
This research paper extends the supplied synopsis and first paper by shifting the focus from the general presence of dramatic techniques in American novels to the more specific problem of theatricality as a mode of narrative performance. It examines how modern American fiction transforms dramatic resources such as dialogue, monologue, conflict, symbolic space, and scene construction into techniques of prose narrative. The argument is that American novelists do not merely borrow from drama in decorative ways; they reorganize the novel around theatrical principles of presence, confrontation, rhythm, and staged revelation. Using a comparative textual approach, the paper studies William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as primary examples, while also drawing on Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie as a dramatic reference point for understanding memory, illusion, and stage-like emotional design. The paper is grounded in Aristotelian ideas of conflict and catharsis, Bakhtinian dialogism, and modern criticism on the relationship between drama and narrative. It argues that Faulkner internalizes theatre through fragmented monologues, Steinbeck socializes theatre through group dialogue and public conflict, and Fitzgerald aestheticizes theatre through spectacle, performance, and symbolic setting. These differences show that dramatic technique in American fiction is not a single device but a flexible narrative system. The study concludes that theatricality deepens the modern American novel by converting private consciousness, social crisis, and symbolic environment into readable dramatic action. In doing so, the novel becomes a silent stage on which American anxieties about identity, class, memory, and moral failure are enacted for the reader.
How to Cite
Sunil Kumar, Suman Devi, "THEATRICALITY AND NARRATIVE PERFORMANCE IN MODERN AMERICAN FICTION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DRAMATIC SPACE, DIALOGUE, AND INNER CONFLICT", Vol. 3, Issue 4, 29-07-2025, pp. 103-121.
