International Journal of
English and Literature

  • Abbreviation: Int. J. English Lit.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 2141-2626
  • DOI: 10.5897/IJEL
  • Start Year: 2010
  • Published Articles: 283

Full Length Research Paper

Division of human mind over the reality and fantasy as characteristic of the Modernist American Literature: The Glass Menagerie and Desire Under the Elms

Md. Nurul Anwar
  • Md. Nurul Anwar
  • Department of English, University of Science and Technology Chittagong (USTC), Chittagong, Bangladesh.
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Jonaydul Karim
  • Jonaydul Karim
  • Department of English, University of Science and Technology Chittagong (USTC), Chittagong, Bangladesh.
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  •  Received: 29 April 2025
  •  Accepted: 17 June 2025
  •  Published: 31 July 2025

Abstract

One of the key features that makes American literature great and distinct is the positioning of the human subject as a pawn in the confrontation between the past and the present—a human psyche caught in a perpetual quandary over embracing reality and rejecting fantasy, or vice versa. In a more Freudian sense, there is a clear divide between the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind. This confrontation remains inexplicable without its indivisible connection to the Dionysian and Apollonian impulses present in the characters of modern American drama. The paper's central purpose draws upon the recurrent themes of “reality” and “fantasy” in two modern American plays, The Glass Menagerie and Desire Under the Elms, as representatives of modernist plays that best characterize Modernist American Literature.

 

Key words: Reality, fantasy, individualism, Dionysian, apollonian, modernism.