Expressionism and Expressionist Theatre: A Comparative Study of Rice's The Adding Machine and Kaiser's From Morn to Midnight

Expressionism as the tendency of an artist to distort reality for emotional effect, was a movement primarily originated in Germany which was latter extended to other countries as well, including America. This movement exhibited in many art forms, such as painting, literature, film and architecture. In terms of literature, Expressionist plays not only dramatize the spiritual awakening and suffering of their protagonist, but also dramatize the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority. Expressionist dramas have their own specified structure and figures. This book, therefore, provides a comparative study of two examples of expressionist plays, one The Adding Machine by American dramatist Elmer Rice, and the other From Morn to Midnight by German playwright Georg Kaiser. In this case, two dramas have been studied in terms of their applied expressionist elements such as characterization, dialogue, structure, theme,? in separated sections including a comparative analysis of these two dramas as conclusion . This analysis should help shed some light on works of both German practitioners of this school (expressionism) and those of Americans' in details.

Fatemeh Yasami. Studied English Literature at Sheikh Bahaei University (BA) and Arak Azad University(MA), Iran. Made her MA Thesis as a Comparative Study of Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine and Georg Kaiser's From Morn to Midnight: An Expressionist Approach. She is Planning her Education for higher levels.