الفهرس 
Table of ContentsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 276 |  |  |
| | | from | 276 | | |
Abstract
The present study aims at exploring how the plays of the Irish playwright Frank McGuinness (1953- ) and the American Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) envelop existential and postmodern individuals. Both dramatists portray unformed and unfinished characters whose ache for being can never be completely realized. In existentialist terms, McGuinness and Wilder reject personal identifications and ontological certitude. Out of their submersion into uncertainties, the characters are preoccupied with the essence of man’s position in the world and inquiry for freedom and authentic selfhood. In their plays, both dramatists see that the individuals should depend on their possibilities, their spontaneity, in establishing the interrelation between their inner world and the external world. from a postmodern perspective, McGuinness and Wilder’s theatres are both theatres of disruption and reconstruction. Their characters are fascinated by the disruptive elements of the world as they question the basic issues of morality, good, evil, the existence of God, and their relationships to each other, and, meanwhile, they have a plea for sanity through the great emphasis on the essentiality of love and human contact to overcome loss and despair. In this sense, their characters reject any objective ideal or morality that prove to be incompatible with what they believe in; that is, they maintain an individuality which allows them to be concerned with their own pleasure. Moreover, the existential and postmodern dramatic techniques employed by McGuinness and Wilder help characters to reveal their non-verification and to disclose their inner conflicts and traumas as their identities are constantly threatened with instability within the text.