Gertrude Stein: Autobiography and Play

Authors

Ryleigh Thornton, University of South AlabamaFollow

Files

Description

By using Gertrude Stein’s two autobiographies, this thesis attempts to examine to use and evolution of play in writing. In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, play stands within the language and games that Stein invites her readers to engage in. By using Roger Caillois’ characteristics of play, Stein’s writing can be seen as different from the high, serious modernism at the time with writers like William Faulkner and T.S. Eliot. After the publication of Toklas, Stein reverted into a crippling writer’s block because she could no longer find interest in the world to think and write about. However, after an experience with a dead Englishwoman, she was thrown back into a world of questions with no straightforward answer, which lead her to begin writing again. Everybody’s Autobiography is a meditation on these questions that haunted her at first but became a playful mystery to think about.

Publication Date

5-2024

Disciplines

American Literature

Recommended Citation

Thornton, Ryleigh, "Gertrude Stein: Autobiography and Play" (2024). Poster Presentations. 30.
https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/honors_college_posters/30