Sense of place in Zöe Akins's Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting

Abstract

The aim of our paper is to analyse the treatment given by Zöe Akins (1886-1958), an American playwright from Humansville, Missouri, of the urban setting of New York in the second decade of the twentieth century in the play mentioned above. Akins, who follows a common pattern among successful American dramatists in her time, presents in Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1923) a plot that is perfectly integrated in New York area. The Fields progression from a low middle class settlement in Harlem to other scenes of the city informs the development of family life towards désintégration. Akins, whose biography links her to New York as a successful distinction presents in Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1923) a serious drama in which characters are very much influenced by New York’s cosmopolitanism that turns out to be a divisive element within the play, as Julien Fields pursues at all costs an artistic career. In our presentation we will explore this linkage between characters and setting within the context of Zöe Akins’ production and American Drama in the 1920’s.