TRANSCENDENTALISM IN WILLIAM SAROYAN'S THE CAVE DWELLERS

Abstract

Equally parallel to European romanticism is American transcendentalism. The movement which emerged in Boston in the mid-nineteenth century by some remarkable American authors was actually a reaction against the fragmented mode of thought among American writers. This disintegration was caused mainly by the rigidly commanding religious authorities, dissimilar European affiliations, accelerating urbanization leading to the destruction of nature and the atrocities of war resulting in the deformation of human soul during that phase. On the other hand, their essential principles consist in a belief in nature as glorifying, man as dignified, and truth as lying within one's intuition. The group of writers who set up the dogma of the movement is in fact reformists whose main objective is to abolish slavery, emancipate women and create a utopian community. Therefore, they reject their society because of its corruption and inequality. What they aspire to is the founding of a unique American literary association which promotes American principal characteristics. The idealistic vision of Ralf Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson and Margaret Fuller unify them together and propel them to form their distinctive technique. The Cave Dwellers (1957) by William Saroyan is a play which reflects the basic features of transcendentalism, and Saroyan is a representative playwright. Almost all his writings reveal a sensitive personality, tender outlook on people and optimistic prediction of their problems. The aim of the present study is to explore in detail the essential transcendental aspects in the play and whether it is compatible with the central ideology of the early movement or no