CONTENTSCONTENTS
Introduction
1Empowerment and Containment: Women in Western Male Comedy
Tradition
1.1“Female Intrusion” and “Powerful” Women in Aristophanes
Lysistrata
1.2Sexual Violation and Passive Women in Greek and Roman
New Comedy
1.3Comedy of Romance and Unruly Women in Shakespeares
The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing
1.4Irreconcilable Battle and New Women in Shaws Pygmalion
and Wildes A Woman of No Importance
2Contest and Balance: Dialectical Structure of Wassersteins Comedies
2.1Teleological vs. Dialectical: Structure of Comedy
2.2Fantasy and Contest: Plot Structure of Uncommon Women
2.3A Balance of the Comic and the Serious: Emotional Structure
in Uncommon Women
2.4Possibility and Hope: Romance and Ending in Uncommon
Women
3Redefing Female Comic Identity: Wassersteins Comic Heroines as
Survivors
3.1The Polemic on Comic Women
3.2Sympathetic Women in Uncommon Women and Isnt It
Romantic
3.3Reflective Comic Heroine in The Heidi Chronicles
3.4Women Survivors in The Sisters Rosensweig
4Feminism in Comic Spirit: Comic Construction of Self in Wassersteins
Plays
4.1The Tragic Self on Feminist Stage
4.2Split and Reconciliation in Uncommon Women and Isnt It
Romantic
4.3Feminism in Comic Spirit in The Heidi Chronicles
4.4Coming to Terms with the Self in The Sisters Rosensweig and
Third
5Conclusion