Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1990

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Greer, Allen W.

Abstract

In three plays in particular of William Butler Yeats tree imagery represents the collective human family. In The Land of Heart's Desire, the tree and its various manifestations symbolize both the constrictions of society and the freedom Mary Bruin seeks. Through Mary's death, the play points the way to a restoration of a purified "collective human family," or the "tree," freed from the corruptions of the world. In At the Hawk's Well, Yeats for the first time introduces elements of the Noh play, and with the bare settings, three hazel trees starkly symbolize the potential for the regeneration of the collective human family. And, in The Cat and the Moon, Yeats metaphorically grafts a separated humanity into a "big ash-tree" overlooking a well in which a Blind Beggar and a Lame Beggar, seek a healing Saint. In these three plays trees link human beings to each other and nature.

Extent

71 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1990.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT14663

Format

pdf

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