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Through a detailed reading of five great modern American plays--The Iceman Cometh, A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?--Walter A. Davis calls for a more penetrating look at drama and its psychological impact on the audience. Establishing connections between literary criticism and psychoanalysis, he challenges ruling assumptions of both disciplines. Unconventional and original, his theory demonstrates how the theater, as a potential threat to social order, expresses the secrets and discontents of its audience.