SOURCE: "Familial Bonds in the Plays of Beth Henley," in The Southern Quarterly, Vol. XXV, No. 3, Spring, 1987, pp. 81-94.

In the following essay, Harbin examines five of Henley's plays, focusing on the "themes related to the disintegration of traditional ideals, such as the breakup of families, the quest for emotional and spiritual fulfillment, and the repressive social forces within a small southern community. "

There emerged out of the cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s a new feminine consciousness with such fervent intellectual leaders as Betty Friedan, Pam Allen, Shulamith Firestone and Vivian Gornick. In the following decade, the "blunt" feminist rage of the movement gradually gave way to what Jan Stuart calls "a second, rounder-edged phase of feminism … characterized by a pragmatic … retrenchment which eschews yesterday's rhetoric of sexual politics" in favor of a calmer perception of the female experience "as a metaphor for the human condition...