Henley turns a spotlight into the shadow and gives central importance to the dilemmas of women, to their conflicts and suffering within the family and to their questions about personal identity and the meaning of life. Not only does she focus on seldom-dramatized dimensions of family relations such as the bonds between mother and daughter and between sisters, but also she recharts from a woman's vantage point such well-explored dramatic territory as marriage. Most significant …showed first 75 words of 469 total…

…showed last 75 words of 469 total…sick jokes, but because she refuses to tell jokes at all. Her characters always stick to the unvarnished truth, at any price, never holding back a singly gory detail. And the truth-when captured like lightening in a bottle- is far funnier than any invented wisecracks." (Dellasega, 251) Mary Dellasega writes that Henley's comedy is based on "empathetic understanding of her characters' desperation." (251) Whether she intends to or not, Beth Henley does change the world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**