Treatment of Marxism and American Depression in Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty

Abstract

In the world of depression, where meaning either vanishes or proliferates beyond
understanding; undoubtedly, drama plays a vital role in such milieu. It is the only device, by
which the characters can hope to know or control the world outside them. In 1930s, was evoking
the turbulent where American Depression spread out; there was also class distinction in that
time. Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty is probably one of the best-known plays where he neatly
summarizes his belief in the sanctity of workers and their right to fair employment. He dealt with
the disintegration of a middle class family caused by the depression. Odets’ works are the
outcome of American Depression. With its leftist philosophy and realistic conflicts, this play
depicts the search by working class characters for a place in modern society. This article is an
attempt to show how the view of Marxism influenced the play and how the characters were
depressed by the capitalism day by day in that time. I will examine how they suffer from
depression by their capitalist from Marxist point of view. I will also explain how the American
Depression is reflected in the writings of Clifford Odets, replicating the experience of Americans
in the time in which the playwright is living. This paper will also demonstrate that the working
class of the world would feel an urge to rise up in order to fight for their better living step by step
since Odets’ plays speak to a deeper level of the audience’s mind.
A number of American playwrights were growing into manhood during “bourgeois Nirvana”
before the economic barrier would burst in 1929; As a result, in the 1930s many plays appear and
Clifford Odets’ (1906-1963) ,a film scenarist, and director, was one of the most prominent
American playwrights of the that time. The one-act Waiting for Lefty, with its leftist philosophy
and powerful, realistic conflicts, was an immediate sensation when it was produced in 1935. In
this play he depicts the story of a taxi driver’s union who are preparing to take a strike vote. Like
many of Odets' other plays Waiting for Lefty, depicts the search by working class for a place in
modern society, with the theme of permanent interest, and his colloquial dialogue, vital
ideological protests on behalf of human dignity and feeling for the family were distinctive as
well..