Building Culture: Ernst May and the New Frankfurt Initiative, 1926-1931 Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature 108

hence, much of their subjects, settings, and themes express diaspora consciousness. Marzette explores who these women are, how they define themselves, how they convey and experience their worlds, how they broach, loosen, and explode the multiple yokes of race, class, and gender-based oppression and exploitation in their works. What is fostered, encouraged, shunned, ignored - the spoken, the unspoken and, perhaps, the unspeakable - are all issues of critical exploration. Ultimately, all the women of this study depend on female bonds for survival, enrichment, healing, and hope. The plays by these women are especially important in that they add a diverse dimension to the standard dramatic canon.