The Green Pastures Essay

This Study Guide consists of approximately 62 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Green Pastures.

The Green Pastures Essay

This Study Guide consists of approximately 62 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Green Pastures.
This section contains 2,069 words
(approx. 6 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Green Pastures Study Guide

Brent has a Ph.D. in American Culture, specializing in film studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in the history of American cinema. In the following essay, Brent discusses elements of legitimate African-American culture in Connelly's play.

In the "Author's Note" to the 1929 edition of The Green Pastures, Marc Connelly explains his intent in depicting stories from the Old Testament as peopled by everyday African Americans and set in rural Louisiana:

The Green Pastures is an attempt to present certain aspects of a living religion in the terms of its believers. . . . Unburdened by the differences of more educated theologians, they accept the Old Testament as a chronicle of wonders which happened to people like themselves in vague but actual places, and of rules of conduct, true acceptance of which will lead them to a tangible, three-dimensional Heaven.

Connelly's commentary...

(read more)

This section contains 2,069 words
(approx. 6 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Green Pastures Study Guide
Copyrights
Gale
The Green Pastures from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.