Men in White Essay

Kryhoski is currently working as a freelance writer. In this essay, she considers the social impact of Kingsley's play on his contemporaries.

Sidney Kingsley's Men in White had a profound impact on American audiences of the 1930s. The production was amongst only a handful of theatrical successes set against the backdrop of the depression era and Hitler's rise to power in Germany. The play earned Kingsley a Pulitzer Prize, remarkable for a work represented by stilted, or stiff, cookie-cutter character types and a rather predictable story line. It was an obvious victory, however, when noting the work's consideration of the medical profession. Kingsley specifically created Dr. Ferguson, a young rising star and physician, to illuminate this addiction to the medical profession. It is the audience which then becomes hooked, however, captivated by a young doctor's ineffectual struggle to separate his professional from his personal life.

Kingsley uses...