Robeson is a freelance writer with a master's degree in English. In this essay, Robeson discusses the ways in which Lily Dale and Will Kidder inspire compassion and disdain in audiences and readers.

In The Young Man from Atlanta, Foote explores the issue of death and its impact on the lives of parents. In the process, he delves into the lives of his living characters and seems to ask the question, what type of a life is worth living? For Will and Lily Dale Kidder, life seems divorced from many realities. Michael Feingold, who reviewed the play in 1995 for the Village Voice, posed an interesting question. He asked, the "desperate desire not to face reality is certainly very American, but does Foote want us to indict it or empathize with it?" In the end, Foote creates two characters who inspire both empathy and contempt from audiences and...