Beth Henleys twelve complete plays (three of which have been turned into films) have achieved worldwide production. At age 29, she produced her first full-length drama, Crimes of the Heart, which won a Pulitzer Prize and garnered three Academy Award nominations as a film. Her Mississippi upbringing and her penchant for the eccentricities of southern culture, however, have caused critics to categorize her writing as a kind of southern gothic folklore inspired by feminist ideology. This book, the first critical study of Henleys complete plays, attempts to dispel the common stereotypes that associate Henleys work with regional drama and sociological treatises. It argues instead that Henley can best be perceived as a dramatist who delineates an existential despair manifested in various forms of what Freud calls the modern neurosis. The book maintains that Henleys plays must be understood as universal statements about the angst of modern civilization, and Henleys characters are assessed in light of Freuds proposition that cultural restrictions create neurotic individuals. The introduction provides a brief account of Henleys childhood and career. Early chapters summarize the theory of the modern angoisse espoused in Freuds Civilization and Its Discontents, while later chapters relate this theory to thematic and stylistic elements of Henleys most popular play, Crimes of the Heart, as well as Am I Blue, The Wake of Jamie Foster, The Miss Firecracker Contest, The Debutante Ball, The Lucky Spot, Abundance, Signature, Control Freaks, Revelers, L-Play, and Impossible Marriage.