Hye, Allen E.

Moral Dilemma of the Scientist in Modern Drama

1996 0-7734-8869-3
This study includes chapters on European, American and British drama and bibliographic reference to many other plays about the scientists. While it is based on study of the original texts, it employs citations from English translations to make the material accessible to the English-speaking reader. It focuses on the moral dilemmas of the scientist and society but goes beyond the political and ethical discussion of atomic weapons that dominates most other studies. The plays discussed explore scientific experimentation with human subjects, utopian social science, the threat of irresponsible engineering and technology, creationism vs. evolution, and the abuses of psychiatry. The plays link these modern issues with eternal themes of human existence: the inquiring nature of mankind, the drive for knowledge and certainty, questions about God, human uniqueness and identity, a desire for and concern about progress. Dramas include: Goethe's Faust and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"; Büchner's Woyzeck; Hauptmann's Before Daybreak; Kaiser's Gas-trilogy; Brecht's A Man's a Man, The Ocean Flight/The Baden Didactic Play of Agreement, and Life of Galileo; Kipphardt's In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer; Dürrenmatt's The Physicists; Lawrence and Lee's Inherit the Wind; and Barnes' The Ruling Class.