ABSTRACT
The strength as dramatists rests in the combination of their theatrical imagination and their political and social awareness. All of them were self-consciously concerned about the status of American women and dared to give dramatic shape to the struggles and limitations of women in early American society. The pioneering spirit in which the plays foreground female characters does not around women's seeking emancipation from conventional gender roles, but rather, it is inextricably linked with a regenerating attitude towards the reconstruction of women's understanding of the relationship between female identity and social values and roles. All these women dramatists explore the insidious power of cultural images that are not only forced upon women, but are also at times embraced by them, and provoke questions that are addressed simultaneously to the female self and to society in general.
