Lynn Nottage's Sweat

  Lynn Nottage's Sweat addresses the economic downturn of the early 2000's through the eyes of steelworkers in Reading, Pennsylvania. In order to research this play, Nottage spent two years interviewing steelworkers in Reading, and the characters she created out of this experience are complex, with no one being presented as all good or all bad. The play has been praised for these characterizations, and recently won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. For this paper, I want you to analyze the play and its characters both aesthetically and ethically. Aesthetically, I will be asking you to compare this play to the criteria your book establishes for a work of Realism. Please note that I am not talking about the very general way that we use the word in our everyday life, but about the standards of a specific artistic outlook. Ethically, I am asking you to apply the Moral Foundations theory we discuss in class to at least two of the characters in the play.