For his investigation into the images of family homes in Shakespeare's tragedies, de Sousa (English, University of Kansas) takes as his examples the wildly dysfunctional families in Macbeth,
King Lear, Hamlet and Othello. His theories derive from many disciplines, including social history and theater. He argues that Shakespeare used the symbol of the home to evoke the dissonance of
the tragic realities of the plays. In each of the plays the safety of the home is threatened or contested by the characters. In Macbeth nature itself seems to invade and in Lear the safe castle
vanishes altogether. A sub theme to this study is the staging of the plays with little scenery, thus making the home something created in the mind of the viewer. Annotation 穢2010 Book News,
Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
