Unnatural Narrative Features in David Mamet’s Plays

Abstract

One of the outstanding representatives of the contemporary play scene, David Mamet’s works have been widely acclaimed for their deep thematic excavations, multidimensional characterizations, and ingenious narrative strategies. His play creations touch upon the profound issues of society and human nature in terms of content and demonstrate a high degree of artistic achievement and depth of thought in terms of form through complex psychological analysis of characters and innovative narrative techniques. Starting from the theory of unnatural narrative, we take the three works of David Mamet, The Woods, Boston Marriage, and American Buffalo, as samples and focus on the anti-imitation and non-statutory unnatural narrative features of characterization, plot setting, and process transitions, to decipher Mamet’s plays’ transcendence of the traditional temporal linear, logical, coherent, and realistic imitation, and to provide new perspectives and thoughts for the study of his works. In this way, Mamet’s plays are interpreted as a transcendence of traditional time linearity, logical coherence, and reality imitation, providing new perspectives and thoughts for studying his works.