Lillian Hellman addressed many issues in
her writing from gender to social injustices.
However many critics claim her works are more melodramatic than anything
else. Hellman fought these claims in a
1965 interview, stating, “You [the author] have no right to see your characters
as good or bad. Such words have nothing
to do with people you write about.”
Hellman basically explained how it is the audience who interprets
melodrama, but that is not what her writing is intended to be.
Nearing the 1960s Lillian Hellman parted
from drama and focused on writing numerous memoirs. These works have come under immense scrutiny
from critics, who question the very validity of her claims, past accounts and
stories. Fellow Writer, Mary McCarthy, famously declared on The Dick Cavett Show that "every word [Hellman] writes is a lie, including 'and'
and 'the'." From that point on
people have tried to decipher the truth from the lies in these memoirs.
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