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"Still Dreaming Of Paradise": Rodgers And Hammerstein ' S Oklahoma!, South Pacific , And Postwar America, Randall Bond
"Still Dreaming Of Paradise": Rodgers And Hammerstein ' S Oklahoma!, South Pacific , And Postwar America, Randall Bond
Dissertations - Open Access
Oklahoma! and South Pacific were Rodgers and Hammerstein's most successful and popular musicals of the 1940's. This study demonstrates their function as modern morality plays for their audiences. Specifically, the two musicals provided Americans with a prescription for a postwar Paradise. This was a Paradise based upon the American Dream of rebirth and renewal acted out in a landscape of second chances. The components of this Paradise are examined in topical essays that consider such issues as Americanism, consumerism, tourism, racism, and optimism. Each of these elements links what would otherwise appear to be disparate narratives: the American West at …