William Saroyan was an Armenian-American playwright and novelist known for his work before and during World War II. He declined in popularity due to his sentimental style. His most famous play, The Time of Your Life, won a Pulitzer Prize but he declined to accept it. His plays often focus on characters and sentimentality rather than conflict. The play is set in a San Francisco bar and follows the character Joe. The events unfold slowly to better understand the characters. The play was made into a film in 1948 and a television remake in 1958.
William Saroyan is an Armenian-born American playwright and novelist. He is primarily known for his work during the pre-war era leading up to World War II and the period during the war. Over the next few years, William Saroyan declined in popularity, as his unique style fell out of favor with critics and the public. Born in 1908, William Saroyan died in 1981 at the age of 72 in his hometown of Fresno, California.
William Saroyan was born to parents of Armenian stock who emigrated from Turkey to the United States at the turn of the century. His early childhood was spent in Fresno, California, and many of his stories take place in Fresno, as well as the Bay Area. His early career was made with short stories, most notably “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” in the mid-1930s.
William Saroyan served in the US Army during World War II, although some of his writings appeared to have a pacifist slant. At one point he was nearly court-martialed over the content of one of his novels, The Adventures of Wesley Jackson, which was accused of being a promotional piece for pacifistic ideals.
Some of William Saroyan’s most enduring works are his comedies. His most famous, written in 1939, is The Time of Your Life, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. However, he declined to accept the award, arguing that art should never be judged by the business world, and that reward should be found in the acceptance of a piece picked up by viewers. At the same time, William Saroyan accepted an honor for the play from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle, which awarded it Best Play in 1939. Some of his more popular later plays include Hello Out There! in 1941, Talking to You in 1942 and Assassinations in 1974.
William Saroyan’s plays are notable in their frequent rejection of the normal mode of conflict that drives the story forward. His plays are often more fragments of life, with hearty humor and sentimentality sprinkled throughout. It is this sentimentality which ultimately led to a waning of interest in William Saroyan’s plays after World War II, when such things were seen as unfortunately idealistic and naïve.
The Time of Your Life, William Saroyan’s most famous play, is set entirely in a San Francisco bar called Nick’s. The café is a setting for a variety of interesting characters, each with their own goals and nuances that intersect at various points throughout the game. The central protagonist of the play is the character Joe, who is somewhat rich and uses that wealth and spare time of his to help the various other characters in the bar.
While there is conflict in the play, like many William Saroyan plays, conflict is not the focus of the story. Rather, the events that unfold are slower through which to better understand the characters involved. The play was eventually made into a film in 1948, and was later remade for television in 1958.
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