Joy: A Play on the Letter I

About

Galsworthy's 1907 play follows Joy, a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, during a summer holiday that brings into collision her romantic idealism with the more complicated reality of the adult world around her. The play's focus on interiority — the gap between Joy's perception and the world's actuality — anticipates the Chekhovian mode that Galsworthy was consciously pursuing. Less dramatically concentrated than Justice or Strife, it is a gentler work that benefits from Galsworthy's careful naturalistic observation.