Word: clan
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...stations. In the Highlands, many had greased themselves with pig fat as protection against the cold, and for the occasion wore bird-of-paradise plumes, as well as their usual garb of bark or grass. Among the voters were two tribes discovered only in the past six months (another clan of 83 natives, who saw their first white man just two weeks ago, made it clear they wanted no outside interference). The chief of still another tribe, somewhat bemused by the issues, said that he would take two self-governments, provided they were not too large, since his village...
...round of events begins when old Alison Tisbourne dies, leaving her entire Ulster linen fortune to a beautiful granddaughter named Gracie. That is too bad for everyone because Gracie, while she is the stupidest of her clan, is also the most grasping. She is engaged to Ludwig Leferrier, an idealistic young American who refuses to fight in Viet Nam and faces prosecution if he goes home. In love, Ludwig comes to prize his fiancee's "nerve and calm ignorance." Indeed, she is the best literary creation in the book, scot-free of altruistic impulse, a blithe compendium of pinchy...
...next night is the town's church social. It is, all in all, a pretty languid afair...until the chippy daughter of the working clan takes the village idiot for a seductive little walk. He kills her by accident: ignorant of the crime, Sumner harbors him. The father and family of the group, including the ratman and the rapists, come to take vengeance on the idiot. David won't give up his man. And, in his defense, and in defense of the sanctity of his own home, he kills them all: with a poker, a rifle, a poacher-trap...
Anderson would recognize the Stamper family of Sometimes a Great Notion. "Never give a inch" is the clan motto. Their dogged nonconformity takes heed neither of political fashion nor social form. When a general strike is called among the lumbermen of their small Oregon town, the Stampers go right on working. The union pays a visit, and the head of the clan (Henry Fonda) makes congenially threatening remarks about "Commie pinkos who tell us when to cut." Replies the bookish union leader: "That's as good a statement of 19th century philosophy as I've ever heard...
...Sightless he suddenly sees the members of his family for what they are, characters out of an adman's superdreams, puppets dangling from dentifrices, automobiles and cellophane, living on packaged illusions and self-destructive myths. They are hypocrites and moles. They are also a sad-funny, surreal-absurdist clan, whose like has not been seen on the U.S. stage since Edward Albee's The American Dream. The father is named Ozzie and the mother Harriet, which is a clue to the lowest level of the playwright's satiric intent and achievement...