Creating JTextArea on main window of app ?

I'm trying out a simple gui. I'm trying to create an text area to allow me
to display some text from inside the app if a menu item is clicked. I think
JTextArea will do the job, but I'm having problems making it appear.
The code to add to my container is
Container contentPane = frame.getContentPane();
JTextArea itemArea = new JTextArea();
contentPane.add(itemArea);
is the contentPane the main area of the window ?
Tony


.