Tennessee Williams March 26, 1911 – February 24, 1983

Biographical Background  Born Thomas Lanier Willliams in Columbus, Mississippi on March 26, 1911  Strongly influenced by his sister’s failed lobotomy  Graduated from the State University in Iowa in 1938  Died on February 24, 1983 in New York

The Name “Tennessee”  Varying explanations for the name:  Distinctive.  College nickname.  Expressed his desire to break away from the crowd, just as his father's pioneering ancestors had done when they helped to settle the state of Tennessee.

Family Life  When C. C. Williams (father) got an office job with the International Shoe Company, the family settled in St. Louis.  Tom and his sister, Rose, became city children; they played in littered alleys where dogs and cats roamed at night.  Or they holed up in a small dark bedroom to play with Rose's prized collection of small glass animals.

Family Life, 2  Having C.C. around the house strained everyone in the family.  C.C. fought with Edwina, disparaged Rose, and sometimes beat Tom.  Eventually, C.C. deserted the family altogether, but not until Rose, Tom, and a younger brother, Dakin, had reached adulthood.  A favorite pastime for Tom and his sister was to make up tales, which he would often record.

Rose and Her Impact  Of the three Williams children, Rose had the hardest time growing up.  During the early years she and Tom were close, but in her teens she developed symptoms of insanity.  Diagnosed as a schizophrenic, Rose was put in a mental institution.

Homosexuality  Williams blamed himself for Rose's madness.  Rose's terrors started at about the time when he began to feel the irresistible urges of homosexuality.  At the time--long before the advent of gay rights--to be a homosexual meant being an outcast.

Tolerance of Sexuality  Rose's condition had no bearing on Williams's self-realization, nor did his sexual preferences trigger Rose's breakdown.  Yet, the two events became strangely interlocked in his thinking.

Life Shapes Williams’ Plays  Williams hardly disguised his parents, his sister and himself when he cast them as characters on the stage.  Places where he lived became settings, and he adapted plots from life's experiences.  He relived the past as he wrote. ("The play is memory," says Tom, the narrator of The Glass Menagerie.)

A Master in the Making  Williams turned to writing as an escape from the cruel world around him.  In 1938 after receiving a degree from the University of Iowa, Williams moved to New Orleans, where he had his first homosexual experience.  This was the beginning of a life of sexual promiscuity, which also defines many of his characters (including Blanche).

Sex and Violence  By 1940, Williams’s sexual and social identity had been established.  Williams—highly successful at this point in his life—floods his work with sex, violence, and personal destruction.  His greatest characters are outcasts—usually because their sexual desires put them at odds with conventional society.

Ideas and Style  Characters are seen to be main representatives of Williams’s family members  Southern settings in which the contemporary decay embodies a nostalgia for a more refined past  Vigorous speech, both stylized and natural-sounding

Desire  “Desire” is a central word in Williams’s work, but not necessarily meaning lust; it is the struggle to attain, through sex, some psychological and spiritual state that is always unattainable.  Blanche will say, “Death […] the opposite is desire.”

Evaluation Playwright, poet, and fiction writer, Tennessee Williams left a powerful mark on American theatre. At their best, his twenty- five full-length plays combined lyrical intensity, haunting loneliness, and hypnotic violence. He is widely considered the greatest Southern playwright and one of the greatest playwrights in the history of American drama.

Major Works  The Glass Menagerie (1944)  A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)  Summer and Smoke (1948)  The Rose Tattoo (1951)  Camino Real (1953)  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)  Suddenly Last Summer (1958)  Sweet Bird of Youth (1959)  The Night of the Iguana (1961)

 Success freed Williams financially but made it difficult for him to write.  Went to Mexico to work on a play which eventually became A Streetcar Named Desire  Won Pulitzer Prize in 1947, which enabled him to travel and buy a home in Key West  Met Frank Merlo.  The two fell in love, and the young man became Williams’ romantic partner until Merlo’s death in Success and Romance

 Williams deeply interested in "poetic realism"  the use of everyday objects, which, seen repeatedly and in the right contexts, become imbued with symbolic meaning.  Plays preoccupied with the extremes of human brutality and sexual behavior:  madness, rape, incest, nymphomania, violent and fantastic deaths. Poetic Realism

A Streetcar Named Desire  Huge critical success on stage and blockbuster movie.  Plot adapted from Williams’s own experiences.  Often transformed private experience into public drama.  Like most of Williams’s plays, the setting does not reflect current events.

Family in Streetcar  If you combine Williams' mother, the genteel and prudish Southern lady, with Rose, the fragile sister, you get Blanche.  Stanley Kowalski resembles Williams' father Cornelius in his rough, boisterous ways, in his foul language, and in his love for poker and alcohol; Williams knew firsthand what happens when a brute like Stanley clashes with a refined lady like Blanche daily in his parents' stormy marriage.

Complex Characters Tennessee Williams: "There are no 'good' or 'bad' people... all are activated more by misunderstanding than by malice."

Williams’ End  All of Williams' plays illustrate a dark vision of life, a vision that grew dimmer as the years went by.  During his last years Williams kept writing, but one play after the other failed.  To ease his pain, Williams turned to drink and drugs.  The new plays received terrible notices, driving him deeper into addiction.

Works Cited  Berkman, Leonard. “The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois.” Modern Drama Volume : Literature Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. George Walton Academy Libraries, Monroe, GA. 9 December  Mood, John J. “The Structure of A Streetcar Named Desire.” Ball State University Forum Volume : Literature Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. George Walton Academy Libraries, Monroe, GA. 9 December  