Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams shatters society’s facade of women in his plays, “A Streetcar Named Desire”and “Sweet Birds of Youth”. In both plays, Williams develops his characters to show the reader that women are not always able to live up to the stereotypes and standards that society creates. He presents women, like Blanche DuBois and the Princess Kosmonopolis, and shows that they are no longer capable of being the women society wants them to be. They are in fact past their prime and are being rejected by society.
Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams, grew up in the South which accounts for most of his plays taking place in the South. He was born on March 26, 1911 in Columbus, ...
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where he received high honors in all his courses except for ROTC which he failed. After school, he worked in a shoe factory and wrote during the night until 1934 when he had a nervous breakdown and had to quit his job in order to recuperate. In 1938, he attended the University of Iowa and was awarded a Bachelor of the Arts degree, after which he began writing as a career. His major works, some of which were turned into films and many performed on Broadway, include “A Glass Menagerie”(1943), “A Streetcar Named Desire”(1947), “The Rose Tattoo”(1951), “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”(1955), “Sweet Bird of Youth”(1959)., and “Night of the Iguana”(1961). Tennessee died in February of 1983 on 24 or 25 of February at almost 72 years old after quite a successful literary career.
Williams presents his female characters as classically beautiful, distinguished and extremely feminine. They are supposed to be the ideal woman. Their clothes, hair, disposition are flawless. An archetype of Tennessee ...
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culture, refinement and gentility.”(Adler,31). Through her efforts she also reveals that she is incapable of being that Southern belle of long ago.This is how Williams’ desire to break her stereotypical facade can be seen.
“Her feverish talk, her attention to her figure and to the showy clothes she brought and her frequent returns to the whiskey that she later says she never touches, give an early clue to her state of mind.”(Falk, 54) From the beginning of the play there are clues to her state of mind which all contradict the Southern gentlewoman characteristics that she is trying to portray to the other characters. When she first arrives at her sisters apartment , she is alone. While ...
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Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire. (2008, June 12). Retrieved April 26, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tennessee-Williams-A-Streetcar-Named-Desire/85119
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"Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire." Essayworld.com. June 12, 2008. Accessed April 26, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tennessee-Williams-A-Streetcar-Named-Desire/85119.
"Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire." Essayworld.com. June 12, 2008. Accessed April 26, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Tennessee-Williams-A-Streetcar-Named-Desire/85119.
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