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=Tennessee Williams by Sara Sullivan= Tennessee Williams is recognized as one of the greatest American dramatists in the late 20th century. His ideas and themes are collectively the result of his life’s emotional experiences. Many of the characters in his plays share the emotions of those in his life or emotions that he has felt himself. Williams once said in an interview, “My work is //emotionally// autobiographical. It has no relationship to the actual events of my life, but it reflects the emotional currents of my life” (Williams). As a result, many of his recurring themes can be traced back to his life experiences that may have caused these “emotional currents” and are the key to interpreting and understanding his plays. In his early years, Williams was diagnosed with an illness that forced him to remain on bed rest for several years (Boyd). This caused him to feel very isolated and lonely. He spent most of his time reading and writing to escape from reality. His father left home often for job reasons leaving Williams’s mother alone with the children for months at a time. Whenever his father would come home, he would make fun of Williams by calling him “Miss Nancy” since he spent all his time reading and writing instead of playing sports like other little boys. He also had a very close sister, Rose, who was institutionalized for schizophrenia (Orpheus). In many of his plays his mother and sister are the inspiration for his characters and plots. Later on in his life he went to University of Missouri for three years, but he was unable to complete his schooling there due to poor grades. As a result he had to go work for an international shoe company in order to pay for tuition. Two years later he went back to college and graduated from University of Iowa in 1938 with a Bachelor of Arts degree (Boyd). In his first major play, //The Glass Menagerie//, there is a character by the name of Laura who is said to represent his sister Rose. This character, much like his sister, lives in her own world inside her mind in order to escape from the reality around her. This is a common theme used by Williams. He frequently uses characters in tough situations that use their imagination to escape from the cruelties of reality. As a critic once wrote, “Laura is a typical Williams heroine in that she is too fragile to live in the real world.” Not only do his characters escape through imagination, but in later plays such as //A Streetcar Named Desire//, he uses sex and alcohol to allow his characters to escape their life crises. He himself used alcohol in his early college years as a “cure for his extreme shyness that had thus far kept him in isolation” (Boyd). Often when he writes, there is a blur between illusion and truth since each of his characters attempt to escape from reality itself. Williams has a very unusual writing style that often keeps the critics mystified. He always keeps a balance between the good and bad traits of each character so that not one character receives more sympathy than another. No one is sure why he chose to balance the roles of his characters, but some believe he uses this to his advantage in order to further explore the tension between the spirit and the flesh. As he explores this tension, many critics claim he has “compassionate understanding of the spiritually downtrodden”(Williams). Others have accused him of, “crossing the line between sympathetic interest and perverse sensationalism” (Williams). Throughout each of Williams’s plays there are recurring themes that all circumspectly address the creation of a blissful reality to evade the harshness of true reality. These themes can be traced back to his own life and emotional experiences. His plays have changed the way Americans view drama. As described in an editorial in //The Nation,// “[His plays] have transformed the American stage, they purified our language, they changed the way we see ourselves. None of his later plays…diminish that accomplishment by so much as a hair” (Williams).

1. "Williams, Tennessee (1911-1983)." //DISCovering Biography//. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. //Student// //Resource Center// //- Gold//. Gale. Fuquay Varina High School/WCPS/. 22 May. 2008. [|http://www.galegroup.com/srevlet/srcx. The database "Williams, Tennessee (1911-1983)" contains a lot of facts about Mr. Tennessee Williams and his background. It flows in a chronological order. It tells about his family and the influences that were in his life. I plan to use this information to explain his writing style and people and events in his life that may have influenced it. I would recommend that this source be used if the student is researching his background or writing style. This source does not address any of his works in depth. 2. "Overview of Tennessee Williams." //DISCovering Authors//. Online ed. Detroit : Gale, 2003. //Student// //Resource Center// //- Gold//. Gale. Fuquay Varina High School/WCPS/. 22 May. 2008. [|http://www.galegroup.com/srevlet/srcx. The database “Overview of Tennessee Williams” is a general summary of Tennessee Williams’s recurring styles and themes within his plays. It describes his plays in order by when they were published and describes the plays he’s well known for in depth. I plan too use this source to help me fully understand his inspiration for writing plays and to explain his personal connection to his recurring themes. I would recommend this source to anyone who is researching his works and themes, but I would not recommend that anyone use this to research a large amount of his background. 3. Boyd, Sally. “Tennessee Williams.” __Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography: The New Consciousness, 1941 – 1968.__ Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1987. 506 – 537. “Tennessee Williams” by Sally Boyd is an encyclopedia biography entry on Tennessee Williams. It describes in chronological order the events that took place in Williams’s life. It also describes the conditions of his family as he gets older. I plan to use this source to find out more about Williams’s background and in turn be able to fully understand the emotions that inspired him to write his plays. I would definitely recommend this source to anyone doing any form of research on Tennessee Williams. It’s full of useful and detailed information and written on an easy reading level so it’s easy to understand. 4. “Orpheus Descending.” __Drama for Students vol. 17.__ Ed. David Galens. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 160 – 180. In __Drama for Students vol. 17__ the article “Orpheus Descending” mostly consists of a summary of Tennessee Williams’s play “Orpheus Descending”. Along with this very long synopsis is a short paragraph about his background and another sections discussing his recurring themes. I plan to use those small areas in the article to point out his recurring themes. I will also use it to expound a little more on his background. I would recommend this source to someone that is doing research on Tennessee Williams’s play “Orpheus Descending,” because that is mainly what the article addresses. I would not recommend this to a person researching his background because there is little to no information about it.