Massad 1
Tennessee Williams
March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983
Grabber: As critic R. Baird Shuman once said, “[Tennessee] Williams felt himself
rendered different, or ‘Other,’ by his homosexuality, and thus felt a specialized sensitivity to all
those who were physically, emotionally, or spiritually misbegotten and vulnerable – and
therefore somehow special” (1657).
Intro: Thesis A: Williams was able to craft dramatic, insightful plays that reflected his
distinctive literary voice – a voice that transformed the genre of the American play
by exploring the illusion-filled lives of outcasts.
Essay Map: The characteristics that distinguish Williams’s distinctive literary
voice are his poetic, often autobiographical writing style, his insight into the human
condition of the lonely, cast-aside Americans, and his noteworthy, masterful use of
literary devices in his plays.
Thesis B: Williams’s distinctive literary voice allowed him to create classics that
also qualify as masterpieces. These works, especially his early plays, guarantee his
worthiness of inclusion in the American literary canon.
2000s. Movie adaptations include A Streetcar
Named Desire (1951), Suddenly Last Summer
(1959), The Rose Tattoo (1955), and Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof (1958).
Biography:
Literary
Works/Awards:
His works include: A Streetcar Named
Desire (1947), The Glass Menagerie (1945), Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof (1954), Summer and Smoke
(1948), The Rose Tattoo (1950), The Night of the
Iguana (1961), Camino Real (1953), Suddenly
Last Summer (1958), and Orpheus Descending
(1957).
His awards include 4 Drama Critic Circle
Awards, 2 Pulitzer Prizes (1948 and 1955), and the
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1980).
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Summer and
Smoke, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass
Menagerie, and The Night of the Iguana were
revived on Broadway throughout the 1990s and
 Born in Columbus, Mississippi
 Family deemed very important – Sister
Rose underwent a prefrontal lobotomy that
doctors thought would cure her
schizophrenia (1943); Williams blamed
himself for not preventing it. Parents
(Cornelius and Edwina) often argued.
 Move from Columbus, Mississippi, to St.
Louis, Missouri, was life-changing –
Williams disliked the new environment.
 Williams was an openly gay man. His most
prominent lover was Frank Merlo (15
years).
 Williams also relied heavily on drugs and
alcohol. After Merlo’s death, Williams
became very depressed and began to
increase drug and alcohol consumption
steadily.
 Death occurred in New York City. It is
thought that his death happened because,
after he recreationally used drugs and
alcohol, he used a cap as a pill cup to take
his nightly drugs. This cup accidentally
lodged in his throat, and his gag reflex did
not work because he was too stoned.
Massad 2
His Distinctive features
I. His Poetic, Autobiographical style
A. Literary example: Williams’s use of language describing the scenery in the play
demonstrates his poetic writing style, which contributes to the development of his
distinctive writing style: “[A light goes on behind the blind, turning it light blue…. Two
rooms can be seen, not too clearly defined]” (A Streetcar Named Desire 8).
B. Critical Quote: Because, in this drama, Williams writes of destructive male-female
relationships using a convincing voice, his work may be “sometimes too personal, too
intimate, too incestuous, to be acceptable to the outside without embarrassment” (Brien
547).
II. Masterful use of literary devices (symbolism
and characterization)
A. Literary Example: “What you are talking about is brutal desire – just – desire! – the
name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street
and down another” (A Streetcar Named Desire 81).
B. Critical quote: “Sometimes, especially in his more recent plays, [Mr. Williams]
begins to get tiresome, endlessly manhandling our pity: Brother, can you spare a tear? He
has always been inclined to sentimentality. But in his best plays he earns for his
characters the pity he demands, and what becomes astonishing is the lush richness and
variety that he finds within the nutshell of his obsession” (Novick 548).
III. Insight into the condition of the lonely, castaside Americans
A. Critical Quote: “Williams’s most prominent and all-inclusive theme is an effect of an
aggressively competitive society on sensitive characters…. all are social outcasts in
society” (Ruzinko 2736).
B. Literary Example: Blanche Dubois fulfills the role of outcast in this drama. She is
blinded from life by her envisioned illusions. She wants to believe in the traditional,
grandiose ways of the South that is now different: “I take it for granted that you still have
sufficient memory of Belle Reve to find this place and these poker players impossible to
live with” (A Streetcar Named Desire 80).
C. Literary Example: “I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give
that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be
truth” (A Streetcar Named Desire 145).
D. Literary Example: “You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray
perfume and cover the light-bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has
turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile!” (A Streetcar Named Desire 158).
E. Critical quote: She is “unable to operate on the realistic level” (Novick 548).
IV. Masterpiece  Classic  Canon-worthy 
A. “A classic is a book that is never finished saying what it has to say” (Calvino 128).
“A classic is a book that comes before other classics; but anyone who has read the others
first, and reads this one, instantly recognizes its place in the family tree” (Calvino 133).
B. Bloom’s list: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Summer and
Smoke.
C. “Williams often makes a somewhat sentimental evaluation of the lost and the lonely,
those who are isolated in some way” (Shuman 1656), those branded as “Other.”