The Plays of Tennessee Williams

The Plays of Tennessee Williams
Author(s): Henry Popkin

Source: The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Mar., 1960), pp. 45-64
Published by: The MIT Press
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The Plays of Tennessee Williams

By
HENRY
POPKIN
In the plays of Tennessee Williams,as in the worksof otherable and

a patternemergesthatcontinuesto appear,
prolificAmericandramatists,
withminorvariations,over and over again. Williams is remarkablyloyal
to his favoritearchetypalpattern,and, forthatreason,it seemsto provide
an indispensablekeyto the natureand meaningof his plays.The typical
event is the meetingof a healthy,handsome man and a nervousolder
woman who is losingherlooks.I call thiscouple Adonis and the Gargoyle
-Adonis afterthe classical ideal of male beauty and the Gargoyleafter
thegrotesqueby-products
The contrastbetween
of medievalarchitecture.
themis alone enough to enforceone major point: it is betterto be a carefreeman thanto be a worried,marriedwoman.A second thoughtoccurs:
freedomis betterthan dependence,but, first,any examinationof these
playsmustbeginwithclose scrutinyof theirprotagonists.
Adonis is youngand extraordinarily
virileand muscular.His magnificent physicalendowmentsmake him unusuallyself-confident.
He is cool
and tough,so sufficient
and so self-containedthathe does not say much
forhimself.This is fortunatebecause he has no greatskill in speech. No
eloquence is needed: his physicalbeautyand his powerfulspiritare more
eloquent thanany words.He can talk in StanleyKowalski'scityslang or
Val Xavier'srusticlanguage,but whathe conveysis, mostof all, coolness.
He is sure of himself,basicallyunruffled
on all occasions.Even his rages
are strangelycontrolled;when Stanley Kowalski of A StreetcarNamed
Desire throwscrockeryon the floor,he makes a deliberateobject-lesson
out of whathe does. Angryas he is, thesullen Brick,of Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof, is the coolestof all. He has "detachment";in the sexual act, he is
like a gentleman"opening a door fora lady." His wife tells him: "You
look so cool, so cool, so enviablycool." Since she is the nervouscat of the
title,she has good cause to envyhim.
The mythicalAdonis was an athlete;his prototypesare athleticallyinclined. They include a championboxer,a footballplayer,and a onetime
dancerin Oklahoma! Kowalskikeepsin trimbybowling.All theAdonises
are dazzlinglyhandsome.One is "verygoodlooking"and "has a massively
sculpturaltorso." Anotheris "very,verygood-looking."This especially
well-endowedperson,Dr. Cukrowiczof SuddenlyLast Summer,is more
than cool; he is "glacially brilliant" and possessesan "icy charm." A
thirdAdonis is "exceptionallygood-looking."The descriptionsof these
paragons tend to go beyondmere praise and to strikea rhapsodicnote.
Other Adonisesare variouslydescribedas having "the freshand shining
look of an epic hero"-"a freshand primitivequality,a virilegrace and
45

46
The Tulane Drama Review
freedomof body,and a strongphysicalappeal"-"a kind of wild beauty."

Still anotherresembles"a younganimal of thewoods."
These magnificent,untamed creaturesare threatenedby corruption.
Before our eyes,several of themgive way to it. One of them,Brick,is
driven to drink by the charge that he has been subject to another corruptinginfluence,homosexuality.Val Xavier proudlyboasts thathe has
saved himselffromcorruption.All are threatenedbecause theirsuperb
qualities attractthelightning,bringinglove,envy,and thedangerof contamination. On preciselythis basis, Williams can justifyhis choice of
Adonis forhis hero. Adonis leads a more interestinglife than the restof
us, and in thisrespecthe is like the kingsand demi-godsof the tragedies
of old. We may say that Williams startswith his Adonis for the same
reasonthatSophoclesbeginswithhis kingofThebes. Each is greatenough
to attractthe lightning-ifone can findgreatnessin Williams' heroes.
But no classicalprinciplecan explain theGargoyle.She is thebeautiful
hero'sappalling destiny.A good, relativelysimpleexample occursin Williams' firstBroadwayplay, The Glass Menagerie.The fourcharactersinclude two men and two women. The men, if not Adonises,are at least
fairlynormalmembersof the human race. Tom workshis eccentricities
offbywritingpoemsand goingto themovies;he is a freespiritwho finally
exerciseshis freedombyabandoninghismotherand sister.Jimis a hearty,
friendlygo-getter.But the two women betray symptomsof psychosis.
Amanda lives in the past and imposesunrealisticrules of conduct upon
her children.Laura, terrified
by human beings,fleesto the companyof
herglassanimals.Note also thatwhile the twomen are healthyand in the
primeof life,Amanda is middle-agedand Laura is crippled. These contrastsmay be unimpressivein themselves,
but theyare givensignificance
by theirrecurrencein everyone of Williams' subsequentplays.
Adonis is exceptional,but theGargoyleis not.She is notso well favored
as he, and she is usuallynot so young.In threeof the plays and perhaps
in a fourth(The Rose Tattoo), the femininelead is older than her male
counterpart.(I exclude The Glass Menagerieand SuddenlyLast Summer,
which are dominated by even more matronlyladies.) The Gargoyleis
losing whateverlooks she may have had. She is often a bit stout and
slovenlyin dress.The plot is generallyso woven thatshe wearsa slip or
wrapperin muchof the play.Now, Adonis has manyoccasionsto take off
his shirt,and forhimto do so is to expose his manlybeauty.Even dressed,
he is a temptationto everywoman. The Adonis of Orpheus Descending
is told: "Ev'rythingyoudo is suggestive!"But when theGargoyletakesoff
her dress,theresultis a good deal lesscharming.ConsiderSerafinaof The
Rose Tattoo. She is the dressmakerwho, on learningof her husband's
death, lets her appearance and especiallyher figurego to pieces. A rude
customerremarksthather sedentarylife "has naturallygiven her hips."
When she stops wearingdressesand is seen in her slip, she exposes no
more thanhergirth.The twoprincipalwomenof A StreetcarNamed Desire wear slips and wrapperswhen the plot requires.One is pregnanttill

HENRY POPKIN
47
the last scene of the play; we are frequentlyremindedthat the otherhas

good reasonto fearthelossof herbeautyand to lie about her age. Neither
one is as strikingphysicallyas StanleyKowalski,the Adonis of thispiece.
Alexandradel Lago, theaging filmstarof SweetBird of Youth,wearsher
nightdressthroughher firstact. Revolted byher image in themirror,she
is stoutenoughto be called "plump lady" byherhuskyyounglover,whose
effective
costumein thefirstact is thetrousersof his pajamas.
In twootherplays,if the two feminineleads are not actuallyolder than
the men,at least theyseem to act older when theytryto nag Adonis into
doing theirbidding.Maggie thecat,who wearsher slip because her dress
has been soiled, is "a prettyyoung woman," but her beauty is not described as rapturouslyas her husband's; moreover,"her voice.., .sometimesdropsas low as a boy'sand you have a sudden image of her playing
boy'sgamesas a child." Some furtherlightmaybe shed on Maggie's character by her literaryancestry.She firstappears in a shortstory,Three
Playersof a SummerGame, as MargaretPollitt,the possessive,domineering wife of Brick Pollitt,"a man who had been, and even at that time
still was, the handsomestyou were likely to remember."This shrewish
MargaretcomesbetweenBrickand the woman he loves; she finallyleads
him around like a captive "in chains." Certainly,Maggie was verylittle
of a shrewwhenBarbara Bel Geddes playedheron Broadway,but I agree
with Eric Bentley'sobservationthat Miss Bel Geddes changed Maggie
fromthe script's"ratherordinarygirl" to "the verytype of non-shabby,
wholesomeas a soap ad."
upper-classgentility,
Even when Alma Winemillerof Summerand Smoke is a child,she has
"an adult quality"; as a younggirl,she is "prematurelyspinsterish."Her
makes her elegant and affectedin manner.She laughs
self-consciousness
makes too much small talk,swallowsair, and somegaily but insincerely,
timesgets offan unfelt "Ha-ha." She shares a few of these traitswith
Blanche DuBois of Streetcar,who also workstoo hard to achieve a light
manner.In her earlyyouthBlanche was the purestand sweetestof girls,
and so is Alma. Repressionand disappointmentturnBlanche into a nymphomaniac; we cannot know if Alma faces a similar fate, but, in the
play's last scene,havinglost the man she loves,Alma consoles herselfby
pickingup a strangerin the park.The path fromsevererepressionto indiscriminateflirtationis walked by many of Williams' femininecharacters.The actressin Williams' novel, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone,
had in her earlyyearsmarrieda nonentity"to avoid copulation"; in her
she becomesthepatronessof gigolos.Her last lover is an authentic
fifties,
Adonis,who has "the sortof beautythatis celebratedby the heroicmale
sculpturesin the fountainsof Rome." A religious fanatic in Orpheus
Descending compensatesher repressionsby motheringstrayvagabonds
and paintingheroicportraitsof the apostles.But Alma Winemillermost
resemblesAlma Tutwiler of the storyThe Yellow Bird, which recasts
some of thematerialsof Summerand Smokein the formof fantasy.Alma
Tutwiler is, like the otherAlma, the repressed,spinsterishdaughterof a

48
minister.Aftersmokinga cigarette,she inevitablybecomes a prostitute,

enjoys her trade, and leaves a fortune "to The Home for Reckless
Spenders."
Whethershe is a spinsteror a nymphomaniacor both,the Gargoyleis
invariablyas nervousas Adonis is cool. One Gargoyleis called "a cat on
a hot tinroof,"but theothersmightalso be so designated.They fret,they
worry,theynag, theymake pointlesssmall talk,theytell unfunnyjokes,
theyfinallyget on the nerveseven of the calm Adonis. Their nervousness
reflectsa terribledistress.They are prisonersof the past, and theyhave
tragicallyfound themselvesin a nightmarelikepresentwhich theyhad
never anticipated. Some may, like Alma Winemiller,long for a world
governed by the starchydecorum which she learned as a girl. Amanda
Wingfield,of The Glass Menagerie, nostalgicallyrecalls an aristocratic
Southernpast. AnotherGargoylerelivesher careeras a filmactress.Still
othersare tormentedby thememoryof a particularpast event-the death
of a husband,thedeath of a father,thedeath of a son. Some have by their
own crueltyhelped to createthehells in whichtheylive. Blanche DuBois
and Maggie the Cat have cruelly,if perhaps justly,made the charge of
homosexuality,and life has punished them by deprivingthem of love.
Their tragichistorieshave marked thesewomen,and, as a result,while
Adonis usually lives in thepresent,the Gargoylealwayslives in the past.
The meeting of these two archetypalfiguresdominates most of the
plays.In A StreetcarNamed Desire,theGargoyleabruptlyentersAdonis's
ratherhappy animal existence.She puts on airs, annoyshim, flirtswith
him,and triesto turnhis wifeagainsthim; Adonis rapes her,and she is
committedto an asylum.She is a pitifulfigure,but, in a sense, she has
been asking forwhat happened. Audience sympathyis more evenlydivided than a summarywould indicate.When JessicaTandy and Marlon
Brando played theseroles,StanleyKowalskiwon so manylaughs thathis
witseemed to compensateforhis brutality;AnthonyQuinn, on the other
hand, played him as a sullen brute.
In The Rose Tattoo, the Gargoyleshutsout all natural activities-in
particular,sex-fromher life;she justifiesherselfwitha mistakenconception (the need to be faithfulto her dead husband) whichis in turnbased
on a mistakenpremise(his fidelityto her). A "verygood-looking"Adonis
comesalong to save her fromthe prisonshe has made forherself.In You
Touched Me!, an earlyplay whichWilliams wrotein collaborationwith
Donald Windham, the Gargoyleis the prissymaiden aunt who triesto
protecther niece fromreal life; Adonis,however,makesoffwiththe girl.
Lady Torrance,of OrpheusDescending,"vergeson hysteriaunderstrain,"
but she becomeseasy-goingand pleasantwhen Adonis makeslove to her.
The corrupt,agingfilmqueen of SweetBird of Youthneeds littlehelp in
restoringherselfto life,but she does get some sexual excitementfroma
corruptif "exceptionallygood-looking"Adonis.
The archetypesundergo some alterationin Suddenly Last Summer.
The Gargoyleis Mrs. Venable, a Southernlady who lives in the private

HENRY POPKIN
49
worldof thedecayedaristocracy.
She has destroyed
thelifeof one proshimwithher
pectiveAdonis,herhandsomeson Sebastian-smothering
attention,
killinganyhopehe mighthavetobecomean individual.Now
she triesto stiflethestoryofhisdeathbyarranging
foran operationon
thebrainofthegirlwhomSebastianmighthaveloved.Butfirst
shemust
Dr. Cuckrowicz,
an
persuadea surgeon,the "very,verygood-looking"
educatedAdonis.His foreign
name-likeStanleyKowalski,
he is ofPolish
descent-ishere,as in otherplaysbyWilliams,a suresignof vigor.He
resistsbothbribesand persuasion;he refusesto be swallowedalive by
thissuperannuated
The measure
ofhissuccessis thecoolnesshe
Gargoyle.
in thefaceofMrs.Venable'smounting
maintains
fury.
The filmBabyDoll is basedon twoone-actplayswhicharecloserthan
themovieto thearchetypal
The pretty
littleheroineof thefilm
pattern.
has beensubstituted
forthetwofatladiesof theone-actplays.Flora,of
27 WagonsFull ofCotton,
called"doll"byherhusband,is "a womannot
largebut tremendous."
"BabyDoll" Bowman,of The Long StayCut
Short,or,The Unsatisfactory
Supper,is "a large,indolentwoman."Into
Flora's life comes an attractive,pepperySicilian who seduces her in the

course of establishingher husband's guilt as an arsonist.The filmcensored the seductionand emphasizedthe arson. In the play the Sicilian
forgetsabout the arsonand concentrateson seduction,therebyproviding
anotherexample of a cool but dynamicAdonis witha foreignname who
bringsnew excitementinto the sluggishlife of a Gargoyle.
AlthoughAdonis and the Gargoyledominate the scene,certainrecurrentfiguresare necessarycompanionsand foilsto them.For foils,we obviouslyneed girlsmore attractivethan the Gargoyleand men less attractivethanAdonis. Severalingenuesappear, prettybut not verydistinctive
in character.They are ripe forlove and readyforthe attentionsof some
Adonis. We neverknowmuchabout theirmindsor theirmotives,but we
may justly suspect that there is not much to know. Matilda in You
Touched Me! is a nice girl,and so is Nellie of Summerand Smoke.What
morecan be said of them?Stella in A StreetcarNamed Desire and Heavenly in Sweet Bird of Youth mightbe describedas formeringenues,but
muchof theingenuequalitysurvivesin them.Rosa, of The Rose Tattoo,
is themostspiritedof the ingenues.The real functionof such characters
as Stella, Nellie, and Matilda is to be the healthyyoungmate of Adonis,
but none of thesewomenhas enoughindividualityto make us forgetthat
Adonis is thereal figureof interest,thereal subjectof admiration.
The less attractivemen are eitherworn out older men,exasperatedby
the fadingof theirvirility,or timidmama's boys,incapable of independent action. Only one of the old men is a lively,distinctivecreation-the
loud, vigorous,patheticBig Daddy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, dyingof
cancer but desperatelytryingto asserthis manhood. The older men of
in factvirtuallyindistinguishOrpheusDescendingare vaguercharacters,
able, fortheyare motivatedonly by theirenvyof Val Xavier. Boss Finley
ofSweetBird of Youthis a littlemorelike Big Daddy,withtheimportant

50
differencethathe is totallyvicious; in thischaracterization,

political significancetakesthe place of pathos.Boss FinleyhatesNegroesforthe same
reason that the old men of anotherSoutherntownhate Val Xavier: sexenvy. "Sex-envyis what that is, and the revengeforsex-envywhich is a
widespread disease that I have run into personallytoo often for me to
doubt its existenceor any manifestation."Since the speaker is the play's
Adonis,we can be sure thathe reallyhas run into it personally.He runs
into it again because, at the play's end he is about to be castratedon the
ordersof Boss Finley. The mama's boys do not have enough pep to be
vicious-Mitch in A StreetcarNamed Desire, the tepid ministerin You
Touched Me!, the "good" suitorin Summerand Smoke-all ratherpallid
alternativesto Adonis.
The categoriesof charactersare related to certaincategoriesof speech.
Williams' dialogue is distinctiveand often quite striking,but certain
broad patternsof speech are repeatedfromone play to anotherand from
one characterto another.The twomain patternsmightbe called respectful and disrespectful.Respectful speech in Williams is emphatically
Southern.Sometimes,when we hear it fromBoss Finleyor Big Daddy, it
remindsus of the worsttraditionsof Southernoratory.More oftenwe
hear it fromSouthernladies like Amanda or Blanche or Alma, and it is
affected,prissy,would-be literary,full of little jokes and self-conscious
ha-has. Blanche DuBois has the tune when she explains that she is an
English teacherand sounds like one:
I havethemisfortune
ofbeingan Englishinstructor.
I attemptto instill
a bunchof bobby-soxers
and drug-store
Romeoswithreverence
forHawthorneand Whitmanand Poe! ... Their literary
neritageis notwhatmost
of themtreasureabove all else!
When the speaker has enough to conceal, such elevated speech can be
ironic. Here is Amanda ensnaringthe gentlemancaller in a
effectively
web of Southernhospitality:
It's rarefora girlas sweetan' pretty
as Laura to be domestic!
But Laura
is, thankheavens,not onlyprettybut also verydomestic....Well,in the
Southwe had so manyservants.
Gone,gone,gone.All vestigeof gracious
I wasn'tpreparedforwhat the futurebrought
livinglGone completelyl
me. All of mygentlemen
callersweresonsof plantersand so of courseI
assumedthatI wouldbe marriedto one and raisemyfamilyon a large
But man proposes-andwomanacpiece of land withplentyof servants.
ceptstheproposall-To varythatold,old sayinga littlebit-I marriedno
planter!I marrieda manwhoworkedforthetelephonecompanyl
The sick,crippled Laura is not only domestic;she is afraid to leave the
house. Even the term "gentleman caller" is, like the past life which
Amanda describes,absurdand incongruousin the St. Louis slumin which
she now findsherself.And the little joke-"man proposes-and woman
it has therightliteraryringto it,and, like
accepts"-is verycharacteristic;
manyof Blanche's littleremarks,it is a joke at thespeaker'sexpense.

HENRY
51
POPKIN
The disrespectful
styleis blunt and direct.StanleyKowalski,Mangiacavallo of The Rose Tattoo, Kilroyof Camino Real, and the Sicilian of
Baby Doll-all citymen-are its masters.Kowalski tells us how he deals
with pretense: "I once went out with a doll who said to me, 'I am the
glamoroustype,I am the glamoroustypel'I said, 'So what?' " But these
men do not speak run-of-the-mill
slang. Their language has at timesthe
of
Damon
quality
Runyon's prose-a quality achieved by avoiding contractionsand by using an occasional surprisingword. Thus, Kowalski
goes on at some lengthabout the Napoleonic Code; he talks,not about
a "friend"who is a lawyer,but an "acquaintance"; he saysthatthe cheap
hotel whereBlanche lived did not interferewiththe "personalities"who
stayedthere.Kowalskiand the others,as played by Brando and Eli Wallach,are not at home withtheseexpressions.Strangersto literacyor to the
and that is how
language, theyfingerthese long words self-consciously,
theyget theirlaughs. Mangiacavallo "frequentlyseems surprisedat his
own speechesand actions,"and so do the others.
The respectfulstylecan become an index of the Gargoyle'sbondage
to thepast; the disrespectful
stylecan be a reflectionof Adonis'sfreedom
and his liveliness.But theencounterof thesetwoarchetypesinvolvesmore
than wordsalone. It is the key to the world of Williams' meanings.Its
messageis made clear by action and by the contrastof characters.To be
Adonis is to be happy-thatis, to be happy is to be free,strong,untamed,
to act on instinct.This is thesecretCarol Cutrereof OrpheusDescending
hearsin the graveyardto whichshe takesher lovers:"And we'll hear the
dead people talk.... all theysay is one word and thatone word is 'live,'
theysay 'Live, live, live, live, live!' It's all they'velearned, it's the only
advice theycan give." He who hesitatesor meditatesis lost,lostifhe leans
on the past,lostif he livesin the shadow of some previousjoy or sorrow,
lost if he lives in his books or in his mother'slove. And freedomhere
means, most of all, sexual freedom.We have our horribleexamples of
thoseunhappywomen who have banished sex fromtheirlives-the crippled girl who is afraidof life,the widow who thinkslove died withher
husband, the woman who forgotan unhappy love affairby marryinga
dyingman. Into theselives sexual love mustcome-and Williams means
sexual love, not just sexual activity,or at least he usually does. He is
scornfulof sexual athletesand otherswho hold love cheap, although,in
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, he seems perilouslyclose to making sexual activitythesource of all value. The fewgreatloversare persecutedby the
envious,by laws and conventions,by all of organized society.In Sweet
Bird of Youth, Chance Wayne diagnoses "revenge for sex-envy"as "a
widespreaddisease," and the basis forthisjudgmentwas clear in earlier
of love and so, too,
plays.Chance, Val Xavier,and Brickare the martyrs
in theirways,are Kilroyand Blanche DuBois. If theysuffer,
theysuffer
unjustly,and Williams elaboratelyestablishestheir fundamentalinnocence. They sufferforus in a sense,so thatlove may be free.'
While ArthurMiller findsinjusticeto be superficialand the basic sub-

52
structureof societyto be ethicallysound,Williamsreturnsa moresweeping indictmentagainst the social order. He preaches the Bohemian, individualisticrevoltagainstsociety.His criticismis seen in its purestform
in Camino Real, in whichthe only brave spiritswho can rise againstopas Byronand Don Quixote. This
pressionare such inveterateromanticists
Bohemian revolthas no purpose beyond its own existence.Byron is a
typicaladherent:he will neverforgethis "old devotion,"but he can not
rememberwhat he is devoted to. The truequality of the Bohemian gestureis perhapsbestrevealedin Don Quixote's last line in the play: "The
violetsin the mountainshave broken the rocks!"That, in a nutshell,is
what the Bohemian rebel mustdo.
The world in which theserebels live is violentand sensationalbut remarkablyconsistent.The geographydoes not vary:everyone of Williams'
full-length
plays,exceptingthe fantasticCamino Real, takesplace in the
AmericanSouth,and all of thesebut The Glass Menagerie are set in the
Deep South. Settinghis scene in the Deep South reflectsa deliberate
choice on Williams' part.Althoughhe was born in Mississippiand later
lived in New Orleans,he has spentmanymoreyearsin otherpartsof the
country.The Deep South,the chosenregionof mostof his plays,is highly
appropriate to the Bohemian rebels whom Williams celebrates,even
though its inhabitantsmay, individually,be the rebels' worstenemies.
The South is sufficiently
set offby its proud traditions,by its poverty,by
its prejudice, and even by the distinctiveSouthernaccent to be the regional embodimentof nonconformity.
Disappointment,repression,and
to flourish;no doubt the Southern
povertyhave encouragedeccentricity
climatehas made a furthercontributionto theoddityofhuman behavior.
Other writerstestifyto the presenceof some such patternin the Southin particular,William Faulkner and two novelistswho are said, with
Williams, to forma "Gothic School," Carson McCullers and Truman
Capote.
The spiritualgeographyremainssimilarlyconstant:theinfluencesdominating thisworld are permanent-tradition,nostalgia,corruption,envy,
and the frailghostof integrity.
In particular,thesupremevalue is always
the same: love rules thisworld,and its happy consummationis what all
men seek. The factsand impulsesthatworkto confoundlove are in some
respectscomparableto the "hidden forces"ofwhichArthurMiller writes,
but, in Williams' plays,theyare seldom hidden forverylong. The plays
abound in frank,open arguments,in whichthe mostsensitiveissuesare
pitilesslyuncoveredand debated. Althougheach play is, in the familiar
phrase,therepresentationof an action,it invariablyresemblessomething
else as well-a group psychoanalysis,
in whichlong-hiddendreams,recollections,disappointments,motivationsall come tumblingto the light.
The best motivationsof Williams' blowzymatronsand footloosevagabonds may be expressedin honorificterms:in each play, some struggle
to be free,to know the truth,and to know love. The failuresare more
strikingand more numerousthan the successes,but one themeis clear

HENRY
53
POPKIN
enough: the effortto escape repressionsand restrictionsis well worth

making,even thoughit may resultin such defeatsas the tragicdestruction of Blanche DuBois, who is raped and sentoffto an insane asylumin
A StreetcarNamed Desire, and of Val Xavier, who is burned by blowtorchesand tornby dogs in OrpheusDescending. Truth and love win a
full victoryin The Rose Tattoo and an ambiguousone in Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof. The endingsof The Glass Menagerie and SweetBird of Youth
are mixed; the poet of the firstplay and the faded filmactressof the second manage to escape their dismal environments,but theyleave their
behind them.
fellow-sufferers
of the poet and the BoheTruth, love, and the bold nonconformism
mian mustactivelyoppose the destructiveforcesthatthreatenthem: the
dead hand of thepast and itsstultifying
products:convention,repression,
and illusion; timeand what it inevitablybrings-lossof strength,loss of
beauty,and envyof youth;thenew forcesthattimebringsin theexternal
world-industrialismand economicloss or gain. The dynamichuman imsummarizedby Dr. JohnBuchanan in Summerand
pulses are effectively
Smoke:
Now listenhere to the anatomylecture!The upperstory'sthe brain
whichis hungry
forsomething
calledtruthand doesn'tgetmuchbutkeeps
on feelinghungry!
This middle'sthebellywhichis hungryforfood.This
forlovebecauseit is sometimes
partdownhereis thesex whichis hungry
lonesome.
Since Williams is not a social reformerin the ordinarysense,hungerfor
food becomes an issue in his plays only to motivatethe cannibalismof
SuddenlyLast Summer.Hunger fortruthfiguresespeciallyin Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof but in other plays as well. Hunger for love is, however,
Williams' truesubject,the centralforcein all of his plays.
The originsof each playare usuallydeeplyinvolvedwiththepast,with
a lost traditionof formergreatnessand happiness.In the one-actMoony's
Kid Don't Cry,thehappy past is in the NorthWoods, of whichMoony's
preciousaxe remindsus. In anotherone-actplay, The Last of My Solid
Gold Watches,an old shoe-salesman,"the last of the Delta drummers,"
recalls the "greatdays of the road" and the quality productsof the past.
One unhappy heroine remembersthe eternalspringtimeof her father's
greenopen-airspeakeasy;anotherlooks back nostalgicallyto thefreedom
and acclaim she enjoyed as a movie star; still anotheris excessivelydevoted to the memoryof her late unfaithfulhusband, who was a great
lover and a Sicilian baron. Most of these people seek in vain the love
and attentiontheyonce knew; Moony is trapped in the city,the drummer is ignoredby a youngersalesman,and the actresshas to buy love.
The past to which nostalgia most persistentlyreturnsin Williams'
plays is the romantic,aristocraticpast of the Old South-the seventeen
gentlemancallers whom Amanda Wingfieldremembersin The Glass
Menagerie, the beautifuldream of the Belle Reve plantation which is

54
lost to the DuBois sistersof A StreetcarNamed Desire, and the Confederacywhose proud Daughterwe observein the one-actSomethingUnspoken. Unfortunately,thingshave changed in the South. The gentlemen callers have long ago forgottenthe girl theycourted,the husband
who supplanted them has run off,and the charmingAmanda is left
a shiftlesspoet and a lame uglyduckling
withher twohopelessoffspring,
of a daughter.The descendantsof the Southernaristocracydo as poorly
in A StreetcarNamed Desire; one is marriedto a semi-savage,and the
otheris a nymphomaniacand an alcoholic-just like Carol Cutrere,bearer
of "the oldest and most distinguished"name in Orpheus Descending.
Blanche DuBois triesdesperatelyto send out a message appealing for
help fromher old suitor Shep Huntleigh, but we know that she will
fail; in the profoundestsense, Shep Huntleigh is no more real than
the rest of the past. As we might expect, the Daughters of the Conmemberto theofficeof Regent
federacyfail to elect theirmostaristocratic
and choose instead a newcomer,"less than a year in the chapter."The
memoriesof the past are beautiful and momentarilycomforting,but
theyhave to be beautifulif theyare to compensateforthe indignitiesof
thepresent.
One hardlyneeds to add that,justifiedor not,a nostalgiaforthe antebellum greatnessof the South still existsand thatits presencein Southern writingis far fromnew. It has been given warmlysympatheticexpression some decades ago in Allen Tate's "Ode to the Confederate
Dead" and other early work of the Southernagrarian group. William
Faulkner has provided a more impersonalrecordof Southernnostalgia
in "A Rose forEmily" and otherstories.Williams' attitudeis more like
Faulkner's. He may indicate sympathyfor those who cherishthe Old
South,but he does not endorsetheirattitudesor theirvalues.
In their quest for love and security,Blanche and Amanda resemble
thosewho cling to no more than the memoryof a happy childhood and
an indulgent mother.In theseplays, the few young men with Oedipus
complexesare theAmanda Wingfieldsof theprivatelife.Justas Amanda
can not face the modern world fromwhich the courtlySouth is gone,
so theycan not face life withoutmother.Mitch, the over-agedbachelor
of A StreetcarNamed Desire, thinksfondlyof home during a poker
game: "I gotta sick mother.She don't go to sleep until I go to sleep at
night.... She saysto go out, so I go, but I don't enjoy it. All the while I
keep wonderinghow she is." (Elia Kazan, in his productionnotes,identifieshis maskas thatof a "he-manmama's boy.") Williams' Oedipal young
men, like his over-protected
women, have a way of coming to violent
ends. One is eaten alive, and another,out of a zeal forpurification,
sets
his house on fire.For them,as for the otherswho preferthe past, real
lifeis disastrous.
"We are all hauntedbya trulyawfulsenseof impermanence,"Williams
wrote,in his prefaceto The Rose Tattoo. In his plays, too, time is the
real villain. It has destroyedthe Old South, turned the filmstar into

HENRY
55
POPKIN
a characteractress,changed a footballhero into a televisionannouncer

of dubious merit,and made dependence on motherridiculous.For the
largestgroup of characters,it has dimmed sexual power and sexual
appeal. Blanche DuBois is a typicalvictimof the advancing years.She
permitsherselfto be seen only by shaded artificiallightand thus hopes
to impose on the innocent and not very desirable Mitch. The girls
who are still "going out" at 30 know theyhave their choice between
lonely spinsterhoodand the garish indiscretionsof Blanche DuBois,
Carol Cutrere,and the faded actressAlexandradel Lago. Enduringrape
or rejection,beggingor buyinglove, most of the disappointed women
are pitiable figures.But themen and a fewof thewomenwhom timehas
disappointed are inclined to turn vicious. Big Daddy takes his defeat
with a wordlesscry(in Williams' original versionof Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof), but the envious old men of Orpheus Descending and Sweet Bird
of Youth employrace prejudice,murder,and castrationas theirways of
takingrevengeon theworld.
Those whom time has ruined fear the freedomand strengthof the
young,but mostof all theyfear truth.This fearis a themeof A Streetcar Named Desire, in which Blanche conceals her racy past as well as
her appearance. In The Glass Menagerie, Amanda refusesto concede
thather daughteris crippled. Fear of truthis also a themeof Suddenly
Last Summer,in whicha possessivemotherstrivesto conceal theshocking
death of her son by arrangingto have brain surgeryperformedon the
only witness.The main characterof The Rose Tattoo must struggle
throughfalsehoodto truth,purgingherselfof elaborate self-deceptions
concerningher dead husband. But truthis most emphaticallypresent
as a themeof Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. This time thereis no escaping
thesubject,as Bricksaysin thisplay: "Mendacityis a systemthatwe live
in. Liquor is one way out an' death's the other."The truthabout Brick's
father,revealed after long and artfulconcealment,is death or, to be
exact,newsof impendingdeath.The truthabout Brickhimselfhas driven
him to liquor; he has been unable to face his own responsibilityfor
the death of his friend.In helping to cause his friend'sdeath, he, too,
was fleeingtruth.These two revelationscome close togetherin a conversationbetween Brick and his father,at a momentof the play that
is traditionalfor climatic disclosures-theend of the second act. Late
discoveriesof this sort are familiar enough to students of dramatic
literature.They are frequent in Williams' plays-the real nature of
Blanche's scarletpast, the infidelity
of Serafina'slate husband, the burning of a speakeasyby the proprietor'sd( tined son-in-law,the intimate
operation performedon a girl's sexual organs. Williams brings these
shockersdown on his characters,hammeringhome both the uglinessand
necessityof the truth.The motto,in fact,for nearlyeveryone of these
plays is truthat any price, and the playwrightwill go to any lengths
to make the price sufficiently
high.
When truthentersthe scene, it generallytakes the formof a violent

56
interruptionof a hermeticallysealed life of self-deception.Each play

centersabout an attack, a shock of some sort. After the breaking of
the glass unicorn'shorn in The Glass Menagerie,the shocksin William's
plays became a good deal more disturbing-a rape, a shooting,the sight
of a cripple going sprawlingwhen his crutchis pulled out fromunder
him, a blowtorchattack on a fugitive,cannibalism,and castration.But
in manyof the plays,the basic attackis much less appalling: a sheltered
life is invaded by a disturbingnew force-therude vigorof modern life,
reflectedin foreignblood, industrialism,and commerce.The Southern
aristocratsare challenged, sometimesby upstartsof Anglo-Saxon descent but more oftenby newcomerswho bear Italian, Polish, or Jewish
names. This challengeis present,explicitlyor not, in almost everyplay,
but the victimsneed not be authenticallyaristocraticand the challengers
need not be deliberatelyhostile. In the one-actPortraitof a Madonna,
an addled Southernlady is tenderlycared forby two representatives
of
the new world that has driven her out of her reason-the Catholic
porterand the Jewishmanager of the hotel. Their kindnessis a little
like Lopakhin's concernfor the aristocratswhom he supplants in Chekhov's The CherryOrchard.The victimsare Anglo-Saxonbut decidedly
plebeian in 27 WagonsFull of Cotton.Dull-wittedJakeMeighan is driven
to arson when the Syndicate plantation applies modern methods in
Sicilian Silva Vicarro,
processingcotton.The Syndicate'ssuperintendent,
retaliatesforthe arson by seducingJake'swife.Thus foreignblood and
industrialismwin both the long-rangevictoryover the old-fashioned
ginningof cottonand the immediatevictoryover the negligenthusband.
Williams' script for the filmBaby Doll acknowledgedthe movies' Production Code by making the industrialvictorymore immediate and
more certain than the sexual one. In The Glass Menagerie, Amanda
contrastedwith the
Wingfieldand her demoralizedfamilyare strikingly
new blood in their society.Tom Wingfieldworks for a man named
Mendoza. Amanda watchesthe moon rise over Garfinkel'sDelicatessen,
where she owes a substantialbill, and she awaits her dinner guest, the
Irish Catholic Jim O'Connor, "the most realisticcharacterin the play,
being an emissaryfromthe world of realitythat we were somehowset
apart from."Jim works in the same factorywith Amanda's son, but
he eagerlysubscribesto the dream of success and is preparing to rise
in the competitiveworld that so bafflesthe Wingfields.Jim is another
reminderof the friendly,well-intentionedLopakhin, remarkablydifferentfromWilliams' next embodimentof the foreigninvader-Stanley
Kowalski of A StreetcarNamed Desire. His aristocraticsister-in-law
thinksKowalski is "sub-human,"but his wife knows "Stanley'sthe only
one of his crowd that'slikely to get anywhere."Perhaps the two statementsare not contradictory,
for Kowalski is as vicious as he is effective
in his impactupon theDuBois family.In Summerand Smoke,the pallid,
decorousAlma Winemilleris eclipsed by thehot-bloodedRosa Gonzales.

HENRY
57
POPKIN
A similar contrastoccurs in The Rose Tattoo when the "spinsterish"

high school teacher Miss Yorke calls on the manic Serafina to lecture
her on her mistreatment
of her daughter.This oddly matchedpair had
been anticipated in the one-act play The Dark Room, in which Miss
Morgan,a "neat, fussyspinsterengaged in social service,"questionsMrs.
Pocciotti about her demented daughter. Those with foreign ties obviouslyhave more heat, fury,and energythan theirAnglo-Saxonneighbors. The proofsare less prominentin the later plays,but, in Orpheus
Descending,Lady Torrance has a passionatenaturethatsuitsher Italian
extraction,Dr. Cukrowiczbringsa note of Polish sanityto the decadent
aristocratichousehold of Suddenly Last Summer,and the sick-minded
politician of Sweet Bird of Youth implicitlycondones the castrationof
a Negro. At last,the foreignreferencebecomesno more than a symbolic
reminder,a label thattellsus wherestrengthlies in our society.
The use of foreignnames and foreigncharactersis part of Williams'
complexsymbolicsystem.The foreignname means life; theAnglo-Saxon
name may mean stagnation.Sometimesa symbolis in danger of becoming a substitutefor characterization;however,generalizingabout Williams' use of symbolsis hazardous,since Williams makes a bolder and
more frequentuse of symbolsthan any other Americandramatist.ExaminingWilliams' novel, Hilton Kramerchargesthata symbolhas here
"come to mean... some improbable character or action, preferably
pressedto an extremeof violence,withoutmotivationor credibility,and
whollyexteriorto whateverthin semblanceof plot is holding the work
together."This observationmay sometimesapply to the plays also, but
more oftenWilliams' method is in the standard traditionof Ibsen and
other moderns,his symbolsmay be visible and specific (like Nora's
Neapolitan costumein A Doll's House), unseen but stillspecific(like the
wild duck), or as general in application as the light-darksymbolismof
Ghosts (in which we see the gloom of Norwaybut hear about the light
of Paris). The symbolmay be importantin itself or not; it may be
visibleor not. It may be conveyedby the lightingor by the timeof year.
Whatever it is, Williams will probablypush it as hard as he can. He
needs to provideheavy underliningforthe play's meaning because it is
not primarilya social meaning.To a Broadwayaudience, a play's theme
is its commenton the social or political order; to enforceanother sort
of meaning requires special effort,and so the symbolshelp out. Now,
ArthurMiller has called Williams a "social" dramatist,and, in a certain
sense,he is right,but it is interestingthathe has to go out of his way to
make thisclaim. On the otherhand, no one needs to tell us that Miller
himselfor Lillian Hellman or CliffordOdets is a social dramatist.In
Williams' plays,social issuesare masked by personal issues; the function
of the symbolsis to make it plain that issues of some sort are present.
Also, the symbolis desirablein itself;it offersus a pictorialvariation,a
new wayof lookingat theproblemof theplay.This independent,decora-

58
tiveuse of symbolsis verylikelyindebtedto theinfluenceof Garcia Lorca

an influence,whichis particularlyprominentin an earlyverseplay, The
Purification.
The principal symbolof Williams' firstBroadwayplay is given prominence by thetitle,The Glass Menagerie.Laura, theshy,crippleddaughter
of the family,takes refugein her collection of glass animals, like her
prototypein the apparentlyearlier story"Portraitof a Girl in Glass."
The attention she gives her glass animals testifiesto her eccentricity;
like thesecreatures,she is herselffrailand delicate.She seemsparticularly
identifiedwith a unicorn,which is different
like Laura, "extinctin the
modern world." When the unicorn breaksits horn, we are told, "Now
it is just like all the other horses." This statementseems to be a hint
thatLaura is overcomingher shynessand becominglike othergirls.The
action of the play does not supportthishint,exceptby permittingLaura
to lose a little of her awkwardnessas she chats withJim,the gentleman
caller. Williams did, however,give some supportto thisinterpretation
by
permittingLaura to greeta new gentlemancaller at the end of the film
version.
The symbolismof You Touched Me! is peripheral,but it bears out the
obvious implications of the play's actions. Emmie, a narrow-minded
spinster,hates men and triesto shut themout of her life and her niece
Matilda's. For all Emmie's efforts,
Matilda runs offwith an interloper,
the charityboy Hadrian. The crisesare periodicallyand appropriately
interruptedby the problemsof thehenyard,wherea fox makesfrequent
forays.To Emmie, Hadrian is as much a hostile outsider as the fox;
late in the play, her niece tells Hadrian: "Oh, you're such a fox!" One
dark nightEmmie firesat the fox and kills the roosterinstead,thereby
fulfillingone of her unacknowledgedgoals, "reducingthe net amount
of masculinityon the place." It is a night of mistakes,for,a moment
later, Matilda mistakesthe human fox-rooster,
Hadrian, forher father.
If thissymbolismaccomplishesanything,it pointsup Emmie'sopposition
to masculinityand animality,twoqualitieswhichare remarkablydurable.
The symbolicaccompanimentsof A StreetcarNamed Desire are directlykeyed to the action. The streetcaritselfplays a minor part; it
is merelymentioned,and its distinctivename plainlyrefersto the salient
motivationsof themain characters,Blanche,Stella,and StanleyKowalski.
A more significantsymbolismis presentin Blanche's effortto preserve
illusion; she triesdesperatelyto keep her surroundingsdark enough so
thatshe will not look her age. One of her firstactsis to turnoffthe "overlight." Later she buys a paper lantern to cover a naked bulb. When
Mitch learns about her past, he tearsoffthe lanternand examines her
under the glaring light. At the end, when Blanche is being led away
to a sanitarium,Kowalski offersone possession-herlantern,the magic
that has failed. "She cries out as if the lantern was herself."Further
symbolic effectsare effectedby accompanyingmusic-jazz (highly appropriate to New Orleans) for Kowalski and a suitable old-fashioned

HENRY
59
POPKIN
dance tune, the Varsouviana (the song they played when her young
husband killed himself)forBlanche. The jazz risesto a crescendoin the
scene in which Kowalskirapes Blanche. Also, Blanche has a special song
thatexpressesher effort
to createillusionsabout herselfIt's onlya papermoon,Justas phonyas it can beBut it wouldn'tbe make-believe,
If you believedin mel
She sings this song in the bathroomwhile Kowalski is destroyingthe
illusionsshehas fostered,tellingStella thescandaloushistoryof Blanche's
lifein Laurel.
The symbolismof Summerand Smoke is plain enough to need little
comment.Alma's name is the Spanish word forsoul. She is, as one might
expect,too spiritualforher own good. John Buchanan, an exponent of
the body,showsAlma on his medical chartthat the human formhas no
place forthe soul. He leaves Alma fora girlwho is more body than soul,
but he seemsfinallyto become aware of the rival claimsof bodyand soul
and marriesa girl who embodies both elements.
The Rose Tattoo fairlyswimsin symbols,whichare once moreattached
to propernames. The dead truckdriver,Rosario della Rosa, had a rose
tattooedon his chest.On the nighthis wife conceived,she momentarily
saw a rose tattooon her breast; naturally,the child is named Rosa. To
coax Rosario's widow back to life,a second truckdriverhas a tattooput
on his chest-anotherrose.When thesecond truckdriver,Mangiacavallo,
winshis objective,Serafinaconceivesagain-or thinksshe does-and sees
a second rose on her breast. The rose signifiesthe floweringof love
or, at least, of sexual activity.The sexual symbolscome thickand fast
in The Rose Tattoo. A goat, traditionalembodimentof lust, twiceruns
wild, like the fox in You Touched Me!; the second time,it is Mangiacavallo who catcheshim. Both truckdriverscarrythesame load of phallic
symbols-bananas;thelate Rosario,a mightierman,carriedmore,tentons
to Mangiacavallo's eight.
The main patternof Camino Real is moresymbolicthan realistic.The
principal charactersbear names inheritedfromtradition-Kilroyis the
vagrant,virileAmerican,Camille and Casanova are the cynicalvirtuosos
of love whom timenow mocks,and Lord Byronand Don Quixote (both
played by the same actor) embody irrepressiblehope. Bullied by an
unidentifiedLatin American tyranny,depressed by the examples of
Camille and Casanova, cheated by the Gypsyand her daughter,Kilroy
still has a sufficiently
romanticsoul to join Don Quixote-the sceptical
Sancho Panza has, perhaps significantly,
disappeared-and go offon a
dangerousjourneyacrossthedesert.Most of thecriticsfound thesymbols
of Camino Real to be puzzling,and it won less praise than any other of
Williams' Broadway plays. Perhaps the cool reception it encountered
induced him to follow it with a play which goes to the other extreme
and is almosttotallylackingin symboliceffects-Caton a Hot Tin Roof.
Orpheus Descending is built on a networkof Christianreferences.In

60
its original version,Battle of Angels, the play's action ends on Good

Friday,a fittingday for the crucifixionof Valentine Xavier, who bears
the names of two Christiansaintsand seems to be identifiedwith Christ.
One of the townswomenmakes this identification;seized by an erotic
passion in Passion Week, she paints Christin the image of Val Xavier.
It is probablysignificantthat the woman older than himselfwhom Val
loves is named Myra-a variantof Mary. Anothercharacterhas a name
out of classical mythology-Cassandra,she explicitlyidentifiesherself
with her ancient namesake,prophesiesdoom, and, as traditiondecrees,
is ignored. "Her hair hangs loose and she wears a rain-spattered,
grassstained white satin evening gown." She announces herself: "Behold
Cassandra, shoutingdoom at the gates!" In the course of the play, the
season changesfromwinterto spring,and thistransitionis accompanied
by the stirringof love in Myra and Val. Here and in the title,Battle of
Angels,we have some reflectionof the myththat traditionallyunderlies
the springritual-the conflictof darknessand light,winterand spring.
Myra builds a brightaddition to her "dusky" store-a green orchard
thatwill serveas a "confectionery."
When herhusband Jabe comesdownstairs at the end of the play, bringingcatastropheto the two lovers,
he is "like the veryPrince of Darkness."A spiritualresurrectionfollows
the triumphof darknessand inspiresa religion.The relicsare preserved
in a museum,and, as the curtain falls,the Negro conjure man makes
an "obeisance" to Val's snakeskinjacket (symbolof untamed virility),
to the sound of a "religiouschant."
The religioussymbolismis somewhataltered in Orpheus Descending.
Val's name is unchanged,but Myra becomes"Lady." Since she had been
"Myra," and since the crucifixionreferencesare still prominent,we
are encouraged to thinkof her as "Our Lady." More is made of Lady's
ambitious extensionof her husband's store,a green world at the beginning of spring. The light plays effectively
upon the sinisterJabe and
his nursewhen theycome downstairsinto the brightworld thathis wife
is transforming:
"At the same momentscuddingclouds expose the sun.
A narrowwindow on the landing admitsa brilliantshaftof lightupon
the pair. They have a bizarre and awful appearance." The last act is
shiftedfromGood Friday to Holy Saturday,which,in the ancient tradition, commemoratesChrist's harrowingof Hell. This old story recalls a similarclassical legend of an effortto save a soul fromthe lower
world-the descentof Orpheus,who is oftenidentifiedwith Christ,into
Hades to save Eurydice.Val, like Orpheus, is a musician; he carriesa
guitar, which is close enough to Orpheus' classical lyre. (In Battle of
Angels, instead of being a musician, Val is a poet.) Like Christ and
Orpheus,he goes down to Hell, but, unlike them,he does not save even
himself.
Apart fromthe Orpheus reference,the guitarhas a phallic significance
as well. When the jealous older men of the towndescend on handsome,
him is
manlyVal withknivesdrawn,as if to castratehim,what frightens

HENRY POPKIN
61
the threat to his guitar. At last, his chief tormentorrelents: "I ain't
gonna touchy'rguitar."Then he tellshim what to do "if you value that
instrumentin yourhands as much as you seem to."
Sweet Bird of Youth is also full of the Easter spirit and of symbolic
names. Chance Wayne is a young man whose chances are waning. His
girl,Heavenly,is still accuratelydescribedby her name. Alexandra was,
in an earlyversion,namedAriadne,and she is,like theclassicalAriadne,a
helpful but potentiallydangerous guide out of the labyrinth.Chance,
Heavenly, Alexandra, and Heavenly's father,Boss Finley, all hope for
resurrection;all of the action takes place on the day of resurrection,
Easter Sunday. Chance wants to be rebornas a youngman of promise;
aftermanydisappointmentsin show business,he puts his hopes in the
contracthe has signed with Alexandra. His goal is to make offwith
Heavenly as if the yearshad not passed, as if theycould resumeexactly
wheretheywerewhenChance lefthomeyearsbefore.In a Catholicchurch
Easter morning,Heavenly thinksa miracle has been performed:"She
had a sensation,she said, like a miracle that had given her back the
organsthatScudderhad to cut out of her body."Alexandra'shopes to be
rebornas a filmstarare threatenedby her apparent failurein her latest
she "has assumedtheheroically
picture;at one momentofhermartyrdom,
enduringattitudeofJoan of Arc at thestake."The mostdirectidentification with Christis made by the least Christ-likeof thesecharacters.Boss
Finley. He findshimselfbetrayed,"crucified,in this way, publicly,by
his own offspring."On the platform,he tells how "the Voice of God
called" him to his sacred political mission. On Good Friday, he was
burned in effigy.
But now, "Today is Easterl Today my sacred mission
is burning brighterthan the straw effigy."His hopes for political
resurrectionare related to a more private death he has suffered-the
loss of his virility,a fact to which his mistresshas called attentionby
scrawlingit on the mirrorof a powder room. Only one resurrection
takes place on Easter Sunday-Alexandra's. Chance loses his girl, his
career, and his only talent-the capacity for making love. He will be
castrated,and no miracle will restoreHeavenly's sexual organs or her
father's.Also, some effectivepolitical injury seems to be done to the
Boss when he is heckled at a public meeting.But Alexandra is a star
once more,restored,howeverbriefly,
to the skiesof Hollywood.
Williams' abundant Christiansymbolismis not accompanied by any
notablesympathy
forreligiousinsitutions.He seemsto regardChristianity
as one of the outworn loyaltiesof the decaying aristocrats,who tend
to be Episcopalians. In almost the same words,the mad ladies of "Portraitof a Madonna" and Battle of Angels claim "direct Apostolic succession throughSt. Paul" and reject the notion that their churchwas
foundedby the abominable HenryVIII. Those who endorsereligiondo
not inspire confidence:the pious motherof The Glass Menagerie is
eccentric,Reverend Winemillerof Summerand Smoke has a mad wife,
the priestof The Rose Tattoo is utterlyineffectual;Reverend Tooker

62
of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof has a bodily not a spiritualmessagewhen he

interruptsthe crucial conversationbetweenBig Daddy and Brick to ask
his way to "the gentleman's lavatory, ha hal" In this play about
mendacity,Tooker is describedas "the livingembodimentof the pious,
conventionallie." For Williams,religionis a convenientsource of symbolism,but it seems to be withoutreal value in the world of his plays.
Williams has made a ratherconsistentuse of symbolic,non-realistic
settings.Battle of Angels,an early play whichdid not reach Broadway,
has a conventional set with "a dramatic atmosphere,"but the set for
its later form,Orpheus Descending, is "in nonrealisticfashion." The
set forhis firstBroadway play, The Glass Menagerie, is "nonrealistic";
it required a narrator,visible titles,and a portraitwhich lit up when
necessary.The set of You Touched Me! was conventionalbut with "an
atmosphericcharm." Since then, Williams has freelyused his sets to
support his symbolicintention.
In some of the plays,Orpheus Descending in particular,the symbols
have a way of overpoweringthe action, or signifyingmore than the
play itselfdoes. This criticismis related to a fundamentalproblem in
the evaluation of Williams' plays.CertainlyWilliamshas more technical
virtuositythan any other American now writingfor the theatre.Admittedly,the action may be arrangedin an unconventionalfashion;instead of a well-madeplay, we have a successionof episodes. The Glass
Menagerie,forinstance,has sevenscenesbut no acts; A StreetcarNamed
Desire has eleven scenesbut no acts.Williams selectshis episodes so that
he can look in upon disconnectedmomentsof thefrankestself-revelation,
the sorestanguish, the most disturbingviolence. This sort of selection
keeps the action going and maintainsour interestin the most painful
moments of the private life. The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar
Named Desire are model plays of thiskind,dramas thatbuild carefully
towardtotal catastrophe.But Williams seems to be beguiled by his own
drama, to believe that his wildestof worlds,which he has industriously
sown with ingenious disasters,is life itself.This tendencywas already
presentin Battle of Angels,but it did not reach Broadway till Camino
Real. It was firston Broadwayin a readilyintelligibleplay in Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof, a stridentpreachmentagainst the mendacitywhich sustains the world. Orpheus Descending continued this pattern, condemning a whole sex-hungrycommunity,and it exposed two other
mattersthatweakened Williams' playwriting:the idealizationof Adonis
and the incredible crueltyof his disaster. Kowalski is an ambiguous
Adonis in Streetcar;he is muscular,enterprising,and triumphant,but
he is also vicious; the Adonis of The Rose Tattoo has certain comic
weaknesses.Both are accompanied by Gargoyleswho have a little individuality.But the Adonis of OrpheusDescending is a demi-god,and not
only by virtue of being identifiedwith Orpheus; he is compact of all
virtues. His Gargoyle is relativelyindistinct.Such charactersare in-

HENRY
POPKIN
63
sufficient
to carrythe weightof the play; throwingAdonis to the dogs
and theblowtorchesheightensonlyhis anguish,not his importance.Williams continues his desperate measures in Suddenly Last Summer,in
which a characterclaims universal significancefor an instance of cannibalism: "I know it's a hideous storybut it's a true storyof our time
and the world we live in." Sweet Bird of Youth similarlyoverextends
Williams' mad universe by creating four characterswho have bitter
sexual complaints-increasinglythe only complaints that are possible
in the world of theseplays. Individually,the characterizations
work out,
but, collectively,togetherwith the play's symbolicmachineryand its
heavy political portentousness,
theyconstitutean overdone portraitof
a monstrousworld.Adonis and the Gargoyleare curiouslyout of balance
here. The Gargoyleis a good example of those fadingwomen thatWilliams has often done but almost always does very well. Adonis is, in
himself,not much; his adventuresare a good deal more interestingthan
he is. Unfortunately,
Adonis dominatesthe main plot. In The Enemy:
Time, theone-actplay on whichSweetBird of Youth is based (published
in The Theatre,March 1959),the Gargoyleis barelypresent.The prominence she gets in the full-lengthplay is all to the good. She is a vivid,
distinctiveperson, and she thereforecontributesless directlythan the
other martyrsto the heavyemphasison the inevitablyand universality
of the play's strangeworld. Curiously,Williams firstcame to Broadway
witha dream play, "a memoryplay," explicitlylabelled as such; he has
been continuingwith nightmareplays which he representsas the most
typicalreality.
In his introductionto Carson McCullers' Reflectionsin a Golden Eye,
Williams justifiesthe practiceof the "Gothic School" (whichpresumably
includes Mrs. McCullers, Truman Capote, and Williams himself) by
citing the distinguishedexample of William Faulkner and the greater,
if less melodramatic,horrorof life itself.When he mentionsFaulkner,
Williams associatesthe Gothic writerswith theirSouthernenvironment:
"There is somethingin the region,somethingin the blood and culture,
of the Southernstate that has somehowmade them the center of this
Gothic school of writers."To identifyGothicismwith the South is to
recall a more distant literaryancestor,Edgar Allen Poe, who, in the
grinningskullof "The Masque of theRed Death," anticipatedFaulkner's
"A Rose for Emily" and, in the cannibalism of "The Narrativeof A.
Gordon Pym," looked forwardto Williams' Suddenly Last Summer.
But literarytraditionsand the possible realityof Southernhorrorscan
onlypartiallyexplain theGothicSchool.Williams carrieshis justification
a step furtherwhen he notes the violence and grotesquerieof the contemporaryworld. Mrs. McCullers' art intensifiesthese qualities: "The
awfulnesshas to be compressed."Such a purpose may be detected in
the public statementsof Williams' later plays, but its fulfilmentis
questionable. In compressingthe world'sviolence into the storyof Val

64
Xavier or Chance Wayne, Williams has not made it universal; he has

only made it individual, and an individual, incredible, nightmarish
horrorstoryas well.
Anotherexplanation may be added for the Gothic elementsin Williams' plays. Taboos are rapidly disappearingamong us, and Williams
has been in the vanguardof thosedramatistswho have moved into previously forbiddenareas. His treatmentof homosexuality,for example,
is much frankerthan any referencesby the earlier "serious" dramatists
(like Lillian Hellman in The Children'sHour and the BritishMordaunt
Shairp in The Green Bay Tree). If no one had writtenplays on cannibalism and castration,it is likely that no one had expected to find
receptiveaudiences for these subjects.As Williams takes Broadway beyond one tacit taboo after another, Hollywood follows in his wake,
purchasingeach of his shockersin turnand filmingit as franklyas the
watered-downProductionCode will permit.Williams now seems to be
in a sortof race withhimself,surpassinghomosexualitywithcannibalism
and cannibalism with castration,devising new and greater shocks in
each succeedingplay. It is as if he is tryingto see how far he can push
the Gothic mode of playwriting.But if his plays offershocks for their
own sake, they are ever furtherdivorced from the profound reality
which Williams pretends to disclose. They are still the monstrosities
of the nightmare,embellished by the playful ingenuityof a Gothic
temperament.
NOTE
has suggested
thatpunishment
is moresignificant
thanin1 RobertBrustein
nocencein Williams'plays;he drawsfromthemtheconclusionthat"deviant

sex,in William'sview,bringson terrible
punishments."
(Encounter,
June1959).
Certainlyweightmustbe givento the disasterswhichovertaketheheroesof
disastersare modifiedin Cat and
Orpheusand SweetBird,but corresponding
avoidedin The Rose Tattoo.If theirfantastic
tosome
qualitieslendimportance
of thedisasters,
thesamemaybe said forWilliams'fantasy
of innocence.One
dreamtendstocanceltheother,and thatleavesus withWilliams'consciousintention-toexonerate"deviantsex."
in
StanleyEdgarHyman(HudsonReview,Autumn1953,and morerecently
an "Albertine
CollegeEnglish,October,1958)hasdiscovered
substrategy"-the
stitution
ofwomenformen-inmuchofWilliams'writing.
This readinghas led
himtofinda celebration
of"a homosexualloveselfless
and purged.""Purging"
is a usefulterm;I thinkit comescloserto whatWilliamshas in mindthandoes
thenotionofdeservedpunishment.
0


The Plays of Tennessee Williams

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The Plays of Tennessee Williams

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The Plays of Tennessee Williams

Author(s): Henry Popkin

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