Thomas Lanier Williams

1
Thomas Lanier Williams

• (Aka Tennesee)
• 1911-1983

(honored on a U.S. postal stamp in 1994)
2
Background

• Claims to descend from Tennessee pioneer
• Changed name in 1939
• B. Columbus, Ms.
• Fathertraveling salesman, little time for
  family, no permanent home gambling and drinking
  bouts later ailed Tennessee as well
• Motherclaims she is not Amanda engaged in
  violent fights with abusive husband

First home of Williams in Columbus
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Childhood

• Lived in South until 7 with mother, his sister
  Rose, and maternal grandfather an Episcopal
  minister
• Moved to St. Louis in 1918 with father who
  managed a shoe company brother born
• Family moved 16 times in 15 years due to rumors
  about family situation
• Rose eventually had lobotomy Tennessee cared for
  her through adulthood
• Home was not a pleasant refuge but neither was
  the outside world.

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Education

• 1929 Graduates high school, goes to University of
  Missouri but forced to withdraw 3 years later
• Forced by father to work at the International
  Shoe Company which he calls a living death
  experiences a breakdown
• Moves to Memphis to live with grandparents
  begins playwriting at summer theater in 1935
• Briefly attends Washington U in St. Louis 1937
• 1938 graduates from University of Iowa
• Moves to New Orleans in 1939 changes name
  begins writing career

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About Writing

• from my own tension and a form of therapy a
  way of making order out of disorder
• Aspired to be a success I want to reach a
  large audience.
• The Artist v. The Successtension
• Made many revisions to attract the type of
  audience he wanted

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Most Commercial Success

• The Glass Menagerie produced in 1944 in Chicago
  and 1945 in New York own family as inspiration
• A Streetcar Named Desire 1947 won 1st Pulitzer
  Prize among other awards
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1955 won 2nd Pulitzer
• Night of the Iguana won All Drama Critics Award

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Themes

• Doesnt admit to them
• I have never been able to say what was the theme
  of my play, and I dont think I have ever been
  conscious of writing with a theme in mind.
• Explicitly and implicitly puts recurring
  character types and situations into plays family
  resemblance strengths and weaknesses

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Outsiders

• Only ones to see clearly view objectively
• two kinds of people who are outsiders the
  artists and the insane
• The artist has vision.
• The insane display lunacy.
• The hero/heroine sees differently, more
  sensitive, see the horror of it
• The comic who gets laughed at or laughs at
  others doesnt detract from courage or dignity

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Outsiders cont.

• The cripple has physical or mental disabilities
  that intervene.
• The sexual specialists virgins waiting or not
  to be initiated, homosexuals, prostitutes (none
  of these present in GM)
• The foreigner who comes in from outside to show
  contrast (foil).
• All are fugitives making generalizations about
  humanity.

10
Insiders

• Protected by insensitivity or identification with
  dominant group survivors, adapt, follow rules
  (unlike Williams himself)
• Social commentary aimed at insiders what passes
  for good life at time trappings of
  successdangerous, corrupt material
  successempty and ludicrous, greed, guilt, and
  fear motivate

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Time and Death

• Forces beyond our control
• Time chases characters, cannot be maneuvered by
  some activity
• Fading beauty or athletic prowess who fight age
  and death
• Vain attempts to hang onto life dogged by
  knowledge of death
• Manstranger in impersonal universe who can only
  find comfort in own kind
• No escape in universe without God others are as
  dangerous as self
• No romantic solutions make due with situation

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Escape

• Runningfutile but necessary for writer/artist
  must be alone to create
• Temporary surceaselittle comfort in attempts at
  human contact
• Time rushes toward us with its hospital of tray
  of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is
  preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.
  Williams in The Rose Tattoo
• William is not a realist wants to tell truth
  with gimmicks, lighting, props, extensive stage
  direction.

His home in Key West
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Quote

• Elia Kazan Everything in his life is in his
  plays, and everything in his plays is in his
  life.
• Williams There are no good or bad people.
  Some are a little better or a little worse but
  all are activated more by misunderstanding than
  malice. A blindness to what is going on in each
  others hearts. . . . Nobody sees anybody truly
  but all through the flaws of their own egos.
  That is the way we all see each other in life.