Reading practice 49

HUMANITIES: Tennessee Williams: Celebrate₁ a Southern Gothic Writer

American literature encompasses many unique styles and genres, including Southern Gothic. As its name implies, the literature reflects life in the American South. It maintains some of the characteristics of Gothic writing, such as the use of the supernatural or the ironic; however, Southern Gothic does not focus on creating tension and suspense as do other Gothic genres. Instead, its storylines examine Southern people and their postbellum social structure.

Writers in the genre generally spurn the pre-Civil-War stereotype of the plantation gentleman and the glamorous Southern belle. Instead, the authors develop characters that are sinister or reclusive and not particularly pleasant on the surface. Nevertheless, these characters usually have redeeming qualities that allow and encourage the reader to sympathize with their situations and dilemmas₂. It is through these immoral and unhappy personalities that the Southern Gothic writer is able to present and explore moral issues of the American South, such as slavery and bigotry, without blatant accusations₃.

Many American authors are known for their Southern Gothic style. Playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) is among the most celebrated. Williams's long list of plays and novels include the Pulitzer Prize winning stage dramas A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). Williams's characters are known to be modeled directly on members of his own family. For instance, it is speculated that the pitiable character Laura in The Glass Menagerie (1944) is modeled after Williams's mentally disabled sister Rose. In the same play, Amanda Wingfield is said to mirror Williams's own mother. Williams even portrays himself in Suddenly Last Summer (1958) and The Glass Menagerie. His adult life, plagued with depression and alcoholism₄, appears to play out in his embroiled characters.

If Tennessee Williams was a tormented man, it was due in no small part to his troubled family₅. As a seven-year-old in Mississippi, Williams contracted diphtheria and remained housebound for two years. His mother, fearing for Tennessee's mental wellbeing, pushed him toward creative arts during his period of illness₆. It was she who bought him a typewriter at age 13, which he heartily accepted.

Having already moved once, the Williams family eventually relocated to St. Louis, where Tennessee's increasingly abusive father Cornelius squeaked out a living₇ as a traveling shoe salesman. Tennessee's mother Edwina was a genteel sort prone to smothering. The most traumatic event in the young writer's life, however, occurred when his sister Rose, described as a slender, refined beauty, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Various treatments were unsuccessful during Rose's years of residence in mental asylums. In 1943 the Williams parents consented to the now-defunct prefrontal lobotomy in an effort to treat her schizophrenia. The operation was ruinous and Rose lay vegetative for the rest of her life₈. The fallout came when Tennessee blamed his parents for authorizing the operation. In the 1960s, he wrestled with the notion that he, too, would go insane. A decade of depression took hold. He would, at least nominally, overcome it, but Tennessee Williams's family life would haunt him the rest of his days.