Context

dates

• written 1947

• set late 40s

• WW2 had just finished 1945

Tennessee Williams’ father

• Cornelius

• working class salesman

• domineering and abusive in his marriage

• absent and negligent as a father

Tennessee Williams’ Sister Rose

• suffered from mental illness, schizophrenia

• was institutionalised and lobotomised

• very close to his sister

• blamed himself being away at uni at the time

Tennesse Williams’ Mother Edwina

• born to a high class family, a Southern Belle

• detested her husband’s drinking, affairs and lifestyle→ didn’t reflect well on her

• daughter of a clergyman

Williams’ sexuality

• gay in a time when homosexuality was seen as a mental illness

• Williams had a relationship with Kip Kiernan, young Canadian dancer, he left him to marry a woman and 4 years later killed himself

• In the War homosexuals were given blue discharges as a dishonourable discharge to remove them from the army.

• "Sex Perversion Elimination Program" launched by washington in the late 40s

American civil war

• between northern and southern states

• war ended in 1865 with a northern victory

enduring legacy of the American South

• an enduring nostalgic myth representation of the South in its antebellum heyday as a haven of peace, prosperity and chivalrous gallantry

• great importance on ancestry and heritage

economic context

• shift to industrialisation, urban growth

  → attracted immigrants from Europe and Africa; New Orleans became a melting pot of cultures

• farming in the south was no longer profitable because it relied on free labour

The American Dream

• hard work, perseverance and individualism

• anyone can achieve prosperity no matter your background

• Post WW2 sense of American heroism: beaten the Nazis, survived the depression, working class men were military heroes

gender roles

• post war american heroism championed masculinity

• women rose in work during the war but were pushed back into more domestic roles post war

race

• New Orleans was a rare pocket of multiculturalism, but the rest of America wasn’t so open, Blanche brings with her her outside prejudices

• early 20th century ‘new immigrants’ from europe were considered ‘not-quite-white’

the Southern Gothic

• transgressive desires, irrational thoughts

• reflective of how the myth of the South as a idyllic heaven is built on it shameful repressed history of slavery

• perception vs repressed reality

plastic theatre

non realist style which exploits expressionist devices to reflect a character’s pysche

His vivid and evocative stage directions
Symbolism
Lighting
Colours
Costumes
Props
Sound Effects-Digetic (heard by characters) and Non Digetic

religion and morality

• puritan and christian principles

• traditional nuclear family

tragedy and the common man arthur miller

• the common man experiences more tragedy than any king or noble man

• tragedy is about the struggle for personal dignity

• Miller believes that the "underlying fear of being displaced" and "being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in the world" is what terrifies us.

Williams’ life

• born in Mississippi in the deep south

• fond memories of his early childhood in his grandparents antebellum house

• had to move to St Louis

• moved to New Orleans in 1938

• suffered from drug abuse, alcoholism and scitzophrenia

Williams’ writing

• writing was an escape for him although his success became somewhat of a burden

• he was influenced by Ibsen’s use of realism in his plays like A Doll’s House