US IB English-A Streetcar Named Desire: Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams at age 54 in 1965. Photo by Orland Fernandez.

He was brilliant and prolific, breathing life and passion into such memorable characters as Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski in his critically acclaimed A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. And like them, he was troubled and self-destructive, an abuser of alcohol and drugs. He was awarded four Drama Critic Circle Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was derided by critics and blacklisted by Roman Catholic Cardinal Spellman, who condemned one of his scripts as “revolting, deplorable, morally repellent, offensive to Christian standards of decency.” He was Tennessee Williams, one of the greatest playwrights in American history.

Born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus, Mississippi in 1911, Tennessee was the son of a shoe company executive and a Southern belle. Williams described his childhood in Mississippi as happy and carefree. This sense of belonging and comfort were lost, however, when his family moved to the urban environment of St. Louis, Missouri. It was there he began to look inward, and to write— “because I found life unsatisfactory.” Williams’ early adult years were occupied with attending college at three different universities, a brief stint working at his father’s shoe company, and a move to New Orleans, which began a lifelong love of the city and set the locale for A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.

To read the full article, click HERE.

His craftsmanship and vision marked Tennessee Williams as one of the most talented playwrights in contemporary theater. His dramas, including The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are among the most acclaimed dramas ever performed on Broadway.

Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus, Mississippi, on March 26, 1911, to Cornelius Coffin Williams and Edwina Dakin Williams. His father was an aggressive traveling salesman, and his mother was the puritanical daughter of an Episcopal rector. Williams had an older sister, Rose, and a younger brother, Walter Dakin.

Williams once wrote, concerning his parents’ relationship, “It was just a wrong marriage.” He clearly portrayed the familial conflict in his art. For example, the character, Amanda Wingfield, in The Glass Menagerie, is modeled after Williams’s mother; and Big Daddy, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, represents his father.