On Tennessee Williams's Southern Gentlewomen

Compared with other playwrights, there are relatively fewer scholarly examinations of Tennessee Williams's plays, let alone his women protagonists. In order to compensate for this limitation, the present thesis sets out to give a tentative study of the women protagonists Amanda, Blanche and Alma in Tennessee Williams's trio of plays: The Glass Menagerie (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), and Summer and Smoke (1948).In the analysis of Amanda, Blanche and Alma, the author tries to relate them to the Old South. It is put forward in this thesis that the Old South is in fact a special land which is sharply different from the other parts of America. Since the Southerners are greatly influenced by the Southern myths, the thesis also involves a brief study of the myths of the Old South.Williams is the most important Southern playwright in American literature. His relationship with the Old South is personal as well as cultural. Based on his understanding about the Southern culture and Southern tradition, he gives us vivid pictures of Southern women, especial Southern gentlewomen. All his Southern gentlewomen are delicate and sensitive women who best represent the culture and gentility of the Old South. The three gentlewomen to be analyzed in this thesis in fact represent the same personality in different stages respectively.After the old plantational system is gone with the wind, these women are suddenly thrown into the modern society where they feel awkward. In fact, they are uprooted from a paradise of the past and plunged suddenly into a ruthless world ofthe present. They all refuse to accept life as it is and they all cherish an ideal in life-the life of spirit, of the mind beyond man's physical limitations. Caught between the two conflicting worlds, they try to search for love and companions. However, each of them ends up as a failure.By analyzing these Southern gentlewomen, the author concludes that they are actually the embodiment of modern people. And in them we see our own problems and limitations as human beings. Thus, their sufferings, seen in this light, are the sufferings of modern people as a whole. The knowledge of their failure and of their courage to go on despite failure is Williams's celebration of humanity's endurance and nobility.