A True Calling For Integration

It is generally acknowledged that Tennessee Williams is one of the major playwrights after World War Two. Nearly 20 years after his death, his plays are frequently reviewed and performed. Some of the plays, like The Street Car Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, have been placed among the classic dramas in the world.Today, Williams and his plays continue to evoke critical research and inquiry. Among these scholarly researches and comments, much attention is paid to his southern heroines, such as Blanche, Maggie, Amanda as well as Alma. It is true that Williams does show his great concern for these southern beauties, portraying vivid pictures of their dilemma, despair and painful struggle in a male-dominated society. However, in his vast variety of play scripts, there also exist some typical southern gentlemen. They live in desperation with the disharmony of their inner lives. Many of them, like their female counterparts, are in miserable search of truth and meaning in life. The main character of The Night of the Iguana, Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, is a representative among these men. With a focus on his psychological development in this thesis, I attempt to trace Shannon's loss, search for a true self and spiritual rejuvenation.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is a literature review, briefly introducing the study of scholars both at home and abroad on Williams'works, especially the research findings on the play, The Night of the Iguana, and the main character, Shannon. Chapter Two explores the disintegrated psyche of Shannon. Williams is inclined to create a modern man's inner conflict. Shannon's spiritual problem is caused by two archetypal elements in the psyche. One is the persona, namely, social mask. The other is shadow, the dark side of ego. His persona,"a man of God", is a kind of disguise that leads to his ignorance of his shadow. When he fails to achieve the expectation of his persona, he resorts to repressing the inward shadow, which later gets itself to burst out. He is then brought into a fractured world, being tortured by a sense of loss and guilt. Chapter Three examines Shannon's integration with his inside world. It refers to the fulfillment of becoming fully conscious and of integrating his unconscious elements into his conscious lives. Chapter Four analyzes Shannon's integration with outside world. By getting integrated with others, reaching out to others, he begins to walk out of his broken and confined world courageously, which gives him new faith in life. By getting integrated with the nature, he finds faith embodied within the force of nature. The nature offers him a free land and gets him to be spiritually purified. Chapter Five concludes that Shannon has experienced an arduous and hard journey towards his self rejuvenation, which reveals Tennessee Williams'thorough exploration of modern man's psychology. By depicting Shannon's road to spiritual revival, Williams makes the play a true calling, a calling for integration.