A Study Of Tennessee Williams's Post-Iguana Plays

For Tennessee Williams, The Night of the Iguana (1961) is generally regarded as the watershed of his decades-long dramatic career. He had not a new play favorably reviewed by critics as well as audiences thereafter. While most pre-Iguana plays conformed to Williams's dramatic conventions that had built his early reputation, the post-Iguana plays diminished in reputation and were taken as a proof of the playwright's decline in artistry for its radical deviation. Williams was virulently attacked as having written himself out and the later plays were depreciated as self-parodying his decadent life and mental breakdown.For a long time, Williams's later canon has been superciliously biased and ostracized by most critics, a fact that in part explains its lack of due respect and exploration. While it is inspiring to see that the recent Williams scholarship has shown a rejuvenation of interest in this long-neglected domain, the exploration of the later canon is still in its infancy. The scope and depth of the study has been noticeably inadequate. In China, the focus of Williams scholarship to date has been confined almost exclusively to his early plays, with few essays having even touched to the slightest degree upon his later canon.The present thesis intends to take The Gn?diges Fr?ulein as a case study for a tentative exploration of the new tendencies and the underlying causes of Williams's later canon. Detailed analysis of the play will be carried out in close comparison with its conventional counterpart that is characteristic of pre-Iguana plays. The dissertation is constituted of six chapters. Chapter one explores Williams's approaches to tragedy from such perspectives as theme, nature of tragedy, moral reversal and style. Based on in-depth analysis of language in the play, Chapter two deals with the drastic change in language from the delicate"poetic lyricism"to simple, broken, colloquial and facetious language. With a close comparison with pre-Iguana conventions, Chapter three points out the tendency of simplification and dehumanization in characterization. Chapter four focuses on dramatic structure in a new assessment on and justification of the much-criticized assumption of the lack of overall structure and absence of plot and dramatic conflicts. Chapter five explores in depth the parallel between the play and the avant-garde theatre in terms of form and content. Chapter six traces the underlying causes for the new direction from such perspectives as the social milieu of America, the playwright's biographical background and literary trend as well as reasons for the long-existing bias and the negative reception.The present thesis concludes with a tentative assertion that by breaking with the dramatic conventions, Williams developed his later canon to a new level. Given its scope, diversity, complexity and the innovative attempts as are exemplified in terms of style, language, dramatic structure and characterization, Williams's later canon, a treasure in disguise, merits much more attention and due exploration.