Entrapment, Illusion And Disillusionment In Tennessee Williams’s Three Plays

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) is today widely acknowledged as one of themost accomplished playwrights of the Post-World War II era in America. Thisdissertation will explore the struggles of Williams’s marginalized women and artists（or artisits-to-be） under the theme of entrapment and illusion from both culturalperspective and psychological perspectives by studying three of his plays The GlassMenagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). Iwill argue that illusions are constructed by Williams’s characters as defense orresistance against the entrapment of the painful life. However, illusions can onlyprovide them with temporary escape or false gratification and often bring destructiveconsequences. In the end, they are always forced to confront the bitter reality.Disillusioned, they finally learn that there is no escape in a modern world whichdenies transcendence. Although defeated, there still lies in them a kind of dignitywhich derives from their romantic rebellions against the reality.The dissertation will be divided into three chapters. My first chapter will focuson entrapment which leads to the construction of illusions. The chapter will bedivided into two sections. In the first section, I will discuss the entrapment of thememories of the Old South by taking Amanda in The Glass Menagerie and Blanche inA Streetcar Named Desire as examples. I will argue that they are prisoners of theirmemories and victims of the conventionalities and gender norms of the Old Southwhich leaves them entrapped in the modern society of the New South. Developingthese ideas, the second section will focus on the entrapment of artist figures inWilliams’s plays by discussing the conflicts between the romantic aspirations andsuffocating realities of the modern society as well as the conflicts between youthfuldreams and the erosion of time. I will use Tom and Laura in Menagerie and ChanceWayne in Sweet Bird of Youth as examples. My second chapter will focus on illusionswhich include pipe-dreams, unreliable memories, fantasies, disguises, reveries,self-deceptions, false beliefs or even delusions that are constructed by the charactersmentioned in Chapter One as escape or resist against the pains or anxiety of entrapment. In the third chapter, I will be focusing on the outcome of illusion, that is,the futility of escape and disillusionment. I will argue that although Amanda, Laura,Tom, Blanche and Chance all lose their romantic battles against entrapment, there liesin them a sense of dignity in their efforts to seek meaning and beauty of life, and topersist on survival in a society that is inimical to their longings.