"Homes" In Tennessee Williams's Plays:A Social Critique

Tennessee Williams(1911—1983)was a master playwright of the twentieth century,and his plays The Glass Menagerie,A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are considered among the finest of the American stage.At their best,his twenty-five full-length plays combined lyrical intensity,haunting loneliness,and hypnotic violence.He is widely considered the greatest Southern playwright and one of the greatest playwrights in the history of American drama.When reading Williams's plays,we can always find that the family background he constructs has an important impact on the personality of characters.However,the "home" in his plays is not simply family background.It has conveyed social and political implications that Tennessee Williams hides in his works.In A Streetcar Named Desire,Blanche forced her husband Allan to death due to the prejudice towards gays.After Allan's death,she was blatantly exposed to the ill will of the society.Therefore Blanche is not only seeking a resident but also a home as spiritual asylum.In The Glass Menagerie,Williams created an illusion that it is a play about Laura and family conflict in Great Depression,but the truth is the play concerns how the minorities live in a society in which they cannot have their voice heard.In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,when Brick feels that he is abandoned by his family and society,Big Daddy and Margaret reveal a possible way for gays living in the society.In Brick's eyes,the home is a prison where he cannot get out,whereas Big Daddy shows a different view towards the home—tolerance is the way out.This thesis is intended to examine the metaphor of "home" in his three most significant plays,namely The Glass Menagerie,A Streetcar Named Desire,and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof through a systematic and comprehensive textual analysis.Based on the analysis,the social implications of "home" in his plays are to be reconsidered regarding the acceptance of homosexual and other minority groups in American society.The purpose of this thesis is to interpret Tennessee Williams's plays from the metaphor of "home" and to make a comparative study of the function and significance of "home" as displayed in his plays;finally to discuss the multiple implications of "home" in his plays.