Universität Bayreuth

Fakultät für Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften

Abschlussarbeit im Studiengang Bachelor of Arts Anglistik zum Thema:

„Gender Conflicts in the Dramas of Tennessee Williams“

Bearbeitung:

Kerstin Müller

2003

Table of Contents

1 Introduction ... 2

2 Theories on Gender ... 4

3 Theories on Conflict ... 9

4 Gender Conflicts ... 10

5 The Cultural Background of the Plays – The United States South ... 11
5.1 Historical Background of the United States South ... 12
5.2 Southern Culture and Identity ... 14
5.3 Gender Roles in the South ... 15

6 Southern Culture in the Dramas of Tennessee Williams ... 18
6.1 Southern Culture and Identity as a Source of Gender Conflicts in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ... 18
6.2 Southern Culture and Identity as a Source of Gender Conflicts in A Streetcar Named Desire ... 21

7 Sexuality in the Dramas of Tennessee Williams ... 23
7.1 Sexuality as a Source of Gender Conflicts in A Streetcar Named Desire ... 23
7.1.1 Blanche ... 23
7.1.2 Stella and Stanley ... 25
7.2 Sexuality as a Source of Gender Conflicts in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ... 26
7.2.1 Big Daddy ... 26
7.2.2 Mae and Gooper ... 28
7.2.3 Brick and Maggie ... 28

8 Homosexuality in the Dramas of Tennessee Williams ... 31
8.1 Gender Conflicts Related to Homosexuality in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ... 32
8.1.1 Brick’s and Skipper’s Relationship a Source of Conflict for Maggie and Brick ... 32
8.1.2 Brick’s and Skipper’s Relationship as Source of Conflict for Big Daddy and Brick ... 34
8.2 Gender Conflicts related to Homosexuality in A Streetcar Named Desire ... 35

9 Conclusion ... 37

10 Works Cited ... 38

1 Introduction

Tennessee Williams has often been called the American national poet of the perverse and a dirty writer because a recurrent theme in his work is sexual deviation, such as nymphomania, promiscuity, rape, impotence, homosexuality, profligacy, frigidity, cannibalism, and castration (Bauer-Briski 11).

This statement clearly suggests the controversy with which Tennessee Williams’ dramas were perceived by the public and the critics. It is well known that conflicts on these issues can be found in many of his plays. This raises the question as to what extent these conflicts are related to specific gender roles and their subordinate themes. Williams once said that he has never written about anything he has not experienced first hand, thus most of the conflict issues can be considered to be autobiographical to a certain extent. As Williams’ childhood was restricted to a rather reclusive life due to diphtheria, which forced him to spend almost his entire childhood at home with his family, the experiences with his mother, father and sister shaped not only his character, but also the themes in his plays. His upbringing was characterised by Puritanism which was of vital importance in his family. His mother later became the model for his antiquated Southern Belles and overprotective mothers in the plays. His boisterous father was perceived as a frightening and alien male presence by him, his sister and his mother. He later became the model for the same type of harsh, brutal characters in his plays, such as Big Daddy and Stanley Kowalski (Falk 155 f). Yet, not only his Puritan upbringing shaped his life, but also the fact that he grew up in the South of the United States, in the Mississippi Delta, and the region’s heat, its storms, floods, the division into social classes, the colourful imagery and rhythms of the language were to shape his setting and dialogue (Tischler 2).The uniqueness of the South along with its cultural and social characteristics is embodied in many of his plays, and the social roles appointed to the people living there offers an extensive basis of analysis for not only gender roles, but also the related conflicts. In addition to this, Williams was known as being homosexual and leading a very promiscuous life, especially with men much younger than him (Bauer-Briski 11). Homosexuality also plays a very important role in some of his plays, but, as it will be analysed later, even though it is the source of highly important conflicts in the play, it is only mentioned in a very subtle and careful manner.
The two plays A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof were chosen as the basis of the analysis of gender conflicts in Williams’ dramas, because they both represent not only very fruitful sources for gender conflicts, but also contrasting and unanimous elements on the issues. The Glass Menagerie was deliberately left out in this analysis even though it represents a good basis of analysis in terms of gender conflicts related to Southern culture, but it was found not suitable in terms of sexuality and especially homosexuality, as it entirely lacks elements of the latter, and homosexuality is regarded as a very important and interesting factor in the analysis of gender and its related conflicts.
In order to understand the gender roles and conflicts in the plays an analysis of Southern culture was regarded as being necessary, which was also of great concern to Williams as he states in the foreword to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof:

I once saw a group of little girls on a Mississippi sidewalk, all dolled up in their mothers’ and sisters’ castoff finery, old raggedy ball gowns and plumed hats and high-heeled slippers, enacting a meeting of ladies in a parlor with a perfect mimicry of polite Southern gush and simper. But one child was not satisfied with the attention paid her enraptured performance by the others, they were too involved in their own performances to suit her, so she stretched out her skinny arms and threw back her skinny neck and shrieked to the deaf heavens and her equally oblivious playmates, “ Look at me, loot at me, look at me!” And then her mother’s high-heeled slippers threw her off balance and she fell to the sidewalk in a great howling tangle of soiled white satin and torn pink net, and still nobody looked at her. I wonder if she is not, now, a Southern writer (6).

2 Theories on Gender
In linguistic terms, gender concerns substantives and is a vital component in the grammar of many languages.

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