The "soft people" in Tennessee Williams plays

1.  Table of contents  

1.  Table of contents 2  

2.  Introduction 4  Introduction.......................................................................................................................4

3.  The character categories in Williams plays 4  

3.1  Southern Belle 4  

3.2  Rebel dreamer-failer 5  

3.4  Naive healthy yea-sayer 5  

3.5  Brutal and coarse man 5  

3.6  Average American 5  

4.  The image of the world in Williams plays 6  

5.  Characterization of the category of soft people 7  

5.1  The inner selves of the soft people 7  

5.1.1  Soft people and their need for help 8  

5.1.2  Soft people and other characters 9  

5.2  The outward appearance of soft people 9  

6.  Specified analysis of different soft people 10  

6.1  Laura 11  

6.2  Tom 15  

6.3  Blanche 18  

6.4  Brick 25  

7.  Comparison 34  

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7.1  Illusion and mental disposition 34  

7.2  Abuse of alcohol 35  

7.3  Dispel of problems and lying 35  

7.4  Isolation 36  Isolation......................................................................................................................36

7.5  Youth and time 36  

8.  Conclusion 36  

9.  Bibliography 38  

9.1  Literature used for the paper 38  

9.2  Further reading 38  

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2. Introduction

In this written paper I am going to deal with the topic of soft people in Tennessee Williams’ dramas. First I will give a general introduction to the quality of soft people. It will be explained what kind of characters are described with this term. A general characterization of them, of the other characters and the general idea and image of the world which is created in Williams’ dramas will be given. Afterwards the results will be specified at the examples of f our characters belonging to the category of soft people. At the end of this paper I will give a personal evaluation of the conception of the soft people.

3. The character categories in Williams’ plays

Francis Donahue 1 gives a very helpful listing of character types in

Tennessee Williams’s plays. She differentiates between five different character types. Two of them are subcategories of the so-called soft people. The other character types represent the soft people’s antagonists in Williams’ dramas.

3.1 Southe rn Belle

The first type Donahue lists is that of the fragile, pathetic Southern woman (Belle) who is marked by a gentle soul and the inability to cope with her problems of living. The typical Southern Belle was brought up according to the traditions of the Southern States of the USA, a tradition which is dead at the time the plays are set. Therefore the characters of this type all try to live in the past and they crack up when confronted with the stress of their everyday life. The Southern Belle belongs to the category of soft people. Examples for figures belonging into this category are Blanche and Laura.

1 Donahue, Francis, The Dramatic World of Tennessee Williams, New York, 1964.

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3.2 Rebel dreamer-failer The second variety of soft people Donahue calls the rebel dreamer-failer type. Characters belonging to this category are revolting against the demands put on them by society or their family. As the term ‘failer’ implies, their rebellion usually fails in some way or other. Like the Southern Belle they are dreamers who (want to) live in a world of illusions. Examples for this category are Brick (Cat on a hot Tin Roof) and Tom Wingfield (The Glass Menagerie).

3.4 Naive, healthy yea-sayer

The third character type is the naive, healthy yea-sayer of the universe. An example for this category is Stella who despite her traditional Southern education chose a life with her brutal, uneducated husband and who finds compensation for her husband Stanley’s brutality in his sexual potency.

3.5 Brutal and coarse man

Stanley, on the other hand, belongs to the fourth category of character types. He represents the brutal and coarse type of a man, a male animal dominated by sexual potency and marked by physical strength. Another character fitting into this category is Big Daddy who was reckless in his craving for power and accumulating richness (Cat on a hot Tin Roof).

3.6 Average American

The last character type is the average American who conforms to the dictates of society. Mitch (A Streetcar named Desire) and Jim O’Connor (The Glass Menagerie) belong to this category. In comparison to other characters in the plays they appear to be rather uninteresting. Concerning the aspect of strength or weakness they are in between the soft (and weak) people and the strong characters in Williams’ plays.

As said before type one and two belong to the category of soft people. Later on, a more accurate outline of the character features of the soft people will be

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given. But first, we will have a look at the world those characters live in in Williams’ plays. 2

4. The image of the world in Williams’ plays

We already got an overview of the different types of characters that appear in Tennessee Williams’s plays. We will now try to find out, what the world in Williams’ plays looks like. Principally we can divide the Williams-world into two main sections. On the one hand we have the world of illusions and its representatives, namely the soft people. On the other hand we have the so- called real world or reality and its representatives. These are the antagonists of the soft people.

As a principle the world of illusions and the real world are incompatible and collide when soft people and their antagonists get into contact with one another. The concept of the real world always proves to be the dominant one. The soft people have to try to fit into this world. They can either be successful in their efforts to do so or – which is more often the case - they fail.

The soft people are sensitive, fragile people who need a warm and comforting environment. Accordingly the world of illusions they create is a world of romance, shelter, arts, beauty, love and friendship.

The real world is dominated by people who are strong, reckless, sometimes even coarse and brutal. There are two main categories of values: Materialistic values and sensual values. Money and career are the primary aims for many of the Williams characters. For some (like Stanley) sexuality is of equal value or even more important.

Accordingly, the real world in Williams’s plays is marked by values such as financial success, sexual potency, health, willpower and also values like family and children. It’s a demanding and reckless world which has no mercy and understanding for people who do not fit into this world.

2 Donahue, Francis, p. 229 f.

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5. Characterization of the category of soft people

5.1 The inner selves of the soft people

What does the expression soft people mean? First of all, one has to say that it does refer as well to the outward appearance as to the soul of the figures. The expression soft could be replaced by weak, as well. For the soft people are actually also weak people. Their souls are fragile and gentle. They are dreamers, failer-types, unable to cope with the real world. Esther Merle Jackson 3 calls them anti heroes (p.68), non-beings (p.69) and negative saints (p.72). She describes them as figures who suffer from an inner division, a fragmentation of the character, which reduces them to un-beings caught in a destructive life process which is marked by a fusion of pessimism and mysticism. They are objects of pity and terror and emotional, spiritual and moral cripples. Link calls them weak and helpless creatures who suffer from and fail to cope with the reality of their lives. Therefore they are forced to live in a world of illusions. 4 Köhler 5 describes them as lonesome, neurotic individuals who are on a tightrope walk between reality and phantasy, who live in a constant contradiction between society and individual and whose contact with the real world eventually breaks them. 6 This corresponds to a remark that Maggie (“Cat on a hot Tin Roof”) makes about the soft people. According to her they have the “charm of the defeated”. The question that now appears is why are they thus inwardly divided, helpless and neurotic? On the one hand they certainly have a character with a weak, neurotic disposition. Köhler claims that they are passive and enduring people with a strong tendency towards self- 3 Jackson, Esther Merle, The Broken World of Tennessee Williams, Milwaukee, 1966. 4 Link, Franz H., Tennessee Williams’ Dramen: Einsamkeit und Liebe, Darmstadt, 1974. p. 19 5 Köhler, Klaus, “Psychodiagnose und Gesellschaftsanalyse im Bühnenwerk von Tennessee Williams” in: Brüning, E., Köhler, K. , Scheller, B. (eds.); Studien zum amerikanischen Drama nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg, Berlin, 1977.

(p. 54-104) 6 Köhler, Klaus, p. 35 f.

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deception. He thinks that their psychical disposition makes them basically unable to tackle the problems they have with their environment. He has the opinion that they are already defeated when entering the play. 7 Consequently their psychical disposition does not allow them to fight. Therefore, the only possible reaction soft people can show to social pressure is escapism.

In addition, this basic disposition is supported and enhanced by the traditional Southern education those people get and which determines their values and morals. Soft people reach for higher values, superior things of the mind and the spirit like arts, literature, languages and refined manners and they despise people who merely follow their basic instincts and who lack higher education. Soft people dream of ideals. These ideals, of course, are based on their traditional Southern values and morals. 8

5.1.1 Soft people and their need for help

As mentioned before, these ideals, morals and values which the soft people possess due to their education are incompatible with the real world, as the tradition of the old South is descending and dying. The world the soft people are confronted with in Tennessee Williams’ plays has no sense for the demands of the soft people. 9 Therefore they are outsiders, doomed to fail in the real world, at least when they remain on their own. In order to escape this trap of life the soft people find themselves in, they need somebody to hold them and protect them, someone who is more down to earth than they are and who can cope with the real world. 10 In all the plays of Tennessee Williams there is but one “soft man” (Brick) who succeeds in finding such a helping and guarding person (Maggie). All the other soft people fail to do so and suffer strong 7 Köhler, Klaus, p. 101 8 Link, Franz, p. 26 f.

Köhler, Klaus, p. 101 9 Köhler, Klaus, p. 96 10 Link, Franz, p. 20

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