Tennessee illiams' "Streetcar Named Desire" & social class theories of Karl Marx
This paper presents a detailed examination of Tennessee illiams' "Streetcar Named Desire. The writer of this paper holds the play up to be examined under the light of social and class theories as ascribed to by Karl Marx. There were two sources used to complete this paper.

Marxism in Art

Many times authors use their works o purposely display a social theory or message. In Tennessee illiams' A Streetcar Named Desire, the author appears to have stumbled across a perfect example of the class distinction that Karl Marx, the famous social theorist" wanted denounced with his Marxism theories.

This play is a perfect example of the theory Marx professed for several reasons. It is based in America, which is a capitalist country, it is about the working poor and it depicts a class difference within the same family. Stanley is married to….

Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie," is a portrayal of the fragile psyches of its characters -- an arrangement of tiny, delicate glass figurines whose essence of life can be shattered very easily. This arrangement takes place in a cramped apartment in St. Louis, inhabited by Amanda Wingfield, her son Tom, and daughter Laura, the husband having deserted the family several years ago. Another character, perhaps the most stable, is Jim O'Connor, a former schoolmate of Tom and Laura.
The play is really a representation of Tom's memory as he admits at the beginning of the play; everything flows from his memories. Amanda vacillates between moments of manic activity and languid recollections of her past southern heritage. She boasts of all the gentlemen callers she has had, and the cotillions she graced. She continually questions her daughter about any dates she might have; and, "how many callers she will be seeing." Laura….

Tennessee Williams
iography

Tennessee Williams was born as Thomas Lanier Williams on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. His parents were Cornelius Coffin, a shoe salesman, and Edwina Dakin Williams, the daughter of a minister. The playwright's home life was never peaceful. His parents' turbulent fights frightened him and his two siblings. After some years in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the young Tennessee's parents moved to St. Louis in 1918. It was here that he encountered his first publishing success in the form of a $5 prize for an essay entitled "Can a Good Wife e a Good Sport?" (Cash 2003). His "Vengeance of Nitocris" was published a year later in Weird Tales. Williams was profoundly influenced by an Ibsen play, "Ghosts," that he saw during 1929 after entering the University of Missouri. This was his influence to be a playwright. His father however forced him away from college to enter the shoe selling….

Another theme that tends to occur in many of the main plays is that of the outsider or the marginalized, sensitive individual who feels an outcast in society. The central theme on which he based most of his plays is, "the negative impact that conventional society has upon the "sensitive nonconformist individual" (Haley, D.E). This theme can possibly be linked to Williams' homosexuality in a time when homosexuals were not accepted and discriminated against. This was also to lead to problems such as his alcoholism, which is often echoed in characters in his plays.

Williams had a relationship with Frank Merlo, his secretary until 1961, when Merlo died. After his death Williams entered a stage of deep depression. This was also exacerbated by critical reviews of his work and by the censure of his lifestyle by a conservative public.

A play that explores the theme of homosexuality in society and also critiques….

Tennessee Williams reflect his personal struggles and serve as vehicles for poignant social commentary. From "Glass Menagerie" to "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" to "A Streetcar Named Desire," Williams served up a set of masterpieces that delighted critics and audiences alike. His screenplays are among some of the most famous in American history, as big name film stars like Elisabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas, and Paul Newman filled his leading roles. Plays like "A Streetcar Named Desire," for which Williams earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1948, unearthed unpleasant realities in American family and social life. Filled with irony, dark humor, and symbolism, "A Streetcar Named Desire" remains one of the most significant screenplays in American literary history.
Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911, in Columbus Missouri. In 1939 began using the name Tennessee. His childhood was filled with turmoil and struggle, which prompted Williams to weave….

menagerie REVISED
Prince, don't ask me in a week / or in a year what place they are;

I can only give you this refrain: / here are the snows of yesteryear?

Francois Villon, c. 1461

"here are the snows of yesteryear?" asks Tennessee illiams in the opening screen of The Glass Menagerie (401), quoting a poem by Francis Villon. illiams explains in the production notes to this famous play that he has left in the manuscript a device omitted from the "acting version" of the play (illiams 395), a series of messages projected on screens, some verbal, some pictorial, that prompt and reflect the action on stage. illiams sums up the action in two lines before those notes as, preparation for a gentleman caller, and "the gentleman calls" (394). This summary is so understated as to suggest a possible joke, because The Glass Menagerie is such a rich a play that those lines….

illiams works often focuses on destruction and violence but one play that seems to garner the most attention is the Glass Menagerie.
One character worth mentioning is Jim, whose simple and kind nature make him unique in the play. He is optimistic and full of hope and this has the greatest affect on Laura. ith her, illiams elevates him to become a positive influence to help her move beyond her extraordinary shyness. She needs this because the only other people she interacts with are her brother and mother, two people we would never consider to be positive influences. The short time he is with her, Jim helps Laura move away from her shyness. He encourages her to be more social and he tells her, "People are not so dreadful when you know them" (1013). He also says, "everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems….

Glass Menagerie
Tennessee illiams's play The Glass Menagerie is about the three members of the ingfield family, Tom, Laura, and their mother Amanda. They live together and have done so since the loss of the ingfield patriarch. This family dynamic is very dysfunctional and the three serve to harm one another more than provide support as a family unit with the exception of Laura who tries to provide positivity in her home but is unable to do so because of the toxicity occurring between her family members. Tom and Laura are both unhappy young people who are unsatisfied in their lives largely because of the way in which they have been raised. Their mother Amanda is similarly dissatisfied but unlike the others she believes there is still a chance for the three of them to achieve social mobility and achieve the financial and sociological elevation that she believes they are….

She does not need to be smart, only pretty and popular, and she does not play a part in decision making or political thought. In effect, she is empty-headed and boy crazy, and that seems to epitomize how these authors see the women in their stories. They are not too bright, and must leave all the "important" decisions to men who can understand them. It is not a very flattering way to be portrayed.
In conclusion, these two women exemplify the attitudes about women in the South. They are "fragile" and emotional creatures who are to be pampered and humored. They must be kept unaware of "real" life because they are too delicate to deal with it effectively. Both of these women's personality problems come as a result of these archaic southern beliefs about women and their place in society. Amanda lives in the past unable to cope with family….

tragic characters in Tennessee Williams' Glass Menageries perhaps the most tragic is Amanda, for she has both expectations and little if any chance of seeing them fulfilled. She is afflicted with all the elements that Arthur Miller attributes to the hero of modern dramas, especially with regard to being at odds with her social environment. Her son Tom, though miserable, has expectations -- a future in the merchant marines and an opportunity to see the world, and he has the chance to fulfill those expectations. Laura her daughter on the other hand is absolutely lacking in expectations. Taking few chances besides the ones her mother puts upon her, she aspires for little, so whatever fall she may take won't be so bad. The world has dealt her a tough hand, but she has accepted this. For Laura the imaginary world of her glass menagerie is just fine.
Amanda is in….

Glass Menagerie by Tennessee illiams, Laura ingfield, a grown woman, kneels on the floor playing with glass figurines like a child. She envisions a dismal future for herself that includes total withdrawal from the outside world where bad things constantly happen and positive experiences are rare. The rest of Laura's family, who are kindred-spirits in hopelessness, share Laura's fatalistic view of life. "Unlike most of illiams's other works, which are charged with sensationalism and sex, this story holds the audience by the revelation of quiet and ordinary truths. This play, unique among illiams's dramas, combines poetic and unrealistic techniques with grim naturalism to achieve a gossamer effect of compassion, fragility, and frustration, typical of Tennessee illiams at his most sensitive and natural best." (Bloom, Tennessee illiams's the Glass Menagerie 41)
The Glass Menagerie is the story of the ingfield's a dysfunctional family that has surrendered to depression and given up on….

Laura Wingfield, Tennessee Williams' Subsumed and Symbolic Self in the Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie, the famous play written by Tennessee Williams in 1944, is a story that centers on the life of 20th century Americans evolving in a dynamic environment where social changes have been taking place (Cash, 2004). These social changes involve the individual's assertion of himself/herself against the norms or mores imposed by the society. Issues like independence, the phenomenon of broken families, and individualism are likewise discussed through the character and point-of-view of Tom Wingfield, often identified as Williams' representation (or real character) in the said play.

Although Glass Menagerie centers its attention on Tom, another character, Laura Wingfield, Tom's sister, emerges as another powerful individual in the story. Far from being assertive and mobile like Tom in the play, Laura is identified as the anti-thesis of Tom, seeking comfort in isolation caused by a sense of….

Sophocles, Shakespeare, And alt illiams
Many great writers -- including these three, Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Tennessee illiams -- use illusion in their narratives. This paper will present some instances and passages in which these writers employ illusion in their work.

Sophocles' and Illusion

Interestingly, author Joe Park Poe notes in his book (Heroism and Divine Justice in Sophocles' Philoctetes) that in the plays Antigone and Philoctetes, "The common quality…might be inadequately described as a lack of illusion" (Poe, 1974, p. 6). Instead of illusion as a device, Poe sees "pessimism" and "suffering" in those plays rather than attempts at illusion. The way Sophocles treats his heroes in these two plays is "…variously pathetic, ironic, brutally realistic and perhaps a dozen other adjectives" (Poe, p. 6).

Meanwhile author Mark Ringer disputes Poe's assertions in Ringer's book, Electra and the Empty Urn: Metatheater and Role Playing in Sophocles. According to Ringer, Sophocles' Theban Plays are "flickering….

Laura is also extremely fearful and anxious about disappointing her mother. She says, "When you're disappointed, you get that awful suffering look on your face, like the picture of Jesus' mother in the museum! I couldn't face it" (Williams PAGE #). She wants to please her mother, but she cannot, and that helps reinforce her insecurities as well. Laura has nothing she is good at, and her mother does not help her discover her strengths, she capitalizes her weaknesses and victimizes her daughter.
Tom is the only family member to get away from the toxic environment of the small apartment, but he cannot fully forget Laura and her tragic life. He says at the end of the play, "Oh Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!" (Williams). He loves her, but not enough to help her get away….

illiams and His ork
illiams used the theater as a way to vent his own heart -- as Lahr notes, the playwright produced works that allowed him "to be simple, direct and terrible" (Lahr xiv). Thus, illiams' plays were "an emotional autobiography" (Lahr xiv). Beginning with his first success, The Glass Menagerie, illiams showed that he would draw from his own life and experiences to put something dramatic on the stage to which people would respond. It was his way of talking to the world and opening up.

Some of the unique things we learn about illiams' life are the fact that the more he tried to open up and show his own heart on the stage, the more his real heart disappeared and became a "leftover" thing (Lahr 377). His writing became his real life in a sense, and his real life became a scrap -- a shell. illiams would also….