Childhood memories heavily influence our writing styles and story telling abilities, as adults. Some talented authors find more inspiration from their more difficult childhood experiences, such as Tennessee Williams. Tennessee Williams’ childhood was plagued by disease, addiction and ignorance. The many challenges he faced, throughout his childhood, allowed him to developed his creativity, and pushed him to become a descriptive and influential playwright. Some of Williams‘ most haunting memories inspired his greatest literary works: The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Streetcar Named Desire. Looking at Williams’ young life, it is evident that his later writings were affected by his difficult childhood.
At the age of five, Williams began his journey down a rugged path. At this young age, Williams was diagnosed with Bright’s Disease (Gross 79). The disease paralyzed his legs for two years, making him unable to consort with other children. This long period of inactivity had permanent effects on his mental development. Despite the negative affects, the disease allowed Williams to discover his love of story telling. Being constricted to his bedroom, Williams entertained himself by using his imagination. He began to imagine elaborate stories (each had different characters, costumes and settings)(Hayman 2). This is when Williams discovered his exceptional ability to create stories. He began sharing his stories with Rose, his sister and only friend (12). Williams and Rose had a very close relationship. Because they were both entangled in the dark complications of the adult world, they looked to each other for acceptance and comfort.
Williams’ father was an alcoholic and very abusive (physically and verbally...
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...ughout Williams’ plays, there are common themes: the failures of the family structure, failures of fathers, broken promises, and personal failure (250). These same themes had poisoned Williams’ life, but because of them he found inspiration. Through his creativity and passion, he created astonishing literary works. Williams put his heart and soul into his writings, and exposed a great deal of himself in his plays. Williams died in 1983, but he lives within each of his play. He will never be forgotten.
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Beahm, George. Stephen King from A to Z: An Encyclopedia of His Life and Work.
Kansas City, Mo. Andrews &McMeel, 1995. Print.
Gross, Robert, ed. A Casebook: Tennessee Williams. New York, NY. Routledge, 2002.
Print.
Hayman, Ronald. Tennessee Williams: Everyone Else Is an Audience. Conneticut. Yale
University Press, 1993. Print.
Bibliography A Streetcar Named Desire. By Tennessee Williams. Dir. Scot Whitney. Harlequin Productions, Olympia. September 1998.
Tennessee Williams is one the major writers of the mid-twentieth century. His work includes the plays, The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. One theme of The Glass Menagerie is that hopeful aspirations are followed by inevitable disappointments. This theme is common throughout all of Williams' work and throughout his own life as well. It is shown through the use of symbols and characters.
Compared to other authors, Tennessee Williams' personal life and experiences were the inspiration for his plays. He used his past experiences as a way to universalize them through the means of the stage. In this manner, his life is incorporated in each and every piece of his literature. As a youngster, Williams spent most of his childhood growing up in the South, surrounded by its genteel culture. Williams was a rather delicate and sickly child, he was plagued with several childhood diseases, which prevented him attending a regular school. He experienced culture shock at the age of 12 when his family suddenly uprooted him to St. Louis, MO so that his father could work at a shoe factory. After Williams finished high school, he attended the University of Missouri for three years, but dropped out when he failed a class. His father secured a position for him at the shoe factory, where he worked for almost two years Williams worked at the shoe factory during the daytime, and spent his nights writing poems, stories, and plays. During that time p...
Spignesi, Stephen J. The Essential Stephen King : A Ranking Of The Greatest Novels, Short
Tennessee Williams was without doubt a master playwright of the twentieth century who used his own life deceptions, abandonment, and desires to escape from his world as inspirations for his writings. Despite of his drug addictions, homosexuality, and depression, Williams became a pioneer in the exposition of themes that might have been looked as an offense for the society of that time. Even though his themes were marked as Taboos, he never stopped stating his experiences the way he knew better; through the winds of writing. Williams has left behind a great legacy encouraging writers no to be afraid of telling the truth, because undoubtedly, his genius was in his honesty and in the perseverance to tell his stories.
Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams, grew up in the South which accounts for most of his plays taking place in the South. He was born on March 26, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi to Cornelius Coffin and Edwina Dakin Williams. Cornelius was a traveling and was was out of town for a majority of Tennesse’s childhood. When he was home, he was very unsupportive of his son’s creative interests, especially his writing. He would even call Tennessee “Miss Nancy” to poke fun at his son’s desire to write instead of play sports like the stereotypical boy should. Tennessee was able to receive support from his mother who encouraged him to write. He attended the University of Missouri where he received high honors in all his courses except for ROTC which he failed. After school, he worked in a shoe factory and wrote during the night until 1934 when he had a nervous breakdown and had to quit his job in order to recuperate. In 1938, he attended the University of Iowa and was awarded a Bachelor of the Arts degree, after which he began writing as a career. His major works, some of which were turned into films and many performed on Broadway, include “A Glass Menagerie...
out of my roles as a husband, a father, a writer and a lover” (King 208). Stephen King is a
There are various ways writers can evaluate their techniques applied in writing. The genre of writing about writing can be approached in various ways – from a process paper to sharing personal experience. The elements that go into this specific genre include answers to the five most important questions who, what, where, and why they write. Anne Lamott, Junot Diaz, Kent Haruf, and Susan Sontag discuss these ideas in their individual investigations. These authors create different experiences for the reader, but these same themes emerge: fears of failing, personal feelings toward writing, and most importantly personal insight on the importance of writing and what works and does not work in their writing procedures.
Tennessee Williams was one of the greatest American dramatists of the 20th century. Most of his plays take us to the southern states and show a confused society. In his works he exposes the degeneration of human feelings and relationships. His heroes suffer from broken families and they do not find their place in the society. They tend to be lonely and afraid of much that surrounds them. Among the major themes of his plays are racism, sexism, homophobia and realistic settings filled with loneliness and pain.1 Tennessee Williams characters showed us extremes of human brutality and sexual behavior.2 One of his most popular dramas was written in 1947, and it is called A Streetcar Named Desire.
Thomas Lanier Williams III, now known as Tennessee Williams, wrote many famous plays that are still popular today. Williams’ family troubles caused inspiration for most of his writings. He became famous for the plays, novels, poems, and essays he wrote(Pbs). William’s was a contributor to the 20th-century American playwrights (Poetry Foundation). Tennessee Williams used his experiences from childhood to write his magnificent plays by portraying his own family troubles onto paper, which brought his characters to life. Tennessee Williams used his brilliance and individual agony to become one of the most famous American playwrights but was tortured by his inner demons, homosexuality, depression, and substance abuse.
Writing can be a very difficult process for those who do not know how to go about constructing
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Throughout history, writing has had many various uses that have helped record information from history to the present day. Writing has obtained many different uses as to how and what we use writing today. When writing was formed in 3200 B.C. it was used to record and communicate. We have since then used writing for numerous issues such as recording information in which we may learn about the past, and for poetry or literature for people, both children and adults, to read and learn from. People throughout history and today even use writing for religious reasons such as writing out a prayer to God or even taking note on what has happened or talked of in the sermon.
1. Beahm, George. America’s Best Loved Boogeyman Stephen King. Andrews McMeel Publishing Kansas City 1998.
Tennessee Williams is most related to the character of Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He had suffered many traumatic experiences in his childhood, including having an alcoholic father, constantly moving because of his father's job and becoming an outcast at school due to an illness (Contemporary Authors Online). He was quiet, shy and withdrawn into...