Comparing Tennessee William’s Life and Streetcar Named Desire and Glass Menagerie

Parallels in William’s Life and A Streetcar Named Desire and Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams is one of the greatest American playwrights. He was constantly shocking audiences with themes such as homosexuality, drug addictions, and rape. He broke free from taboos on such subjects, paving the way for future playwrights. He also was a very good writer. One of the things he is famous for is his dialogue, which is very poetic.

Williams wrote about his life. The Glass Menagerie is a very autobiographical play. A Streetcar Named Desire, although meant to a play that anyone can relate to, also contained characters and situations from his life. In both plays, the characters are drawn from his life. The other relationship I would like to discuss is the similarities between The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, which have similar characters and themes throughout them.

Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams, in 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. He had an older sister named Rose, who was born in 1909; his one younger brother, Dakin was born in 1919. Williams lived with his mother and her parents in small southern towns. His father was a traveling shoe salesman, who was rarely home. The first years of his life were very idyllic. His father was rarely around, so he wasn’t teased as much, and he enjoyed living with his grandparents. In fact, he went to stay with them after working in the factory in order to recuperate. He was very close to his sister, Rose, and took care of her when she was older. In 1918, Tom’s father got a job as the manager of a shoe company, in St. Louis. Tom hated the big city. His father constantly teased him about being a sissy, calling him Miss Nancy. His mothe...

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...plays run many common themes, often themes from Williams own life. He was a writer who broke taboos and wrote about depraved people, people going crazy and many other themes that weren’t considered appropriate at the time. His own life was very chaotic. He was always feeling guilty about his sister.

Bibliography A Streetcar Named Desire. By Tennessee Williams. Dir. Scot Whitney. Harlequin Productions, Olympia. September 1998.

2.“Remember Tennessee Williams.” Tom Sullivan. 21 June 2000. http://www.lambda.net/~maximum/williams.html Roudane, Mathew C. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams. New York: Cambridge Press, 1997 Williams, Tennessee. “The Glass Menagerie”. Anthology of American Literature: From Realism to the Present. By Tennessee Williams. Ed. McMichael, George et. al. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2000. 1445-