How and Why Is the Grotesque Used in Tennessee Williams’ a Streetcar Named Desire?
How and why is the Grotesque Used in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire?
Throughout this semester, we were introduced to varying degrees of literary styles and themes. From the epiphanies discovered through American Realism, to the skepticism explored through Literary Modernism, to the conflicts of social conformity and individualism approached by a Post-Modernistic America and its writers. We have had the great opportunity of being exposed to individuals who questioned and pushed the boundaries of creativity and expression. Tennessee Williams was an author and playwright who balanced the enigmatic, macabre, and often cruel disintegration of his characters with a poetic grace. He became the keystone of a style that is known as Southern Gothic.
A Streetcar Named Desire became the quintessential manifestation of the grotesque through the unraveling of the “Old South”. More specifically, his themes on the conflict between the “sensitive, non-conformist” individual against conventional society, the disintegration of the southern woman, and the divergence between southern gentiles and northern brutality to which all of Williams’ characters contributed to in some degree.
The grotesque style of literature supplies the reader with a historical as well as social perspective. This provides a metaphorical reference to the “dying” South and the struggle to exist against the progressive ideals of the North, all the while, fraught with trying to keep the Southern identity and dignity intact. It is stated that “A common description (of the grotesque) has to do with causation: Southern grotesque is often said to be the literary aftermath of historical misfortune.” (Presley 37).
If we take into account the surrounding setting of the play, “…a two-story corner building on a street in New Orleans which is named Elysian Fields and runs between the L & N tracks and the river (Elysian Fields is a New Orleans street at the northern tip of the French
Throughout this semester, we were introduced to varying degrees of literary styles and themes. From the epiphanies discovered through American Realism, to the skepticism explored through Literary Modernism, to the conflicts of social conformity and individualism approached by a Post-Modernistic America and its writers. We have had the great opportunity of being exposed to individuals who questioned and pushed the boundaries of creativity and expression. Tennessee Williams was an author and playwright who balanced the enigmatic, macabre, and often cruel disintegration of his characters with a poetic grace. He became the keystone of a style that is known as Southern Gothic.
A Streetcar Named Desire became the quintessential manifestation of the grotesque through the unraveling of the “Old South”. More specifically, his themes on the conflict between the “sensitive, non-conformist” individual against conventional society, the disintegration of the southern woman, and the divergence between southern gentiles and northern brutality to which all of Williams’ characters contributed to in some degree.
The grotesque style of literature supplies the reader with a historical as well as social perspective. This provides a metaphorical reference to the “dying” South and the struggle to exist against the progressive ideals of the North, all the while, fraught with trying to keep the Southern identity and dignity intact. It is stated that “A common description (of the grotesque) has to do with causation: Southern grotesque is often said to be the literary aftermath of historical misfortune.” (Presley 37).
If we take into account the surrounding setting of the play, “…a two-story corner building on a street in New Orleans which is named Elysian Fields and runs between the L & N tracks and the river (Elysian Fields is a New Orleans street at the northern tip of the French
Citations: Baym, Nina, Jerome Klinkowitz, and Patricia B. Wallace. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7th ed. Vol. E. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2007. Print. (2193) Presley, Delma E. "The Moral Function of Distortion in Southern Grotesque." Editorial. South Atlantic Bulletin May 1972: 37. JSTOR. Web. 9 Apr. 2012. . Ribkoff, Fred, and Paul Tyndall. "On the Dialects of Trauma in Tennessee Williams ' A Streetcar Named Desire." JSTOR. JSTOR, 17 Aug. 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. (327)