08/02/18

Introduction to Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth

-Civil war has shaped the American culture and by extensionAmerican literature.

-Southern wealth and prosperous life stems from white plantations/slave owners. They enjoyed political
powerin a conservative culture. After the abolition of slavery, they had to face decadence and loss of
power, and their values were tampered with it.
-We except them to be stubborn and intolerant to changing values, to the other (man of color), to new
practices considered unethical (homosexuality/gigolo), to McCarthyism &paranoia of the red scare.

-Tennessee Williams uses a technique that is called the plastic theater: nonrealistic techniques
(sounds/noises/visual effects) that parallel the state of mind of the characters & the use of play back. +
He contributed to the creation of what is called the Southern Renaissance. + He looked retrospectively
and critically at the south, like his contemporaries(he touches on many issues at the same time: political
life, love, sex, social tensions, etc.).

-Postmodernism:fragmentary aspects in the text/ sounds/ visuals/unconsciousness/ multilayered text/

form and content work hand in hand.

-Eastern celebration/ Sunday: impactful element of Christianity/religion.

-The idea of castrationas it materializes intolerance and impossibility of procreating and

progressingsterility or barrenness of characters and therefore the society.

-Tension in 1950s: fear of the black man’s movement that would grant them rights which would
threaten the stability of the while heterosexuality community.

-Southern Gothic; subgenre in literature;it seeks to tackle issues in the south, issues like racism,
decadence through particular types of characters who are addicted to alcohol and mentally disturbed.
This manifests itself in this play through the ill-treatment of women, sexual oppression and characters
who are struggling with many issues, and whose description are exaggerated (amalgamating the
grotesque, incongruous, incompatible).

-The element of reality vs. illusionsuperposition.

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15/02/18

Act 1; scene 1 analysis (“A bedroom of an old-fashioned”“I left here the last
time”)
“A bedroom of an old-fashioned but still fashionable hotel somewhere along the Gulf Coast in a town
called St Cloud. I think of it as resembling one of those 'Grand Hotels' around Sorrento or Monte Carlo,
set in a palm garden. The style is vaguely 'Moorish'. The principal set-piece is a great double bed which
should be raked towards the audience. In a sort of Moorish corner, backed by shuttered windows, is a
wicker tabouret and two wicker stools, over which is suspended a Moorish lamp on a brass chain. The
windows are floor length and they open out upon a gallery. There is also a practical doorframe, opening
on to a corridor: the walls are only suggested.”
 Chiasmus: parallel structures with opposing meanings > a relationship that is not conventional,
expecting the unusual and the incongruous to take place. It sets the contradictory mood in the play.
 Referring to the Southern context.
 Luxury and extravagance.
 Exoticism/eccentricity
 Unrealistic aspect of the play
 To blur the limit/frontier between public life and private life there is a confusion and fusion
between what is private and intimate and what is public.

“On the great bed are two figures, a sleeping woman, and a young man awake, sitting up, in the trousers
of white silk pajamas. The sleeping woman's face is partly covered by an eyeless black satin domino to
protect her from morning glare. She breathes and tosses on the bed as if in the grip of a nightmare. The
young man is lighting his first cigarette of the day.”
 She lives in an ideal world and kind of tried to escape real life. She can't stand on the tension
happening around her.

“[Outside the windows there are heard the soft, urgent cries of birds, the sound of their wings. Then a
colored waiter, Fly, appears at the door on the corridor, bearing coffee-service for two. He knocks,
Chance rises, pauses a moment at a mirror in the fourth wall to run a comb through his slightly thinning
blond hair before he crosses to open the door.]”
 First manifestations of stage craft & theatrical devices > set the mood as a modernist play. Voices
come to parallel the mood of the character and also remind him audience that something bad is going
through the mind of the character.
 Introduced as belonging in a certain race with a specific inferior status.
 Care for appearance
 He’s getting old despite his youth> hint to age, character's fear of losing youth and aging.

“CHANCE: Aw, good, put it in there.”

 He is used to living in hotels and communicating with waiters > exercising his authority over the
waitermatter of hierarchy

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FLY: Hands kind of shaky this mawnin'?
He speaks slangs of Negroes > accentuate the character's background.
 The waiter is aware of the pressure cast upon Chance (threat of castration) > connection between
private life and exterior world.

FLY: Yes, suh, it's Easter Sunday religious celebration; resurrection of Christ > the way Christ was
subject to Crucifixion > public punishment: Heavenly's father’s threatening to castrate him

CHANCE [leaning out a moment, hands gripping the shutters]: Uh-huh . . .Onomatopoeic expression of
malaise

FLY: That's the Episcopal Church they're singin' in. The bell's from the Catholic Church.
 The hotel is placed between the 2 churches.
 Introducing a dichotomy/opposition in the play: Boss Finley & Chance.

FLY: I waited tables in the Grand Ballroom when you used to come to the dances on Saturday nights,
with that real pretty girl you used to dance so good with, Mr Boss Finley's daughter.
CHANCE: I'm increasing your tip to five dollars in return for a favor which is not to remember that you
have recognized me or anything else at all. Your name is Fly--Shoo, Fly. Close thedoor with no noise.
Materialistic vs emotional ties to 2 women: the princess vs. Heavenly
Reminder of youth
Reminder of the pressure put on him by Boss Finley.
 Fly sets the reason for the reason behind Chance's return to St Cloud
Pressure put by a powerful man: Boss Finley and Chance's fear of him

CHANCE: George, you're the only man I know that still says 'gee', 'golly', and 'gosh'.Outdated words:
southerners stick to old notions and idealshelp us to categorize them

SCUDDER: But you said 'How's Heavenly?' not 'How's my mother?' Chance, [Chance sips Coffee.] Your
mother died a couple of weeks ago . . .[Chance slowly turns his back on the man and crosses to the
window. Shadows of birds sweep the blind. He lowers it a little before he turns back to Scudder.]
Blaming: Chance is self-centred and careless angle of failure and negation
Feelings of guilt for abandoning his mother > shadows (non-realistic elements) are there to parallel
the mood of Chance in this context feeling of pain and guilt and suffering

SCUDDER: You were. A wire was sent you three days before she died, at the last address she had for you
which was General Delivery, Los Angeles. We got no answer from that and another wire was sent you
after she died, the same day of her death and we got no response from that either. Here's the Church
Record. The church took up a collection for her hospital and funeral expenses. She was buried nicely in
your family plot and the church has also given her a very nice headstone. I'm giving you these details in
spite of the fact that I know and everyone here in town knows that you had no interest in her, less than
people who knew her only slightly, such as myself.
Intensifying the blame because everyone hates Chance how much rejected and indescribable Chance
is.
Anticipate Chance to fail > there's no room for him to reach success

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22/02/18

01/03/18

Act 1; scene 2 analysis (“who are you?””the curtain closes”)

-The play is set on an atmosphere of tension, which resonates for a troubled climate, that of social
segregation + racism + notion of intolerance of the south (colored/communist/homosexual)  the fear
of the other

-Opening: A couple: segregated language: odd relationship.

-Many hints to the atmosphere  phenomenon of attraction/repulsion

-The kind of fear Tennessee Williams tries to show is through stage effects: visual effects/sound
unreal…we can hear the sound of birds …the song parallel the mood of the character (device)

-As far as the Princess is shown, she is unable to face reality. Hence, she keeps repeating the word “I
can’t remember” a failure that she tries to escape

-Difficulty to breathe & to remember  paradox: suffering a trouble in memory, yet set in opposition to
a young men the fear of aging is omnipresent

-In addition to this atmosphere of the social turmoil, the story for Princess is presented as a fairytale.

-Women in William’s novels are caring for their appearances  fear of aging

-“A big magnified insect”: she wants to appear as big and famoushaunted by success

 Animalized  the more Princess is belittled from Chance, the more we understand their
relationship that is based on money  revealed sarcastically through “male nurse” as referring
to a male nurse “but you are employed by me” lexical field of love is more like material
“salary, expense, bills”

-“I used to be the best looking” regret + loss + decline

-Both are much ill-at ease they cannot enjoy peace (the south is still segregating due to the past
events)

-Chance is persecuted for the damage he cost to Heavenly  exclusion + persecution (like
communism) even Scudder is asking him to leave

-Princess orders Chance “give me the phone”

-Trapped rabbit: foreshadowing he is going to trap Princess for using Hashish  the animal image
shows her naivety to evoke chance’s plan

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“For years they all told me that it was ridiculous of me to feel that I couldn't go back tothe screen or the
stage as a middle-aged woman. They told me I was an artist, not just a starwhose career depended on
youth. But I knew in my heart that the legend of Alexandra Del Lagocouldn't be separated from an
appearance of youth. . . . There's no more valuable knowledge than knowing the right time to go. I knew
it. I went at the right time to go.”

 Aging is presented as an obstacle

“RETIRED! Where to? To what? To that dead planet the moon. . . .There's nowhere else to retire to when
you retire from an art because, believe it or not, I Really was once an artist. So I retired to the moon, but
the atmosphere of the moon doesn't have Any oxygen in it. I began to feel breathless, in that withered,
withering country, of time coming After time not meant to come after, and so I discovered . . . Haven't
you fixed it yet?”

 Suffocating without art, she cannot find ways to live in this world; neither on earth nor
elsewhere

“And other practices like it, to put to sleep the tiger that raged in my nerves. . . . Why the unsatisfied
tiger? In the nerves' jungle? Why is anything, anywhere, unsatisfied, and raging? . . . Ask somebody's
good doctor. But don't believe his answer because it isn't . . . the answer . . . if I had just been old but you
see, I wasn't old. . . .I just wasn't young, not young, young. I just wasn't young any more. . .”

 As an artist she is not satisfied

-But she keeps returning to chance to satisfy her sexual instinctsshe keeps him to prevent aging

There's a thing called a close-up. The camera advances and you stand still and your head, your Face, is
caught in the frame of the picture with a light blazing on it and all your terrible history Screams while
you smile.

 Revealing her age and truthwhile smiling to the camera her life collapsesno more useful for the
cinemaretirement is the end of her careerlife

-The Eisenhower era: people that care for appearance

“white train of my gown, all the way up the forever”

She put herself in the body of a fairytale

-Redundancy of figures of speech: repeated words

-Lamentation: song occurs whenever the character feels ill at ease and suffers
-I mean now / want now …belittled childish  felt intimidatedshe wants to escape it through
making love.

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08/03/18

Act 2, scene 1 analysis (“she’s lying””for short intermission”)

BOSS: You're like your dead sister, Nonnie, gullible as my wife was. You don't know a lie if you bump into
it on a street in the daytime. Now go out there and tell Heavenly I want to see her.
 Heavenly is always referred to as a dead person: she's the incarnation of death. She’s dead to both
males as she lost virginity > idea of intolerance She belongs to the others who are rejected.

BOSS: Once for drunk drivin', once for a stag party you thrown in Capitol City that cost me five thousand
dollars to hush it up!
Corruption/ pursuit of happiness / ill-doings

[Charles turns on a coach lamp by the door. This marks a formal division in the scene. The light change is
not realistic; the light doesn't seem to come from the coach lamp but from a spectral radiance in the sky,
flooding the terrace. The sea wind sings, Heavenly lifts her face to it. Later that night may be stormy, but
now there is just a quickness and freshness coming in from the Gulf. Heavenly is always looking that
way, towards the Gulf, so that the light from Point Lookout catches her face with its repeated soft stroke
of clarity.
Instances of blurring limits between reality and illusion.
 Southerners live on the ideas of the past, and they're maladjusted to the current circumstances.
 Characters are disoriented/distributed > Southern Gothic: characters commit sins and feel lost, they
have deficiency.
 Harmony and interactive with nature: extravagant image because she's responding to the wind with
perception not as normally with hearing.
 Perceives images with non-plausible senses.
 She seeks harmony to escape cruel reality.
 Set and symphony of sounds (wind, palm trees) > reference to plastic theatre

At this point there might be a phrase of stately, Mozartian music, suggesting a court dance.
 Reference to real musician (real famous figures) > reality and fiction/illusion + seeking fame that is
undeserved while being too weak and corrupt.

BOSS: Honey, you say and do things in the presence of people as if you had no regard of the fact that
people have ears to hear you and tongues to repeat what they hear. And so you become a issue.
 As an intolerant conservative father

BOSS: A issue, a issue, subject of talk, of scandal--which can defeat the mission that—

 Scandal might ruin his campaign and career.

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Tomorrow, tomorrow morning, when the big after-Easter sales commence in the stores-- I'm gonna send
you--in town with a motor-cycle escort, straight to the Maison Blanche. When you arrive at the store, I
want you to go directly up to the office of Mr Harvey C. Petrie and tell him to give you unlimited credit
there. Then go down and outfit yourself as if you was--buyin' atrousseau to marry the Prince of
Monaco. . . .
Reference to real figures: blur limits between real and fiction (also between public and private lives).

BOSS [shouting]: You ain't going into no convent. This state is a Protestant region and a daughter in a
convent would politically ruin me.
Everything revolves around him: selfish and careless.

BOSS: A lot of people approve of taking violent action against corrupters. And on all of them that want to
adulterate the pure white blood of the South.
Intolerance and conservativeness of the South.

05/04/18

Act 2; scene 2 analysis (“A corner””Aunt Nonnie…”)

-A conversation between Chance and Princess
-Chance is aware of her handicap He has a further tool to blackmail her
-Escaping herself: open the shutters  she can’t admit her failure
-The repetition of the lamenting scene is in parallel with Princess’s struggle to adapt with reality where
she no longer can be a star
-Details in the description render the introductory scene realistic
-In the 2nd scene of Act 2, we are taken to another setting “a lounge” where Chance is meeting people he
knows the focus is on Chance

-There is light shed on Chance as the scene mirrors the prejudices of a Southern Small town (=the hate
towards Chance is reflected in this scene in the way he is excluded)

“There are Moorish arches between gallery and interior: over the single table, inside, is suspended
the same lamp, stained glass, and ornately wrought metal, that hung in the bedroom.”
 Comparison between the elements of the bedroom and those of the lounge

“Perhaps on the gallery there is a low stone balustradethat supports, where steps descend into the
garden, an electric-light standard with five branchesand pear-shaped globes of a dim pearly luster.
Somewhere out of the sight-lines an entertainerplays a piano or nova chord.”

 Emphasis on lightning (foreshadows the lightening that’ll be thrown on Chance’s life)

 Chance is judged by everyone in the lounge
 This excessive use of detail description (all elements that are present on the stage &
people’s costumes) This creates/renders realism of the scene, which means that we are
struck by it
 While the 1st scene is highly imaginary, the second one is realistic

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-Miss Lucy as well as other characters are here to judge Chance. She is introduced at first through a
paraphrase as “Boss Finley's mistress”She is under his manipulationAdultery & unfaithfulness

Miss Lucy is introduced by this name to remind us that she is one of the Boss’s belongingsshe is
representative of something negative/pejorative

“Boss Finley's mistress, Miss Lucy, enters the cocktail lounge dressed in a ball gown elaborately
ruffled and very bouffant like an antebellum Southern belle's. A single blonde curl is arranged to
switch girlishly at one side of her sharp little terrier face. She is outraged over something and her
glare is concentrated on Stuff who 'plays it cool' behind the bar.]”

Interesting selection of words; Williams wants us to feel the pressure of intolerance &
conservatism in small Southern town

War; we are talking about the Civil War (the antebellum south is the emblem of wealthiness). In
this context, the southern woman lived in an ideal world. Southern bell is an aristocratic woman
living on the ideas of the south

 Reminder of the context of the South (Southerners are unable to cut ties with the South
that is highly intolerant and conservative)
 Miss Lucy is likened to a Southern belle means that she is intolerant to the other (she lives
on the ideas of the past)
 The idea of exclusion is brought by the term of the Southern Belle.
 Chance’s way: bringing to the scene new values

-The other exists through different forms in the play; the black man, the homosexual, anyone who
behaves in uncommon ways or looks unfamiliar, etc.

 In this passage, we have hints to the South which is highly intolerant

“I wasn't allowed to sit at the banquet table”

 Segregation & hierarchy

“No. I was put at a little side-table, with a couple of state legislators an' wives. [She sweeps behind
the bar in a proprietary fashion.] Where's your Grant's twelve-year-old? Hey! Do you have a big
mouth? I used to remember a kid that jerked sodas at Walgreen's that had a big mouth. . . . Put
some ice in this. ... Is yours big, huh? I want to tell you something.”

 Strict codes of conduct

 If you do not conform to these codes, you are excluded Thus Chance’s exclusion

“MISS LUCY: I'm going to tell you just now. The Boss came over to me with a big candy Easter egg
for me. The top of the egg unscrewed. He told me to unscrew it. So I unscrewed it. Inside was a little
blue velvet jewel box, no not little, a big one, as big as somebody's mouth, too.”

Lucy as a docile and obedient mistress

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She is treated ironically “she is addressed with a candy egg” as if she were a child belittling her.
The boss despises his mistress (he is misogynistic)
His misogyny affects the ways he orders her to do thins
This relationship is one of materialism par excellence  the play is trimming with relations that
are based on materialism rather than true emotions
The simile: as big as someone’s mouth: she exists as a sexual object  an erotic connotation
The mouth translates Lucy’s character as a woman who cannot keep a secret & reporting other
people’s sayings (hearsays & gossiping)
 All of this reminds us of a small town in the South

“MISS LUCY: I open the jewel box an' start to remove the great big diamond clip in it. I just gotmy
fingers on it, and start to remove it and the old son of a bitch slams the lid of the box on myfingers.
One fingernail is still blue. And the Boss says to me, 'Now go downstairs to the cocktaillounge and
go in the ladies' room and describe this diamond clip with lipstick on the ladies'room mirror down
there. Hanh?'--and he put the jewel box in his pocket and slammed the doorso hard goin' out of my
suite that a picture fell off the wall.”

-Emblems showing that love is directly associated with material things rather than moral: jewelry box
-“Whose mouth? »metonymy (gossiping): southerners are more exposed to hearsay

 Irony: She is a Southern belle women who follows certain codes of conduct, yet uses
grotesque and vulgar words Wide gap between appearance & language Grotesque
situation meant to mock the woman  grotesque : too vulgar , incongruous for a southern
lady + Irony  the Boss’s reaction is somehow brutal and it shows, indirectly, his character
Evil politician
 Exaggeration in the force in which the boss slammed the door: Grotesque situation/ironical:
The boss offers her jewel, yet behaves in brutality (Delicacy Vs Barbarism)
 We are learning a lot through this indirect characterization about the Boss, his mistress and
the relationship that gathers them: corruption/manipulation a behaviour typical of
politicians
-Before Chance enters, there is a lot of gossiping about him.
-Aunt Nonnie& Lucy don’t cross each other; as the one leaves, the other enters the scene (they are
opposed at all levels). But, each will have a confrontation with Chance.
The character of Chance is revealed through different instances showing us various angles of his
personality; rumours, etc.

“AUNT NONNIE: I can't be seen talking to you. . . .”

Straight forward, doesn’t want to talk to him for fear of other’s talk + cares about appearances +
although she’s affectionate towards him she cannot talk to him because the conventionalities of the
society
Paradoxically, while Chance seems delighted to see Aunt Nonnie, she, in the other hand does not
wish to talk to him
Chance is unaware of the complexity of the situation
Aunt Nonnie cares for people’s attitudeshe lives on conventions as she wouldn’t ran the risk of
being seen around him

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She believes in the uncommonness of Chance (another form of exclusion: she is intolerant
despite the fact that she doesn’t despise him, but more than that likes him)
Aunt Nonnie does not speak of the details that made Chance excluded, she rather takes a
distance.
She asks Chance to be conformist in order to live by the codes of the town
She both blames him on his past & present Chance has no chance to be accepted in this town
for his past & present “[he is] living on wild dreams”
 This is the only sincere conversation/encounter that Chance had during the entire play
Aunt Nonnie appears in the scene for the purpose of interacting with Chance

«  AUNT NONNIE: Why, son  ?  »

Mother-son Relationship

-One who lives on the past, is on living on dreams.

“A light change has occurred which has made it a royal palm grove with a bench”

 Left alone, aside to enjoy some privacy + the light change (theatrical device)

“You know, and I know you know.”

The idea has gained much ground in St. Cloud  it’s well known.

Visual effects + Auditory effects  Dreamy atmosphere Vs Aunt Nonnie’ realistic mood

-She can’t talk about the details of his story of downfall and remains distant. Yet, says that they had to
live by St. Cloud’s norms “We have to live in St Cloud”

-She blames him twice:

1- What he did in the past
2- The way he lives now
3- His unavailability when they sent him letters and did not reply in his mother’s death

-Yet, there were some affectionate moments: Aunt Nonnie / son “AUNT NONNIE: People that loved you
expected just one thing of you--sweetness and honesty and . . . » +pleasant instances + his participation
in school  he was lacking that As long as he was pure / innocent, Aunt Nonnie will love him. Yet, she
refuses to talk about the conflict between him and Heavenly.

-Chance, however, talks about his past to create a balance between it and his decadent present because
he is uncertain about his past/future.

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12/04/18

Act 2, scene 3 analysis (“Miss Lucy with admirationcollapses”)

-The scene is invaded by boss as he is broadcasted on the television program

-The stage directions explain the place that characters take
There is a superposition of the present and the recorded past
-You can visit the play from a post-modernist aspect  Fragmented

BOSS [on TV screen]: Thank you, my friends, neighbors, kinfolk, fellow Americans. . . . I have told you
before, but I will tell you again. I got a mission that I hold sacred to perform in the Southland. When I
was fifteen I came down barefooted out of the red clay hills . . . . Why?Because the Voice of God called
me to execute this mission.
Echoes a historical background in the US. Since the colonial period, politicians have always used this
strategy of the missionary man (considered to have a sacred mission; they are sent by Godhaving a
divine mission)
As we are in the American context, people can easily identify themselves they conquer under the
pretext of Manifest Destiny: purification of the world & put an end to barbarism.
The boss’s plans are accepted as he is presenting himself as having a missionHe excludes all other
strategies
This utterance is overloaded with the concept of the missionary role/manifest destiny
The boss considers himself as one among those sent by God to purify the country (the land of the
south needs purification from its evil)

MISS LUCY [to Stuff]: He's too loud.

Miss Lucy always tries to silence him through certain means (turning the sound down)
As she turn down the volume, Stuff turns it on Ambivalence of attitudes
Lucy does not believe in the Boss (contradiction: though she is his mistress, she doesn’t trust him)

BOSS: And what is this mission? I have told you before but I will tell you again. To shield from pollution a
blood that I think is not only sacred to me, but sacred to Him.
The evil to be purified is the Black community
Accumulation of words referring to intolerance
What is meant by blood pollution (blood of blacks) for him, his town is contaminated with the
presence of blacks
The violence of the term (he uses pollution to talk about human beings)
Hateful/segregationist speech
The consequence of intolerance in the south
Boss considers himself as a leader as he uses a certain diction (mission, purify, etc.). A diction very
similar to that of presidents
Boss is legitimizing his mission and his project (such as American interventionism do; pretext of
missionary)
We can understand the Boss’s intention through the diction that he uses
Also, he attaches to people’s faith; use of religious diction so that he gains the sympathy of the
audience & he uses the arrogant language of politicians
His verbal violence is manifested in his use of “Black pollution”

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  IRONY: the parody of the American dream (ridiculing it through the manifestation of an image
that is subverted in this play. The boss who runs for a political status lives with his mistress and
has familial conflicts with his children (as opposed to Political figures who show union with their
families, who show the picture of the ideal family.

BOSS: Who is the colored man's best friend in the South? That's right . . .
Hateful language

-Superposition of two scenes: a life performance & a recorded one

BOSS: As you all know I had no part in a certain operation on a young black gentleman. I call that
incident a deplorable thing. That is the one thing about which I am in total agreement with the Northern
radical Press. It was a deplorable thing. However . . . I understand the emotions that lay behind it. The
passion to protect by this violent emotion something that we hold sacred: our purity of our own blood.
But I had no part in, and I did not condone the operation performed on the unfortunate
coloredgentleman caught prowling the midnight streets of our Capitol City. . . .
He divides the community into Blacks and Whites, Northerners and Southerners Further
emphasizes the division of the town into 2 parts
For him, there has been an opposition since early American history between South and North
He is oscillating between presenting an image of himself that he is a man of reason; thus wouldn’t
despise coloured man to the extent of castration, yet he always legitimizes this barbarous act.
Another division; their blood # our blood It is a matter of mixing and marrying
His emphasis on black translates his fear of Heavenly marrying Chance (he has been placed with the
lot of criminals; he is treated likely as blacks)
We should relate this speech not only to coloured people, but also to Chance
He uses “our” twice out of fear standing against any possibility of mixing two categories of people
Here, the severity of judgement in a southern town is divulged, which means that we come to the
evidence that Chance is threatened by his own uncommonness

MISS LUCY: Wait! . . . Chance, you can still go. I can still help you, baby.
Showing the corruption of Lucy

CHANCE [putting hands on Miss Lucy's shoulders]: Thanks, but no thank you, Miss Lucy. Tonight, God
help me, somehow, I don't know how, but somehow I'll take her out of St Cloud. I'll wake her up in my
arms, and I'll give her life back to her. Yes, somehow, God help me, somehow!
Illusion: how and somehow eliminating certainty and precision
He is not realistic; he lives on illusions
Resort to God: nobody wants to help him (the power of the Boss’s speech; power of discourse)
Chance is abandoned by everyone (the only one proposing help is Miss Lucy, yet she cannot be
reliable for reasons: she is easily manipulates/she will be betraying the Boss)
The town is x2 mentioned by the speakers; we are in a southern town and we care for the other

HECKLER [as voice on the TV]: Hey, Boss Finley! [The TV camera swings to show him at the back of the
hall.] How about your daughter's operation? How about that operation your daughter had done on her
at the Thomas J. Finley hospital here in St Cloud? Did she put on black in mourning for her appendix? . . .
The effect of Heckler’s question had the same effect of Lucy desiring to turn off the sound
It is a way to say that Boss is lying; Heckler reminds the Boss of his corrupt motivations

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Lucy brings an idea for which Heckler brings evidence
Asking interesting questions
 As if Finely is put in trial

BOSS: Will you repeat that question? Have that man step forward. I willanswerhis question.Where is he?
Have that man step forward, I will answer his question. . . . Last Friday . . . LastFriday, Good Friday. I said
last Friday, Good Friday . . . Quiet, may I have your attentionplease. . . . Last Friday, Good Friday, I seen a
horrible thing on the campus of our great StateUniversity, which I built for the State. A hideous straw-
stuffed effigy of myself, Tom Finley,was hung and set fire to in the main quadrangle of the college. This
outrage was inspired . . .inspired by the Northern radical Press. However, that was Good Friday.
TodayisEaster. I saythat was Good Friday. Today is Easter Sunday and I am in St Cloud.
Downfall of Finely after Heckler’s question
He is trying to evade the question to divert the audience’s attention
Ironically, the speech ends with a clause; Southerners hear what they want to hear
The question has been ignored; applause

[During this a gruesome, not-lighted, silent struggle has been going on. The heckler defended himself but
finally has been overwhelmed and rather systematically beaten. . . . The tight intense follow spot beam
stayed on Chance. If he had any impulse to go to the heckler's aid, he'd be discouraged by Stuff and
another man who stand behind him, watching him. . . . At the height of the beating, there are bursts of
great applause. . . . At a point during it, Heavenly is suddenly escorted down the stairs, sobbing, and
collapses.]
The coloured man and uncommon man need for purification from this threat of stability
Southerners reject uncommonness, yet accept lies (contradiction)
What is more important to southerners

 The Boss: Is a manipulator, a liar, an authority, a powerful and rich figure. He is a boss because
he is wealthy enough. He stands for ‘’money’’Money shapes the individuality and the identity
of people (you see people and identify their identity because of ‘’money’’). Tennessee Williams
always covers this kind of rich personality that if you dig deep you’ll see poorness in their
personality.

It is weird that personality is shaped according to something that comes and goes ‘‘money’’. Williams
enjoyed wealth but he knew that it doesn’t last.

-Heavenly's story with disillusionment, when she knew about her father’s mistress .

-Her mother was a ‘’front’’ a way to hide things. The wife dramatically functions as a cover.

Marriage is a way to show how successful and balanced someone is. Tennessee is homosexual, which
is why he shows marriage as a cover. Individuality happens when you accept yourself as you are with
your own demons and corruptness.

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