earticle

영어

Despite the financial success and the critical applause the major plays of Tennessee Williams have received, many of the plays often convey confused and contradictory attitudes towards sex. Within a single play, sex can be a positive assertion of life, a vigorous life-force, a destructive force that consumes and destroys human beings, a cause for atonement and a means of self-punishment, as well as a way to ward off time and death. Thus, sex is different things at different times. The effect of this is that the characters’ behavior sometimes appears inconsistent or unbelievable, and the play becomes ambiguous and contradictory. Williams does not offer any positive alternatives to his characters’ sexual attitudes or behavior, and no people or relationships can seem to be healthy, optimistic, mature, or even normal. No matter how compelling and powerful Williams’ plays might have been, they leave the audience and reader with a curiously unsatisfactory feeling about this sexual confusion. Consequently, it is likely that this problem keeps Williams from accomplishing much more dramatic achievements.