earticle

영어

This paper will review the two heroines’ salvation in Tennessee Williams’ works, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Williams is admired for his ability to create memorable female characters because of his miserable childhood background. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche De Bois, feeling trapped by Southern tradition, resorts to promiscuity to compensate for her guilty conscience following her young and adored husband’s suicide, which she felt responsible for.
Unable to face the world of reality by herself because of this tragedy, she pursues protection and salvation even from strangers but is defeated by Stanley who stands for reality. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Margret, victimized by her poor environment, has strong will-power and falsely claims she is pregnant to her father-in-law in order to get fortune and his favor. Through these benefits she achieves salvation not for herself but her husband. Blanche is blind to the reality of her situation and victimized, but Margaret realizes her situation and establishes a bright world with her love.
In the earlier works, the female heroines are lost before finding salvation. But in the later works,
the female heroines fight back to escape from illusion and achieve reality. (Hanseo University)