Comparing Tennessee William’s Life and Streetcar Named...

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†¦show more content†¦During the depression, he worked for his father’s shoe factory. It was a horrible time for Tom. He hated working there and felt that those three years were wasted time (Roudane). At the age of 16, Tom published a story for the first time. It was in response to the question, â€Å"Can a Good Wife be a Good Sport?† He took third place in the contest and won 5 dollars. In 1937, his first play, Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay, was produced in Memphis. After writing a series of other plays that weren’t so successful, he hit it big with The Glass Menagerie. This play was originally called â€Å"The Gentleman Caller†, and was turned down as a screenplay. He was 34 when he wrote it. In 1948, Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire, perhaps his best known play. This play earned him his first Pulitzer Prize. He earned his second Pulitzer in 1955, with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Cash). Like his father, Tennessee gambled and drank. He was also a hypochondriac. He struggled with addictions to prescription drugs and alcoholism. He found love in 1947, with Frank Merlo. Merlo often provided stability in the playwright’s crazy life. Any lasting friendships that the couple had were many due to Merlo’s charm (Sullivan). They stayed together until 1961, when Merlo died of lung cancer. Williams fell into depression about Merlo’s death, and in 1983Show MoreRelatedDeath of a Salesman (Analysis and Personal Reaction)2850 Words   |  12 Pagestimes gone by. Being memory, it allows for music to announce emotions and characters, and well as exaggerations and/or omissions. As Tom says in Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie: Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music., and although this describes The Glass Menagerie, it also applies to Death of Salesman. The fact that its a memory play allows the story to be partial to the one recounting it, and Willys