Tennessee Williams and A Streetcar Named Desire :: Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911. As a successful playwright, his career was greatly influenced by events in his life. He was noted for bringing the reader a slice of his accept life and the feel of southern culture, as his primary sources of transport were the writers he grew up with, his family, and the South. The connection between his life and his work gutter be seen in several of his plays. One strong influence that is perspicuous in Tennessee Williams plays is his family life, which was full of tension and despair. His father, a businessman who owned a show warehouse, was known for his gambling and drinking habits. He was oft engaged with violent arguments with his wife that frightened Tennessees sister, Rose. Williams cared for Rose most of her vainglorious life, after his mother, Edwina, allowed her to undergo a frontal lobotomy. This event greatly nauseated him. Many people believe that Williams first commercial success, The Glass Menagerie , was ground on his own family relationships. This play tells the story of Tom, his disabled sister, Laura, and their controlling mother, Amanda, who tries to light up a match between Laura and a Gentleman caller. The characters seem to check the people in Williams immediate family. Tennessee Williams was also invigorate to write by the writers he grew up with. During college, he saw a production of Ibsens Ghosts, which inspired him to become a playwright. After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1938, he moved to newfound Orleans to launch his career as a writer. Here he found himself affected by the works of such writers as Arthur Rimbaud, hart Crane, and D.H. Lawrence. He wrote the play I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix, which dramatized the events surrounding Lawrences death. He considered it a tribute to a writer he greatly prize and admired. Lastly, Southern culture inspired Tennessee Williams to write one of his most illustrious plays, A Streetcar Named Desi re, as he based his major characters on people he knew or encountered. The character of Stanley Kowalski was based on a good friend of his whom he worked with at the International Shoe guild in the 1930s. He was also inspired by the image of a young woman who had just been stood up by the man she was preparedness to marry.