Aspects of class in select plays by Tennessee Williams and their film adaptations

Diploma Thesis from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Literature grade: B (2) University of Vienna (Institute for Anglistics/American Studies) language: English abstract: Tennessee Williams is one of America's greatest playwrights whose talents of creating tension and atmosphere went beyond the métier of theatre and were convincing in the field of motion pictures too. Elia Kazan the successful theatre and film director particularly admired the artist’s gift of evoking emotions. In this thesis however I shall not attempt at evaluating Williams’s total works. Rather my object is a comparative analysis of select plays by Tennessee Williams and of their film adaptations: A Streetcar Named Desire (1947 1951) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955 1958) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959 1962). Special attention has been given to examining the social differences in the plays and films. By focussing on the methods of characterisation employed I shall investigate more or less typical class representations in the two different media. I shall work out the social politics of the playwright theatre and film directors and – as far as possible – the actors’ and actresses’ contributions to the dramatic contents. The multitude of interpretations and variations usually gives proof to the value of artistic works. The methods applied in this thesis are literary research and film studies. As a matter of course I analysed the plays on their written basis which raises the general question to what extent the perceptions by the audience and the reader differ. ‘The readers of a play must use their imagination to flesh out the characters and to place them in an appropriate setting’ (Sambrook 6). Williams gives very precise and evocative stage directions which help the reader to imagine the situations in many details. Meaning is often conveyed by poetic images. By employing figurative language he tries to ‘paint a word picture or convey in words the quality of a sound’ (Sambrook 48). The critic also notes that in Streetcar these stage directions contrast and ‘serve to underline the uneducated speech’ (Sambrook 14) of most characters except for the DuBois sisters. The audience of a play or film on the other hand cannot perceive these aspects; rather the spectators are confronted with a particular setting and with concrete actors and actresses. ...