Rereading Madness, Sexuality, and Political Dissent in the Major Plays of Tennessee Williams Open Access
Lido, Peter John (2010)
Abstract
Abstract
Rereading Madness, Sexuality, and Political Dissent in the Major
Plays of Tennessee Williams
By Peter J. Lido
There are few critical projects that coextensively explore madness
and sexuality in the major plays of Tennessee Williams, and those
that do tend to employ a biographical frame that shifts attention
away from the texts themselves. Yet a political dialectic
between madness and sexuality lies at the core of many of
the playwright's texts. My Honors Thesis will argue that the
function of the relationship between madness and sexuality in the
major works of Tennessee Williams is an explicitly political one, a
subversive critique of the exclusionary, homophobic ideology of
postwar America. In order to avoid the often erroneous conclusions
drawn from references to the playwright's personal life, the
analyses of my project will be quite consciously the product of
strict critical development. My theoretical apparatus in handling
this relationship will borrow from Michel Foucault's History of
Madness; the texts I have selected for study are A Streetcar
Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and
Suddenly Last Summer (1958).
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Introduction...1
2. Poems a Dead Boy Wrote: Madness and Queerness in
Streetcar...6
3. Melancholy and Mystery in Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof...32
4. Homophobia and Just Punishment in Suddenly Last
Summer...52
5. Conclusion: On Madness...65
6. Works Cited...69
About this Master's Thesis
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