Reading as a Christian : a proposed strategy for coping with selected problematic plays by Tennessee Williams

Thesis (MA)--PU vir CHO, 1994.This study deals with a possible Christian approach to the study of drama. The first chapter outlines the necessity for a Christian approach. The advantages of this approach are mentioned and it is indicated that this approach offers the critic and reader the most adequate and the freest possible way in which to sh1dy drama and related arts. The second chapter discusses the way in which this approach ought to be used. The nature of art, the various norms and the spiritual base of all art are discussed. The critic's realization of this and the way in which these norms should be applied (in the full knowledge that the spirit of any work of art must be tested by criteria other than mere literary criteria) are shown. There is also a consideration of the semiotic reading strategy which is used to analyse the dramas, since this approach has proved to be the most adequate one to do this as it takes full cognizance of the critical factor of ostension, which is the crucial distinguishing mark of drama as opposed to other forms of literarture. The subsequent chapter deals with A Streetcar Named Desire. An analysis of this play yields the information that it is one of Williams's best plays, if not his best. His best dramatic skills are on display and he gives a most succesful revelation of the human nature, mainly due to the fact that he keeps his symbolic devices and emotions in check. The next chapter chapter deals with Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin roof. This play fails essentially because of Williams's obsessive, over-personalized preoccupation with his characters which leads to a failure to remain honest and objective about them. This leads to over-indulgence, sentimentality and a slide into the melodramatic. Needless to say these tendencies blunt the play and rob it of its power and impact on the reader and audience. The sixth chapter has the play The Night of the Iguana as its focus. This play, which speaks the most directly about God of all the three plays involved, does not succeed in reaching the heights of A Streetcar Named Desire, because of Williams's notorious failure to remain honest about his characters and a preoccupation with his own existential nausea that spills over into the play. The play fails dramatically and thematically and therefore does not confonn to the nonns as outlined for successful drama. The last chapter gives a summary of the whole work, indicating the necessity for a Christian approach, its advantages and the ways in which it could fruitfully be applied. The three plays under discussion are again briefly discussed and the way in which the approach has been used is shown in recapitulation.Master