미국 남부문학과 테네시 윌리엄즈

Abstract

Southern American literature reveals various responses and representations of the Old as well as the New South, and the Civil War is the distinctive boundary in terms of characteristics of Southern literature. Until the Civil War, Southern literature had a tendency to support and justify the South’s viewpoint, especially regarding the issue of slavery. However, after the war, the main current of Southern literature, particularly in the 20th century, shifted to “a review of Southern history.” The uniqueness of Southern drama is the same as that of Southern literature: the conflict between the Old South and the New South, and the introduction of strong Southern females. Tennessee Williams is considered to be the artistic paragon of Southern Drama. His The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire center around two strong Southern women conflicted between the industrial present and the glorious old South. Amanda and Blanche, unable to overcome reality because of their strong attachment to their Southern past, descend into a desperate psychological state. Trapped in the terrible loneliness and despair of the present, they try to ameliorate their suffering with romantic flights to the past, flights which only exacerbate their misery in the present. Through their eventual downfall and failure, Williams periphrastically criticizes the new view of a value system brought on by sociological changes in the South.