Tennessee Williams Influences

A Series of Slightly Unfortunate Events Although the fictional lives of the Baudelaire children tore apart the hearts of many with their heart wrenching tale, the all too real plot of the life of Tennessee Williams could steal the show from any sorrowful story. From debilitating illness to bullies, Williams lived an early life not enviable by many others. His family was wild and dysfunctional, as he had an alcoholic, abusive father, and a schizophrenic sister. From the madness, Tennessee Williams found sanity in one main thing: his writing. He used his experiences with his neurotic family to inspire characters throughout multiple plays. He also used own pieces of himself to make a character feel more realistic. Tennessee’s homosexuality influenced his work as well. Throughout many of his plays, themes of repressed sexuality come into play. His own experiences with moving and the south allowed him to write about the Southern atmosphere with an inside and outside perspective in many of his plays. Tennessee Williams used the influence of his family, his sexuality, and the south to shape the world of his plays.
Tennessee Williams lived a life that no one expected. He had a quiet childhood starting in 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, the ideal southern town. His mother was a southern belle, and his father a travelling shoe salesman. He had …show more content…
Barely escaping death’s door, he was bound to the house for another year, trying to recover. His father was not home often, making marriage a struggle. To cope with his problems, his father became an alcoholic and took out most of his anger on the family (Als, Hilton). This put Mrs. Williams in a position of having to defend her children, something that she feared doing. Because of her guilt, she focused all her attention on her sick and weak son (“Tennessee Williams,” PBS). Tennessee carefully watched what was happening around him, and eventually used it to inspire his

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