Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2007 The symbolism of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie: an inductive approach D. Brent Barnard Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Barnard, D. Brent, "The symbolism of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie: an inductive approach" (2007). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2371. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2371 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE SYMBOLISM OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’ THE GLASS MENAGERIE: AN INDUCTIVE APPROACH A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by D. Brent Barnard B.A., Evangel University, 1997 M.A., New York University, 2000 August 2007 ©Copyright 2007 Daniel Brent Barnard All rights reserved ii For My Beloved Grandparents, Guy and Mary Johnson iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I stand on the shoulders of so many. Mark Cave, manuscripts curator of the Historic New Orleans Collection, was of great assistance, and the institution’s collection of Williams manuscripts aided me immeasurably. Most of my work would have been impossible without the Williams holdings at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, part of the University of Texas in Austin, and I am particularly grateful to Pat Fox and Richard Workman, and to retired curator John Kirkpatrick. Pat Boulware, collections information assistant at the St. Louis Art Museum, was also entirely generous with her time, and I am grateful to the staff members at The Cloisters, part of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, who introduced me to a world of symbolism I would never have otherwise encountered. Many circulating libraries supported me to no end, particularly my small suburban library, the Garland Public Library of Texas. Their efficient reference librarians have provided me with a never-ending cascade of materials through their interlibrary-loan service, not to mention the library’s regular holdings. I particularly wish to thank staff members Bill Raley, Teresa Roberts, Dianne Dupont, Joey Martinez, Debby Browder, and Kristi Johnson. (That I am on a first-name basis with all of them indicates the centrality of their support.) I also wish to thank the staff at both LSU’s Middleton Library and Indiana University’s Herman B. Wells Library in Bloomington. I would be remiss if I were to fail to acknowledge the faceless staff members who support the many tools on the Internet, which has evolved to become almost the medium in which thought takes place. Amazon.com has been particularly helpful, providing scholars with what are essentially concordances of most major Williams texts and biographies with its “Search Inside!” feature. Onelook.com has been a matchless quiver in time of need. I am grateful for iv UC Santa Barbara, which has digitized many public-domain popular songs of the early twentieth century—many of which appear in Williams’ plays—and published them online, and I am also grateful for Indiana University’s online sheet music collection. I must also thank the staff members at Microsoft who, with the constantly evolving features of Word, have changed the way we write. On a deeper level, words cannot express my debt to John May, brilliant Catholic scholar in the English department at LSU, and my major advisor. His approach to literature and his welcoming words were the reasons I originally chose LSU, and his encouragement has been an unfailing bulwark throughout my doctoral journey, particularly during the daunting process of writing a work which has so little to do with popular trends in literary criticism. A mentor and a deeply valued friend, he has been and continues to be a major reason for all I have accomplished academically. I will be forever grateful to David Madden for truly believing in me and my work, and for pushing me to be clear in my writing. John Lowe is the professor under whose tutelage I first discovered the symbolism of Tennessee Williams, which has changed my life, and I am so thankful for his instruction. Lisi Oliver is a friend and unflagging champion of graduate students and their work, always providing me (and so many other students) with pep and encouragement—all this in addition to being a brilliant Harvard alumna and an excellent professor of the history of English. Thank you Lisi!! Anne Coldiron is another champion of graduate students, both encouraging them and equipping them with excellent research techniques in the courses she teaches. Her enthusiasm for working with original manuscripts has obviously proved contagious! Michelle Massé is constantly looking out for graduate students’ interests. Finally, I deeply appreciate Susannah Monta, a friend and an amazing scholar who deftly guided v me through my preliminary examination in the English Renaissance, inspiring in me an undying love for the literature of the era in the process. I am indebted to several professors at my undergraduate institution, Evangel University, specifically to Nathan Nelson and James and Twila Edwards in the Humanities Department, and to Michael Palmer in Philosophy. Their instruction and enthusiasm both now and in the past have made my work possible. Previously, I had thought that truth was divided up into sacred and secular realms. They impressed on me Evangel’s vision that all truth is God’s truth, from the sciences to the arts. Professor Twila Edwards used the following passage from Milton’s Areopagitica to explain this to me: Truth [. .] came once into the world with her divine master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who as that story goes of the Ægyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as dare appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, [. .] nor ever shall do, till her Master`s second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mold them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. My professors’ contention was that Truth has been scattered broadcast throughout the cosmos and in every field in this very manner, and that it is our joy and privilege to recover the pieces of this priceless trust. I have found so much of it in Williams. I wish to thank my friends at Park Cities Baptist Church and Lake Pointe Church for their loving support and encouragement. I also wish to thank Mike and Sylvia Johnson, my uncle and aunt, for their hospitality, for providing me with such great working accommodations, and most crucially, for their love and friendship. As for my parents and siblings—what can I say? They are the ones who taught me to analyze and think critically about everything. More importantly, vi they have loved me deeply all my life, and introduced me to Jesus, who has redeemed me and adopted me into his kingdom, the genesis of the single most important relationship in my life. No one deserves credit more than my grandmother and late grandfather, Mary and Guy Johnson, who have enveloped me with love and support all of my life, not to mention financing virtually every stage of my postsecondary education. This work would not have been even remotely possible without them. A thousand thanks also to my godly, attractive, and intelligent mainstay, Doris Navarro, doctoral candidate and my Brazilian fiancée, whom I hope to marry as soon as possible. (Will February never come??) The presence of anything pure and lasting in my work is due to those mentioned above, and to God’s work in me, whereas anything false is due to my own failings. More than anyone else, I wish to acknowledge my Savior, Friend and King, the Lord God Almighty. Εν αυτω γαρ ζωμεν και κινούμεθα και εσμέν In him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17.28) vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………… iv ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………. ix INTRODUCTION………………………………………………….................................... 1 PART 1. CHARACTERS AND SET…………………………………………………….. 14 1. LAURA: GIRL IN GLASS…………………………………………................... 15 2. TOM: CARNAL IDEALIST……………………………………………………. 81 3. MR. WINGFIELD: CARNAL PRECEDENT…………………………………... 112 4. AMANDA: ROMANTIC REALIST………………………………………......... 117 5. JIM: CARNAL SAVIOR…..……………………………………………………. 140 6. THE LIGHT AND DARK SIDES OF THE MOON……………………............. 160 PART 2. DIACHRONY…………………………………………………………………... 168 7. THE SYMBOLISM OF FALLING FIRE……………………………………….. 169 8. THE LAST ACT: SYMBOLIC ELABORATION AND METAMORPHOSIS… 204 CONCLUSION: THE MEANING OF THE GLASS MENAGERIE………………………. 258 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………………… 274 OTHER WORKS CONSULTED…………………………………………………………. 279 GLOSSARY………………………………………………………………………………. 297 APPENDIX 1. THE DISCOVERY OF THREE COMPLETED ONE-ACT PLAYS…… 301 APPENDIX 2. PERMISSION TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL……………….. 337 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………… 342 viii ABSTRACT Williams expressed himself in the language of symbols. They were not ornaments to his work, but were to his mind the only satisfactory means of expressing himself as an artist, and predate almost every other consideration in the process of composition. Characterization, dialogue, plot and setting were all selected based on their potential to represent symbolically his identity and experience, and more specifically, the conflict between spirit and flesh which he felt had come to define him.