Williams plays with human subconsciuosness. But he finds that the core of the conflict is not inherent in the struggle between masculine & feminine but a complex interrelation of personal circumstances: social & others.

Tennessee Williams’ human type is an outcast, lonely, constantly in search of a relative soul with whom to share a burden of loneliness. But life is such that the outsider is doomed to defeat. The only salvation is love (but even this is questionable). Broken & lost people who are not able to defend themselves & their dreams can find love that will help them to sustain.

Williams is a prolific writer, he also wrote 2 collections of poems. He combined poetry & realism & this unique combination singles him out from other writers.

“Camino Real” is an allegoric drama, very experimental. “This is my conception of contemporary world in which I live,” he said. The scene is divided into two parts:

ü fashionable hotel in which people are bored & degraded

ü slums in which people are weak, humiliated, apathetic

The town is in terror, free thoughts are persecuted, people are killed in the streets, brainwashing is actively underway. All problems are solved by an old gypsy woman who provides a certain entertainment. The city is called Camino Real[re’a:l], that is the way of hope & dream. It ends to sound real[ri:al], that is the way of reality, dead end of civilization.

Killroy is an ordinary American who feels that atmosphere of social hysteria & he tries to make sense in life. Old literary characters (Don Quixote, Byron) come to rescue him. The play has an optimistic ending: Killroy finally finds the way out of the city to terra incognita. Williams idealized past, his future is uncertain. His past is good but dead, & the present is abhorrent.

His other plays “Baby Doll”, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, “Something Unspoken”, “Suddenly Last Summer”, “Sweet Bird of Youth”, “The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Any More”, “The Night of the Iguana”, etc.

Post Modernism.

Post modernism can be regarded in two aspects:

ü as a literary trend

ü as a phenomenon which doesn’t belong exclusively to literature – a certain mentality of post industrial age.

Post modernism appeared after the second WW. In 50’s, especially 60’s new type of fiction, new writing emerged, drastically different from previous writers. The idea that permeated this works: there is need to reevaluate old values, the values that lead Western civilization (idea of emancipation, enlightenment). But the WWII showed that the belief that a human is a reasonable creature who can build a reasonable society is inconsistent.