Alexis Safoyan
Frank Mihelich
Fundamentals of Acting
Tennessee Williams Report
25 February 2016
Tennessee Williams The great state of Mississippi gained quite a treat on March 26, 1911 and that treat was a baby named Thomas. A native of Columbus, Thomas Lanier Williams would grow up to become one of the most well-known playwrights in theatrical history. Williams did not attend school regularly due to frequent and severe illness as a child. He was homeschooled for most of his life but did graduate from high school in 1929 ( Weales,7 ). The illnesses that he suffered from included diphtheria which caused his legs to be paralyzed for almost two years. Because he rarely left the house, it would not be unusual to find a young Tennessee in a pile of books in his grandfather’s library. Williams’ father was not often home because his career caused him to travel, therefore, the playwright spent the first decade of his young adulthood with his grandparents. When he was twelve years old, Williams’ family moved to St. Louis . Throughout the course of his childhood and young adulthood, Williams’ parents struggled to hold their family together. Finally, his parents separated for good in 1947 ( Falk, Chronology ). The instability in his family was both marital and medical. The psychological disturbances that appeared in many of his family members were great influences on his writings. Thomas L. King, in his journal “Irony and Distance in The Glass Menagerie” discusses the impact of
In this paper I will inform you with a few of these events and topics such as the Civil war, slavery, as well as facts of the state. I hope my readers walk away with a new respect and outlook of Mississippi and learn how the past can affect the future, as well as the beauty.
Mississippi’s Civil War: A Narrative History begins by providing the account of the Nullification Crisis that took place in 1832. The crisis began as a dispute between the state of South Carolina and the federal government over a series of national tariffs that many of the southerners viewed as excessive. (6) The leader of the nullification movement in Mississippi was John Anthony Quitman. Quitman died in 1859 and the Mississippi finally left the Union in 1861. (8) As a result of the Nullification crisis, the Mexican War took place. Many Mississippians volunteered to fight with much enthusiasm. After nearly two years of war, America won. (11) From 1840-1860 Mississippi’s population doubled to almost 800,000 residents and by 1860 Mississippi’s institutions were hopelessly entangled in the web of slavery. The cotton based agriculture increased the need for slaves and by the eve of the Civil War slaves represented 55 percent of the state’s total population. (12) Mississippi’s ordinance of secession officially took them out of the union in 1861 leading up to the Civil War. (32)
Well, my essay is about Mississippi. It’s a great place to be. There all kinds of events you can participate in. Blues music its part of Mississippi’s culture. This music comes from slaves in the fields, singing about their struggles, their conditions and their sorry. Many of the songs carried secret messages of escaping the plantation life. The music told of life experiences as slaves knew them. The stories sung about in their music went back before the Civil War and even to the western coast of Africa where men, women and children were captured and sold into slavery and brought to America as slave laborers to work in Southern plantations. The Mississippi Delta is considered to be the birthplace of the Blues, with
Tennessee Williams is one the major writers of the mid-twentieth century. His work includes the plays, The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. One theme of The Glass Menagerie is that hopeful aspirations are followed by inevitable disappointments. This theme is common throughout all of Williams' work and throughout his own life as well. It is shown through the use of symbols and characters.
Tennessee Williams is regarded as a pioneering playwright of American theatre. Through his plays, Williams addresses important issues that no other writers of his time were willing to discuss, including addiction, substance abuse, and mental illness. Recurring themes in William’s works include the dysfunctional family, obsessive and absent mothers and fathers, and emotionally damaged women. These characters were inspired by his experiences with his own family. These characters appear repeatedly in his works with their own recurring themes. Through The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams presents the similar thematic elements of illusion, escape, and fragility between the two plays, proving that although similar, the themes within these plays are not simply recycled, as the differences in their respective texts highlight the differences of the human condition.
In his powerful memoir, Mississippi, Anthony Walton explores race relations in Mississippi in a historical context in an attempt to teach readers about Mississippi’s dark and muddled past. In the third section of the memoir, entitled “Rebels”, Walton focuses on the history of Mississippi through the lens of famous and not so famous changemakers who shaped Mississippi as it is today. Walton purposefully tells this story in chronological order, so that the reader can see the evolution of the Mississippi rebel; beginning with union and confederate troops, and ending with civil rights leaders and white supremacy groups. Walton’s purpose of creating such structure becomes abundantly clear at the end of the section, where he juxtaposes the success of the civil rights movement with that of the white supremacy movement in Mississippi. Walton argues that the ability of a cause to inspire fear ensures its continued survival.
Established as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams used his writing as a form of therapy. The author came from a troubled background consisting of alcoholism, mental breakdowns, and general unhappiness; Williams exploited these unfortunate events and allowed them to motivate his literature. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois’ struggles represent the reality of people’s lives, “an enduring concern of [Williams’] throughout his writing career (Henthorne 1). Blanche captures our focus with her seemingly sincere and fragile nature, but it is later revealed that this is just an illusion within her own mind. She resides in a world of fantasy to shield herself against the harsh threats of reality and her own fears. Blanche’s main objective in the play is to keep herself from falling apart in a world of cruelty through alcoholism and illusion. Through the characterization of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams depicts the coping mechanism of fantasy and its detrimental repercussions by exploring the specific experiences that eventually impede her happiness.
In American history things have been done in order to shape our country. The Trans-Mississippi West should be remembered for the terrible things that occurred. The Trans-Mississippi West shaped the future of America but did it in a harmful and disrespectful way. The Trans-Mississippi West built railroads and set up communities but the treatment of Native Americans and small farmers looking to start a new a life in the west was to much to turn your head away. The Trans-Mississippi West should be remembered for the violence and harm it caused because Indians suffered, there source of food and living was over hunted, and big businesses took good land from farmers and gave them bad land.
“Originally published in 2006, Mississippi Politics quickly became the definitive work on the state’s political history, campaigns, legislative battles, and litigation, as well as how Mississippi shaped and was shaped by national and regional trends.” While the second edition of the book still shows Mississippi’s gradual change from a blue state to a red state, it also examines the aftermath of Haley Barbour’s re-election campaign in 2007 along with the 2008 presidential elections. The one thing that I found most interesting about this book has nothing to do with its contents but everything to do with the two authors Jere Nash and Andy Taggart. Jere Nash is a well known Democrat who has held many political positions including chief of
Plight of the African Americans After Reconstruction in Neil McMillen’s Book, Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow
"I'm a Mississippi segregationist and I am proud of it," the governor declared. James Meredith, the Air Force veteran said Ole Miss "was the Ivy League of the Southern way of the life." A crisis in Oxford occurred at a time when staunch segregationists — and oftentimes violent racists — dominated the political structure in Mississippi. It was the college town of Oxford's struggle to preserve white supremacy. Segregationist mobs stormed the campus though the federal government insisted that Mississippi honor the rights of all its citizens. Despite Mississippi's segregationist state government, James Meredith, in a calculated move he applied for admission. Ole Miss citied administrative technicalities and refused his application. This prompted
Although I wasn’t in Mississippi during the ‘Freedom Summer’, I had a solid understanding of how life was during the ‘Freedom Summer’. This was years of racism and segregation towards the blacks in the US during the Civil Rights Movement. My aspect type was racism, and I learned of its impact on life through our analysis in the class of The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker, an epistolary novel about the lives of black people in rural dominated white racist Georgia during the 1920’s-50’s. Furthermore, we discussed Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural Speech in class, and how Mandela fought for Independence from the white racist government. With extra research of the Freedom Summer project launched by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
The twentieth state of the United States had quite some history to go through, starting with what is its name, the natives that started and the slave trade that led to the unwanted war of America. Mississippi brought a lot nationalism which brought a lot of social inequality. This essay will lightly cover the background and history that Mississippi holds.
Mississippi history is a sad history of slavery and oppression. It is a history of racism and refusal to let go of segregationist ideals. Mississippi history is enough to give many the blues. In fact, the Blues style music originated in Mississippi and gravitated outward from there. .Mississippi history and Blues history are intertwined. Delta Blues is a blues style that originated in the Mississippi Delta and influenced many musicians. Another musical art form, Jazz may be considered an offspring from the Blues and also started in the South. There are many Blues musicians and singers that come from Mississippi or have become linked to Mississippi for various reasons. Bessie Smith, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, and Cassandra Wilson have
This is the starting point of my discussion of the South. If argued further this notion boils down to two things: Firstly, Mississippians clearly consider themselves different from the rest of America and secondly they are still hanging on to a past that has certainly evolved into something new. Does that mean Mississippi is different because of its entity (when compared to the rest of America) or different even amongst other Southern states? Although the trajectory to unravel this Southern question is filled with many uncertainties yet a way to confront it is by reimagining certain historical notions and challenge public and private dilemmas associated with them.