You are here

FAU Collections » FAU Research Repository » FAU Theses and Dissertations

Judge, jury, and executioner

Download pdf | Full Screen View

Date Issued:
2009
Summary:
Much of Tennessee Williams' work features mentally ill characters; his devotion to and interest in the subject has led to the composition of many plays that highlight the humanity of the insane, rather that caricaturize them with the usual stereotypes. In Suddenly Last Summer, Williams challenges the social stigmas most "normal" people attach to madness. Throughout the course of the action, the lines dividing sane and insane, normate and non-normate, gradually blur disrupting the audience's social equilibrium. By undermining presumed viewer prejudices toward the mentally ill, Williams creates the opportunity for redrawing the social boundaries of exclusion and inclusion.
Title: Judge, jury, and executioner: the fate of the insane in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer.
147 views
61 downloads
Name(s): Rush, Kathleen.
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Department of English
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Issued: 2009
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Physical Form: electronic
Extent: v, 53 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: Much of Tennessee Williams' work features mentally ill characters; his devotion to and interest in the subject has led to the composition of many plays that highlight the humanity of the insane, rather that caricaturize them with the usual stereotypes. In Suddenly Last Summer, Williams challenges the social stigmas most "normal" people attach to madness. Throughout the course of the action, the lines dividing sane and insane, normate and non-normate, gradually blur disrupting the audience's social equilibrium. By undermining presumed viewer prejudices toward the mentally ill, Williams creates the opportunity for redrawing the social boundaries of exclusion and inclusion.
Identifier: 430497401 (oclc), 221952 (digitool), FADT221952 (IID), fau:3457 (fedora)
Note(s): by Kathleen Rush.
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009.
Includes bibliography.
Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subject(s): Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983
Mental illness in literature
Literature and mental illness -- Southern States
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/221952
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU