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APOLLONIAN-DIONYSIAN CONFLICT IN THREE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS PLAYS

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Date Issued:
1974
Summary:
This thesis explores the conflicts between and within the main characters in three Tennessee Williams plays: A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, and Orpheus Descending. It demonstrates that the conflicts between the characters, the inevitable outcome of the individual's persistent adherence to established ideals and denial of his instinctive impulses, are analogous to the antithetical Apollonian-Dionysian forces as explored by Friedrich Nietzsche and Euripides. Of these opposed forces, one represents the learned traits the other the unlearned primitive impulses. When further related to man's divided psyche they reveal that man's emotional stability depends upon the harmonious coexistence of both his conscious and unconscious impulses. However, as the study reveals, it is impossible for man to suppress and deny his natural impulses which, like nature itself, are too powerful and imperative to man's basic existence and spiritual salvation. To Williams Dionysus becomes the symbol of modern man who, haunted by ineffectual traditional values and threatened by technological encroachment, refuses to become extinct and defiantly fights to create a fresh and meaningful life.
Title: APOLLONIAN-DIONYSIAN CONFLICT IN THREE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS PLAYS.
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Name(s): FOTOPOULOS, NIKI PRAVLIS.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Pearce, Howard D., Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 1974
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 65 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: This thesis explores the conflicts between and within the main characters in three Tennessee Williams plays: A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, and Orpheus Descending. It demonstrates that the conflicts between the characters, the inevitable outcome of the individual's persistent adherence to established ideals and denial of his instinctive impulses, are analogous to the antithetical Apollonian-Dionysian forces as explored by Friedrich Nietzsche and Euripides. Of these opposed forces, one represents the learned traits the other the unlearned primitive impulses. When further related to man's divided psyche they reveal that man's emotional stability depends upon the harmonious coexistence of both his conscious and unconscious impulses. However, as the study reveals, it is impossible for man to suppress and deny his natural impulses which, like nature itself, are too powerful and imperative to man's basic existence and spiritual salvation. To Williams Dionysus becomes the symbol of modern man who, haunted by ineffectual traditional values and threatened by technological encroachment, refuses to become extinct and defiantly fights to create a fresh and meaningful life.
Identifier: 13681 (digitool), FADT13681 (IID), fau:10515 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1974.
Subject(s): Williams, Tennessee,--1911---Criticism and interpretation.
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13681
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
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Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.