Tennessee Williams shatters societys facade of women in his plays, A Streetcar Named Desireand Sweet Birds of Youth. In both plays, Williams develops his characters to show the reader that women are not always able to live up to the stereotypes and standards that society creates. He presents women, like Blanche DuBois and the Princess Kosmonopolis, and shows that they are no longer capable of being the women society wants them to be. They are in fact past their prime and are being rejected by society.Tennessee Williams, born Thomas Lanier Williams, grew up in the South which accounts for most of his plays taking place in the South. He was born on March 26, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi to Cornelius Coffin and Edwina Dakin Williams. Cornelius was a traveling and was was out of town for a majority of Tennesses childhood. When he was home, he was very unsupportive of his sons creative interests, especially his writing. He would even call Tennessee Miss Nancy to poke fun at his sons desire to write instead of play sports like the stereotypical boy should. Tennessee was able to receive support from his mother who encouraged him to write. He attended the University of Missouri where he received high honors in all his courses except for ROTC which he failed. After school, he worked in a shoe factory and wrote during the night until 1934 when he had a nervous breakdown and had to quit his job in order to recuperate. In 1938, he attended the University of Iowa and was awarded a Bachelor of the Arts degree, after which he began writing as a career. His major works, some of which were turned into films and many performed on Broadway, include A Glass Menagerie(1943), A Streetcar Named Desire(1947), The Rose Tattoo(1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1955), Sweet Bird of Youth(1959)., and Night of the Iguana(1961). Tennessee died in February of 1983 on 24 or 25 of February at almost 72 years old after quite a successful literary career.Williams prese...
