Context

Question 1

New Orleans

Answer 1

Founded 1718 by the French Mississippi Company
1763 - Spanish Control for 40 years
Architecture from Spanish period
1801 - Napoleon sold Louisiana to USA
Jan 8th 1815 - Battle of New Orleans (USA vs Britain) US victory
1840 - 3rd most populous + wealthiest as a result of trade
20th Century - pump system allowed the city to expand into low-lying areas which led to industrial development. Progressive major city

Question 2

Tennessee Williams parents

Answer 2

Mother - obsessed with fantasies of genteel Southern living
Father - travelling salesman, distant and abusive

Question 3

Tennessee Williams - sister

Answer 3

Rose diagnosed with schizophrenia + spent most of her adult life in mental hospitals
1943 - failed lobotomy which left her incapacitated
Williams never forgave parents + himself
“mad heroine” theme in his plays could be influenced by Rose

Question 4

Tennessee Williams - outcast

Answer 4

Williams bullied at school for his Deep South accent and poverty, nicknamed “Tennessee”
Victim of a gay-bashing in 1979
Struggled with alcoholism and drug problems

Question 5

William’s views on differences

Answer 5

The overarching theme for many of his plays, he claimed, is the negative impact that conventional society has upon the “sensitive nonconformist individual.”
Elements of Blanche’s behaviour, specifically her desire to create a more genteel, more perfect fantasy world, seem to reflect almost directly Williams’ own motivation for writing.

Question 6

‘The World I Live In’
Tennessee Williams interviews himself (the back of the book)

Answer 6

“I have followed the developing tension and anger and violence of the world and time that I live in.”
“I have never written about any kind of vice which I can’t observe in myself.”
“I don’t believe in villains or heroes - only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken.”
Indicate thought processes behind the characters/events in the play.