Names or Labels?

What struck me almost immediately while reading Sweet Bird of Youth were the names of places and people in the play. It is pretty easy to discern certain meaning when Tennessee Williams’ has named his characters and the places they inhabit everything from “Heavenly” to “St. Cloud” to “Fly.” Of course the girl who is supposed to embody purity is named “Heavenly” and “Fly” is an irritating errand boy buzzing around looking for “Chance”…who took a chance by leaving St. Cloud (and his youth), and then took another by trying to return to it (St. Cloud and his youth).

I was tempted almost to roll my eyes at some of these naming choices Williams made. However, I started to think about it further and had a change of heart. I mean, what’s so bad about making the meaning you are placing on things and people apparent? Is it especially valuable to make symbols and representations hidden and obscure—so that only the meticulous readers can find them at all? By doing this, a writer is inevitably sacrificing the understanding of some, if not many.

Wholly apart from this realization, though, I found that the abstract names Williams employs added another sort of effect to the play. By giving his characters these abstract names—“Princess,” “Heavenly,” etc., he labels them; he tries to sum them up. In a way, he dehumanizes them by attempting to so simply characterize them, instead of treating them as complex individuals. We find, though, that these characterizations are as easily broken as they were imparted—“Heavenly,” for example, is not as pure as her father would like everyone to believe—serving then to show that people are more than archetypal.

"Mr. [DeMille/Williams/Wayne], I'm ready for my close up!"

Pretty soon into the play, it seemed clear to me that Williams was drawing on a number of other characters in his creation of the Princess, Alexandra del Lago. In particular, she seems similar (a little too similar for my taste) to Norma Desmond of Sunset Boulevard, a movie made nine years before Sweet Bird of Youth. Del Lago, like Desmond,  is an aging movie star who tries to stage a comeback and fails. She starts a romantic/sexual relationship with a man who acts as a financial parasite. And, of course, reference is made by both del Lago and Desmond to the dreaded close up. In Act One, Scene One (page 34 in my edition), Princess says, "The camera advances and you stand still and your head, your face, is caught in the frame of the picture with the light blazing on it and all your terrible history screams while you smile." Hmm... sounds familiar. Perhaps because that same nightmarish sentiment is captured in Sunset Boulevard's infamous climactic scene in which Desmond goes mad obsessing over the close-ups that will reveal her changed appearance in her comeback film. I've linked to the scene so you can decide for yourself whether Williams borrowed too heavily. I mean, Desmond even calls herself "The Princess"in reference to her role....

But putting the issue of similarity to the side, I think both the movie scene and the scene in the play approach capturing how painful it can be for women who suffer because they are valued as things to be viewed. How successful are they in expressing that idea? I'm not certain. Many viewers and readers will pity Desmond and del Lago, sure, but I'm concerned by the madness and addiction that plague both characters. For me, it seems to almost bridge into stereotypes surrounding female hysteria and instability. Additionally, I'm not sure readers and viewers outside of our class who aren't familiar with Mulvey and the theory of the (straight) male gaze will necessarily read the works as critical of social structures. I think it may be all too easy for the texts to be seen as extending pity to women who can't handle getting old or losing fame. And I'm not sure pitying female characters who are depicted as highly flawed in stereotypical ways really does much for feminist causes. But hey, maybe others read the scenes differently than I do. I'd be interested to know and hear from you guys.

by Jack Flynn

Ageism

SBoY is set in a society much like ours today where the old have no human value. Aging is a catastrophe to Chase and Princess Kosmonopolis. But why are they, and we, obsessed with youth? Even today, we are surrounded daily by age-defying products, cosmetic surgeries, and magazines with phrases such as, “Take ten years off your age!” The founding fathers of the United States powdered their wigs and wore clothes that imitated the sloping shoulders of the. Since then, the focus has shifted from wisdom and experience to appearance and image. (Says something about our priorities, doesn’t it?) The greatest compliment now is to be told you look younger than your age. How did we reach this point?

In the 1800s, a form of Protestantism focused on the importance of youth, self-improvement, and progress in order to achieve redemption for sins. Changes in the workplace from industrialization also made young workers more attractive then old for labor. Physicians in the early 1900s also spoke of aging as an “incurable disease,” and when doctors say something, we tend to believe it. Today and in SBoY, the young grace all sorts of media. They are seen as possessing sharp minds and “ideal” bodies. Aging, on the other hand, is a time when we are declining and our bodies and minds are dull and losing our capabilities. There are fewer opportunities open when youth is gone, and both Chase and Princess Kosmonopolis have an acute sense of this phenomenon.

As Bob Dylan says to his listener, "May you stay forever young." 

“Time—who could beat it, who could defeat it ever? Maybe some saints and heroes, but not Chance Wayne.”

Chance and Princess have a peculiar fixation on time, so I traced the key word time throughout the play. I came to the conclusion that time is both characters greatest enemy: “It goes tick-tick, it’s quieter than your heart-beat, but it’s slow dynamite, a gradual explosion.” Whereas Princess is anxious about the effects of time and its aging properties, Chance also worries about the effects of time on his own appearance and its ability to change people.

For Princess, the passing of time strips her of youth and beauty. Once, a celebrated actress she is now plagued by panic attacks when she is reminded of her golden days. Chance’s struggle with time stems from the opportunities he has missed. As time passes, he becomes increasingly frustrated because he is unable to reach the level of success as an actor as he had anticipated. Chance laments in Act One, “…Time does it. Hardens people. Time and the world you lived in.”  However, the passing of does not change his feelings for Heavenly. And while time exacerbates the venereal disease she is inflicted with, Heavenly remains youthful in Chance’s eyes.  

While the play takes place in the South on a seemingly uneventful Sunday, the unlikely events that take place through the course of the day create a sense of urgency in the play and the reader: “Just for your recognition of me in you, and the enemy, time, in us all.”

Age and Purpose

As discussed in previous blog posts, a prominent theme in the play is that of lost youth, particularly in Chance and the Princess. But how does one "lose youth"? Williams offers a number of quotes where the characters themselves allude to their own ideas of what it means to age.

Heavenly: "Scudder's knife cut the youth out of my body, made me an old, childless woman. Dry, cold, empty, like an old woman".

The princess: "Well, sooner or later, at some point in your life, the thing that you lived for is lost or abandoned, and then... you die, or find something else."

To me, the intersection between the three characters ideas is that at the moment being described, they've lost their purpose. Heavenly, who is clearly nothing more than a sexual object throughout the play, has the purpose of most of the women in St. Cloud: to marry and have children. Therefore, her infertility aged her. For the Princess, her exit from the world of acting and subsequent failure to return were her moments of aging -- she admits without that world she has nothing to live for except drugs.

Chance, however, is a little different. While it is apparent to us that he has lost both of his dreams (acting and Heavenly), he is in complete denial about it and clings to them both as tightly as he can. This is because he knows that they are the two things that keep him young, and the reason for that is that if he gives up on both acting and the girl he truly has nothing to live for, and that will make him old. When asked why he had to stay in St. Cloud despite his imminent castration, he tells the princess "Something's got to mean something, don't it, Princess? ... Something's still got to mean something." Once the Princess pulls the plug on his big acting shot, Heavenly is truly the only thing he has left connecting him to his vitality and giving him a purpose. He would rather be castrated than give up on that hope.

William's interpretation of aging, in summary, is that one becomes old precisely at the moment when they no longer have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, so to speak. It's a very intriguing definition that can be applied to Black Swan and Long Day's Journey into Night, and puts the self-destruction of the characters in these works into a new perspective. After all, if nothing in reality can give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning, you simply have to give yourself a reason in any way you can (including but not limited to morphine, a perfect performance, and sex with a girl named Heavenly).

--Christine

The Ultimate Symbol of the Loss of Youth in Sweet Bird

In his introduction to Sweet Bird of Youth, Lanford Wilson criticizes theatrical adaptations of the play for straying too far from Tennessee Williams' original work. Specifically,Wilson mentions that on stage, the word "castrate" was omitted completely, which he deems to be "unlike Tennessee to not be more straightforward." I have to agree with Wilson; Sweet Bird of Youth is very straightforward. I was actually taken aback at first by the repetition of "castrate" throughout the play. At the end of the day, it's as though each of the most significant characters is castrated, the ultimate sign of the loss of youth. 

Castration is at the center of each of the characters' roles in some way or another. Heavenly has to undergo "a whore's operation" in order to cure herself of a venereal disease she catches from Chance, a black man is castrated at the hand of Boss Tinley, Chance faces castration as punishment for his "sin" against Heavenly, and even Princess Kosmonopolis states that "age does the same thing to a woman..." (93), for she too, will face infertility and the certain degradation of old age. 

The painful, heart-wrenching loss of youth serves as the central pervading theme of Sweet Bird of Youth, and hence, castration becomes a representation of that definite loss. In Act I Scene I, the Princess and Chance wake up and discover that it is Easter Sunday. Although I wouldn't go so far as to call Chance a Christ figure, there are some parallels... Chance accepts castration as punishment for his sins willingly; he sacrifices himself at the end of the play when he leaves his world of dreams behind to re-enter reality. 

-Kayla

Battle of the Sexes in Williams Adaptations (Spoiler: Gay Men Lose)

The changes from Williams’ plays to their film versions are telling in their gender discrepancies. Williams was gay, and some joke that his most famous characters can be categorized as either (a) a woman embodying the Old South’s decay; or (b) a man whose thinly veiled homosexuality is made manifest as sickness or physical disability. Some of the adaptation changes, though:

A Streetcar Named Desire: Few changes from stage to screen…. Stanley is a sweaty, sexy brute; Blanche and Stella are fragile.

The Glass Menagerie: In a 1987 film version, there is less emphasis on the gay male lead (Tom, Williams dramatized) than in the original play.

Suddenly, Last Summer: Explicit references to homosexuality are excised from the screenplay, but the implicit suggestions are none too subtle. The play’s cannibalistic climax is retained, but most of the film focuses on psychological trauma that Sebastian’s mother and cousin suffer in the wake of his death.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: In the play, Brick’s “football injury” keeps him from sleeping with his wife, hypersexy Maggie the Cat. In the final scene of the film, however, Brick tells Maggie to “lock the [bedroom] door,” and we’re left believing that he’s suddenly magically not gay.

Sweet Bird of Youth: Most drastically, instead of ending castrated in a hotel room, cinema’s Chance Wayne*** has his face cut (presumably leaving a ruggedly masculine scar) and is free to leave St. Cloud with his beloved Heavenly.

Not what they meant when they said they were going to "cut him."

In short, Williams’ male characters that exhibit anything “un-masculine” or gay are rewritten, but the women stay the same. 

What do we call this? Homophobia? Unwillingness to accept anything less than Stanley-Kowalski-esque maleness? A Mulvey-style sexist trend in Hollywood narrative cinema, by which women can go crazy, be punished, be weak (because “that’s what girls are like”), but men can’t be punished or feminine (because “guys are tough”)?

[***Interestingly, Paul Newman originated Chance Wayne in theater, and he played the role on screen (he also played Brick, and directed the Glass Menagerie version I mentioned above).]

kz