Homophobic Discourse in T W, Clum

8/17/2019 Homophobic Discourse in T W, Clum

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So m e th ing C loudy , Som e th ing C le a r :

Homophobic Discourse in Tennessee Will iams

John

M Clum

Throughout his career, Tennessee Williams was attacked from all

sides for his treatment or nontreatment of homosexuality in his work.

During the early years of gay liberation, gay critics complained that

Williams was not out enough in his work and demanded that he stop

writing around his homosexuality. One gay playwright went so far as

to assert: He has yet to contribute any work of understanding to gay

theater. ' Williams's response to such attacks was a series of candid

personal disclosures culminating in the unfortunate volume of mem-

oirs, and more explicit treatment of homosexuality in his later, often

autobiographical works. This new candor led to attacks by heterosex-

ual critics, one of whom even referred to one play of the seventies as

faggotty fantasizing. '^

The first critic to deal intelligently with this aspect of Williams's

work was Edward A. Sklepowitch, whose formulation was too sim-

plistic, though typical of early work in gay studies:

W illiams ' so-called decaden t vision and his preoccupation with loneli-

ness,

evasion, role-playing, wastage, sexual reluctance and sexual excess

are in many instances functions of a homosexual sensibility which has

been evolving steadily in the more than quarter century since the publica-

tion of One Arm and Other Stories In this period, Williams' treatment of

homosexuality has undergone significant changes, moving from a mystical

to a more social perspective, a personal, if fictional microcosm of the wider

cultural démystification of homosexuality.^


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had previously restricted to his stories and poems. That change in pre-

sentation, alas, was also a function of

is

decreased ability to convert

memory or self-judgment into a controlled work of art. But the con-

stant in Williams's career is the dual vision that shaped his presentation

of the hom osexuality he was always impelled to write about.

Some relatively late statements issued by Williams demonstrate his

sense of a split personality w hich separated the hom osexual artist from

his work, and they provide a cmc ial starting point for any discussion of

the relation of Williams's sexual orientation to his work, particularly

his plays. This one is from an interview with Dotson Rader:

I never found it necessary to deal with it [homosexuality] in my work. It

was never a preoccupation of mine, except in my intimate, private life.

Quibbling with this statement becomes a matter of semantics. Wil-

liams may not have found it necessa ry to deal w ith homosexuality

in his work, but the fact is he did. His poetry is filled with hom oerotic

visions and encounters with gentlemen callers. Indeed, no poet has

so vividly and poignantly captured the tension, excitemen t, and loneli-

ness of the anonym ous sexual encounter as Williams, from the wry hu-

mor of Life Story to the poignancy of Young Men Waking at Day-

break. The focus of these poem s is not so much

homosexuality

as it is

the peculiar alienation of the brief sexual encounter. Williams's best

stories also feature homosexuals as central characters. The semi-

canonization of the boxer/hustler/murderer in One A rm , who dies

with love letters ftom the men with whom he has tricked jammed be-

tween his legs, is typical in its combination of religion, mortality, and

impersonal gay sex which pervades many of Williams's best stories.

The plays, too, are filled with hom osexual characters: from the off-

stage martyrs of the plays of the major pe riod, to the happy, ideal mar-


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Williams's theoretical separation of his homosexuality from his

work is in conflict w ith his many assertions of the highly personal na-

ture of his work and of his close relationship w ith his characters. It does

not conform with I draw all my characters from

myself.

I can 't draw a

character unless I know it within myself, unless one factors in an es-

sential variable: I draw every character out of my very multiple split

personality. ^ Split personality and split vision are recurring them es in

Williams's work, particularly in references to himself. They suggest

not only the multiple split personalities which allow such empathetic

relationships with his characters, but also the split presentation of his

own homosexuality.

Part of W illiams's need to deny the homosexual element in his work

is an extension of his need for validation as a writer (though he seldom

got it in the last twenty-five years of

his

life). Admitting to the homo-

sexual dimension of his work w as a professional liability:

You still want to know why I do n't write a gay play? I do n't find it neces-

sary. I could express what I wanted to express through other means. I

would be narrowing my audience a great deal [if

wrote for a gay audience

alone].

I wish to have a broad audience because the major thrust of my

work is not sexual orientation, it's social. I'm not about to limit myself to

writing about gay people.*

W hile mak ing clear his con tinued, thoug h fmstrated, interest in wri t ing

for

a b r oa d a ud i e nc e , t h is s t a t e m e n t de m ons t r a t e s W i l l i a m s ' s po l i ti c a l

na ive te :

for h im ,

h o m o s e x u a l i t y

w as mer e ly a sexua l is sue , thus incon -

g m e n t

w i th h i s so c ia l i n t e res t. Th i s sepa ra t ion is imp oss ib le fo r the

h o m o s e x u a l ,

for w h o m the sexua l is soc ia l , a s Wi l l i am s imp l i e s w he n

h e

pass iona te ly a sse r t s tha t I do no t dea l w i th the d idac t i c , eve r . Fo r


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c o n t r i v i n g s o m e w h a t p r e c a r i o u s l y t o r e m a i n i n c o n t a c t w i t h i t . F o r m e

t h i s w a s n o t o n l y p r e c a r i o u s b u t a m a t t e r o f d a r k u n c o n s c i o u s d i s t u r -

b a n c e . ^ W h i l e W i l l ia m s is r e f e r r in g t o h i m s e l f a s a s o c i a l b e i n g r a t h e r

t h a n a s a n a r t i s t , t h i s s t a t e m e n t d e f i n e s t h e p r o b l e m a t i c s o f W i l l i a m s ' s

s t a n c e a s h o m o s e x u a l a r t i s t a n d o f t h e g u l f b e t w e e n p r i v a t e a r t ( p o e t r y

a n d f i c t i o n ) a n d p u b l i c a r t ( d r a m a ) , a n d t h e c o r o l l a r y g a p b e t w e e n p r i -

v a t e h o m o s e x u a l a n d p u b l i c c e le b r i t y . F o r m o s t o f h i s c a r e e r , W i l l ia m s

w a s e x t r e m e l y p r o t e c t i v e o f t h i s s p l i t . H o m o s e x u a l i t y w a s n o t t h e o n l y

e l e m e n t o f W i l l i a m s ' s p e r s o n a l i t y w h i c h p l a c e d h i m o u t s i d e o f c o n -

v e n t i o n a l s o c i e t y , b u t i t w a s th e s u b j e c t w h i c h in t h e 1 9 4 0 s a n d 1 9 5 0 s

s e l d o m s p o k e i t s n a m e . W i l l i a m s w a s p r i v a t e l y o p e n a b o u t h i s s e x u a l

o r i e n t a t i o n , b u t p u b l i c l y c a u t i o u s , a s h e w a s r e l a t i v e l y w i l l i n g t o t r e a t

h o m o s e x u a l i t y d i r e c tl y in h i s n o n d r a m a t i c w r i t in g s , w h i c h w o u l d

r e a c h a l i m i t e d a u d i e n c e ( h e n e v e r u n t i l h i s l a t e r y e a r s s t r o v e f o r t h e

m o n e y a n d p u b l i c i t y o f a b e s t - s e l l i n g n o v e l ) , b u t c a u t i o u s i n h i s d r a -

m a s .

H i s c a u t i o n t a k e s t w o f o r m s . O n e is t h e c l e v e r u s e o f w h a t h e c a l l s

o b s c u r i t y o r i n d i r e c t i o n t o s o ft en a n d b l u r t h e h o m o s e x u a l e l e m e n t

o f m u c h o f h i s w o r k . T h e o t h e r i s a c o m p l e x a c c e p t a n c e o f h o m o p h o -

b i c d i s c o u r s e , w h i c h h e b o t h c ri t i q u e s a n d e m b r a c e s .

T h i s re l i a n c e o n a n d o c c a s i o n a l m a n i p u l a t i o n o f t h e la n g u a g e o f h o -

m o p h o b i a is t h e b a s i s o f W i l l ia m s ' s t r e a t m e n t o f t h e su b j e c t o f h o m o -

s e x u a l i t y i n h i s p l a y s , r e f l e c t i n g a s p l i t h e s a w i n h i s o w n n a t u r e . W i l -

l i a m s w r o t e o f h i s v i s i o n p r o b l e m s i n 1 9 4 0 :

My lef t eye was c loudy then because i t was developing a cataract . But my

r ight eye w as c lear . I t w as l ike the two s ides of my nature . The s ide that w as

obsess ively homosexual , compuls ively in teres ted in sexual i ty . And the

s ide tha t in those days w as gen t l e and un der s tand ing and con tem pla t ive . '


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Moise and the

orld

of Reason

in which he depicts himself

s

an ec-

centric aging playwright the narrator encounters, he fixes on a dual vi-

sion:

He cam e back to the table and simultaneously two things happened of the

automatic nature. He kissed me on the mouth and I started to c r y , . . .

Bab y, I didn 't mean to do that, it was just a utom atic,

(He thought I was crying over his Listerine kiss which I'd barely no-

ticed,)

He slumped there drinking the dago red w ine as if

to

extinguish a fire in

his belly, the rate at which he poured it down him slowing only w hen the

bottle was half-empty. Then h is one good eye focussed on me again bu t the

luster was gone from it and its look was inward,'

The outward gaze becomes linked to an automatic, impersonal homo -

sexual advance while the inward gaze signifies the writer's now un-

controllable withdrawals into memory, which form the basis of his

later autobiographical work which, paradoxically, depicts his split vi-

sion and at the same time dem onstrates the loss his work suffered when

he blurred the public/private split which was essential to his control

over memory and craft.

Williams's split vision, then, defines the intemal conflict that com-

pelled him to write of his homosexuality and, in doing

so,

to rely on the

language of indirection and homophobic discotirse. It signified a cloudy

sense of his own sexual identity, but it enabled him to write clearly. On

the other hand, as the sexual self becam e clearer, and the plays becam e

mo re autobiographical, the writing became murkier.


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centers on the last day in the life of n elderly m an, Mr. Krupper, w ho

habitually goes to an old movie palace with a bag of hard candy and a

handful of quarters, his bribes to willing young men for their sexual fa-

vors. On the day of the story, Mr. Krupper dies while performing fella-

tio on a handsome young vagrant. Before describing Mr. K rupp er's fa-

tal visit to the movie theater, Williams offers this peculiar rejoinder:

In the course of this story, and very soon now, it will be necessary to make

some disclosures about Mr Krupper of nature too co rse to be dealt with

very directly in a work of

such

brevity. The grossly naturalistic details of

life, contained in

the

enormously wide context of that life, are softened and

qualified by it, but when you attempt to set those details down in a tale,

some m easure o f obscurity or indirection is called for to provide the sam e,

or even approximate, softening effect that existence in time gives to those

gross elem ents in the life

itself

When I say that there was a certain mystery

in the life of Mr. Krupper, / am beginning to approach those things in the

only way possible without a head-on violence that would disgust and de-

stroy and w hich would only falsify the story.

To have hatred and contempt for a person . . . calls for the assumption

that you know practically everything of any significance about him. If you

admit that he is a mystery you admit that the hostility may be unjust.

Mr. Krup per's m yste ry is contained in his afternoon visits to the

Joy Rio movie theater; his sexual encounters there with poor, beautiful

(of course) young m en are acts which would brand him in the eyes of

most people as a dirty old m an or worse. W illiams's rejoinder both

shows his sympathy and understanding of

his

audience's sensibilities

and prejudices, and plays w ith those prejudices. The language of mys-

tery and evasion allows him to write about the forbidden in a sympa-


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n a r r a t o r d e s c r i b e s i t a s t h e p l a c e w h e r e t h e m y s t e r i e s o f h i s n a t u r e a r e

t o b e m a d e u n p l e a s a n t l y m a n i f e s t to

u s . ' ^

W i l l i a m s is b o t h c o m p a s -

s i o n a t e a n d j u d g m e n t a l : t h e st o r y i s b o t h g r o t e s q u e a n d t o u c h i n g . T h e

m y s t e r i e s , h o w e v e r n a t u r a l , a r e u n p l e a s a n t .

T h i s d u a l v i s i o n f u n c t i o n s i n a n u m b e r o f w a y s i n t h e s to r y . T h e r e i s

t h e s p l it b e t w e e n t h e p h y s i c a l g r o t e s q u e n e s s a n d d i s e a s e o f t h e s u b j e c t ,

w h i c h im p l i e s a c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n d i s e a s e / u g l i n e s s a n d h o m o s e x u a l

d e s i r e , a n d t h e s h a d o w y b e a u t y o f t h e o b j e c t o f t h a t d e s i r e . M o r e i m -

p o r t a n t , t h e s to r y e m b o d i e s a n i n t e n s e c o n s c i o u s n e s s o f t h e s p li t b e -

t w e e n t h e p u b l i c p e r s o n a a n d t h e p r i v a t e a c t o r c e n t r a l t o W i l l i a m s ' s

t r e a t m e n t o f h o m o s e x u a l i t y :

W he n arou nd m idnigh t the l ights of the Joy R io were broug ht up for the las t

t ime that evening, the body of Mr . Krupper was discovered in his remote

box of the theater with his knees on the f loor and his ponderous torso

wedged between two wobbly gi l t chai rs as i f he had expired in an at t i tude

of prayer . The not ice of the old m an 's death was given unusu al p rom ine nce

for the obi tuary of som eon e wh o had no publ ic character and wh ose pr ivate

chara cter was so pecul iar ly low . But evident ly the pr ivate charac ter of Mr .

Krupper was to r emain anonymous in the memor ies o f those anonymous

persons who had enjoyed or prof i ted f rom his company in the t iny box at

the Joy R io, for the not ice contain ed no me nt ion of anything of such a spe-

cial nature . I t was composed by a spins ter ly repor ter who had been im-

pressed by the sent imental values of a seventy year old ret i red merchant

dying of thrombosis at a cowboy thri l ler with a spli t bag of hard candies in

his pocket and the f loor about him li t tered with s t icky wrappers , some of

which even adhered to the shoulders and sleeves of his jacket . '^

M r . K r u p p e r d i e s i n a p u b l i c p l a c e w h i l e e n g a g e d i n a v e r y p r i v a t e


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which are stuck to Mr. Kmpper's shoulders and sleeves. Characteris-

tically for Williams, an act of pederasty satisfies two hungers simulta-

neously; the sexual hunger of the older man and the real hunger of the

boy he feeds. (This pederasty/hunger nexus will reach its extreme in

uddenly Last Summer

when the hungry, naked boys Sebastian Venable

sexually exploits literally eat him.) In what amounts to a sexual pun un-

derscored by the young cousin's final line in the story— . . .

the old

man choked to death on our hard candy "

— hard candy represents both

hunger of the phallus and of the stomach.'' ' But Mr. Kmpper, unlike

Williams, is also private, anonymous in the audience of a theater, not

the public creator of theatrical and cinematic fantasies. Kmpper is al-

lowed an anonymity and mystery forbidden his creator whose late au-

tobiographical work fixes on the unknown, still anonymous, private

writer/homosexual.

The young cousin 's final line speaks to the public misunderstanding

of the private act. To the obituary writer, the old man's death was the

sentimental extinction of a man with a sweet tooth and a love for west-

ems.

To the child, a hated old man choked on the products of the family

business. The real meaning of the death is a secret between the dead

Mr. Km pper and the young men who shared his box at the Joy R io. It is

private and mysterious, reinforcing and embodying Williams's little

treatise on mystery. Yet we also have the judgm ent of the narrator, the

only reliable witness, who tells us that K m pp er's private character

was peculiarly low. In making this harsh judgm ent on his own cre-

ation, the narrator both validates Kmpper's story by telling it, and col-

ludes with his straigh t reader by judging it harshly.

As the authorial judgm ent keeps W illiams on the side of is reader,

so the smokescreen of mystery, created with what W illiams calls ob -

scurity or indirection, allows him to tum M r. K m pp er's death into

something both tawdry and beautiftil. W hile acknowledging his reade r's


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Cousin Sebastian said he was famished for blonds, he was fed up with the

dark ones and was famished for blonds. .. . [T]hat's how he talked about

people, as if they were—items on a menu—.

Donald Spoto argues convincingly for a strong autobiographical ele-

ment in

Suddenly Last Summer,

nowhere clearer than in this speech.

W hile in Italy in 1948, Williams wrote Donald Windham : [Prokosch]

says that Florence is full of blue-eyed blonds that are very tender

hearted and 'not at all m ercenary'.

e

were both getting an appetite for

blonds as the Rom an gentry are all sort of dusky ty p es . Sebastian's

unfeeling sexual exploitation is as much a dramatization of the play-

wright as is Sebastian's pill-popp ing and confused sense of private and

public personae.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

written around the same time as Hard

Candy, is the most vivid dramatic embodiment of W illiam s's mixed

signals regarding homosexuality and his obsession with public expo-

sure.

Cat

takes place in the bedroom once occupied by Jack Straw and

Peter Ochello, a room dominated by the large double bed the lovers

shared for thirty years. The plantation the ailing Big Daddy now con-

trols, and which is now being fought over by his potential heirs, was

inherited from Straw and Ochello. In ways both financial and sex-

ual, the legacy of these two lovers lies at the heart of the play, and

the love of Jack Straw and Peter Ochello stands as a counter to the

compromised heterosexual relationships we see played out. Their

relationship, the reader is told in the stage directions,

must have

involved a tenderness which was uncommon, ^^

yet the audience

never hears the relationship spoken of in positive terms. Straw and

Ochello do not carry the freight of negative stereotypes other Wil-

liams homosexuals carry: they are not frail like Blanche DuBois's sui-


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to perform sexually in Straw and Ochello's bed. Big Daddy will allow

no attacks on Straw and Ochello, but his defense is intermpted by the

appearance of Reverend Tooker, the living embodim ent of

th

pious,

conventional lie,

an intermp tion that suggests that it is the pious con-

ventional lie that forbids defense of Straw and Ochello.̂ "* The in term p-

tion is Williams's choice: it allows Brick's homophobic discourse to

dominate the scene. In addition to "q uee r[s]" and "old sisters," Brick

speaks of "sodomy," "dirty things," "dirty old men," "ducking [5/c]

sissies," "unnatural thing," and fairies. Brick's acceptance of the pi-

ous conventional lie is heard in statements which sound like a carica-

ture of the voice of pious respectability: "Big Daddy, you shock me.

Big Daddy, you, you-shock m e Talkin' so— casually — about a—

thing like that." Yet his stated reason for his shock is not moral, reli-

gious, or psychological; it is public opinion: "Don't you know how

people

feel

about things like that? How, how

disgusted

they are by

things like that?"^^ Homosexuality to Brick is terrifying because it is

inevitably public.

Brick's homophobia is part of his sexual/emotional malaise. He is

painfully aware that his nonsexua l, nominal m arriage to M aggie is a far

cry from the total relationship the bed signifies. B rick occupies a peril-

ous middle state: he does not love his wife, with w hom he claims never

to have gotten any closer "than two people just get in bed which is not

much closer than two cats on a—fence humping,"^* an echo of Big

Da ddy 's loveless sex with Big Mam a and an expression of Brick's in-

ability to combine sex and friendship or love. Yet he is horrified at the

thought of a sexual dimension of his friendship with Skipper: "Why

can't exceptional friendship, real real

deep, deep friendship

between

two men be respected as something clean and decent without being

thought o f as fairies. ^^


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could be carried through to anything satisfying or even talked about

plainly."^^ Maggie knows that it is Brick's "ass-aching Puritanism"

that puts him in such an unhappy position— that he would be better off

if he had the courage to have a complete relationship with Skipper. But

Skipper is dead as a result of his own intemalized homophobia, and

Brick has, as Big Daddy cogently puts it, "dug the grave of [his] friend

and kicked him in it —before you'd face tmth with him "^'

The bed of Jack Straw and Peter Ochello represents an unstated

ideal relationship which seems unattainable for the heterosexual mar-

riages in Williams's play. In positing this ideal, the play is subversive

for its time, yet the love of Jack Straw and Pe ter Ochello never seem s a

real possibility for homosexuals either. It is, to coin a phrase from Si-

mon Gray's Bu tley more a figure of speech than a matter of fact, and a

rather paradoxical figure of speech at that, since the only positive

words used to describe the relationship are silent hints in the stage di-

rections. The only operative terminology for homosexuals the play al-

lows is Brick's homophobic discourse.

Just at the moment that Big D addy 's dialogue with Brick reaches the

cmcial issue of Brick's relationship with Skipper, Williams offers a

lengthy stage direction which echoes the rejoinder found in "Hard

Candy":

The thing they're discussing, timidly and painfully on the side of Big

Daddy, fiercely, violendy on Brick's side, is the inadmissible thing that

Skipper died to disavow between them. The fact that if it existed it had to

be disavowed to "keep face" in the world they lived in, may be at the heart

of the "mendacity" that Brick drinks to kill his disgust with. It may be the

root of his collapse. Or maybe it is only a single manifestation of it, not

even the most

important

The bird that

hope

to

catch in the net of this play


14/21

lation of character in a play, jus t as a great deal of m ystery is always left in

the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to

himself.

This does not absolve the playwright of his duty to observe and probe as

clearly and deeply as he legitimately

can:

but it should steer him away from

pat conclusion s, facile definitions which make a play just a play, not a

snare for the truth of human experience.^

W illiams begins this statement with a definite interpretation of Brick 's

panic that places responsibility on the false values of Brick's world,

then hedges his bets by qualifying his interpretation, then moves the

focus away from Brick to the problems of five people, and finally dis-

misses definite interpretations altogether in the nam e of mystery.

The last sentence of W illiams's little treatise thickens the smokescreen :

he wants to offer the truth of human experience w ithout facile conclu-

sions or pat definitions. Fair enough . But he seems to worry about such

things only w hen homosexuality rears its problematic head. O f course,

his printed w arning is not shared by his audience, only his readers, but

it allows him to proceed with a scene about homosexuality while deny-

ing that that is what he is doing. At the end of his statement, he directs

that the scene between Big Daddy and Brick be

''palpable in what is

left unspoken.

His concern for the unspoken dom inates this scene, and

what is unspoken here and in the rest of the play is the positive force of

the love of Jack Straw and Peter Ochello and the unrealized possibility

it represents of nonhomophobic discourse.

Love is not an operative term for the men in

Cat

on a

Hot

in

Roof

It

is a word used only by M aggie and Big Mam a— the men can only won-

der, W ouldn't it be funny if it were true? ^' Not able to accept the love

of women, neither can the men accept the unspoken option of sexual

male/male love. Nor can Williams convincingly offer that option. The

tenderness W illiams sees as the clear side of his vision here exists only


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W h i l e e l e m e n t s o f h o m o s e x u a l i t y su ff us e m a n y o f W i l l ia m s ' s m a j o r

p l a y s ,

h i s l a t e r p o s t - S t o n e w a l l w o r k s d e a l m o r e d i r e c t l y w i t h h i s a t t i -

t u d e s t o w a r d h o m o s e x u a l i t y . H e m o v e s f r o m i n d i r e c t i o n a n d p o e t i c

i m a g e t o d i d a c t i c i s m a n d t h i n l y v e i l e d a u t o b i o g r a p h y ; t h e p r o b l e m -

a t ic s o f W i l li a m s ' s tr e a t m e n t o f h o m o s e x u a l i t y b e c o m e c l e a re r , if le s s

d r a m a t i c a l l y v i a b l e .

Smal l Craf t Warnings

( 1 9 7 2 ) e s t a b l is h e s a f o r m u l a W i l li a m s w i l l

u s e a g a i n i n

Vieux Carré

( 1 9 7 7 ) : t h e a n t a g o n i s m b e t w e e n a h o m o s e x -

u a l a n d a h e t e r o s e x u a l s t u d , a n d t h e p l a c e m e n t o f a t r o u b l e d h o m o -

s e x u a l e n c o u n t e r i n t h e c o n t e x t o f a c h a o t i c s e t o f h e t e r o s e x u a l r e l a -

t i o n s h i p s . I n

Sma l l C raf t W arnings

t h e h o m o s e x u a l c h a r a c t e r, Q u e n t i n ,

i s i m m e d i a t e l y s e e n a s o u t o f p l a c e i n t h e P a c i f ic C o a s t b a r i n w h i c h t h e

p l a y i s s e t , n o t b e c a u s e o f h i s s e x u a l i ty , b u t b e c a u s e o f h i s a p p e a r a n c e ,

w h i c h a n n o u n c e s h i m a s a s t e r e o t y p i c a l h o m o s e x u a l o u t o f a 1 9 4 0 s

m o v i e : d r e s s e d e ff e te l y in a y a c h t i n g j a c k e t , m a r o o n l in e n s la c k s , a n d

s i lk

n e c k - s c a r f ' '^

H i s f a c e , w h i c h s e e m s t o h a v e b e e n b u m e d t h in b y

a f eve r tha t i s no t o f t he fie sh , m ak es h i m a b r o t h e r t o W i l l i am s ' s

m a n y a g i n g m a l e b e a u t i e s , b u t h e r e th e w a s t i n g is a n o u t w a r d m a n i f e s -

t a t io n o f t h e s p i r it u a l d e s i c c a t i o n w h i c h h a s r e s u l t e d fro m Q u e n t i n ' s

s e x u a l p r o m i s c u i t y :

There 's a coarseness , a deadening coarseness , in the exper ience of most

hom osexu als . The exper iences are quick, and hard, and brutal , and the pat -

tem of them is practical ly un cha ng ing. Th eir act of love is like t h e jabbing

of a hypodermic needle to which they ' re addicted but which is more and

m ore em pty of real interest and su rprise. Th is lack of variation and surprise

in t h e i r . . , lo v e l i f e , , ,

[ e

smiles harshly]

spreads into other areas of

, , , sensibil i ty,^ '


16/21

s i b i l i t y o f c r e a t i o n . Q u e n t i n s p e a k s o f h i m s e l f h e r e i n t h e l a n g u a g e o f

t e x t b o o k h o m o p h o b i c o b j e c ti v i t y .

Q u e n t i n is g i v e n t h e p r o f e s s i o n o f s c r e e n w r i te r , a n d t h e e x p e r i e n c e s

h e re c o u n t s a re t h o s e o f W i l li a m s w i t h M G M in t h e e a r l y 1 9 4 0 s . M o r e -

o v e r , h e n o w w r i t e s p o r n o g r a p h i c m o v i e s , c a n d i d d e p i c t i o n s o f s e x ,

e v e n a s W i l l i a m s ' s p l a y s h a v e b e c o m e m o r e s im p l e m i n d e d l y a n d c a n -

d i d l y f o c u s e d o n s e x u a l a c t i v i t y . T h e s e a u t o b i o g r a p h i c a l c l u e s e n a b l e

t h e r e a d e r t o s e e Q u e n t i n ' s e m o t i o n a l d i m i n u t i o n n o t m e r e l y a s t h e i n -

e v i t a b l e r e s u l t o f a p a t t e r n o f h o m o s e x u a l a c t iv i t y , b u t a s a c o r o l l a r y o f

W i l l ia m s ' s fe a r o f t h e d r a i n i n g a w a y o f h i s e m o t i o n a l a n d i m a g i n a t i v e

r e s o u r c e s t h a t w o u l d e v e n t u a l l y c r i p p l e h i s w r i t i n g . H e w r o t e D o n a l d

W i n d h a m i n 1 9 5 5 , t h e y e a r

of a t on a Ho t T in Roof

I th ink my work is good in exact ra t io to the degree of emot ional tens ion

which is released in i t . In a sense, writ ing of this kind ( lyric?) is a losing

game, for s teadi ly l i fe takes away f rom you, bi t by bi t , s tep by s tep, the

qual i ty of f resh involvement , new, s tar t l ing react ions to exper ience, the

em ot ional reservoir is only rarely replenished . . . and m ost of the t ime you

are jus t pay ing ou t , d ra in ing off.'

T h e s p i r i tu a l w a n i n g th a t c r ip p l e s t h e a r ti s t b e c o m e s h e r e t h e i n e v i t a b l e

c y n i c i s m o f t h e a g i n g h o m o s e x u a l w h o i s s o s e l f - h a t i n g t h a t h e c a n

h a v e s e x o n l y w i t h b o y s w h o a r e n o t h o m o s e x u a l , t h u s e m e r g i n g a s th e

m o s t a r t i c u l a t e a n d l e a s t i n t e r e s t i n g o l d e r m e m b e r o f t h e t y p i c a l W i l -

l i a m s g a y l i a i s o n : a n o l d e r h o m o s e x u a l h u n g r y f o r t h e f l e s h o f b e a u t i -

f u l , y o u n g , h e t e r o s e x u a l m e n .

W i l l ia m s f el t t h a t Q u e n t i n ' s m o n o l o g u e i s m u c h t h e m o s t e f fe c t iv e

p i e c e o f w r i t i n g i n t h e p l a y , a n d o n e d o e s s e e i n it a n e ff e c t i v e d u a l -

ity .^ ^ Q u e n t i n i s s u f f e r in g t h e p h y s i c a l a n d s p i r i tu a l r a v a g e s o f t i m e a n d


17/21

ness of homosexual activity. Part ofthat coarseness involves the need

to keep sex on a financial basis, a matter of distancing and control

which Williams well understood—even his beloved Frank Merlo was

on the payroll. (Williams saw the male prostitute, homo- or heterosex-

ual, as saintly.) Leona tells Bobby, the boy Quentin has picked up, to

take Quentin's payment: He wan ts to pay you, it's part of his sad rou-

tine. It's like doing penance . . . penitence. ^^

Quentin's expression of the homeless place of homosexuality as one

cause for his sexual/spiritual malaise is reinforced by echoes fi^om fhe

other characters, who present an image of homosexuality Jerry F alwell

would cheerfully endorse. The exuberant, sexually active Leona, tells

Quentin:

I know the gay scene and I know the language of it and I know how full it is

of sickness and sadn ess; it's so full of sadness and sickness, I could almost

be glad that my little brother died before he had time to be infected with all

that sadness and sickness in the heart of a gay boy.

And Bill, the stud who lives by his cocksmanship with women, who

proves himself through fag-bashing— Y' can't insult 'em, there's no

way to bring 'em down except to beat 'em and roll 'em — at least sees

homosexuals as victims of determinism: They ca n't help the way they

are. Who can? And Monk, the bartender, does not want gay men in his

bar, because eventually they come in droves: First thing you know

yo u're operating what they call a gay bar and it sounds like a bird cage,

they're standing three deep at the bar and lining up at the men 's room. ^^

W illiams, who did not want to deal with the didactic, ever, has

written here not the gay play he sw ore he didn 't want to write, but a vir-

ulently hom ophobic play. The only positive possibility for hom osexual

experience resides with Bobby, the young man who accompanies


18/21

Quentin has lost, a ñinction of you th; all he lacks is the sexual special-

ization he calls Qu entin's hangup .

Williams's relationship to

Small Craft Warnings

was complex. He

saw it, in characteristically dualistic fashion, as a sort of lyric appeal

to my remnant of life to somehow redeem and save me—^not from

life's end, which can't be revealed through any cotirt of appeals, but

from a sinking into shadow and eclipse of everything that had made m y

life meaningful to m e. ^' The play was originally titled Confes-

sional, which suggests a very personal relationship to the creation.

And Williams, to keep the play mnning long enough to prove that he

was still bankable, appeared as Doc through the last weeks of the

show's mn, though, as Donald Spoto points out, his dmnken and

dm gged shenanigans and foolish ad libs advertis[ed] the very cond i-

tion for which he dreaded condemnation. ' ' Ironically, W illiam s's per-

formances in

Small Craft Warnings

were taking place at the same time

as his creation of his most antic public performance, his

M emoirs

in

which the tables are tumed and the public homosexual totally over-

shadows the private playwright.

Not ironically, but perhaps predictably, the equally confessional

ieux

Carré

is a desperate m ining of mem ory and early fiction ( The

Angel in the A lcove [1943]) for material. As with Williams's first

success.

The Glass Menagerie

this late work is narrated by the play-

wright as a young m an, here nameless and, alas, faceless. The time is

the late thirties, when W illiams finally had his first homosexual experi-

ences, and the setting is a board ing house in the

ieux Carré.

While the

play seems to present W illiam s's com ing out, the liberation is, at

best, conditional.

ieux Carré

is the most vivid evidence for

th

consis-

tency of Williams's attitude toward homosexuality: in the 1943 story

and the 1977 play, hom osexual activities are characterized as perver-

sions of

longing

experienced by the young writer and an artist who is


19/21

* * *

In his poem Intimations W illiams states:

I do not think that I ought to appear in public

below the shoulders.

Below the collar bone

I am swathed in bandages already.

I have received no serious w ound as yet

but I am expecting several.

A slant of light reminds me of iron lances;

my belly shudders and my loins contract.'

While the poem is about mortal i ty, i t also suggests Wil l iams's sense of

separation from his own physicality and sexuality as well as his confu-

sion of private and pub lic selves. In Intim ation s only the mind is

public: the body, of which only the belly and loins are specifically

mentioned— appetite and sexuality—are private and already swathed

in ban dag es to cover their disease. This is a regrettably fitting

self

image for Williams the homosexual and for the homosexuality he de-

picted throughout his career.

From outh

tiantic

Quarteriy88 no. Winter

1989):

6

-179.

Copyright © 1989 by Duke Uni-

versity Press. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the publisher.

Notes

Thanks to my research assistant, Christopher Busiel.

1. Lee Barton, W hy Do Playwrights Hide Their Hom osexuality,

New York


20/21

4, Dotson Rader, The Art of Theatre: Tennessee W illiams, in

Conversations

with Tennessee

W illiams, ed, Albert J, Devlin (Jackson, Miss,, 1986), 344,

5,

Dotson Rader, Tennessee: ry of the Heart

{Garder\City, N.Y.,

1985), 153,289.

6, Donald Spoto, Th e Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams (New

York, 1986), 319,

7,

Ibid,, 355,

8, Tennessee W illiams, Memoirs (New York, 1975), 162,

9, Spoto,

Kindness of Strangers,

81 ,

10, Tennessee Williams, Moise and the World of Reason (New York, 1975), 45,

11, Tennessee W illiams, Hard Candy, in Collected Stories (New York, 1985),

337; emphasis mine.

12,

Ibid,, 340.

13, Ibid,, 345 , Hard Cand y is one of two stories ( The M ysteries of the Joy Rio

is the other) in which aging, diseased, fat homosexual men go to the former opera

hou se, now a faded mov ie theater, to die while reliving their homosexu al fantasies,

14,

Ibid,, 346,

15, Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (New York, 1947), 109,

16, Tennessee W illiams, Suddenly Last Summer (New York, 1958),

17, Ibid,, 17,

18, Ibid,, 40,

19,

Tennessee Williams Letters to Donald Windham: ¡940-1965, ed, Donald

Windham (New York, 1977), 215,

20 ,

Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Hew York, 1955), 15,

21, Ibid,, 88,

22 , Ibid,, 118.

23,

Ibid., 117-18,

24, Ibid,, 118,

25, Ibid,, 121.

26, Ibid,, 125.

27 ,

Ibid,, 122,

28 ,

Ibid,, 58,

29 ,

Ibid,, 127,

30 , Ibid,, 116-17,

31, Ibid., 80, 173,

32, Tennessee Williams, Small Craft Warnings (New York, 1972), 26,

33, Ibid,, 46,

34 , W indham, ed..

Letters,

306-7,

35, Williams, Mem oirs, 234,

36 ,

Williams, Small Craft Warnings, 44.

37, Ibid., 40 ,


21/21

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