Tennessee Williams and Gender Roles
Men are more qualified to work in a business environment while the women are only capable of maintaining a clean house and happy home. This is the gender role that society thinks they must live up to. Tennessee Williams portrays this gender role in both of his plays, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Glass Menagerie. The point that he makes is that everyone must live up to a specific “role”. In each of the plays there are two female characters that support the idea of gender role. Even though the four women are all different, they each illustrate a different kind of role that was present in the forties. The presence of gender roles in these two plays show Tennessee Williams opinion of women along with helping the reader to see what women are all about.
In A Streetcar Named Desire the two main female characters are Blanche and Stella. These two women are examples of how Tennessee Williams viewed women of the nineteen forties. “’Pig-polak-disgusting- vulgar- greasy!’- Them kind of words have been on your [Stella’s] tongue and your sisters to much around here! What do you two think you are? A pair of Queens?” (A Streetcar Named Desire). Not letting women use this kind of language, which in today’s society is used by both men and women, is an example of how men viewed and treated women, Stanley felt as though Stella should look up to and satisfy his needs. Empowerment over women is a large theme in this play; along with many of Tennessee Williams other plays.
Laura and Amanda in The Glass Menagerie also portray women of the nineteen forties, but in a different way than Blanche and Stella do, showing the different types of women in the forties, giving different prospective on women’s roles. In the play Laura’s job, according to Amanda is to “stay fresh and pretty- for gentlemen callers!”(The Glass Menagerie 7). Amanda’s plans for Laura are not based on a desire for her daughter’s happiness, but to fulfill the gender roles that she sees in the world around her. In her viewing this in the world around her it can be concluded that this is how women of the time period were expected to act.
Although Amanda is represented as more powerful than Blanche, Williams still points out that woman should not be as powerful as men. The one thing that Amanda has in common with Blanche is that she takes care of herself, they both care about looking pretty and it is very important to them. Unlike Blanche, Amanda takes care of her children. She helps her daughter to attend to the gentlemen callers who show up at her door. “I want you to stay fresh and pretty – for gentleman callers” (The Glass Menagerie 7), Amanda even tries teaching her daughter about satisfying men. She believes “girls that aren’t cut out for business careers usually wind up married to some nice man” (The Glass Menagerie 17). The belief is that because a man is the one going out to work every day and bringing home the money, women should be the ones satisfying the men when they get home from work. Every woman wants to go out and explore the world for themselves, to become her own person, an individual, and not have to listen to what men tell them; but they know that they cannot do this without being punished. During the nineteen forties it was acceptable for men to order women around and it was unacceptable for women to stand up for themselves and to be their own person.
In both plays it is the men who control the events, and the women are “entirely dependent on the men and use them to achieve their goals” (DiSchiavi). Examples of this can be found in both of the plays. Blanche, in A Streetcar Named Desire, has always “depended” on these strangers who are exclusively men. And, in The Glass Menagerie Amanda and Laura both depend fully on Tom to survive. These women seem to be “without power in the community they inhabit,” (DiSchiavi) because of the power that the men have over them.
Not only are all of these women physically needy, but they are emotionally needy as well. All four of the women strive to make themselves look “presentable” for the men that are or may be in their lives, but in doing this they get looked down upon by the men which leaves them emotionally fragile. “Poker should not be played in a house with women” (A Streetcar Named Desire 41). Women are not only prohibited from playing poker but are also banished from the house when the game is being played. One night when Stella and Blanche return home early, before the men are done with their game, causing there to be a disagreement about the radio, Stanly assaults Stella. Events like this cause the women not only to have physical pain but emotional and mental as well. In letting events like this to continually happen the women have “refuse[d] to acknowledge their state of exile and continue to struggle for a piece of dignity and social standing even when the battle seems lost” (DiSchiavi).
In The Glass Menagerie it may not seem like Tennessee Williams is portraying the gender roles because Amanda had to take care of both Laura and Tom after her husband abandoned her and her children. But,
“Women, portrayed often with great sympathy, are at the same time fragile and strong, attractive and repulsive. Amanda's husband has long since deserted the family, but she attempts to keep her children up to the social level to which she aspires” (Liukkonen).
Even though Amanda was very strong in raising her children she still depends on the “gentlemen callers” for her daughters sake, while they both depend on Tom to support them. "Resume your seat, little sister – I want you to stay fresh and pretty – for gentlemen callers!" (The Glass Menagerie 7), Tom not only financially supports his mother and sister, but he also tries to help them accomplish their goals in life, showing the gender roles that can be seen in many of Tennessee Williams plays.
Gender roles are not only caused by society but also by the pressure of a parents towards their child. Tennessee Williams shows this in the relationship that Amanda has with her daughter Laura, pushing her to be the perfect lady that every man thinks they must have. “No, dear, you go in front and study your typewriter chart. Or practice your shorthand a little. Stay fresh and pretty! - It's almost time for our gentlemen callers to start arriving. [She flounces girlishly toward the kitchenette] How many do you suppose we're going to entertain this afternoon?" (The Glass Menagerie 7).
The pressure that Amanda puts on Laura to “stay fresh and pretty” for her gentlemen callers is nearly equal to the pressure that society would have on her. Tennessee Williams uses these pressures to show that there are many different people in one’s life that could influence how one views their role in society.
The use of gender roles in Tennessee Williams plays show the roles that he felt women and men should live up to when in a relationship with each other. The four female characters in the plays A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie show four different kinds of roles that women had in the forties. From women that fully depended on men like Stella, to women that try to help themselves but end up needing the help of a man like Amanda. These roles can still be seen in the world today but not as extreme as they were in the forties. As Williams points out these gender roles are what people feel they must live up to in order to make it in life, leaving a small majority of people to step out of that comfort zone.
Work Cited
DiSchiavi, Michael. “Tennessee Williams’ Women in a Man’s World.” Gale Cengage
Learning. http://tinyurl.com/4eo7hcm. 1 Feb. 2011.
Liukkonen, Petri. "Tennessee Williams." Www.kirjasto.sci.fi. 2008. Web. 1 Feb. 2011.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York: Random House, 1945.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: New American Library, 1947.
