Biographical+Information+on+Tennessee+Williams

Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams III in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1911. His friends began calling him Tennessee in college, in honor of his Southern accent and his father’s home state. Williams’s father, C.C. Williams, was a traveling salesman and a heavy drinker. Williams’s mother, Edwina, was a Mississippi clergyman’s daughter prone to hysterical attacks. Until Williams was seven, he, his parents, his older sister, Rose, and his younger brother, Dakin, lived with Edwina’s parents in Mississippi.
 * Tennessee William’s Biography: **

Much of the pathos found in Williams’s drama was mined from the playwright’s own life. __Alcoholism, depression, thwarted desire, loneliness, and insanity__ were all part of Williams’s world. His experience as a known __homosexual__ in an era unfriendly to homosexuality also informed his work.

His __vulgar, irresponsible male characters__, such as __Stanley Kowalski__, were likely modeled on Williams’s own __father__ and other males who tormented Williams during his childhood.

Tennessee was close to his sister __Rose__, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age. As was common then, Rose was institutionalized and spent most of her adult life in mental hospitals. When therapies were unsuccessful, she showed more paranoid tendencies. Some biographers believe that the __character of Blanche DuBois is also based on her__.

Notes by:

Jesika Haria