Intellectual Investigation of Illusion-Reality In Selected Works of Tenneesse Williams

Jim O’ Connor is described by Tom as, “The most realistic character in the play, being an emissary form a world of reality that we were somehow set apart from.” (Glass 235) His illusion is the American Dream, which is Horatio Alger myth: any person with average intelligence and proper training can achieve any thing. It is the ‘rags to riches’ path of the nineteenth century America. Jim has this illusion. He thinks in terms of money and power. His ambitions and aspirations are very lofty. To realize his ambitions and aspirations, he attends night school and course in public speaking to be eligible for an executive position. He is a believer in ‘the cycle democracy is built on”. He thinks that all men are created equal, everyone is just like any one else, only better. “Why, man alive, Laura! Just look about you a little. What do you see? A world full of common people! All of’em born and all of’em going to die! Which of them has one-tenth of your good points! Or mine! Or anyone else’s, as far as that goes-gosh!” (Glass299) Jim O’ Connor appears to be a character from the allegory of the cave of Plato. He is unaware that he is living with illusions and superficial knowledge. His life is dominated by shadow play on the walls of his cave made by newspaper headlines and endlessly moving shadows on the television screen, by echoing voices of the opinion makers. He takes for truth whatever is known by the senses. He is unaware that he too is living in illusions. Jim is futuristic and he focuses his life on the future, always attempting to become more, to learn more, to experience more of life. He acts and thinks while looking forward. He is harbouring the illusion of American dream that he can be anything in his life. He also labours under the delusion that by taking course in radio engineering, he would be able to get in to the television industry and go to the top. Brett Ashley Crawford remarks, “Jim, a good natured aspiring capitalist, accepted the end of his past high school glory as he looked forward to his future in radio” (309). But, in reality, he has to do the job in the warehouse. As Rita Colanzi says, “Tom Wingfield’s introduction and accompanying screen legends – ‘The High School Hero’, ‘The Clerk’ – make us mindful that gentleman caller too has gone beyond his youthful glory” (457). Like Wingfields, he must be protected by illusion from a harsh world that prevents the individual fulfillment. So all the four characters are vacillating between illusion and reality like the Western philosophers of dualism who are alternating between dualism and monism. Human life is full of illusions and it is difficult to free it from illusions. Illusions provide a shelter from the hard and harsh, rough and tough realities of life for a short span. Amanda, Laura and Tom fail in their lives. There is a fifth character, who is the father of Tom and Laura. He does not appear on the scene except in hislarger than life photograph over the mantel. Tom saysabout him, “ He was a telephone man who fell in lovewith long distances; he gave up his job with thetelephone company and skipped the light fantastic outof town….The last we heard of him was a picturepostcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast ofMexico, containing a message of two words. “Hello-Good –bye!’ and no address”. (Glass 235) So father too was illusion ridden, he deserted thefamily without realizing the responsibilities of thefamily. For the sake of his adventure and for the love of long distances, he left the family in lurch to fend foritself. He was so afraid of the reality that he did noteven leave his address to his nearest and dearestones. This genetic defect was transferred to Tom ininheritance who following the footsteps of his father fell in love with the long distances. As Bigsby says: His image dominates the room but he has long sinceescaped. And so, too, have those he left behind,except that what he has achieved in space they havesought in time, turning, like Amanda, to the past or, like Laura, to the timeless world of the imagination. So, too, has Tom, who, as a putative writer, perhaps scarcelyneeds the physical escape which leaves him with thesense of guilt that makes him reconstruct the eventswhich constitute the play (Critical 41). The difference between the father and the son was that father could break the bonds of his family without anyguilt but Tom could not shatter the shackles of thefamily. To quote Bigsby: But all of Williams’ characters are crippled in onesense or another emotionally, spiritually… and out ofthat imperfection there comes a need, which generatesthe illusions with which they fill their world, the art which they set up against reality. Like Laura’s glassanimals, however, those illusions and that art provefragile (Critical 48). The other play, in which the central character, growsout of illusion to face the reality is The Rose Tattoo,which is a tragic comedy about a Sicilian- Americanwoman Serafina, who is a seamstress. The wordSerafina comes from fine nights and Williams hadactual saint Seraphina in mind when he named hisheroine. She is a woman passionately devoted to herhusband, Rosario. As the play opens, she is waiting forher husband. Just before dawn, the priest and blackshawled women gather before Serafina’s house to tell

Available online at www.ignited.in Page 9

her that Rosario is dead. Against the customs of Roman Catholic Church, she wants Rosario’s body to be cremated and not buried. For the next three years, she keeps a flame burning at the marble urn containing Rosario’s ashes. She remains faithful to him even after his death. But she learns that her husband had an affair with a woman Estelle and had been unfaithful to her. After confirming the truth, she seizes the marble urn and hurls it violently into the farthest corner of the room. She yields herself to a truck driver named Alvaro. He has the body like her husband but his face is like that of a clown. Serafina tells Alvaro that her husband had a Rose tattoo on his chest and on the night when she conceived, she saw a rose tattoo on her breast. When called for dinner, Alvaro comes with a rose tattoo on his chest to win over Serafina and his trick works and she submits herself to him physically. Her own daughter, Rosa to whom she has been sermonising on sex gets disgusted and rushes out of the house. After the death of her husband, Serafina Delle Rose, the heroine of the play, lives in a world of illusion that her husband, Rosario was faithful to her. She fondly recalls, “ My husband was a Sicilian. We had love together every night of the week, we never skipped one, from the night we was married till the night he was killed in his fruit truck on that road there!”. (Rose 155) To the priest Father De Leo she described the pure relationship she had with husband Rosario Delle Rose, “ I give him the glory. To me the big bed was beautiful like a religion”. (Rose173) She considered Rosario’s love making as a sacrament, “ I am satisfied to remember the love of a man that was mine- only mine. Never touched by the hand of nobody. Nobody but me! Just- me!”. (Rose 156-57) She was so much in love with her husband that when she conceived, she saw a rose tattoo on her breast which her husband had on his chest. She is cherishing illusion about rose tattoo also as she says, “That night I woke up with a burning pain on me, here, on my left breast! A pain like a needle, quick, quick, hot little stitches. I turned on the light, I uncovered my breast…On it I saw the rose tattoo of my husband!”. (Rose 137) When she learns that her husband has been killed in an accident while delivering narcotics hidden under bananas, she is shocked. Inspite of the instructions of her priest Father De Leo, Serafina gets her husband cremated so that she can preserve his ashes in the marble urn with her forever. She spent three years worshipping those ashes under the illusion that her husband was faithful to her. Even her daughter makes fun of the illusions of her mother. Rosa says: Mama! –I’m so ashamed I could die. This is the wayshe goes around all the time. She hasn’t put on clothessince my father was killed. For three years she sits atthe sewing machine and never puts a dress on or goesout of the house, and now she has locked my clothesup so I can’t go out. She wants me to be like her, afreak of the neighbourhood, the way she is ! Next time, next time, I won’t cut my wrist but my throat ! I don’twant to live locked up with a bottle of ashes! (Rose148-49) This was wife’s piety for her husband. As Ben Brantleysays, “Serafina the stormy Sicilian seamstresssequesters herself from life in a haze of memories ofher husband’s sexual prowess” (Upbeat C11+). Inscene 5 of Act 1 she tells the man crazy Bessie andFlora of her love for Rosario, “ I count up the nights, Iheld him all night in my arms, and I can tell you howmany. Each night for twelve years. Four thousand-three hundred- and eighty. The number of nights I heldhim all night in my arms. Sometimes I didn’t sleep justheld him all night in my arm. And I am satisfied with it. Igrieve for him”. (Rose 156) But soon the reality showsits face. Her dreams are destroyed and her illusionsare shattered when she learns from Flora and Bessie,two female clowns of middle years and juveniletemperament who have come to take their polka dotblouse which Serafina was sewing for them, about theinfidelity of her dead husband. These women weregoing to the American Legion convention “ Where theydrop paper sacks out of hotel windows on girls and theLegionnaires even caught a girl on canal street! Theytore the clothes off her and sent her home in a taxi.”(Rose 154). Serafina can not contain herself and says, “You twoladies watch how you talk in there. You are sitting inthe same room with our Lady and with the blessedashes of my husband”. (Rose 154) And asks them toget out on the streets. Retorting, they tell her thatRosario was a thief and an adulterer. His affair withEstelle was not one night affair but it was a romance as Flora says, “ It was a romance, not just a fly-by-nightthing, but a steady affair that went on for more than ayear”. (Rose 157) It came as a bolt from blue forSerafina. Flora further says that Estelle was so goneon him that, she went down to Bourbon street and hada rose tattoo put on her chest. Serafina rushes at the two with broom but they runaway. Not willing to believe their story, she turns to her statue of the Virgin and asks for a sign. Unable to face the reality, she goes to Father de Lio who admitsreluctantly about Estelle and refuses to revealRosario’s confessions. Taking the hint from Father de-Leo, Serafina in her desperation attacks him with her

Available online at www.ignited.in Page 10

fists. The neighbourhood women pull her away. She admits her fear before Alvaro that her husband had not been faithful to her. Alvaro suggests to call Estelle Hohengarten directly which she does and learns the real truth. The reality finally dawns upon her. After this, she allows her daughter Rosa to go for a picnic with her boy friend Jack. But before allowing them, she forces Jack to swear before the shrine of the Virgin and asks Jack to respect Rosa’s innocence. Serafina indulges in day dreaming and her reverie is interrupted by Alvaro, a truck driver who has come to her house after a scuffle with a salesman. As Bryer and Hartig say, “ Alvaro is an anti-romantic suitor, reminiscent of clownish bumbling lovers in the plays of Russian dramatist Anton Chekov” (405). Serafina notes that he has the body and appearance of her husband with the head of a clown. Serafina offers to mend his torn jacket while he washes up. When she learns that he too drives a banana truck, like Rosario, she believes that he is the sign she prayed for. By the evening there is a complete change in Serafina. As Serafina says to Alvaro, “[In a strident whisper.] You make out like you are going. You drive the truck out of sight where the witch can’t see it. Then you come back and I leave the back door open for you to come in. Now, tell me goodbye so all the neighbours can hear you!”. (Rose 202) It is with the implied consent of Serafina that Alvaro comes back again to have physical relations with her. As Tischler remarks, “ Serafina, with her dream blasted, is left without any reason for pride or purity. She sends Alvaro out the front door noisily and welcomes him in the back door secretly, turns out the lights and relaxes for the first time in three years” (Rebellious Puritan 172). To withdraw herself from life and live like hermit in the four walls of the house, worshipping the ashes of her husband was her illusion. To yield and submit physically to Alvaro is her reality. As Bigsby says, “ Thus, Serafina is freed of her obsession with death (in the form of ashes of her dead husband Rosario) by a man whose sexual directness has none of the destructive overtones of Stanley Kowalski’s” (Critical 73). With the hope of love again, she casts away her illusion and is ready to face the reality of life and is ready to make love. As Kolin remarks, “Serafina graduates by throwing off the bonds of the past, which enshackled her in buffoonery, and accepts the love and promise of the future” (226). Illusion about her husband’s fidelity leads her to psychotic withdrawal. Reality about his infidelity brings her closer to life and she discovers herself. As Griffin says, “Serafina rejects death for life, abstinence for love, isolation for community and barrenness for pregnancy” (113).Serafina cherishes the illusion that she married abaron. In conversation with Alvaro she says: SERAFINA. I was a peasant, but I married a baron!-No, I still don’t believe it! I married a baron when I didn’t have shoes! ALVARO. Excuse me for asking- but where is theBaron, now?---- SERAFINA. Them’ re his ashes in that marble urn.(Rose 181) But the reality is that Rosario was a thief who used tosmuggle narcotics hidden under bananas. Even herfriends make fun of her illusion regarding the Baron inscene IV, when she does not open the door, Peppinatells to call her “Baronessa” and she will answer thedoor. She lives in the illusion of past. Rosario’s unclewas a Baron; she is a Baronessa. She loves this liebecause it sustains her illusion of the beautiful past. Serafina harbours the illusion about ‘Rose’ also. Roseis considered to be a love producing object. It oftendraws a lover to a beloved, but Williams, has reversedthe roles here. In The Rose Tattoo, it draws woman tothe man, for Williams the rose is a symbol of love andthis symbol is there in the play throughout. Serafina’shusband Rosario had a rose tattoo on his chest.Serafina tells Alvaro that the night she conceived, shesaw the rose tattoo on her breast. That was her illusion and Alvaro taking advantage of her fondness for therose tattoo, goes and has a rose tattooed on his chest in reality to win over Serafina. Rose for Serafina wasemblematic representation of both sex and spirituality.He tries to exploit her illusion of rose tattoo to his advantage in reality because he wants the economicsecurity in the household of an older physicallydeveloped woman like Serafina and in the love of thewoman. Again Serafina feels the burning of the rose on her breast and thinks that she has conceived. Folklore associates sexual power with roses. By eatinga rose a woman can conceive. In the play, under theillusion of rose, Serafina conceives twice in reality,once by Rosario and second time by Alvaro. Both thetimes, once in the beginning and the second time atthe end of the play, she had the illusion of rose on her breast, when she conceived. She has the illusion of protecting her daughter Rosaform sexual abuse. She does not like the love affair ofher daughter with Jack, a young sailor. She does notallow the lovers to meet. In order to ensure theirseparation, she conceals Rosa’s clothes so that she

Available online at www.ignited.in Page 11

may not go out to meet her friend and is confined to four walls of the house. This confinement in the house does not allow her to take her final exams at the school too. As Serafina says: You know what they do at this high school? They ruin the girls there! They give the spring dance because the girls are man-crazy. And there at the dance my daughter goes with a sailor that has in his ear a gold ring! And pants so tight that a woman ought not to look at him! This morning, this morning she cuts with a knife her wrist if I don’t let her go!-Now all of them gone to some island, they call it a picnic, all of them, gone in a boat. (Rose 173) Her teacher comes to the house and tells her that she has been allowed to graduate because of previous good record. While going for graduation, Rosa tells Serafina that she looks disgusting. These words compel her to introspect. When Rosa brings Jack to meet her mother and to ask for permission for their picnic with the graduating class, Serafina forces Jack to his knees before the shrine of Virgin and makes him swear to respect her daughter’s innocence before allowing them for picnic. But in reality, she learns that she has been cuckolded by Rosario. She herself sets up the shrine of her husband and advises her daughter not to trust the boy. Rosa and Jack come back early in morning. Rosa made it difficult for Jack to keep his promise, he had made before the shrine. After the departure of Jack, Rosa sleeps on the couch. Alvaro stumbles into the living room and finds Rosa. Rosa cries in fear, which brings Serafina in the room. Belittled and ashamed before Rosa, Serafina tries to prove that Alvaro is a housebreaker, but she can’t befool Rosa. Now Rosa is bent upon joining Jack to fulfill her love before he leaves. Alvaro too goes out of the house from the front gate, disclosing his love affair. Rosa’s attempt to run away with Jack Hunter is successful because Serafina has come out of the illusion. She no longer creates hindrances for Rosa and Jack. Philip C.Kolin has rightly remarked: Although Serafina lives in her own world, a victim of her dreams, the affinity with Williams’ earlier female characters is tenuous. Serafina is much more adaptable than, say, Blanche Dubois. Serafina throws off deception in time to marry Alvaro. But it is too late for Blanche and her Alvaro (Mitch) whom she loses too soon and wants too late (227-28). In Serafina’s case, existence is taking precedence overessence. She is free to make her choice and isresponsible for her act. She resolves the duality ofbody and mind. Spinoza has maintained that both bodyand soul constantly interact and influence each other.She steps out of the cloistered existence after realizing the truth about her husband’s infidelity and her bodyresponds to the dictates of the mind by physicallyyielding to Alvaro. Serafina extricates herself out of illusion to accept thereality and adapts herself for the future. So this play is a comedy in praise of sex and song of Earth. Though inthe initial stages, Serafina was seeking refuge in theillusion but ultimately she comes out of her illusions toface the reality of life. She realizes that you can’t leada life on the basis of a memory. The life has to move.She comes out of her self-imposed cloistered existenceand starts living her life like a normal person. The theme of illusion and reality is found not only in the above mentioned plays but in other plays also. Blanchein A Street Car Named Desire, like Laura and Amandacannot face the reality and tries to live in the world ofillusion. She is a sensitive and cultured woman from adecaying Southern family. She has lost the familyestate Belle Reve that is a French word, which means‘Beautiful Dream’. She has a false sense of gentility.She has come to her sister’s place, which is two roomlower class flat. Her illusions and airs of superiorityabout a the Southern gentility are punctured by herbrother-in-law Stanley when he probes into her pastand asks her whether she knows somebody by thename of Shaw and whether she has been visiting theFlamingo Hotel. After that he exposes her chequeredpast. Blanche has been visiting the hotels with menwho wanted only night’s pleasure. Then the hotelmanagement stopped her entry into the hotel becauseshe became ‘a town character’. She was dismissedfrom the school because she was involved with aseventeen-year-old boy of her school at Laurel.Blanche was physically exploited by the soldiers whowere getting their training in the army camp nearLaurel. She also kissed the newspaper boy who hadcome to the house for the fund collection and calledhim a Prince out of The Arabian Nights. Blanche seeksrelationship with the boys because she feels guiltyabout the death of her young husband, Allan Grey.Blanche’s moment of crisis occurred when she came toknow about the homosexuality of her husband and in amoment of disgust she drove him to suicide. Shecannot face the reality of the role, which she played in the suicide of her husband. She herself confesses toher sister Stella that because of the financialconstraints, she had been running from one man toanother for the last two years. It was not possible for

Available online at www.ignited.in Page 12

her to lead a blameless life because men tried to take advantage of her. Stanley not only exposed Blanche’s past to her sister Stella but also to his friend Mitch with whom she was dreaming of marriage. After learning about her promiscuous past, Mitch is no longer interested in marrying her but is ready to spend the night with her. This she takes as an insult and turns him out of the house. Stanley thinks that she feels herself superior to him and considers him as an animal, savage and sub human. To make her realize that she is the same being, a sexual animal, he rapes her, which wrecks her life. Unlike her sister Blanche, Stella is a realistic woman. For her, ‘self’ is supreme. She does not think of Belle Reve, like her sister. She is totally committed to her husband. She tells Blanche on the day of her arrival that she can’t stand it when Stanley is away from home even for one night, and that when he is away for a week, she nearly goes wild. When Blanche expresses her disgust with Stella over Stella’s quick reconciliation with her husband after the fight, Stella replies that there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark- that sort of things make everything else seem unimportant.

Williams, Tennessee. Sweet Bird of Youth, A Street Car Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie. London: Secker and Warburg, 1983. – – –.Five Plays: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Rose Tattoo, Garden District, (Something Unspoken and Suddenly Last Summer), Orpheus Descending. London: Secker and Warburg, 1962. – – –.Four Plays: The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, Camino Real. London: Secker and Warburg, 1957. – – –.The Night of the Iguana. New York: New American Library, 1961.