Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies

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Experimentalism in Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real


Affiliations
1 Department of English, Manipur Central University, Imphal, India
     

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Thomas Lanier Williams (1911-1983), was one of America’s most distinguished playwrights. As a victim of both The Great Depression and the Second World War, Williams studies human nature, psychological conflicts, tragic emotions and the highest form of poetic drama in his plays. American drama during the 1940’s and 50’s resort to new theatrical trends along with an experimentation of the American drama, showing the American mind, dilemma, modernisation, capitalism, the shameful truth of the dying romanticism and the ever-degrading human conditions. And Williams’s Camino Real is an analysis of the trapped human soul under its own skin, trapped by corruption, conservatism and imagination. A dream allegory, the play explores the path of human journey, the trials and temptations, the ultimate truth and realisation of the human failures, the successful overcoming of one’s mistakes, fears, lost dignity, honour and the dramatic return to culture, order and love.

Keywords

Experimentalism, Avant-Garde, Discourse, Futurism, Dadaism, Existentialism, Expressionism, Existentialism, Absurdism, Surrealism, Paradoxical, Escapism, Plastic Theatre.
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  • Balakian, Jan. 1997. “Camino Real: Williams’s allegory about the fifties.” The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams. Ed. Matthew C. Roudane. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Print.

  • Bray, Joe, Alison Gibbons and Brian McHale. ed. 2012. The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature. London: Routledge. Web. Nov. 14 2013. 7:30 pm. https// :jacket2.org/ commentary/routledge-companion-experimental-literature-introductionandtable-contents

  • Kernan, Alvin B. ed. 1993. The Modern American Theatre: A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey: Prentice – Hall. Print.

  • Parker, Brian. 1998. “Documentary sources for Camino Real.” The Tennessee Williams Annual Review : 42-45. Web. Nov. 15, 2013. 8:35 pm. http://www.tennessee williamsstudies.org/archives/ 1998/5parker.pdf.

  • Roudane, Matthew C. ed. 1997. The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Print.

  • Sugarwala, Fatima. 2005. “The Modern Don Quixote: Unveiling the Masque of Life in Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real.” Critical Essays on American Literature. Ed. Dr. K. Balachandran. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons. Print.

  • Williams, Tennesse. 1967. Camino Real. Middlesex: Penguin Books. rpt.1983. Print.


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  • Experimentalism in Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real

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Authors

Yumnam Yaiphabi Chanu
Department of English, Manipur Central University, Imphal, India

Abstract


Thomas Lanier Williams (1911-1983), was one of America’s most distinguished playwrights. As a victim of both The Great Depression and the Second World War, Williams studies human nature, psychological conflicts, tragic emotions and the highest form of poetic drama in his plays. American drama during the 1940’s and 50’s resort to new theatrical trends along with an experimentation of the American drama, showing the American mind, dilemma, modernisation, capitalism, the shameful truth of the dying romanticism and the ever-degrading human conditions. And Williams’s Camino Real is an analysis of the trapped human soul under its own skin, trapped by corruption, conservatism and imagination. A dream allegory, the play explores the path of human journey, the trials and temptations, the ultimate truth and realisation of the human failures, the successful overcoming of one’s mistakes, fears, lost dignity, honour and the dramatic return to culture, order and love.

Keywords


Experimentalism, Avant-Garde, Discourse, Futurism, Dadaism, Existentialism, Expressionism, Existentialism, Absurdism, Surrealism, Paradoxical, Escapism, Plastic Theatre.

References