Here you have extracts from "The World I Live in" an essay by Tennessee Williams which may enrich our reading of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (and, by extension, our worldview!).Hope to see you this Wednesday to discuss about it!
Do you have any positive message, in your opinion?
Indeed I do think that I do.
Such as what?
The crying, almost screaming, need of a great worldwide human effort to know ourselves and each other a great deal better, well enough to concede that no man has a monopoly on right or virtue any more than any man has a corner on duplicity and evil and so forth. If people, and races and nations, would start with that self-manifest truth, then I think that the world could sidestep the sort of corruption which I have chosen as the basic, allegorical theme of my plays as a whole.
(...)
Why don't you write about nice people? Haven't you ever known any nice people in your life?
My theory about nice people is so simple that I am embarrassed to say it
Please, say it!
Well, I've never met one that I couldn't love if I completely knew him and understood him, and in my work I have tried at least to arrive at knowledge and understanding.
I don't believe in "original sin". I don't believe in "guilt". I don't believe in villains and heroes-only right or wrong ways that individuals have chosen, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, their antecedents.
This is so simple I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm sure it's true. In fact, I would bet my life on it. And that's why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in.
Why don't we meet these people and get to know them as I try to meet and know people in my plays? This sounds terribly vain and egotistical.
I don't want to end on such a note. Then what shall I say? That I know that I am a minor artist who has happened to write one or two major works? I can't even say which they are. It doesn't matter. I have said my say. I may say it still again, shut up now. It doesn't depend on you, it depends entirely on me, and the operation of chance or Providence in my life.
This essay first appeared in the London Observer, 7 April 1957
To read the whole essay go to:
http://books.google.es/books?id=VcyFkNOYsFgC&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=the+world+i+live+in+tennessee+williams&source=bl&ots=fmzy5bBqU-&sig=iUVjH-tH9DPngV-HZDM5rzhtDG0&hl=es&ei=9N3lTpDxO9SAhQfR6smFAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20world%20i%20live%20in%20tennessee%20williams&f=false
This was some guy.
ReplyDeleteI mean, the way the interview opens: "Can we talk frankly?" And he goes "There's no other way we can talk."
I'd love to have met this guy in person, but since I couldn't I'm quite happy to read his books (and interviews!). Thanks Ana!
I was reading it and I was inmediately immersed in the novel we have just read. This extract is a perfect example of what we can see in Tennessee Williams' books and it is really useful if you are going to start reading one of them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.