Communists, Cowboys and Queers: Politics of Masculinity in the Work of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams

218 Pages·1992·13.06 MB·English

by  David Savran

COMMUNISTS, COWBOYS, AND QUEERS
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COMMUNISTS, COWBOYS,.... QUEERS
THE POLITICS OF MASCULINITY IN THE WORK
OF ARTHUR MILLER AND TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
David Savran
University of Minnesota Press • Minneapolis/ London
Copyright 1992 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
2037 University Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis, MN 55414
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Savran, David
Communists, cowboys, and queers : the politics of masculinity in the work of
Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams / David Savran.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8166-2122-5 (hard). — ISBN 0-8166-2123-3 (pbk.)
1. American drama—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Politics and
literature—United States—History—20th century. 3. Williams, Tennessee, 1911-
1983—Political and social views. 4. Miller, Arthur, 1915 Political and social
views. 5. Political plays, American—History and criticism. 6. Masculinity
(Psychology) in literature. 7. Sex role in literature. 8. Men in literature. I. Title.
PS338.P6S28 1992
812' .5209358—dc20 92-4267
CIP
The University of Minnesota is an
equal-opportunity educator and employer.
For Ronn, without whom not
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
One
Arthur Miller: "Why can't I say T?" 20
Two
Tennessee Williams I: "By coming suddenly into
a room that I thought was empty" 76
Three
Tennessee Williams II: "'Revolutionary' is a
misunderstood word" 111
Notes 175
Index 199
vii
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Preface
This book happened by accident. I set out two years ago to write a
study of masculinity on the contemporary American stage and got only
as far as the introduction. In composing a brief critical overview of the
work of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, I became so fascinated
by the different ways in which they each negotiated questions of gender
and sexuality in Cold War America—and so amazed by the shortsight-
edness of most critics in analyzing their drama—that I knew I had to
devote an entire volume to these two. What follows is the result of two
years of passionate involvement.
As I was working on this book, however, and immersed in research,
a marvelous surprise awaited me: the lesser-known works of Tennessee
Williams. For the most part, I retained the image of Williams as a great
poet of the theater and a discreetly closeted homosexual that I had
deduced from critical cliches and the popular plays between The Glass
Menagerie (1944) and The Night of the Iguana (1961). But I was quite
unfamiliar with his many short stories, two novels, Memoirs (1975),
letters, and later plays. Steeping myself in these works, I was over-
whelmed to discover a figure completely different from the one I had
been teaching. Here was a writer who called himself a revolutionary
and meant it, a playwright who produced a new and radical theater that
challenged and undermined the Cold War order. Taking Williams at his
word and crediting this revolutionary promise, I realized that this book
ix