Theater of Absurd Philosophy and Traditions in Later Plays of Tennessee Williams

Abstract

The paper analyzes the influence of the Theater of the Absurd, an avant-garde European trend in culture and art, on the later plays of American playwright Tennessee Williams. On a philosophical and ideological level, he shared the opinion of the absurdists, who drew on the ideas of existentialism, about the spiritual crisis, the universal loneliness of people and, most importantly, about the death of the gods – godliness – and abandonment of people in the modern world. A number of plays in which the American playwright addresses various issues of religion, proving, on the one hand, its inconsistency, and on the other, the urgent human need for faith. Under the influence of the trends of the Theater of the Absurd, the structural elements of the dramatic work also undergo changes, namely form, plot, conflict, means of creating characters, scenery, symbols, etc. The author pays special attention to the changes that affect the characters’ speech in Tennessee Williams’s later plays, in particular to such a dramatic element as soliloquy and its functions. In conclusion, the author states that Tennessee Williams’s experimentation with innovative trends can not be seen as exclusively copying avant-garde techniques, as the American playwright remains faithful to his creative canon.