Ezra Maloney

This thesis will examine representations of hypermasculinity and its effects on characters in the theatre of 20th-century American dramatist Tennessee Williams, specifically in; A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). My central thesis is that the hyper-masculine characteristics embodied by Stanley Kowalski and Mitch in Streetcar as well as Brick and Big Daddy Pollitt in Cat inhibit their capacity to maintain successful interpersonal relationships within both plays. Relationships of the platonic, romantic and familial kind will be under investigation throughout this dissertation.
Williams’ work, which first came to prominence in 1944, best represents the nature of Post-War American masculinity as his male characters are oblique, unfixed and ambiguous - even sexually ambiguous in some cases. Williams’ drama also allows the insecurity of hyper-masculine characters such as Stanley Kowalski to emerge through their actions and interactions with other characters Additionally, I will prove that the restrictiveness of hyper-masculinity in these plays leads to the demonisation and exclusion of queer characters thus only rendering it possible to convey queerness through omission - particularly within the relationship between Brick and Skipper in Cat and Blanche and Stanley in Streetcar. I will also pay close attention to the setting of Williams’ plays, and the significance of alcohol in both plays.
I will place the role of the Post-War period in the formation of hyper masculine ideals at the centre of my argument as, following the end of the war, hypermasculinity and conservatism re-emerged in American society, creating tension in relationships between men and women, as reflected by Williams’ plays. Knowing this, I will analyse the impact this choice of setting has on the male characters and their conduct in relationships throughout both plays.
The relationships most germane to my analysis in this dissertation are those between Maggie, Brick, Skipper, and Big Daddy in Cat and the relationship between Mitch, Stanley, and the DuBois sisters in Streetcar. Overall, in writing this thesis,I will prove that the rigidity and repressive traits that constituted Post-War male consciousness create a barrier to self-expression and thus disrupt the relationships between the aforementioned characters.

From its inception in the mid-eighteenth century with the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1765), Gothic literature has been; ‘fascinated by violent differences in power, and its stories are full of constraint, entrapment and forced actions’ (Bowen, Gothic Motifs). This is true for both George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil (1859) and Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla (1871-72), two novellas concerned with social structures in which access to power was often based upon gender, specifically, an acceptable presentation of one’s gender. Both authors utilise the genre of Gothic horror as a space to express concerns over gender and power, concepts which were continuously in flux throughout the nineteenth century. Eliot and LeFanu’s texts reflect the social upheaval of the era through the relationships of their characters, particularly those of the narrators; Latimer and Laura. Written twelve years apart, interestingly both novellas address issues relating to gender, power, and the consequences of attaining such power. Eliot’s The Lifted Veil explores how access to power and respect is limited to those capable of embodying an acceptable form of masculinity as well as the impossibility of female power. LeFanu’s Carmilla employs vampirism as a device for expressing anxiety over the emergence of the ‘New Woman’, female sexuality and power.  This essay will examine the connection between power and gender in the relationships of the aforementioned characters and will attempt to prove that powerful women were seen as an anomaly in Victorian society and thus were depicted as villains. Particular attention will be paid to the manner in which interpersonal relationships are conducted within the matrix of a patriarchal Victorian society, Carmilla’s death, the significance of blood transfusion in Eliot’s work and Latimer’s inability to conform to an acceptable form of masculinity.