Tennessee Williams, a successful American playwright, wrote several award winning plays. Most of his plays end in sadness and unresolved problems possibly due to his own personal depression. The plays also include many reoccurring motifs that many times reflect upon experiences in his life (“Tennessee”). He uses these motifs to convey an important life lesson to the reader. In many of his plays including Summer and Smoke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Suddenly, Last Summer, Williams uses the motif of the dysfunctional family to illustrate how a flawed home life can negatively affect a child’s outcome in life.
Tennessee William’s play Summer and Smoke provides a great example of how a family situation can affect the outcome of a child. Alma, the main character and daughter of the local preacher, has a mother classified as mentally insane. Because of the family’s social status of the “preacher’s family,” Alma must play the role of both daughter and wife because of her mother’s apparent lack of cognizance. (Summer 8-17). The duel roles force her to mature far beyond that of her peers making her slightly outcast from others her own age. Sadly, Alma has more antagonistic problems. The roles she has taken on to keep the family’s social status up to par have caused her to fear judgment from others. She continually tries to put on an act for people that her family remains happy and functional. The stress of this constant judgment has caused her to become overly afraid of social situations. On the other end of the character spectrum, we have John. John grew up as the son of the local doctor. Naturally, society has come to expect him to follow in his father’s shoes and become a notable doctor. John, however, does not want this expectation placed on him, so he chooses to rebel against everything people expect by drinking and partying. John’s behavior, in contrast to Alma’s, more often than not brings judgment upon himself as the local rebel (36). Because John so badly...