Current Search: FOTOPOULOS, NIKI PRAVLIS. (x)
-
-
Title
-
APOLLONIAN-DIONYSIAN CONFLICT IN THREE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS PLAYS.
-
Creator
-
FOTOPOULOS, NIKI PRAVLIS., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
-
Abstract/Description
-
This thesis explores the conflicts between and within the main characters in three Tennessee Williams plays: A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, and Orpheus Descending. It demonstrates that the conflicts between the characters, the inevitable outcome of the individual's persistent adherence to established ideals and denial of his instinctive impulses, are analogous to the antithetical Apollonian-Dionysian forces as explored by Friedrich Nietzsche and Euripides. Of these opposed forces...
Show moreThis thesis explores the conflicts between and within the main characters in three Tennessee Williams plays: A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, and Orpheus Descending. It demonstrates that the conflicts between the characters, the inevitable outcome of the individual's persistent adherence to established ideals and denial of his instinctive impulses, are analogous to the antithetical Apollonian-Dionysian forces as explored by Friedrich Nietzsche and Euripides. Of these opposed forces, one represents the learned traits the other the unlearned primitive impulses. When further related to man's divided psyche they reveal that man's emotional stability depends upon the harmonious coexistence of both his conscious and unconscious impulses. However, as the study reveals, it is impossible for man to suppress and deny his natural impulses which, like nature itself, are too powerful and imperative to man's basic existence and spiritual salvation. To Williams Dionysus becomes the symbol of modern man who, haunted by ineffectual traditional values and threatened by technological encroachment, refuses to become extinct and defiantly fights to create a fresh and meaningful life.
Show less
-
Date Issued
-
1974
-
PURL
-
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13681
-
Subject Headings
-
Williams, Tennessee,--1911---Criticism and interpretation.
-
Format
-
Document (PDF)
