Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams was an American author generally regarded one of the best playwrights ever to come out of the United States. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, he was one of the most prolific playwrights penning several award-winning plays, the most popular of which was “The Glass Menagerie”. His work is known for its dramatic flair, poetic language, heartbreaking themes, and gritty characters that have made them timeless American classics. Tennessee was born Thomas Lanier Williams III in March 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, to straight-laced minister’s daughter Edwina Dakin Williams, and a traveling salesman Cornelius Coffin Williams. In 1918, the family moved to Louis, Missouri where Cornelius has found a job as the manager of the international Shoe Company in St. Louis. His parents were constantly fighting due his father’s violent temper and drinking. Things were even worse for the young Tennessee, who because of a serious bout of diphtheria became less robust than his father wished, resulting in a bad case father son resentment. Nonetheless, his mother was overly protective of him and showered him with love and attention. This period of his life was very important to the young author who used the troubles in his life as inspiration for his later writings. Shy and small, Tom was the victim of merciless cruelty and abuse at the Eugene Field Elementary School. Struggling to cope, he was sent to Mississippi to live with his grandparents for a year. When he came back, his mother got him a typewriter and by 1924, he got his first ever article “Isolated” published by his high school paper the Ben Blewett Junior High newspaper.