The limits of realism in The Mutilated, by Tennessee Williams: expressionism and verfremdungseffekt
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2017v70n1p275Abstract
This paper starts the research reading the hesitations of literary and theatrical criticism in its proposition to classify Tennessee Williams’s (1911-1983) dramatic writing, specially the critics that try to restrict the foregoing playwright works under the term “Realism”. Adverse to this criticism, the production notes from The Glass Menagerie (1944) – Williams’s Plastic Theatre manifesto – reveals the author intentions to get rid of orthodox Realism theatre conventions in his plays. Finally, the study points in Williams’s The Mutilated (1967) some remarkable qualities – expressionist techniques and uses of brechtian Verfremdungseffekt – that allude to a distinct conception of Realism.
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