This book identifies a recurrent structural pattern in Tennessee Williams' plays that lends
organic integrity to their evocations of memory myth and symbol. Judith J. Thompson examines
the evolution of a pattern of mythic recollection and existential reenactment in seventeen
Williams plays - from its most successful realization in The Glass Menagerie through The Night
of the Iguana to its parody in A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur - and explores the significance
of the pattern to Williams' larger-than-life-size characters his nostalgic ambience and his
tragicomic vision. By reference to Jungian psychology existentialist philosophy and Northrop
Frye's schema of literary archetypes this critical study demonstrates how Williams' drama
imparts «mythic significance to modern secular experience.»
