ENGL 314 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Tennessee Williams, Radiance, Institute For Operations Research And The Management Sciences
19 Feb 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Stage directions are put there by the author to let us know how moments are supposed to function on stage. "tragic radiance" - her sadness is no longer ignorable, a different kind of beauty as opposed to an aesthetic one, an overcoming sense of sadness surrounds her. There"s something contradictory about this phrase; there"s a suggestion of beauty and sadness going together. It"s a description of an emotional identification he (tennessee williams) might have had, he"s trying to convey that there is something deeply sad about her but also something that draws us towards her. For the audience, it"s an image informed by everything that"s happened to her in the play, it fully informs the aura that surrounds her. The concept of dignity - a sense of self-pride, self-respect, one"s worth, one"s value as a human being. We are conscious of the presence of dignity when we feel it"s under threat or could be taken away from us.
