Summer and Smoke (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Tennessee Williams
- First Published: 1948
- Type of Work: Play
- Genres: Drama, Psychological drama
- Subjects: Values, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, South or Southerners, Twentieth century, Doctors, Spiritual life or spirituality, Ministry or ministers, Mississippi, Small-town life, Smoke
- Locales: Glorious Hill, MS
Stylistically, Summer and Smoke is Williams's realistic compromise between the poetic expressionism of The Glass Menagerie and the violent theatricality of A Streetcar Named Desire. Although Summer and Smoke is more conventionally realistic than the other two, it is also his most allegorical statement on the conflict between the soul and the body, between innocence and experience, and between eternity and life—themes taking various forms in all of Williams's plays. The play is also one of Williams's three treatments of a character named Alma, the other...
[The entire page is 937 words long]
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