Pride

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One of Serafina’s most defining traits is her pride. She takes immense pride in her husband, Rosario, and believes that his achievements reflect upon her. This is evident in her frequent bragging. She boasts about Rosario’s attractiveness, virility, and family background, even claiming he was a baron in Sicily, although few believe her.

On one hand, Serafina’s boastful pride is absurd and amusing, yet on another, it mirrors the elements of classical Greek tragedy. In such tragedies, the protagonist often has a significant tragic flaw, commonly hubris, or excessive pride. However, in Williams’s play, Serafina manages to overcome her flaw. Her transformation begins when she accepts that her husband was not perfect. Additionally, her love for Alvaro signifies that she herself is not as illustrious as she once thought and is capable of loving someone imperfect.

Humanity

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The Rose Tattoo is a deeply human play, despite its influences from the austere, heroic tradition of classical tragedy. While Serafina has a flaw reminiscent of the hubris found in many classical heroes, she is more comedic than tragic. By showing Serafina’s realization of her ordinariness and portraying her as fundamentally ridiculous, Williams suggests that humans are often absurd and far from grand. The play’s numerous references to clowns and clown-like behavior best capture Williams’s view of humanity. A clown is a figure who makes others laugh, typically by enduring humiliating situations. In essence, Williams implies that while people suffer greatly, their lives are often comic misadventures.

Idolatry

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Williams invokes ancient (pre-Christian) Greco-Roman religion in his play through its emphasis on sexuality and virility and the numerous references to wine. Specifically, he alludes to the god Dionysus (Greek) or Bacchus (Roman). This deity presided over wine, creative intoxication, sexuality, passion, regeneration, male sexual potency, and proper worship. In one sense, Serafina embodies what would have been known in ancient times as a “bacchante,” as her adoration of her exceedingly virile husband is akin to worshiping male sexual potency, and thus Bacchus in general.

In referencing this god, Williams effectively revives him with approval. The play celebrates life, sexuality, and passion. However, it also underscores that Serafina excessively idolizes her husband. When he dies, she places his urn on her mantle, treating it almost as a sacred object in his place. Essentially, Serafina venerates her husband as a deity while he is alive and reveres the urn after his death. Since idolaters worship entities not sanctioned by official religion, Serafina becomes an idolater in the play, inappropriately elevating her husband and his remains.

By the play’s conclusion, Serafina learns the proper way to conduct herself, realizing that neither she nor her husband deserve worship. Despite this, she maintains her zest for life. Through her enduring passion and newfound understanding of what truly merits adoration, Serafina evolves into a genuine devotee of Dionysus, a god who embodies both the life force and correct worship practices.

Life and Death

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The Rose Tattoo presents a distinct contrast between life and death through the characters of Serafina and Estelle. This dichotomy associates chaos and excess with life, while linking order and restraint with death.

Serafina embodies a chaotic and burgeoning life force in various ways. Her extravagant outfits, hairstyle, and jewelry are flamboyant at the beginning of the play, yet they charmingly reflect her passionate and joyful nature. Her husband’s virility, her own fertility, her healthy plumpness, and her interest in sex all signify the continuity of life. Additionally, her cluttered house suggests chaos but also serves as a hub of purposeful activity, as she operates a business from home.

In stark contrast, Estelle Hohengarten...

(This entire section contains 228 words.)

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represents the opposing forces to those expressed by Serafina. While Serafina is plump and attracted to flamboyance, Williams’s stage directions depict Estelle as slim and dressed in minimalist, restrained attire: "She is a thin blonde woman in a dress of Egyptian design." Ancient Egyptian art and clothing are renowned for their simplicity, severe abstraction, and strict design rules.

Estelle’s connection to death is evident as she first enters Serafina’s life on the day Rosario is killed and appears on stage only once more, the next day at Rosario’s wake. Thus, death opposes life just as order counters chaos, symbolizing the ultimate end to all open-ended creativity, activity, and productivity.

Importance of Sex in Human Relations

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The Rose Tattoo concerns itself with several of Tennessee Williams’s major themes, especially the importance of sex as the vital key to all human relations, and the ability of women to see this reality much more clearly than men. Serafina is the most obvious bearer of this message, as she revels in her pregnancy early in the play and on more than one occasion brags about the rich sexual life she and Rosario share. In fact, whenever she speaks of Rosario, her speech is in terms of their unquenchable sexual desire for each other. When Rosario is killed and the object of her desire is removed, Serafina completely disintegrates, both physically and mentally, and becomes almost inhuman in her slatternly appearance and bizarre behavior. Her connection with Rosario is so strong that she defies the Roman Catholic Church and keeps his ashes in a kind of shrine, equating them with the statue of the Virgin Mary. Rosario becomes a kind of god to her, and she speaks of how she holds him in her arms in her dreams and memories, which are more important to her than anything in the world of the living.

Control and Realization of Sexuality

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Serafina also attempts to control her daughter Rosa’s sexuality, locking her in the house naked so she cannot leave to meet Jack, her sailor boyfriend. The fact that Rosa is kept naked calls attention to her entry into the world of adult sexual desire. Serafina also makes Jack kneel before a statue of Mary to pledge that he will respect Rosa’s purity. Later it becomes clear that Rosa is more than willing to be seduced by Jack, while he is restrained by his pledge before the Virgin Mary. Rosa realizes the power of sexuality, while Jack is restrained by societal and religious mores.

Acceptance and Embrace of Desire

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Alvaro is the lone man who seems to realize the importance of sex in the life of Serafina, and he makes his desire to seduce her abundantly plain. She is alternately attracted to and repelled by him, eventually succumbing to the lure of his similarity to Rosario. After symbolically killing Rosario by dispersing his ashes, Serafina gives herself to Alvaro ecstatically, her cries of bliss heard by Rosa in the yard. When Serafina finally realizes that Rosa’s desire for Jack is sincere, she sends her to him with her blessing. Notably, there is no talk of marriage; Serafina realizes that desire itself is the end and blesses Rosa’s entry into the adult world as a keeper of desire, even as she welcomes a pregnancy to underline her reentry into the world of the living.

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