Abstract

No full-length study has been devoted exclusively to Williams as existentialist nor to examining his work from a Sartrian perspective, the particular school of existentialism for which in his Memoirs he expresses an affinity. Critics tend to view his drama as existentialist in the way that much of modern drama is perceived as such, namely in its presentation of men and women as alienated beings trapped in a meaningless universe. However, it is by reading his plays within the context of Sartre's philosophy, which encompasses this view of the human situation, rather than by offering a generalized discussion of his works as "existentialist", that we come to a full and specific understanding of Williams' existentialism, as it converges with and diverges from Sartre's. ;In Chapter I, I discuss how Williams' drama supports Sartre's view of the self as lack of being abandoned in a universe devoid of absolute value. According to Sartre, it attempts in bad faith to escape the anguish of its nothingness by defining itself as a meaningful object. Sartre's concept of bad faith as it applies to Williams' drama is the focus of Chapter II. ;Within the Sartrian paradigm of existence, the Other is an enigma and a nemesis, one whom the self can never know and one with whom it is always in conflict. All of its human relationships are finally the mutual attempt to complete itself by obtaining possession of the Other, an attempt doomed to failure. In Chapter III, I analyze Williams' drama according to Sartre's theory of relationships with the Other by focusing primarily on the sexual attitudes of love and masochism, which attempt to assimilate the Other's freedom, and those of desire and sadism, which seek to make an object of the Other. I also examine two attitudes aimed at facilitating an escape from the world of Others: indifference and hatred. And I conclude in Chapter IV with a study of the representatives of good faith in Williams' drama, those who accept responsibility for their existence and who create their own meaning