SOURCE: "'Weak and Divided People': Tennessee Williams and the Written Woman," in Feminist Rereadings of Modern American Drama, edited by June Schlueter, Associated University Presses, 1989, pp. 171-80.

In the following essay, Timpane examines Williams's creation of female characters whose dynamic ambiguity resists the tendency toward idealization or oversimplification. Timpane contends that Williams offers "an authentic and authoritative depiction of female foolishness, limitations, and error."

Like much of Tennessee Williams's public image, the tradition that he was sympathetic to women began with Williams himself. In his essays, memoirs, and letters, throughout his compulsive project of self-exploration, he took pains to delineate how his experience of women surfaced in his drama. Mothers and sons war continually; brothers and sisters suffer adoration. Nancy M. Tischler has written well about the succession of predatory mother figures in Williams, ranging from Flora Goforth of The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore and Alexandra...