Biographical Context SND

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  • Created by: Percabeth
  • Created on: 22-05-18 21:26
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  • Biographical context SND
    • born in Mississippi 1911
  • Rose
    • "we had no deaths but slowly... something was happening much uglier & more terrible than death
    • diagnosed with what now call schizophrenia at 18
      • subject to extreme, radical form of primitive brain surgery (a pre-frontal lobotomy)
        • then consigned to a mental institution till her death in 1996
          • Margaret Bradham Thornton suggested "the shadow of what happened to Rose stayed with him"
            • she would be a model for >15 characters & her name given to many others
          • traumatised with guilt as what he saw as his failure to protect Rose
    • Biographical context SND
      • born in Mississippi 1911
  • Works
    • 1944 Glass Menagerie opened to rave reviews & made him an overnight theatrical sensation
    • 1947 SND - multi award winning
    • decade or so after SND maintained tremendous work rate
      • Sweet Bird of Youth 1959
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1955
    • '59-'79 wrote 15 new plays, some poetry, a novel & some short stories
    • everything he's written is to do with something he's experienced
  • despite professional success, personal life always at least bordering on the chaotic & disastrous
    • had long rel. with his secretary Frank Merlo
      • homosexuality still considered immoral & shocking by mainstream society
      • loyally supported him through frequent bouts of clinical depression
    • '59-'79 depression his worsened
      • '69 brother had to have him temporarily committed to a psychiatric hospital  due to his alcoholism & drug addiction
    • died alone in a NY hotel '83

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