Poeticization of the South, Politicization of the Theater: Deconstructing the Phallogocentric Nationalist Historiography in Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending

Abstract

American Southern Gothic is considered an ideological apparatus used by the nation to create the myth of homogeneity. However, by drawing on Kristeva's theories of abjection and revolution, this article argues that in Orpheus Descending, Tennessee Williams appropriates the very same apparatus to deconstruct the phallogocentric historiography of the nation. By casting the social abject into the mainstream drama, Williams means to disturb the symbolic realm in order to recalibrate the criterion of Americanness. It is also discussed that Williams's allegorical rendering of the abject sublimates what resists incorporation within the hegemony of the symbolic and dismantles its essentialist categorizations of the subject. Moreover, Williams equips the abject with a semiotically charged counter-discourse that is substantiated in his poetic dialogues as well as his obscene desire and sensuality. This recourse to the pre-symbolic drives is meant to enable the abject to reclaim his place in national literature and history.