Front Porch girls: the figurations of the feminine in the play Spring Storm, by Tennessee Williams

• Grant number: 18/16670-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): November 01, 2018
• Effective date (End): October 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Theatre
• Principal Investigator: Maria Sílvia Betti
• Grantee: Lucas Cardoso Miquelon
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims at dwelling on the play Spring Storm, by Tennessee Williams. The focus is to analyses the figurations of the feminine which are constitutive of the play, bearing its social-historical context in mind and having the concept of 'Front Porch Girls' - coined and used by Williams in this play - as a starting point. The dramatic text will be the discursive foundation from which the research will commence, for it offers more than enough elements for the analysis of characters. Even though the theme of 'figurations of the feminine' in the work of Tennessee Williams already proves to be opulent, not much can be found about Spring Storm as far as academic material is concerned. Likewise, despite it being a play written in the first half of the twentieth century, it brings about discussions and tensions which are indeed relevant for the contemporary context, especially if one considers the inherited collective social imagery on the feminine condition in the Brazilian and American societies. Moreover, it is important to shed light on Spring Storm in its totality for, although it is a play eclipsed by others of greater notoriety, it is not of less substance when compared to them.