111. The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams’ sister Rose suffered from lifelong mental illness, was institutionalized at a young age, and underwent a pre-frontal lobotomy in 1943. She was the deepest love of Williams’ life, and appears in various guises throughout his work, notably as Laura in The Glass Menagerie and Catherine (a character also threatened with lobotomy) in Suddenly Last Summer.

The Rose Tattoo is one more such exploration, and, from a titular point of view, the most explicit. The play deals with the delle Rose family: mother Serafina, daughter Rosa (‘Rosa delle Rose’), and dead husband Rosario, who bears the rose tattoo on his chest. Roses are everywhere in the play, right down to the rose-patterned wallpaper and rose-coloured carpet. More ‘Rose’ you can’t get.

Why did Tennessee Williams’s sister suffer in the way she did? Williams believed that her upbringing, and particularly their mother, was partly to blame; and this too is explored in The Rose Tattoo, the central situation of which is a repressive mother striving to rein in a sexually-developing young daughter.

Consulted:
Kolin, Philip C.: The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia‎ (2004)
Thornton, Margaret Bradham, ed.: Notebooks By Tennessee Williams (2006)