Tennessee Williams’ apocalyptic dialectic in "The Chalky White Substance"

Abstract

This paper analyzes the one-act play The Chalky White Substance, written by Tennessee Williams in 1981, based on the social, political and historical context of that moment. In this way, the conjunctures of the Cold War and the rise of conservatism in Ronald Reagan’s government and their connections with the narrative of the play are presented and discussed. The idea that this government used an apocalyptic language to maintain itself in power with its ideologies is defined and, thus, identified in Williams’ dramatic narrative, figuring the Third World War, the devastation of the world by thermonuclear bombs and the human collapse as a result. It can be said, therefore, that the play is a social and political critique of its historical contexts and has an intrinsic epic character, presenting the causality of conflict fiction movements, making an apocalyptic portrait of public life in the capitalism context.