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Sweet Bird of Youth
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism, sexual violence, substance use, sexual content, graphic violence, and pregnancy termination.
The Destructive Pursuit of Youth and Fame
The two lead characters in Sweet Bird of Youth, Chance Wayne and the Princess Kosmonopolis, both have dreams of stardom that hinge on their youth. The trope of the aging film actress who is desperate to maintain her youth and relevance was a mainstay of American Hollywood culture in the 1950s, as in the films Sunset Boulevard (1950) and All About Eve (1950); the Princess Kosmonopolis is very much in the mold of Norma Desmond or Margo Channing. To this stock figure, Tennessee Williams adds the parallel of Chance Wayne, a man who likewise is painfully aware of his aging and how it limits his possibilities for success as an actor.
The Princess Kosmonopolis is self-conscious about aging and what it means for her future as an actor. Although her “come-back” film was a success, she recognizes that “to indicate she is going on to further triumph would be to falsify her future” (122). She seeks to escape this painful reality by minimizing her signs of aging. She does this in part through wearing makeup to make herself look younger, telling Chance, “I don’t want to be left alone in this place till I’ve put on the face that I face the world with” (50). However, her relentless, and ultimately futile, pursuit of her youth and fame also leads to self-destructive behavior. She consumes drugs and alcohol to make herself forget her tragic future. She also coerces Chance into having sex with her “to forget these things [she doesn’t] want to remember” and to feel connected to her youthful (47), desired self.
Like the Princess, Chance is also self-conscious about aging. He relied on his youthful looks to earn a living as a sex worker and male escort to wealthy women. His acting career has not taken off, and he recognizes that if he does not achieve stardom as a young person, it is doubtful he ever will. His thinning hair marks his advancing age both literally and symbolically—as the Princess notes, “[His] gold hair was wreathed with laurel, but the gold is thinning and the laurel has withered” (120)—making it a particularly sensitive subject for Chase. Conscious of his fleeting youth, he makes one last desperate attempt to achieve his dreams of stardom. This results in his increasingly self-destructive behaviors. He has sex with Princess Kosmonopolis for her money, an act that makes him feel “castrated.” When he realizes that she is not going to make him and his “girl” Heavenly stars, he turns to drugs and alcohol to cope. When he finally admits to himself that there is no turning back time and that his dreams are unattainable, he resigns himself to his fate and does not attempt to flee when Tom Junior and his henchmen arrive to castrate him, the ultimate destructive act.
Sweet Bird of Youth avoids overt moralizing about the characters’ attempts to turn back the clock. Instead, as the final line of the play indicates, the desire to cheat time is portrayed not as something to be pitied but rather to be understood as universal. This is underscored by the fact that Princess Kosmonopolis escapes poetic justice; she leaves St. Cloud at least temporarily triumphant, having won back for the moment the fame she so desired.
The Tragedy of Impotence and Envy
Sweet Bird of Youth originated as two one-act plays that were compiled into one play. The thematic throughline that ties these acts together is the threat of and obsession with literal and figurative castration. The lead characters, both women and men, have tied their self-worth and identity to their ability to “perform” their roles, on stage or in sexual relationships. The resulting castration anxiety has far-reaching, tragic consequences, leading to envy and violence.
The specter of a real castration hangs over the work. Some days prior to the timeline of the play, some white men “picked out a n***** at random and castrated the bastard to show they mean business about white women’s protection in this state” (90). The play frames this violence as both racist and hypocritical. Chance remarks that they did not castrate the Black man to protect women but rather out of “sex-envy”—insecurity about their own sexual performance in the face of Black men’s supposedly voracious sexual appetites (itself a racist myth). Castration thus serves as a projection of the men’s feelings of emasculation—a dynamic best seen in Chance’s own fate. It is indicated that Boss Finley (and perhaps Tom Junior as well) has incestuous desires toward Heavenly. Boss Finely comments that he has seen naked pictures of his daughter when she was 15 and that she “reminds him of a dead wife that he desired immensely when she was the age of his daughter” (69). He is furious in part because Chance is able to sexually satisfy his daughter. This leads him to urge Tom Junior to castrate Chance, which he is implied to do at the end of the play.
Heavenly’s sterilization is the female counterpart to male castration. The operation leaves her feeling aged and hollow, as she is unable to conceive and serve her sexual “purpose”—a gender-based anxiety that parallels the men’s fears about virility. The sterilization also has symbolic resonance as another manifestation of male sexual anxiety; Heavenly’s infertility may have been an unintentional side effect of her abortion, but it is also, symbolically, a way for the men around her to contain her sexuality and the “threat” it poses to them.
In addition to this literal castration, the inability to perform onstage is depicted as a form of figurative impotence. This is what ties Princess Kosmnopolis’s character arc into the Finley family drama, with Chance as the nexus who experiences both literal and figurative castration. Princess Kosmonopolis recognizes that she will soon no longer be able to perform due to her advancing age. Chance faced this form of castration earlier in his life when he was unable to perform at the national theater competition; he got stage fright and “blew [his] lines” (83). He shored up his self-esteem following this episode by having sex with Heavenly but now faces the loss of her, too.
At the end of the play, these two forms of impotence, both literal and figurative, are placed in direct relationship. As the stage directions note, “Both [the Princess and Chance] are faced with castration” (122), referencing the Princess’s figurative castration and Chance’s literal castration. Even their body language draws a parallel between their similar fates as they “sit side by side on the bed like two passengers on a train sharing a bench” (122). This points to the inevitability of castration, or loss of the ability to perform, as one ages.
The Universality of Exploitation and Transactional Relationships
Sweet Bird of Youth portrays a cynical view of relationships. Every bond within the play, with the exception of Heavenly’s briefly noted feelings toward Chance, is essentially transactional rather than based in mutual care or understanding. The relationship between Chance and the Princess is the central example of this exploitative dynamic, which also manifests in the relationships between Boss Finley and his children and Boss Finley and his mistress.
Chance and the Princess are both aware of the transactional nature of their relationship. An experienced sex worker, Chance is articulate about this dynamic. He feels that he gives away not merely sex but also his masculinity in exchange for money, while the women he services, including the Princess, obtain “a feeling of youth” (52). The Princess is likewise aware that Chance is with her for self-interested reasons: her money and the potential of a role in a movie. Indeed, she leverages this to her advantage, telling him that she will give him the money he wants only after he makes her “almost believe that [they’re] a pair of young lovers without any shame” (48). The sex leaves them both feeling disgusted. Chance feels emasculated, while the Princess feels she has acted like a “monster.” This dynamic illustrates the play’s contention that transactional relationships debase both parties.
Boss Finley, a cynical politician, feels no such shame about extending the transactional nature of politics into his personal life. Of his children, he remarks, “It’s a curious thing […] how often a man that rises to high public office is drug back down by every soul he harbors under his roof” (66). His love and affection for his daughter only extend as far as she can support his political career. He thwarts her dreams of being with Chance, telling her that if she does not support him onstage and stop talking about her operation, he will have Chance killed. He is even less affectionate with his son because he feels Tom Junior has not done enough to support his political career. This transactional dynamic also characterizes his relationship with his mistress, Miss Lucy. He uses her to satisfy his sexual needs as well as to make him feel powerful, while she uses him for the lifestyle he provides, epitomized by her “fifty-dollar a day hotel suite at the Royal Palms” (67). When she fails to uphold her end of the bargain by publicly calling into question his sexual prowess, he reacts violently and aggressively.
In the world of Sweet Bird of Youth, there is very little genuine affection between the characters. Every character is determined to get as much as they can from others through a series of transactional relationships that ultimately do not bring them happiness or fulfillment. It is telling, too, that attempts to break this pattern lead to disaster. Heavenly’s earnest love for Chance makes the heckler’s taunts harder still to endure, contributing to her collapse, while Chance’s rejection of the Princess’s offer to take him with her (ensuring his safety, if not his stardom) is followed immediately by his implied castration. The implication is that surviving in a cut-throat world requires one to be cut-throat oneself.
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