Tennessee Williams

Mr. Ian Renert is an enthusiastic fan of the greatly lauded American playwright Tennessee Williams. Born in Mississippi, Williams relocated with his family to Missouri at the age of seven. Williams was first published in high school, authoring essays for local magazines. Transferring multiple times as an undergraduate, Williams finally earned a degree from the University of Iowa and later studied at The New School’s Dramatic Workshop in New York City. As a playwright, Williams won multiple awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, a Tony Award for best play, and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards. President Jimmy Carter presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work. Among Williams’ most famous plays are Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, The Rose Tattoo, and A Streetcar Named Desire. The latter play, which is arguably William’s best known work, follows protagonist Blanche DuBois, a archetypical Southern belle, as she visits her sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. As the story progresses, Blanche’s demure appearance begins to fade away and her scandalous past starts to shine through. She comes to arms with Stanley, an intense and primal being who often treats Stella with disrespect. Stanley uncovers the events that caused Blanche to leave her home and cruelly taunts her with the truth. Through his brutal and animalistic behavior, Stanley causes Blanche’s final mental breakdown and leaves her in the hospital. A Streetcar Named Desire was honored with a Pulitzer Prize, and the subsequent film adaptation won four Academy Awards. Williams was a prolific writer until his tragic death in 1983.

William Faulkner

It is hard to believe that the author of American canons such as As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom! was relatively unknown at the time of the books’ publications. However, William Faulkner remained an obscure, if highly productive, writer until he was recognized with the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. Despite Faulkner’s lack of popularity in mass culture, he made a name for himself among other artists and writers. In the early forties, after he had written his most enduring masterpieces of literature, Howard Hawks persuaded Faulkner to move to Hollywood and write screenplays. Apparently, it was not a difficult sell for, at that point, Faulkner was sorely in need of income. Faulkner and Hawks worked together on The Big Sleep and the film’s adaptation of To Have and Have Not. Hawks is the writer of such silver-screen gems as His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby, and Rio Bravo. William Faulkner eventually married his high school girlfriend, Estelle Oldham. However, the couple spent over a decade apart, during Estelle’s short-lived marriage to another man. Throughout his marriage to Estelle, Faulkner pursued numerous affairs with women he met around the world on his travels to Los Angeles and Stockholm, Sweden. Writing during the first half of the 20th century, William Faulkner was born and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, Faulkner participated in both the Canadian and British Royal Air Force. For a short while, Faulkner attended the University of Mississippi, stopping after three semesters. Faulkner traveled scarcely throughout his life, making his way to Europe and Asia for a few trips and working briefly at a bookstore in New York and for a newspaper in New Orleans. Other than that, Faulkner remained in Mississippi, the location where he wrote his novels and short stories. William Faulkner’s body of work is considered to exemplify the genre of literature called Southern Gothic. South Gothic literature is an exclusively American genre of literature that falls under the umbrella of the Gothic novel. Southern Gothic writing utilizes supernatural and mystical themes and events to create metaphors and illustrations that reflect real social issues and characters in the South. One example of an ironic tool employed by the Southern gothic author is to defy the stereotypes that were widespread in the antebellum South, such as the content slaves, chivalrous plantation owners, upright Christians, and the diffident Southern belles. Reflecting the modern inclination towards realism, Southern Gothic authors exposed these archetypes of romanticism and heroism as less than idyllic. For example, a demure single female is not admired for her chastity, but is depicted as being spiteful or reclusive. In keeping with this penchant for honest exhibitions and explorations of the South, the Southern Gothic featured images of the grotesque, both in characters’ personalities and situations. Frequently, these grotesque aspects of the Southern Gothic would arouse a sense of disgust or disturbance in the reader. However, because these figures were often hyperbolic the novels succeed in not appearing overly righteous or moralistic. Rather their exaggerated tones function themselves as another plane of metaphor.

George Soros

I am a huge admirer of George Soros. I consider him a quintessential Renaissance man: he excels in political activism, philanthropy, investment, and currency speculation. A wildly successful businessman, Soros was called “the man who broke the Bank of England” after he garnered $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis. But besides his venerable earnings, Soros has led a commendable political and foreign relations career, as well. Soros formerly served on the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations and currently serves as chairman of the Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute. During Hungary’s transition from a communist to a capitalist society from 1984 to 1989, Soros significantly contributed and facilitated a peaceful changeover. Soros bestowed what is considered to be Europe’s largest education endowment to Budapest’s Central European University. Soros funded the Rose Revolution in George, greatly contributing to the democratic revolution’s success. Soros helped found the Center for American Progress, making a donation of $3 million. The Center for American Progress is a non-partisan public policy research and education institute that advocates for a strong American society that advances equal access to opportunity for all. Founded in 2003, the Center for American Progress opposes right-leaning think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise.

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