Suddenly, Last Summer

Sebastian’s death is among the most surreal elements of the play, deriving much of its meaning from symbolism rather than strict realism. The theme of Family Dynamics and Manipulation, for example, comes to a head in the symbolic opposition of two characters: Catharine and Violet. In her final monologue, Catharine tells how she twice tried to save her cousin, first through her love and affection and then by trying to pull him physically to safety at Cabeza de Lobo. Both times he spurned her attempts at salvation, just as he earlier discarded his mother’s protection. The play has already established parallels between Violet and the Virgin Mary, whom Jesus rebuffs in John 2:4 with the words, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”. Soon after, he effectively replaces her with Mary Magdalene, traditionally conceptualized as a sex worker or otherwise “fallen” woman, who accompanies him on his travels. Similarly, after Sebastian breaks with his mother, he “takes pity” on the socially disgraced Catharine, who becomes his close companion and whom he uses to lure young men for his own sexual uses. In a dark parody of Jesus’s evangelism, Sebastian “suffer[s] the children” to come to him, tossing them money (Matthew 19.14). Later, these youths—his sexual victims—mutilate and devour his flesh in a parody of the Eucharist, the Catholic ritual in which the “Body of Christ” is consumed by worshippers.

Nor is this the only parallel between mythology and literature. Like the Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek heroes Attis, Adonis, Orpheus, and Pentheus, all of whom were torn apart by people or wild animals, Sebastian has lost (or shunned) the patronage of protective females. He also resembles Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s predatory, ever-youthful, and queer-coded antihero, whose betrayal of the saintlike Sibyl Vane leads to his moral destruction. A more contemporary, real-life model for Sebastian is the American poet Hart Crane (1899-1932), the favorite poet of Tennessee Williams. Williams was so fascinated by Crane’s life and early death that he requested that his own body be buried at sea at the precise spot where the poet died by suicide, drowning at the age of 32. Like Sebastian, Crane was gay, extremely handsome, and from a wealthy family; he was also tormented by writer’s block, which has been cited as a possible reason for his suicide.

In Suddenly Last Summer, the exact causes of Sebastian Venable’s decline and self-destruction are ambiguous. Catharine claims that he was obsessed with a violent fate that he foresaw for himself: a Christ-like self-sacrifice to a “cruel” god that would reenact what he saw at the Galápagos, with the vengeful children of Cabeza de Lobo as the birds of prey. While it is unclear why he chose this particular summer, the play suggests that the loss of his poetic talent had plunged him into despair, leading to recklessness. There is also some implication that his mother’s stroke awakened him to his own aging, causing him to feel (according to his vision of natural selection) that he was destined to fall prey himself. His death might also be an act of expiation for his sins against his mother or the children of Cabeza de Lobo.

Alternatively, his death can be read as an act of rebellion against The Cost of Sexual Repression, embodied partly by his mother’s controlling influence. By switching from “evenings to the beach” (409), Sebastian finally disowned his life as a closeted gay man for the harsh, punitive glare of the public stage. The painstaking poetry that he finally abandoned evokes the prim artificiality of his repressed life, which he now sought to shatter as explosively as possible. This would explain his interest in Catharine, who had just sacrificed her own reputation in a public act of rebellion against sexual hypocrisy. In a sense, Sebastian’s self-immolation at Cabeza de Lobo repeats Catharine’s own (far milder) act of violence at the Mardi Gras ball.

Nevertheless, there are important differences between Sebastian’s and Catharine’s approaches to sex. The play frames Sebastian’s sexual life, which seems to include pedophilia, as overwhelmingly predatory and self-destructive. By contrast, Catharine’s is represented as altruistic, almost saintly. Coupled with the fact that Sebastian’s rejection of Catharine’s (heterosexual) overtures is part of what leads to his downfall, this dichotomy arguably perpetuates anti-gay stereotypes. At the same time, the play uses sexual predation at least partly as a metaphor for the ways in which people use and discard each other: for example, Violet’s semi-incestuous obsession with her son, or the married man who sleeps with Catharine under false pretenses. Moreover, Tennessee Williams is thought to have written Suddenly Last Summer partly to exorcize his guilt over the fate of his sister Rose, who was lobotomized on his mother’s orders while he was otherwise engaged. This could explain the demonization of Sebastian (a partial self-portrait) and the canonization of Catharine, a stand-in for his sister.

At play’s end, Catharine’s account of Sebastian’s death and cannibalization seems to have convinced two essential parties: Dr. Cukrowicz and George. Here, Catharine’s resemblance to Mary Magdalene comes full circle: Mary, who witnessed Jesus’s crucifixion and death, brought the news of his resurrection to his (male) Apostles, who at first doubted her word. Within a short time, however, she was vindicated. This subtext, together with the effect of Catharine’s story on her two male listeners, suggests that she has been vindicated too. Deeply moved, George vows to quit college and get a job rather than rely on Sebastian’s money, and Dr. Cukrowicz, who acts as judge of the play’s dueling monologues, allows that her account “could be true” (423). Catharine may have failed to save her cousin, but—in addition to saving herself—she seems to have rescued Sebastian’s two potential doppelgangers from succumbing to the Venables’ malign influence.

Violet’s and Catharine’s monologues in Suddenly Last Summer have been characterized as unreliable narration by a pair of women who both may have some form of mental illness. However, Catharine’s story is more in line with the play’s poetic truth than her aunt’s, capturing the vain, predatory menace of people like Violet—who, out of jealousy and snobbish delusion, has sought to butcher her own niece as a way of protecting her pedophile son.