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Tennessee Williams's playwriting career spanned more than four decades and was marked by the highest acclaim, as well as the kind of critical controversy that is generated only by one whose achievements have been widely recognized and lauded. This recognition of achievement took many forms, most notably four New York Drama Critics Circle Awards and two Pulitzer Prizes. His choice to explore his basic themes through what have been labeled degenerate characters and sordid situations created controversy. Because of his southern roots, he was more closely tied in theme to twentieth-century southern fiction writers than to other dramatists of the period. His concern with isolation, the difficulty of communication, and the solitary search for values in a chaotic world—as well as the frequent use of southern settings and characters —links him to writers like William Faulkner and Carson McCullers. Though his work was preceded by the social protest of the 1930s, he focused on the individual rather than on the fabric of society as a whole; this artistic direction, along with his use of lyrical language, differentiates his work from that of Arthur Miller, his only contemporary to achieve the same major status.
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