Student made presentation American OIB section St Denis International School, Loches

1. Present the theme and consider the question provided–provide and
analyze quotes. Make links to other works studied on your OIB syllabus.
YOUTH
How does time ultimately destroy the illusions
of the characters in the play?
Maryam SADE
Bernardo VILLASENOR URREA
Lana BEZOMBES

2. Project’s summary
● Introduction : Youth and time, their impact in the novel
● Chance Wayne
● Alexandra del Lago
● Heavenly
● Other Characters: Miss Lucy and Boss Finley
● Conclusion
● Links

3. Youth and Time, their impact in the novel:
In Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams various themes are explored by the author. Among them
are Youth and Time. Both are connected to one another as youth is ephemeral; it fades as time passes. In
the end, time is recognized as an universal enemy. “ I ask just for your recognition of me in you, and the
enemy, time, in us all. “
The play satirizes the importance people grant youthful beauty in order to prove that it’s a mistake to
invest oneself in something so fleeting.
These two themes are explored differently through the cast of characters, each one having a different
personal connection with them “I guess there's a clock in every room people live in.” : The Princess
asserts that aging and time are constantly present in all people's lives.

4. Chance Wayne
Chance Wayne is the protagonist of the play. From the earliest age Chance was always the golden boy,
his illusions of success and grandeur are what drove him in life. He believed he deserved nothing but the
best. The minor successes he achieved in his younger years by virtue of his good looks are the only ones
he has experienced. But, as time passes, so does his beauty as he is slowly growing old, this hits Chance
with the realization that his chances of achieving fame are fading away. Chance returns to St Cloud
hoping he can become the Chance of his youth again, who could have been anything and who could
have the love of Heavenly. Chance fixates on Heavenly as a piece of his lost youth.
“Of course, you were crowned with laurel in the beginning, your gold hair was wreathed with laurel, but
the gold is thinning and the laurel has withered.”
“Chance, you've gone past something you couldn't afford to go past; your time, your youth, you've
passed it. It's all you had and you've had it.”

5. Alexandra Del Lago (aka Princess Kosmonopolis)
Alexandra Del Lago is a faded actress who’s lost her youth. Her worry of how the public sees her and
her aging, her fading beauty causes her to spiral down in an endless pit of depression, alcohol, drugs and
sex. (“If I had just been old but you see, I wasn’t old... I just wasn’t young, not young, young, I just wasn’t young
anymore”)
How her audience sees her is just an illusion; under the facade she puts up, there is a broken and lost
“monster”. They perceive her in a certain way, and as time passed, her shallowness keeps increasing.
(“For years they told me that it was ridiculous of me to feel that I couldn’t go back to the screen or the
stage as a middle-aged woman. They told me I was an artist, not just a star whose career depended on
youth. But I knew in my heart that the legend of Alexandra del Lago couldn’t be separated from an
appearance of youth…”)
Throughout the play she is very vocal about her lost youth, as if grieving it, for example; she gets rid of
all her clocks to try and escape from time even if at the bottom she knows it be escaped.

6. Heavenly Finley
Heavenly Finley: Chance’s youth sweetheart
Heavenly Finley, daughter of Boss Finley, is portrayed by the latter as the epitome of purity “Lookin’ at
you, all white like a virgin [...]”: he dresses her up in order to “scotch these rumors about your
corruption”
By giving her an STD on a previous visit Chance caused her destruction, she would never again be the
Heavenly of his youth. The resulting hysterectomy causes her to view herself as, “Dry, cold, empty, like
an old woman” and means that she no longer feels young: he stripped her of her youth. It is noticeable
to everyone, that she is “not young now, she’s faded” and even being with Chance again won’t change it.
The facade of purity her father has put up for her is see through and the feeling of youth her lover
Chance gave to middle-aged people ironically took away hers.

7. Other Characters
● Boss Finley : the main antagonist of the book
Boss Finley’s career (and life in general) is constantly threatened by the passing of time. His political
ideas are getting outdated and simply don’t seem to work in “today’s world’. This leads him to secretly
use violence to justify his white supremacist points of view: by brutally punishing a black man who
supposedly put a white woman in danger: “they picked out a nigger at random and castrated the
bastard”.
The antagonist also seems to try to persevere his youth by having sexual intercourses with a younger
woman (Miss Lucy). However, this doesn’t seem to workout as he learns from his own son that his
mistress describes him as a person “too old to cut the mustard”.
Despite the numerous clues the antagonist refuses to acknowledge that time is gaining on him. William
also uses this moment to add in a memorable moment between Boss and his son, having them both face
each other during an argument to symbolize the fact that the antagonist is at constant war with
everything new, and youthful : “ Pause: the two stags , the old and the young one, face each other
panting”.

8. ● Miss Lucy: Boss Finley’s mistress
Miss Lucy is at all times referred to as “ Miss Lucy” to emphasize how young she is.

9. Conclusion
To conclude, the author shows through the characters how time can destroy one’s
dream and put anyone who denies it in danger. Furthermore he shows the different
damages aging and time can have on someone by having a wide variety characters with
distinct backgrounds and perspectives to show how these two themes intertwine. May
it be losing youth and losing career opportunities or losing connection with oneself
due to aging.

10. Links to others works
● The work could be linked to Love in the time of Cholera as Youth also plays a large role in the
story. Just like Chance Wayne, Florentino remains “stuck” to his childhood lover, Fermina, and
refuses to let this part of his past go until he completely obtains it.
● The play could also be linked to some of the short stories on Jhumpa lahiri’s, especially to
“Interpreter of Maladies” were the character of Ms.Das feels as she has lost her time and youth
because of her arranged marriage, a feeling similar to that experienced by Chance Wayne on his
dialogue.
● The book could be linked to the Handmaid’s Tale, as Youth is something really important to the
new republic of Gilead as newborns represent the future of the Regime since radiation has
rendered most infertile. The Handmaid's are expected to be fertile, healthy and thus have an allure
of “youngness” and purity this could be linked to the expectation placed on Heavenly by her
father.
● Finally, just like Sweet bird of Youth, the narrator in the essay A stranger in the village, repeatedly
talks about time and how some people are still “ stuck in the past” keeping old mentalities fresh in
their minds this could easily be linked to Boss Finley and his political connection to white
supremacy and his ideas of purity and virginity.