Summer and Smoke, by Tennessee Williams, is a love play about a man and a woman oppositely attracted to each other. Alma Winemiller starts the play as a small girl with a crush on a boy named John Buchanan. They start the play by John making fun of Alma. She didn’t feel bad about it because he always puts her down throughout their childhood. He is acting mean to her because she had given him a box of tissues and it had embarrassed him. Later in life, he comes back to Glorious Hill. He sees Alma and they talk about what all had happened since he had left. It was later on that Alma had learned that John had never grown up and still indulged on his impure thoughts. Williams gave the play a spectacular plot by having Alma be a “lady,” John a “bad” guy, and then they both change only to find that the other one had also changed.
Throughout most of this play Alma was portrayed as a “lady.” Williams defined, in the play, a lady as someone pure and not tainted by sex or other sins. She believed strongly in spirituality rather than sexuality because she felt it was her duty as a minister’s daughter. She was dependent on emotional pleasures, not physical pleasures as a source of happiness. In the play she said, “I am a minister’s daughter.”(p. 72) When she said that, she meant that there were certain things a minister’s daughter should be obligated to do. She felt obligated to follow the beliefs that had been instilled in her since almost day one. She was able to follow them throughout most of the play.
John was thought of as a “bum” throughout the play. He was almost looked down upon by Alma because she loved him, and she didn’t know why. He never really grew up from his boyhood, and he never gained a sense of responsibility until the end of the play. John dated the “wrong” girls, in Alma’s opinion, and indulged in physical pleasure with them, which was considered “bad” by Alma. In the play Alma, in reference to John, said, “I’d heard that you made suggestions like that to girls that you go out with “(p. 82) She was suggesting that the type of girls that John went out with were whores. She felt that John shouldn’t indulge in self-pleasure because it went against everything that she had been taught since a child. Until the end of the play, John did wrong things and treated women wrongly.
At the end of the play, John and Alma were opposite in the beginning of the play, had both changed. Alma had completely exchanged her beliefs about love and souls with John’s. She now felt that physical pleasure was love and a spiritual link could not effectively link two people in love. John, on the other hand, substituted all of his feelings with Alma’s old ones. He now believed that their bodies had a soul, and that all two people that were really in love needed was a spiritual link to bond them for life. In support of this Alma said, “the tables have turned, yes, the tables have turned with a vengeance!
You’ve come around to my old way of thinking and I to yours like two people exchanging a call on each other at the same time, and each one finding the other one gone out “(p. 119-120) In this small section of Alma’s part, Williams was able to give the entire play a disheartening yet powerful play. Tennessee Williams was able to touch the hearts of his audience with Summer and Smoke. He did this with a surprise ending the amazed the entire audience. His method was to this effect, was extremely effective. He had the two main characters John Buchanan and Alma Winemiller exist totally contrasting in their views in the beginning of the play.
Then at the end he had them replace each other in the other one’s beliefs. Alma changed in need of John, her true love. She became the whore that she had seen John always date to achieve his acknowledgement. He, by growth and maturity, became the opposite of what he used to be. He became spiritual and emotional. He no longer relied on physical pleasure for happiness. After both had changed, a long time had passed, and they met again. She still loved him deeply, but he no longer wanted anything to do with her. He now believed that two lovers could exist spiritually.
