{"id":63375,"date":"2013-12-05T17:29:34","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T22:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=63375"},"modified":"2013-12-05T17:35:49","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T22:35:49","slug":"blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Celia<\/a>

Celia Keenan-Bolger as Laura Wingfield in the current revival of The Glass Menagerie<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Some memory of Rose Williams underpins all of Tennessee Williams\u2019s plays, but it was with the 1944 premiere of The Glass Menagerie<\/i> that he both immortalized his sister and launched his Broadway career. Rose is the basis for Laura Wingfield, the withdrawn high school dropout who passes her days listening to old phonograph records and caring for her collection of glass animals while the world closes in around her. Williams based Tom Wingfield, Laura\u2019s brother, on himself. The play depicts real events, up to a point; years before he wrote Menagerie<\/i>, now in a successful run on Broadway, Williams left home to pursue his own writing ambitions. During that time, Rose descended into violent insanity. \u201cTo escape from a trap,\u201d Williams wrote in Menagerie\u2019s <\/i>production notes about Tom Wingfield, \u201che has to act without pity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Williams family moved from Clarksdale, Mississippi, to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1918. Prior to that, Rose and Tom lived \u201cagreeable children\u2019s lives under garden hoses in the hot summer,\u201d according to Williams\u2019s 1975 Memoirs<\/i>. Nine-year-old Rose and seven-year-old Tom danced in the living room to music playing on the Victrola. The records were gifts from Cornelius Williams, their itinerant father, who was, like Laura and Tom\u2019s father in Menagerie<\/i>, a traveling salesman.<\/p>\n

When Edwina Williams, Tennessee\u2019s mother, became pregnant with her third child, Dakin, Cornelius accepted an office job at International Shoe\u2019s St. Louis branch. The family moved into a small house, not nearly as squalid as the tenement apartment the Wingfields occupy onstage, but the tension between Williams\u2019 parents made the atmosphere even more explosive. Cornelius, like the character of Tom and Laura\u2019s father, was restless, alcoholic, and abusive. After the family moved to St. Louis, he was, however, not absent. Edwina and Cornelius\u2019s marriage reeked of dysfunction; she withheld sex to punish his infidelity and abrasive presence. Williams recalled hearing his mother\u2019s screams, futile protestations as his father cornered her in their bedroom. Tom, Rose, and Dakin would run out of the house and to the neighbors’ to escape. <\/p>\n

As a teenager in St. Louis, Rose fought constantly with her parents and her life seemed constantly under cloud cover. Williams writes in Memoirs<\/i> that Rose was a popular girl in high school, \u201cbut only for a brief while.\u201d Her beauty was \u201cmainly in her expressive green-gray eyes and in her curly auburn hair.\u201d But her narrow shoulders and \u201cstate of anxiety when in male company inclined her to hunch them so they looked even narrower,\u201d and her \u201cstrong-featured, very Williams head\u201d looked too large for her small body. When on a date, Rose \u201cwould talk with an almost hysterical animation which few young men knew how to take.\u201d The family moved so Rose could enter Soldan High, which is the name of the school Laura Wingfield attends in the play.\u00a0But Rose dropped out, and Edwina enrolled her daughter in boarding school in Vicksburg, Mississippi.<\/p>\n

Her diagnosis of schizophrenia was still ten years off, but around this time Rose began to experience difficulty with life\u2019s daily expectations. In a 1926 letter to her grandmother from boarding school, stored in Williams\u2019s archive at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Rose writes, \u201cI don\u2019t know what was the matter with me except that I was so nervous that I couldn\u2019t hold the glass to take my medicine in. I stayed in bed all day long and had a big dose of calomel and I feel better but still weak. I just had finished a music lesson, and Miss Butell nearly drove me wild. It makes me nervous as a cat.\u201d It was a letter Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire<\/i> could have written.<\/p>\n

After several months of erratic behavior and poor academic performance, Rose returned home in 1927. Cornelius sent her to Knoxville for several weeks, where his two sisters lived. \u201cWith a few inexpensive party dresses,\u201d one which Williams describes in his memoirs as \u201cjust as green as the cat\u2019s eyes,\u201d Rose made her debut at a series of thrown-together social gatherings. In Knoxville, her brother remembered, Rose fell in love with \u201ca young man who did not altogether respond in kind,\u201d not unlike what happens to Laura Wingfield in Menagerie<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Rose made increasingly frequent trips to the doctor\u2019s office, seeking relief from chronic stomach pain. The Williams family would not face their daughter\u2019s underlying psychiatric disorder; a family friend and physician finally made a connection between her behavior and her apparent digestive ailments. \u201cIt\u2019s not very pleasant to look back on that year and to know Rose knew she was going mad and to know, also that I was not too kind to my sister,\u201d Williams would recall.\u00a0\u201cYou see, for the first time in my life, I had become accepted by a group of young friends and my delighted relations with them preoccupied me to such an extent that I failed to properly observe the shadow falling on Rose.\u201d<\/p>\n

One night, when their parents took a weekend trip to the Ozarks, Williams threw a party. Rose, shocked by the drinking and prank phone calls, told their parents what happened. Williams recalled passing her on the staircase, \u201cturning on her like a wildcat\u201d and hissing, \u201cI hate the sight of your ugly old face.”<\/p>\n

By this point Williams had published his first story in The Smart Set<\/i>, and had begun his drawn-out college career. He spent nine years a student, enrolled at the University of Missouri, the University of Washington, and the University of Iowa, with gap years in between. All the while, he wrote short stories, poems, and plays. In 1932, after he failed ROTC, Cornelius, who sharply favored Williams\u2019s more conventional younger brother Dakin, removed his oldest from school and installed him as a clerk typist and errand boy at his shoe company\u2019s downtown warehouse. Williams based Tom Wingfield\u2019s story on those three years, before suffering his own nervous breakdown. Days after he returned home from the hospital, Williams remembers Rose walked into his bedroom \u201clike a sonambulist\u201d and announced, \u201cWe must all die together,\u201d days after he returned from the hospital. \u201cGod damn it I was in no mood to consider group suicide with the family, not even at Rose\u2019s suggestion\u2014however appropriate the suggestion may have been,\u201d Williams wrote in his memoirs.<\/p>\n

Williams became aware of changes in Rose\u2019s behavior, \u201clittle eccentricities\u201d she had developed. Rose was now very quiet and would set a pitcher of ice water on the floor outside her door each night before bed. She would clutch the family dog, a Boston terrier named Jiggs, and Edwina would snap, \u201cRose, put Jiggs down, he wants to run about.\u201d One time, driving her brother and his friends, Rose blanched when they began to make fun of a person they knew who was losing his mind. \u201cYou must never make fun of insanity,\u201d Rose said, \u201cit\u2019s worse than death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Into the 1930s, when Tennessee Williams was still writing letters to agents and struggling to publish his short stories and produce his plays in university theaters, Rose\u2019s hospital stays grew in number and length. In a 1937 letter to her own parents, Edwina Williams described visiting her daughter in the hospital: \u201cRose looked so yellow and bloated and she was so full of delusions, the visit made Tom ill so I can\u2019t take him to see her again. I can\u2019t have two of them there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, doctors finally diagnosed Rose with schizophrenia. In late July, she became violent, insinuating that her father tried to rape her and threatening to kill him, and the Williams installed their only daughter in St. Vincent\u2019s Catholic Sanitarium in St. Louis, though shortly after she was transferred to the state hospital in Farmington.<\/p>\n

By then, Williams had moved to California, where he landed work as an MGM scriptwriter. He lived at the Hotel Bel-Air \u201cin great luxury at the expense of Warner Brothers,\u201d he reports in a letter home, now in his archive at Columbia University. In Los Angeles, Williams began \u201ca beautiful new story\u201d that became Menagerie<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In 1943, Rose\u2019s fitful, hysterical fantasies grew worse. In one of the first surgeries of its kind, doctors performed a frontal lobotomy. \u201cI\u2019m trying not to die, making every effort possible not to do so,\u201d Rose wrote to Williams from the hospital bed after her lobotomy. \u201cIf I die you will know that I miss you twenty-four hours a day.\u201d She added, \u201cI want some black coffee, ice-cream on a chocolate bar, a good picture of you, Your devoted sister, Xxx Rose. P.S. Send me one 1 dollar for ice cream.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Glass Menagerie<\/i> previewed in Chicago one year after Rose\u2019s surgery; at the time she was still a ward of the state. The play ran for thirteen weeks before opening in New York to great critical acclaim. Williams wrote in a 1947 essay about fame\u2019s corrupting influence; it was an event, he wrote, \u201cwhich terminated one part of my life and began another as different in all external circumstances as could well be imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the ensuing years, from Paris, Havana, Key West, Rome, and London, while navigating his own difficulties, Williams sent money and letters inquiring about Rose\u2019s health and finances. At one point he brought her to New York to visit with his famous friends. In interviews, he made frequent references to his intentions to move his sister out of an institutional existence and into a Key West house he purchased for her in Coconut Grove. In an interview at the end of his life, before he choked fatally on a medicine bottle cap while alone in the Hotel Elys\u00e9e in New York, Williams described driving Rose to Stoney Lodge in Ossining. \u201cA lovely retreat where she has a pleasant room to herself with flowered wallpaper.\u201d About his efforts on Rose\u2019s behalf he said in an interview, \u201cThis is probably the best thing I\u2019ve done with my life, besides a few bits of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Privately, he acknowledged his debt to Rose. In 1942, writing to his agent Audrey Wood about a character who he hoped to yet again enliven with his sister\u2019s mental paralysis, Williams wrote that \u201cThe great psychological trauma of my life was my sister\u2019s tragedy, who had the same precarious balance of nerves that I have to live with, and who found it too much and escaped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams created indelible female characters by quoting directly from his mother and sister. \u201cThey talked with great charm. In most of my writings I try to recapture the charm of the way they talked,\u201d he said in a 1965 interview. But it was Rose\u2019s \u201ccharm,\u201d shared by her mother, that led to her irreversible detachment from reality. The discrepancy between their fortunes caused him lifelong guilt. In the summer of 1938, when Rose went intractably insane, Williams wrote in his diary, \u201cGod must remember and have pity some day on one who loved as much as her little heart could hold—& more! Who should be there, little Rose? And me, here.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some memory of Rose Williams underpins all of Tennessee Williams\u2019s plays, but it was with the 1944 premiere of The Glass Menagerie that he both immortalized his sister and launched his Broadway career. Rose is the basis for Laura Wingfield, the withdrawn high school dropout who passes her days listening to old phonograph records and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":625,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[12329,12328,12327,1754,12326],"class_list":["post-63375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-audrey-wood","tag-edwina-williams","tag-rose-williams","tag-tennessee-williams","tag-the-glass-menagerie"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBlow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams by Susannah Jacob<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"December 5, 2013 \u2013 Some memory of Rose Williams underpins all of Tennessee Williams\u2019s plays, but it was with the 1944 premiere of The Glass Menagerie that he both\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams by Susannah Jacob\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 5, 2013 \u2013 Some memory of Rose Williams underpins all of Tennessee Williams\u2019s plays, but it was with the 1944 premiere of The Glass Menagerie that he both\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-12-05T22:29:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-12-05T22:35:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"313\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Susannah Jacob\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Susannah Jacob\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Susannah Jacob\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3cb84790b451dd121d186a09952336ae\"},\"headline\":\"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-12-05T22:29:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-12-05T22:35:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/\"},\"wordCount\":1892,\"commentCount\":24,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Audrey Wood\",\"Edwina Williams\",\"Rose Williams\",\"Tennessee Williams\",\"The Glass Menagerie\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Arts & Culture\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/\",\"name\":\"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams by Susannah Jacob\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-12-05T22:29:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-12-05T22:35:49+00:00\",\"description\":\"December 5, 2013 \u2013 Some memory of Rose Williams underpins all of Tennessee Williams\u2019s plays, but it was with the 1944 premiere of The Glass Menagerie that he both\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3cb84790b451dd121d186a09952336ae\",\"name\":\"Susannah Jacob\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f0e41aa876605f25264c5ab67981cf64a3d9ce33d54eab2c7e0069efc4a9757?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f0e41aa876605f25264c5ab67981cf64a3d9ce33d54eab2c7e0069efc4a9757?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Susannah Jacob\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sjacob\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams by Susannah Jacob","description":"December 5, 2013 \u2013 Some memory of Rose Williams underpins all of Tennessee Williams\u2019s plays, but it was with the 1944 premiere of The Glass Menagerie that he both","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams by Susannah Jacob","og_description":"December 5, 2013 \u2013 Some memory of Rose Williams underpins all of Tennessee Williams\u2019s plays, but it was with the 1944 premiere of The Glass Menagerie that he both","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2013-12-05T22:29:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-12-05T22:35:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":313,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Susannah Jacob","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Susannah Jacob","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/"},"author":{"name":"Susannah Jacob","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3cb84790b451dd121d186a09952336ae"},"headline":"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams","datePublished":"2013-12-05T22:29:34+00:00","dateModified":"2013-12-05T22:35:49+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/"},"wordCount":1892,"commentCount":24,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg","keywords":["Audrey Wood","Edwina Williams","Rose Williams","Tennessee Williams","The Glass Menagerie"],"articleSection":["Arts & Culture"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/","name":"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams by Susannah Jacob","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg","datePublished":"2013-12-05T22:29:34+00:00","dateModified":"2013-12-05T22:35:49+00:00","description":"December 5, 2013 \u2013 Some memory of Rose Williams underpins all of Tennessee Williams\u2019s plays, but it was with the 1944 premiere of The Glass Menagerie that he both","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/celia-keenan-bolger_large.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/blow-out-your-candles-an-elegy-for-rose-williams\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Blow Out Your Candles: An Elegy for Rose Williams"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3cb84790b451dd121d186a09952336ae","name":"Susannah Jacob","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f0e41aa876605f25264c5ab67981cf64a3d9ce33d54eab2c7e0069efc4a9757?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4f0e41aa876605f25264c5ab67981cf64a3d9ce33d54eab2c7e0069efc4a9757?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Susannah Jacob"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sjacob\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/625"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63375"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63389,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63375\/revisions\/63389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}