| Abstract: | This paper explores the Taoist influence on Hannah Jelkes in The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams, who creates Hannah Jelkes and Maxine Faulk as binary oppositions in the play. If Maxine metaphorically stands for physical reality, Hannah clearly represents spiritual reality, thus “in a pitched battle between the spiritual and the physical” , Maxine is fighting mainly for the physical Shannon while Hannah is fighting chiefly for the spiritual Shannon, who is the fulcrum of the play. Williams creates Hannah as a spiritual savior whose appearance is serene and saintly, whose manner is refined and poised, and whose behavior is kind and compassionate. Hannah’s dramatic function in the play is to save Shannon from his spiritual limbo, and her ways of helping him are not only spiritual but also multidimensional, and all her ways indicate the important influence of Chinese Culture in general and Taoism in particular. With her acquired Taoist concepts, Hannah is able to help Shannon to endure his mental suffering, to turn his misery inside out, to see the cold reality, to fight against his haunting “spook,” to face the hard external world, and to finally come to terms with life. Thus Hannah’s saintly appearance, her courageously poised manner, her unfaltering fortitude, her kind behavior, her compassionate actions and her serenely educational talks to help Shannon all can prove the important influence of Chinese culture and Taoism that help frame the larger dramatic structure and the main development of the play. |
