The Catastrophe of Success
I finally got around to reading The Glass Menagerie a while back, and the copy I got included Tennessee Williams’ essay “The Catastrophe of Success,” written after he gained fame from the play. It’s a reflection on how sudden recognition can hollow a person out. Williams describes being pulled from a life of “clawing and scratching” into one of comfort and attention, and how quickly that comfort turned to despair.
He tells the story of finding himself in a luxurious Manhattan hotel suite, surrounded by things he once thought symbolized success: green satin sofas, fine suits, room service. But instead of feeling fulfilled, he felt lifeless. The struggle that had once fueled his art had vanished, and in its place was a quiet kind of suffocation. “I was out on a level plateau,” he writes, “with my arms still thrashing and my lungs still grabbing at air that no longer resisted.”
It’s easy to romanticize the idea of “making it” and to imagine that success will bring relief. But Williams captures the paradox perfectly: when you remove struggle, sometimes you also remove purpose. He calls it “a kind of death.”
Williams ultimately found his way back through work. He left the hotel, moved to Mexico, and began writing A Streetcar Named Desire. The return to simplicity, fewer luxuries, more purpose, restored his connection to himself.
That’s the part that has stayed with me: the idea that struggle isn’t something to be eradicated, but something to be respected and sometimes to create space for. The goal isn’t to escape it, but to make sure it’s in service of something real.