Love, Obsession, and Pleasure Theme Analysis

Chance Wayne’s love of Heavenly drives him throughout the entirety of Sweet Bird of Youth, encouraging him to not only endure a number of social disgraces, but also to face down dangerous threats. The only reason he has worked so hard to become famous, he claims, is so that he can return to St. Cloud and earn Boss Finley’s blessing to marry Heavenly. However, because this never comes to pass—and because Chance and Heavenly never actually share any intimacy in the course of the play—it’s hard to discern whether or not his claims of love are genuine. Though most playwrights might allow a love story like Chance and Heavenly’s to triumph over everything else, Tennessee Williams is more interested in exploring how Chance’s attempt to court Heavenly actually drives him farther and farther from her. By the end of the play, it’s unclear whether his refusal to comply with Boss Finley’s orders to leave St. Cloud arises out of his steadfast love of Heavenly or the headstrong vanity he has cultivated as a dashing gigolo and actor. In this way, Williams intimates that the mere idea of love can overshadow a person’s actual romantic feelings, ultimately becoming more of a mental fixation than a genuine emotional experience or connection between two people.

Throughout Sweet Bird of Youth, Chance’s determination to make a life with Heavenly never falters. Until the very end, he tries to carry out a scheme that will make both of them rich and famous, ostensibly enabling them to be together. As he does this, Boss Finley threatens to kill or castrate him unless he leaves St. Cloud. Nevertheless, he doesn’t leave, and in the final scene he finally allows himself to be overtaken by Finley’s goons, preparing for extreme violence because he’s unwilling to give up. Judging by this, it’s easy to think that his love for Heavenly is steadfast and authentic. However, it’s hard to overlook the fact that he has only visited Heavenly periodically in the last several years, always swooping into town for short stays, making love to her, and leaving again to resume his fast life as an aspiring actor and well-known gigolo. During one such visit, he even gave her an STD he picked up while working as an escort, and although he knew that he had it and that he had probably given it to her, he didn’t say anything. “I thought if something was wrong she’d write me or call me,” he lamely justifies to Heavenly’s brother, Tom Junior, who points out that Heavenly couldn’t have reached him even if she wanted to, since he never gives her reliable ways to contact him when he leaves. Not only does this behavior suggest that Chance doesn’t care as much about Heavenly as he claims, it also emphasizes how much he has been absent from his lover’s life. Although he might argue that he has been off trying to become famous so he can provide for Heavenly, it seems more likely that he has simply come to enjoy his debauched lifestyle—so much that he doesn’t mind abandoning Heavenly even after transmitting a disease to her.

Williams’s onstage treatment of Chance and Heavenly’s relationship is quite fleeting, yet again suggesting that the supposed “love” flowing between them isn’t as strong as Chance would like to think. Indeed, Chance spends the majority of the play talking about his relationship with Heavenly, but the audience only gets to see them together for a few seconds. During this moment, the stage directions note: “At this instant she runs in—to face Chance…. For a long instant, Chance and Heavenly stand there: he on the steps leading to the Palm Garden and gallery; she in the cocktail lounge. They simply look at each other…” Before either of them can speak, Heavenly is ushered offstage again. This is the only interaction they have throughout the entire play. After “a long instant,” during which they don’t even speak, Heavenly leaves, essentially providing the audience with very little insight into their relationship. Although this moment could be seen as an “instant” of intense emotion, it also hints at a certain tension, as if Heavenly is confronting Chance with her stare (this is, after all, the first time she’s seen him since he gave her an STD). Overall, it’s difficult to discern whether or not true love exists in their relationship. At the very least, the playwright’s decision to keep them from coming together onstage destabilizes the idea that their love is strong, authentic, and capable of overcoming hardship. In turn, Williams forces the audience to judge Chance and Heavenly’s relationship based only on Chance’s interpretation of their love—an interpretation that, given his unrealistic expectations in other areas of his life, comes to seem less and less reliable.

Part of what makes Chance’s supposed love of Heavenly seem inauthentic or unbelievable is the way he conceives of love in general. In a conversation with Alexandra Del Lago, he says, “The biggest of all differences in this world is between the ones that had or have pleasure in love and those that haven’t and hadn’t any pleasure in love.” At first glance, this statement seems rather wholesome, since Chance is arguing that love is something that defines a person. However, it’s worth noting that he isn’t championing love itself, but rather the “pleasure” that one can derive from love. As such, he approaches love in an unsentimental and unemotional manner, primarily searching for a kind of hedonistic (pleasure-seeking) gratification. If this is what’s driving him to work so hard to win Heavenly’s hand, it seems he has overestimated his feelings. At the same time, though, sexual or physical pleasure can naturally lead people to think they’re in love, so it’s unsurprising that Chance mistakes his obsession with Heavenly as a genuine romantic experience. In this way, Williams demonstrates that a person’s obsession with pleasure can overshadow—or even replace—the desire to attain true and genuine love.