It's not my thesis, but Sherman's, but what I liked about it, which folds into your comment:
If Catherine, disturbed, stumbled upon Sebastian in the middle of a al fresco orgy in that blazing sun (and I hear tell that such things do happen around the shoreline...), wherein he had a heart attack and died, then Mrs. Venable's motive is in many ways the same: cut the story of his promiscuous homosexuality out of Catherine's brain. Sherman suggests Williams chose the cannibalism as a poetic way for Catherine to absorb this man in an all male free for all, maybe S&M tinged (my add), and his death in the midst of so many poor men in this other country would be deeply disturbing. Joe Orton in Morocco springs to mind, and Sherman evokes Paul Bowles in "Sheltering Sky," Sebastian as a stand-in.
Cannibalism allegorizing forbidden sexuality is what upset Williams' shrink, obtuse as he was, so it tracks, oddly enough, with the deprogramming therapy's impact.
Just interesting ideas. |
