Tea and Sympathy Literary Elements

Tea and Sympathy Literary Elements

Director

Vincente Minnelli

Leading Actors/Actresses

Deborah Kerr, John Kerr

Supporting Actors/Actresses

Leif Erickson, Edward Andrews

Genre

Drama

Language

English

Awards

Won 1 Golden Globe: Most Promising Newcomer - Male, John Kerr

Date of Release

1956

Producer

Pandro S. Berman

Setting and Context

1950s America at a prep school for boys

Narrator and Point of View

POV is that of Tom

Tone and Mood

Serious and Dramatic

Protagonist and Antagonist

Protagonists are Tom and Laura. Antagonists are Bill, Herb, and the machismo boys at the prep school.

Major Conflict

Tom is new to a prep school where he is in his senior year. He is not like the other boys who enjoy roughhousing, sports, fantasizing about girls and idolize Bill, their coach. He comes to find comfort and friendship with Bill's wife, Laura.

Climax

Laura falls in love with Tom who is very much like her first husband who was killed in WWII. She sleeps with Tom and years later Tom has written a book about his experience at the prep school and with Laura. He returns to find that Laura has left Bill and that she has continued to care for him.

Foreshadowing

Laura meeting with Tom often foreshadows their love affair to come.

Understatement

It is understated that Laura will leave Bill.

Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques

N/A

Allusions

The film is an allusion the the era of the 1950s and the representation of what it is to be a man in a world run on the false bravado of a machismo culture. There is very little substance and a lot of aggression, which motivate the culture while simultaneously poisoning it as well. Tom is the antithesis to this with his life representing meaning and hope for what it is to be a man in the world.

Paradox

Tom is sensitive and enjoys different things in the world. The paradox is that people believe this to personality mean that he is effeminate, when he is not.

Parallelism

Tom leaving school parallels Laura leaving Bill. They both yearn for deeper, more meaningful things in life than those that are expected of them.

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