48 pages • 1 hour read
Tennessee WilliamsThe Night of the Iguana
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1961A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IIChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act II Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of sexual misconduct, intimate partner abuse, physical assault, and self-harm.
Several hours have passed, and it is almost sunset. Maxine sets up tables for dinner. Hannah enters to ask Maxine if there is a bathtub that Nonno can use. Maxine informs her that she knows of a boarding house that will take them on credit, explaining that Costa Verde is not equipped to accommodate older people with physical limitations. She offers to take care of transporting Hanna and Nonno in the morning. Hannah helps Maxine with the dinner tables, but when Maxine tells her to stop, adding, “I don’t accept help from guests here” (357), Hannah persists. She takes out an ornate jade figurine and offers it to Maxine as collateral, but Maxine rejects this, noting that Hannah must be completely broke. Hannah concedes that she is. Maxine confesses that her late husband left her in a serious financial bind. Fred’s final request was to be buried, uncovered, at sea; Maxine carried out his wishes but now shivers at the thought that the fish he used to catch are now eating him. The Germans are singing another nationalistic march as they walk back from the beach, raucously reveling in the bombing of London. Simultaneously, Shannon returns from swimming, commenting wryly on their celebration.
Hannah asks Shannon about the boarding house where Maxine is relocating her and Nonno. As Shannon starts to give an unfavorable review, Charlotte enters suddenly, shouting Shannon’s name as he hurriedly hides in his room. Hannah tries to stall her, but Charlotte pounds on the door to his room. Herr Fahrenkopf enters, shushing her so that he can hear an address from Hitler and exiting to find a quieter spot. Hannah tries to follow and attempts to paint his portrait, but she drops the contents of her portfolio, and Charlotte walks over them. Shannon enters to talk to Charlotte, begging her not to make his life complicated. Charlotte insists that she didn’t tell Miss Fellowes about their tryst; her chaperone guessed. Charlotte claims that she loves him and insists that he marry her. Shannon asserts that he is in no condition to marry. Charlotte recalls that after they had sex, Shannon smacked her face and then violently forced her to kneel and pray for their forgiveness. Miss Fellowes, who has been calling for Charlotte, enters, and Shannon disappears into his room while Charlotte hides in another room. Hannah covers for both of them, but Miss Fellowes hears Charlotte weeping and hauls her out, exclaiming that Charlotte’s father will have Shannon arrested. Miss Fellowes drags a struggling Charlotte away.
Hannah informs Shannon that they’re gone, then brings Nonno’s freshly pressed suit to him to change for dinner. Shannon enters, flustered and donning his minister garb, including an ornate gold cross. Hannah returns, now dressed in her artist outfit. Shannon exclaims that the women on the tour keep calling him a defrocked minister, and he intends to prove otherwise. Hannah tries to help him with his collar, but a button pops off, and he gives up and tears it off. Hannah starts to sketch him, asking him about leaving the church. He explains that he had been a minister for a year before leaving. Offstage, Nonno is reciting his poetry. Hannah says that he can no longer see or hear well, and now, his memory is declining, which is Nonno’s biggest fear. Shannon admits that he was locked out of his church after he had sex with a Sunday school teacher, a very young woman, after she declared her feelings for him. Afterward, he hit her and called her a “damned little tramp” (368). She went home and borrowed her father’s razor to harm herself, inflicting a shallow yet scandal-producing cut.
After the incident, he planned to apologize from the pulpit, but on impulse, he gave a thundering sermon in which he called God a “senile delinquent” (369). Then, there had been a storm outside. Shannon had been kicked out of his church and landed in a mental institution. Later, he became a tour guide. He now travels around “collective evidence” (369) as to God’s real nature, which he doesn’t see as senile or delinquent but powerful like a storm. Hannah notes that if Shannon takes his evidence to preach for a congregation, he will probably once again toss out his prepared words and “lead them beside still waters because you know how badly they need the still waters” (370). Shannon is impressed by her painting of him. The tour group has gone on a glass-bottom boat tour, and Hannah plans to sell them her paintings when they return. She asks Shannon to keep an eye out for Nonno and exits. There is a commotion as Pancho and Pedro enter, drawing Maxine out, who explains that they’ve caught an iguana to fatten up and then eat.
The Germans are horrified but fascinated at the idea of eating a lizard. The iguana escapes, and they all watch as the Mexican employees catch it and tie it up. A loud crash indicates that Nonno has fallen down, and Shannon and Maxine rush inside. Maxine feels vindicated in her concerns about letting Hannah and Nonno stay. Shannon brings the beautifully dressed old man outside, and Nonno insists that he isn’t hurt. Nonno confides in Shannon, whom he mistakes for Hannah, that he believes that he’ll “finish it here" (374), presumably referring to the poem. Shannon agrees. Herr Fahrenkopf listens excitedly to radio news about the spread of the fire in London. Nonno recites a poem, which the Germans appreciate loudly after learning his age. Hannah speaks German to the family, trying to sell them a painting, but the Germans are distracted and burst into another march. Inadvertently, Nonno undercuts Hannah’s efforts by loudly asking how much money they have made. Shannon humors him by giving him five dollars and telling him that the dining room is full of people. Hannah, stricken with sudden anxiety, steps away, and Shannon follows.
Hannah explains that when she realized that Nonno was declining, she urged him to go to Nantucket, but instead, he insisted on Mexico. She worries that the trip is too much for him and is causing him to decline more quickly. Hannah expresses appreciation for Shannon’s kindness. As dinner is served, she wakes Nonno, who makes several jokes when he hears that Shannon is a vacationing minister. Shannon asks Nonno to give the blessing over the food, and Nonno agrees as long as Shannon keeps Hannah company after Nonno goes to bed. He reveals that he raised Hannah after her parents died in a car accident. Nonno blesses the food, and Shannon tells Hannah about his “spook” (380), admitting that he came to Mexico to outrun it. Maxine offers them all liquor, insisting when they refuse, until Shannon and Maxine are shoving the liquor cart back and forth, which entertains the Germans. Shannon turns and shoves the cart at them, exiting into the jungle as the Germans scatter to their own table. Maxine orders Hannah to stop interfering with Shannon, accusing her of using her grandfather to scam her way into establishments when they have no money.
Shannon enters quietly, watching as Hannah insists that she will make money on her paintings by selling them in the town plaza tomorrow, but she offers to leave now if Maxine believes that she is a fraud. Maxine scoffs, but Hannah insists that she is tough and persistent. Confused, Nonno recites a poem. Maxine asks Hannah to leave Shannon alone, having detected chemistry between them. Shannon interrupts and makes his presence known. Maxine exits, and Hannah admits that she was bluffing about leaving. Seeing that Hannah is running out of cigarettes, Shannon offers her his more expensive cigarettes. Hannah wants to help Shannon, and he is moved by her kindness. A storm is moving in, and Hannah gathers her paints while Shannon helps Nonno. Maxine hurries her employees to clear the tables. The Germans start singing. Hannah states, “Here is your God, Mr. Shannon” (387), and Shannon challenges God to kill him with lightning if he doesn’t realize that Shannon knows him. The rain begins to fall, and Shannon stands in it, arms outstretched.
Act II Analysis
Although Maxine affects a cavalier attitude in the first act when she tells Shannon about Fred’s death, she confides to Hannah in Act II that the thought of Fred’s burial at sea gives her chills, thereby revealing the vulnerability that lies beneath her bold façade. As Maxine shivers at the idea of Fred being eaten by the same fish he once spent his time catching, her reaction suggests that she is not as desensitized to death as she claims to be. In the midst of these more personal revelations, the German family serves as an anchor to the events of World War II that are taking place simultaneously in Europe, and their habit of wandering abruptly in and out of the play provides a contrast to the natural cycle of Life and Death in the Jungle. The play is set in 1940, and one of the Germans is always listening intently to reports of the war. Upon hearing the news of the bombing of London, known as the Blitz, the German tourists—who are identified as Nazis—celebrate loudly. Historically, the Blitz lasted eight months and killed over 40,000 civilians, an event that audiences in 1961 would likely remember. The malicious spirit of the German family’s celebration is designed to portray them as callous and bloodthirsty, and this detail of the play also critiques the dehumanization of others and the desensitization to violence and death that occurs during wartime.
In the midst of these historical references, the character of Nonno, who is facing his own impending death, suggests that not only the mass deaths in London, but all deaths are arbitrary and meaningless. At age 97, Nonno will soon experience a death that is imminent and natural due to his extreme old age, and he is spending the end of his life with his only family, the granddaughter he loves. By composing a final poem while he stays at a hotel with an ocean view, he enjoys the best possible circumstances for finishing out his final days. However, Nonno’s declining mental faculties belie this characterization by suggesting that he has already been dying a piece at a time, and his deteriorating raises implicit questions about the notion of a cohesive sense of self. With the increasing loss of his sight and hearing (the senses that ground him in the world), he loses the ability to accurately perceive his surroundings, as is demonstrated when he makes the comical mistake of confusing his granddaughter with Shannon. While such a mistake does not necessarily threaten his sense of self, his increasing dementia does, and Hannah makes this reality explicit when she identifies his memory loss as his greatest fear. The play therefore questions whether there is anything eternal within humanity, or if immortality can only be found in indirect forms, such as Nonno’s poems or Hannah’s portraits.
The second act also sheds more light on Shannon’s transgressions, both with the girl on his tour bus and when he was kicked out of his church. Both incidents show that Shannon bears greater burdens than his weakness of character and his propensity to succumb to temptation, and it is clear that his feelings of Loneliness and Sexual Desire are only part of his problem. When Charlotte chases Shannon down to confront him, she presents a much less complex view of the situation from her religious perspective, for she is convinced that having sex means that Shannon must now marry her. Significantly, her focus on this oversimplified view of adult relationships causes her to overlook the fact that after they had sex, Shannon hit her and forced her to pray for forgiveness. In her youth and inexperience, Charlotte accepts this abuse as a normal part of marriage, insisting that she is in love with Shannon and that because they had sex, he must love her too. This scene ironically dovetails with the revelation that before Shannon was removed from his church, he gave in to an impulse to have sex with another young girl, and this incident was the scandalous catalyst for his ejection. The underlying issue of physical abuse is highlighted on several different levels, for just as Shannon strikes Charlotte, he also become abusive to this girl after having sex with her. Given his dismissive attitude regarding her response of engaging in self-harm, Shannon reveals himself to be an unreliable narrator in the extreme, and his protestations of his own blamelessness are thereby revealed to be patently false.
Notably, Shannon’s own hypocrisy is mirrored by that of his church, for although his congregation forgives his seduction and poor treatment of the young girl, they condemn and reject Shannon for delivering a diatribe against God, in which he accuses God of being an immature and childish old man. Ironically, Shannon does not recognize this moment as a crisis of faith and chooses to see himself instead through his persistent Delusions of Religious Martyrdom. This mindset is revealed when Shannon is adamant about defending himself from the accusation that he was defrocked, even donning his frock to prove that he still has it. However, it is clear that his clerical garb is little more than a costume at this point, and the playwright highlights this dynamic by placing a frocked Shannon face-to-face with Hannah, who, just like Shannon, is wearing her own carefully cultivated costume in an effort to present a facsimile of authenticity. In reality, Shannon was only a practicing clergyman for a year, but he still attaches “Reverend” to his name and markets himself as a minister. When Shannon’s mental illness manifests, he prefers to believe that he is a holy man under attack rather than a man who is troubled by the misfiring of his own mind. Accordingly, Shannon interprets the thunderstorm at the end of Act II as a monumental confrontation between himself and God, and the scene serves as a reference to the thunderstorm that erupted after his last disastrous sermon.
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By Tennessee Williams
