An analysis of the character Fred's role as an allegory for God in Williams' "The Night of the Iguana"

You Can’t Spell God without Fred Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana could be twisted, with a little imagination and liberties, to be the good Revered T. Lawrence Shannon’s search for answers from the sage mouth of his good friend Fred. The fine... More

You Can’t Spell God without Fred Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana could be twisted, with a little imagination and liberties, to be the good Revered T. Lawrence Shannon’s search for answers from the sage mouth of his good friend Fred. The fine sage Fred, however, is unavoidably absent due to death. Even with his never being tangible, Fred’s existence is constantly referred to with the ‘wishes’ and statements of Maxine dealing with his uncanny ability to repair and mend any foul situation that has arisen. The fact that Fred is never there during the conflict where he would be the perfect mediator, and the persistent ‘fact’ stated by Maxine that he would inevitably be able to resolve said conflict perhaps alludes to the character Fred being a strong metaphor for God, or the faith there of, which also is sadly absent in the course of the play. Not necessarily a dynamic character, nor even an actual present character, Fred contains perhaps more mystery and charm than any of Less