Towards the end of the play, moreover, Big Daddy learns that his success, which has permitted him to dominate or buy off so many people, is powerless against death, which is no respecter of persons or dollars. In other words, success is, in the last analysis, illusory and must cede before the existential limitations of human life. Williams was America’s great naysayer at a time when the positive was unctuously accentuated. But if success is doomed to failure, what of failure itself? In his late play, Small Craft Warnings (1973), Williams exposes the dark psychological underside of meritocracy: for if, in America, anyone can succeed, it must also mean that anyone can fail. To succeed, at least in a competitive society, is to raise yourself above average; but by definition, not everyone can be above average. Moreover, when you fail in a meritocracy you have no one to blame but yourself. It is perhaps better to fail where there is injustice, for then you can blame others for your failure, which brings you at least some comfort.