streetcar

female entrapment + hegemonic masculinity

intentionally crafted socially subordinate female characters who are dependent on men for survival (blanche + stella)

blanche husband suicide - 'degenerate' who kills himself and is ostracised because he did not conform to hegemonic masculinity

cornell gender order theory:

hegemonic masculinity - encourages male domination and justifies female subordination

stanley - symbol of hegemonic masculinity. sexual dominance shown how through the men handle him tenderly when he's drunk and angry after the poker.

mitch - non hegemonic men can still reproduce misogyny (complicit masculinity)

allan - victim of heteronormativity (subordinate masculinity)

the moral problem about how patriarchal ideals pollute society and allow men the privilege to exploit vulnerable women

alan is only 'the boy' and is awarded less masculinity because he is gay

stanley tells stella 'i pulled you down off them columns' wrt belle reve

blanche sexuality + insecurity

'it's only a paper moon, just as phony as it can be, but it wouldn't be make believe, if you believed in me' - ref to how she lives in a façade

'i tell what ought to be the truth' scene nine she loses implicature skills

only men's sexual desires would be considered healthy/normal so she would be seen as abnormal to the contemporary audience

'dark red satin wrapper' - what she frequently appears in, physical representation for her sexuality

on 'streetcar named desire' because her desire is on a fixed track

uses lots of implicature and performs education like 'i'm just about to drop', scripted non fluency even when first sees stella again, wants to meet all stella's 'lovely friends'

'you're bound to reproach me' she views herself as a victim and 'captive maid'

she is constantly dressing and washing and 'you never get anywhere with direct appeals'

tells stella 'pull yourself together and face the facts' regarding stanley which is ironic

epizeuxis of 'young' wrt newspaper boy

stella and stanley's relationship (2020 presentation of marriage)

stella is economically dependent on stanley, he doesn't do this out of chivalry but out of a desire for control of her and her assets (napoleonic code)

'stanley gives a loud whack of his hand on her thigh' - objectification of women in 1940s america, harsh onomatopoeia of 'whack and pornification of 'thigh'

'stanley charges after stella' - display of male dominance

'narcotised tranquility' / 'smashed all the lightbulbs with the heel of my slipper!' - exclamatory language shows her appreciation for his violent masculinity + she only remembers her sexual desire during the chaos in scene 3 and is addicted to stanley's like a drug

'i am not in anything that i have a desire to get out of' - commentary on women's entrapment, this is her metaphorical death by stanley's hand

panda - 'the stanley-stella relationship is one of the supreme examples of hierarchisation of activity / passive opposition'

napoleonic code is ref to cultural misogyny which constrains stella in her marriage

leibman - stella is 'not the lustful instigator but the passive respondent', her sexuality is approved because it is only in response to male sexuality

'fingers find the opening of her blouse' - at the end of the play all that matters to stanley is stella's objectification

scene 10 - the rape

'lurid reflections, 'red letter night' - expressionist theatricality accentuates the trauma blanche will experience

blanches 'crumpled white satin gown' vs stanley's 'brilliant silk pyjamas'

'night is filled with inhuman voices like cries in a jungle flame' - animalistic desire

rape is foreshadowed from when he 'jerks open' her suitcase while looking for the belle reve documents

mitch dual characterisation

mitch has a boyish fragility which contrasts stanley's brutality

'awkward courtesy' makes him seem like the old south southern chivalry type

mitch 'tears the paper lantern off the light bulb' to metaphorically strip blanche of her illusions

'lapping it up all like a wild summer cat', 'you're not clean enough to bring in a house with my mother' - masculine fixation on female chastity and use of degrading language

'poker should not be played in a house with women' foreshadows his discovery of blanches looks, his attempted rape of her and his misogyny

blanche performs her class to him as he is working class, she speaks in french and makes references he wouldn't understand. he tries to copy her register 'i am ashamed of the way i pespire'

blanche is 'not clean enough' for him

cyclic structure

varsouvania polka only being diegetic for blanche is symbolic of her inability to escape her past (alan, belle reve)

'the opposite is desire' - microcosm, relationship between death and desire for people who don't conform to the social codes of heteronormativity (allan, blanches ostracisation)

'i used to sit here and she used to sit there, and death was as close as you are'

new vs antebellum south (2023 presentation of class differences, 2022 presentation of tension between past and present)

stanley is the 'passionate manhood' of the new south e.g. throwing the meat at stella

blanche is from the time of antebellum south chivalry, comes from a plantation family and does not engage in the 20th century social codes

belle reve = beautiful dream, symbolises blanche's desire to hide as an antebellum southern belle even though that time is gone

'please don't get up i'm only passing through' - only passing through the antebellum south

'her appearance is incongruence to this setting' - she stands out against the antebellum south

'polack' - exploits her upperclass american privilege to degrade stanley who is part of the multicultural antebellum south

stella's baby represents a new kowalski future + blanche being removed from the home

blue piano leitmotif for stanley vs blanche varsouviana polka

stanley has limited vocab like repetition of 'swindled' and represents the working class

stanley and blanche's relationship

stanley is 'gaudy', and blanche is 'moth-like'

Brown and Levinson politeness theory suggests that when we are rude to people or impede their personal freedoms, we commit face-threatening acts (these are directed at the person we are talking to). When we admit and apologise for our shortcomings, we commit face-threatening acts (which are directed at ourselves).

blanche threatens stanley's face when she calls him a 'polack'

the apartment is claustrophobic and only two rooms so blanche cannot escape her past of the present

scene eight blanche has 'a tight, artificial smile' and stanley sarcastically accommodates for her 'i don't know any refined enough for your taste'

he ignores her extended speech in scene eight because he is busy eating 'with his fingers'

scene ten she repeats 'oh' and he controls the stage

seven eleven he is anti theatrical and rips off the lights she created

scene ten callback to spilled coke bc stanley is about to ruin her life the way alcohol ruined it

context for elysian field, belle reve and the streetcars (theme of love and death)

- liebstod tradition (love death), german tradition where lovers achieve erotic union only through death ➡️ streetcars are named 'desire' and 'cemeteries'

- elysian fields in greek mythology is a resting ground for the blessed dead ➡️ blanches final resting place after she self destructs, whereas for stanley its a safe place for masculine dominion

- southern gothic theme of the return of the repressed ➡️ white america can't repress the genocide it's built on

use of light (2023)

- williams interest in plastic theatre and extended light stage directions = this play was very much intended to be seen and heard rather than read

- light and dark = typical symbolism inverted to make light the ugly reality and dark the preferred dream

- 'dark is comforting' for blanche and it foreshadows her deception

- blanche views stanley's desire to be in the light as reflective of new, modern, primitive south culture

- use of light in blanche and mitch's confrontation

- in poker scene the men's shirt colours represent a van gogh painting, harsh colors symbolic of their harsh masculinity

use of stage directions (2022)

- use of stage directions for gender roles eg 'gaudy seed bearer', 'narcotised tranquility' when stanley is violent to stella

- use of clothing to show character eg. 'dark red satin wrapper' - what blanche frequently appears in, physical representation for her sexuality

- stanley 'crosses through the drapes' aka crosses liminal space to get to blanche

- non diegetic sound like varsouviana polka reveals blanche's deteriorating mindset to audience and the fact she can't escape her past, while simultaneously making her look crazy the other characters

- 'confusion of street cries' so mix of non diegetic and diegetic sound because blanche is confused on how to talk to stella after seeing her and stanley's performative heterosexuality after his violence

- blanche and the newspaper boy 'meet at the door between two rooms', liminal space between her past and her present

- blanche 'slams the mirror' and it 'cracks' in scene 10 bc her facade is breaking

stella and blanche's relationship (2021 presentation of family bonds)

- blanche is simultaneously dependent on stella and rejects stella's life

- ambiguity of whether stella betrayed blanche by sending her away

- stella's baby represents a new kowalski future + blanche being removed from the home

- blanche performs education ('edgar allen poe') even in front of stella and uses false starts to make her feel bad about leaving her for nola, stella accommodates for blanches personality by 'laugh[ing] uncertainly'.

- stella has experienced passion blanche hasn't even though blanche has had many sexual experiences. blanche says the rattle trap streetcar of desire 'brought me here' bc her sexual desire ruined her life back home.

- eunice represents what stella will become at the end of stella's streetcar of stanley

use of sound / speech

- 'el pan de mais sin sal' unsalted cornbread bc bread w/o salt is tasteless, a woman w/o beauty can't find a man

- 'flores para los muertos' + varsouvania polka tune - externalises blanches connection to love and death, and the polka signifies erratic mental breakdown as it appears irregularly for the audience until they realise what it means

- 'negro entertainers around the corner are heard' when stanley starts to break social order

- 'negro woman cackling hysterically' racialised threat to blade about the new south

- 'she touches her head vaguely. the polka tune starts again' readers don't have the actual sound, but maybe the stage directions help stress the importance of the polka and blues motifs.

- blanche scared by 'red hots' bc it represents the new south

- blanche in the bath singing and stanley in the room revealing her sexually past happens 'contrapuntally ' so at the same time to build the tension

• blue piano leitmotif for stanley as traditionally african american music that threatens blanche. link to context about williams’ mexican muse and stanley potentially originally being mexican or black, rather than polish

mitch and blanche scene 9

- his monosyllabic answers and her incessant chatter clash and prepare the audience for violence

- blanche uses educated speech to try and hark back to when she was a teacher and so in a position of power, is trying to take control of the scene here

- his use for 'plain' can mean both ugly and clear, either way the light unconventionally hurts her rather than saves her

- mitch uses the word 'pitch', because even when blanche is now being upfront about telling what ought to be the truth he now views her like a salesman who is a liar pretending to be virtuous

- bonus: 'the poor man's paradise is a little peace' blanche doesn't specifically want mitch, she just wants the security of knowing she can secure a man and a home with her age and looks

illusion vs reality

• blanche embodies illusion and clings to the antebellum fantasy, avoids harsh light and uses scripted non fluency to keep up an appearance of the past. she says ‘what ought to be the truth’

• blanche clashes with stanley who represents brutal reality. the coke spilling on her is symbolic of the rape and stanley forcefully wiping away blanches facade

• the streetcar lines ‘desire’ and then ‘cemeteries’ signify how blanche following her desire to live in the past will lead to tragedy.

• german leibstod tradition, ironically blanche will be reunited with alan in the afterlife even though that past is what she’s trying to run from

• mitch’s obsession with revealing blanche in the light, representative of how williams subverts usual role of light and dark for good and evil

dependency and vulnerability

• blanche seeks safety in stellas home but is still dependent on the tropes of the antebellum south to feel beautiful

• ‘i’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers’ ‘i need kindness now’ she’s reliant on ‘gentlemen’ for emotional support after alan

• stella and blanche are both trapped financially. blanche only has costume jewellery and fake furs after belle reve, and stella is pregnant and reliant on stanley as a provider

• stanley is only vulnerable when his face masculinity is threatened (when stella leaves after he smashes the window) but he still knows stella is dependent on him and she always comes back

• mitch is also dependent on blanche intially to validate him as a man bc he has a more gentle masculinity. he tries to keep up with blanches performed education even when men like stanley dont bother.

• 1940s post war survivors will have been emotionally, mentally and financially damaged

use of setting

• new orleans has a ‘raffish charm’ from the beginning and stellas apartment is small and oppressive

• blanche is boxed in by the little change in setting + how new orleans is diverse and working class

• belle reve symbolic for how the antebellum past is now just a long gone dream

• the streetcar names foreshadow blanches fate

• the hustle and bustle outside the small apartment is representative of how the world is moving on without blanche