Week 3 Revising Drama- Themes

EDEXCEL English Literature A Level Drama A Streetcar Named Desire

Desire and love

* ‘coloured lights going’
* Stanleys animalistic behaviours
* Location- Tarantula hotel
* Billiard room
* Clothing, brassiere, silks, faux furs, Stanley’s tank tops
* The streetcar named desire
* Loss of Belle Reve

Truth and reality

* Paper lantern
* Locomotive sounds
* ‘Queen of the nile’
* Stanley going through her trunk, he is disrupting her illusions
* Old vs New south

Lies and fantasy

* Shep huntleigh
* Napoleonic code
* Metatheatre
* Flamingo hotel
* Allan grey
* Gun shots
* Repeated baths and drinks

Femininity

* Pink brassiere
* Southern drawl
* Southern hospitality
* Flirtatious yet chaste
* Southern belle
* Genteel values

Expectations and roles of women

* ‘We have had this date since the beginning’
* Stanley throwing the meat towards Stella
* Napoleonic code
* Eunice encouraging Stella to stay with Stanley ‘you’ve got to keep going’

New Orleans and the old south

American civil war, north vs south, north eon and abolished slavery, detrimental to aristocratic southern families, results in ante-bellum heyday and inability to leave the old south

Attitudes to gender in 1940s America

Women had taken over male roles during the war, then when men returned women were in a precarious situation, male dominance in the war, women were still subjected to patriarchal views but had more freedom

Attitudes to sex and marriage in 1940s America

Sexual relations within marriage were still the norm, however there was more freedom for women. Sex work was still looked down upon and shunned. There was more sexual liberation so people could be more open with their sexuality