ASND: AO3 (Historical)

WW2

• WW2 brought thousands of servicemen and new workers to New Orleans, adding to the already diverse culture of the city. Stanley is one of those 'foreigners' in Blanche's eyes.

• When Blanche insists on calling Stanley a 'Polack' she demonstrates a rejection of the very nature of this unique city.

• Stanley, who fought for his country, is proud to be American and sees his place in society threatened by Blanche whose values grate with the ideal of the 'American Dream' which promises that success is attainable through effort and hard work, rather than being dependent on social connections and privilege.

history of colonial New Orleans

• Founded by the French in 1718, New Orleans developed around the French Quarter, one of the oldest and most established parts of the city.

  • 'spirit and life'

  • 'blue piano'

  • 'expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here'

• Was sold to the US in 1803, there would have been many French colonial buildings but most were destroyed in fires therefore most of the architecture which Blanche encounters would date from American rule.

• The buildings in the opening scene are colonial in style and have an 'atmosphere of decay'

  • 'mostly white frame, weathered grey'

  • 'quaintly ornamented gables'

• These suggest French colonial style and are outdated, like the way of life of the wealthy plantation owners in the South.

Williams moved to New Orleans at 28, ready to immerse himself in the cultural life of the city. His apartment overlooked the French Quarter.

clash of cultures (quest for national identity after WW2)

ASND first opened in Nov 1947 when the US was re-evaluating its national identity in the wake of two world wars.

At the same time, the stark realities of industrial America had been exposed in the 1930s by the all-pervading Depression. 

Many citizens were provoked to contemplate the grandeur and faded elegance of previous American cultures, there was a widespread nostalgia for the glamour that America had lost.

There was an ambivalent interest in the traditions of the Deep South, mid 1900s urban Americans may have hankered after its aura of chivalry and romance, yet some aspects of Southern life (a past rooted in slavery and bigotry) were unsettling to a liberal America confronting the extreme manifestation of racial prejudice in Nazi-occupied Europe.

In this mould Williams presents his heroine Blanche. He portrays the Deep South as flawed and uses Blanche to criticise the hypocrisy and self-delusion of it, tempered with a certain sympathy for its plight.

southern belles

• Iconic

• Charming and flirtatious

• Enduring reference point for traditional white Southern womanhood

In A Streetcar Named Desire Williams overhauls and deconstructs the traditional belle stereotype.

Blanche DuBois is a tragic heroine, both the genteel damsel in distress and a promiscuous alcoholic.

• When Mitch finally abandons Blanche after a brutally clumsy attempt to force himself of her, she revises their parting scene for Stanley, playing up the gentle regret of the sorrowful belle:

  • 'I said to him "Thank you", but it was foolish of me to think that we could ever adapt ourselves to each other... Our attitudes and our backgrounds are incompatible... So farewell, my friend!" (Scene 9)

• Stanley mercilessly rips away this fantasy:

  • 'Mitch didn't come back with roses... There isn't a goddam thing but imagination!... Lies and conceit and tricks!... I've been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull any wool over this boy's eyes!' (Scene 10)

Stanley's cruelty emphasises the brutality and coarseness of modern life. In adopting the nickname 'Tennessee' in his career (stemming from the nickname his fellow students bestowed upon him in making fun of his Southern accent), the playwright signalled his conscious commitment to representing the culture, values and conflicts of his native land.

There is both humour and pathos in his dramatisation of the genteel gallantry of the fabled Old South fading out amid the brash confidence of America's post-war economic boom.

• Blanche's blind faith in archaic cultural traditions is emphasised when she sees the doctor who comes to institutionalise her as respecting the honour code of the Southern gentleman.

  • The doctor becomes a stand-in for Blanche's fantasy beau, Shep Huntleigh: 'Whoever you are - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers' (scene 11)

play is set in the aftermath of the Civil War (socio-political)

• the Civil War in America was fought between the Northern and Southern states, mainly on the issue of the abolishment of Slavery. (South was against this as their plantations were based on slavery)

• war ended in 1865 w the Northern states’ victory. Despite this loss, the image of ‘The South’ remained in their mind.

• While slavery was no longer legal, great importance continued to be placed on ancestry and heritage, racism continuing to exist long after the Civil War

• the South was alienated from the rest of America, known to be a place of racism and poverty. segregation was prevalent, system perpetuated cheap labour based on race.

New Orleans after the Great Depression (socio-political)

• New Orleans emerged as the champion of diversity and acceptance in the racist Southern states, a large influx of immigrants from Europe and Africa making it a melting pot of culture.

• This influx was spurred by the shift to an industrial economy, with multiple factories being set up to replace the old agrarian community. in tandem w this, the working class emerged.

  • it’s no accident that the baby (the postwar hybrid of St&St) is born also on the day that the representative of the antebellum South, Blanche, is defeated, raped and destroyed. Williams casts a cold eye on the triumph of a new (postwar) South peopled by brutish and insensitive Stanleys

socio-economic context

• ASND explores a time of transition for the American South, and the tensions resulting from the shift from old money into modernity and diversity.

  • Blanche and Stella’s money would likely have been built on slavery, and Blanche represents the struggle of being stuck in the past, unable to move on with a progressing society.

  • Her tension w Stanley is caused by their clashing values, many of the insults she hurls at him implying a sense of brutishness and vulgarity related to his status as a working-class immigrant

• the changing context of the South was part of a wider shift towards modernity during the twentieth century

  • the abolition of slavery lead to the decline of families like the Dubois. America in the 20th century became centred around the American Dream, welcoming generations of immigrants (like Stanley) who feel intrinsically all-American.

  • Stanley represents this dream and the go-getting thrust of the working-class people who feel they can achieve what they desire through hard work, perseverance and individualism

  • this promise is fundamentally at odds w Blanche’s Southern belle fantasy

gender roles (socio-cultural context)

gender roles:

• ASND is often considered a play that critiques the limitations that the post-world war American society imposed on itself. While the restrictions of women are an explicit focus, the gender stereotyping men suffer is also addressed implicitly.

• The postwar emergence of a sense of American heroism had implications for the championing of masculinity, as the nation decided to embrace values centred around family and home men were placed in more domestic roles alongside women

• during WW2, the % of women in the national workforce rose from 27% to 37%. after the war, they were pushed back into trad. domestic roles.

• Williams’ New Orleans is therefore a space were trad. gender roles were shaken up, and where conservative Southern ideals of old money and aristocratic heritage had been displaced in favour of the new working class ethic

• St&St more or less portray the accepted societal gender roles, B showcases masculine energy in her sexuality and arrogance, Mitch and Allan Grey showcasing sensitivity, a' ‘feminine’ trait.

what’s clear is that throughout the play societal gender norms negatively impact all, driving them towards either death, mental or moral destruction

race (socio-cultural context)

‘[New Orleans is a cosmopolitan city where there is a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races.]’ Sc1

• B is a stranger to NO, therefore bringing w her her traditional notions of superiority

• ‘Negro woman’, ‘Mexican women’, language, slang, dialects w jazz music attempt to create the feeling of diversity. however W doesn’t address the glaring racism against African Americans at that time, but at the European immigrants (through the Stanley Blanche conflict.

  • Sc8 ‘You healthy Polack, without a nerve in your body’

  • Sc10 ‘swine’

  • Stanley illustrates the prejudice many 1st/2nd gen European immigrants faced

• in the late 19th century and early 20th, ‘new immigrants’ from European countries occupied a racial middle ground, considered ‘not-quite-white’

• however Stanley predominantly faces prejudice as a result of his class position, rather than his ethnic Otherness or ambiguity

literary and critical receival

• some rejected the bold portrayal of sexuality, morality and desire

• but also became popular amongst those audiences who felt the crude realism was admirable