Streetcar/Malfi Critical quotes

how streetcar writes abt society

an attack on a society that elevates crude energy and muscular materialism above delicacy of feeling

how Malfi writes abt society

Renaissance belief that literature was intended to 'teach and delight'

How streetcar audiences reacted to play

“desperately morbid turn of mind” – shocked by “adult themes”

How Malfi audiences reacted to play

“lurid, melodramatic scenarios” – fascinated Jacobean audiences

Blanche at end of play

a desperate woman at the end of her tether (represents a) culture in a state of crisis, its certainties dislocating, its myths collapsing.

Duchess at end of play

reverts to the identity gained through her earlier marriage (status returned). she negates her relationship with Antonio. She becomes the woman carved in stone that Ferdinand wanted her to be.

Victimhood in Streetcar

“Stanley the victim” – audiences even “cheered” the rape

Victimhood in Malfi

“audience as helpless as the victims” – mirrors the helplessness that would have been experienced by the Jacobean public to stop the real abuses of their aristocratic rulers