A Streetcar Named Desire - Context

Southern Gothic

a mode or genre prevalent in literature from the early 19th century to this day. Characteristics of Southern Gothic include the presence of irrational, horrific, and transgressive thoughts, desires, and impulses; grotesque characters; dark humor, and an overall angst-ridden sense of alienation.

brings to light the extent to which the vision of the idyllic South rests on massive repressions of the region’s historical realities: slavery, racism, and patriarchy.

texts mark a Freudian return of the repressed: the region’s historical realities take concrete forms in the shape of ghosts or grotesque figures that highlight all that has been unsaid in the official version of southern history.

engages with the discrepancy between perceived, heteronormative normalcy and the repressed realities beneath that assumption.

Memento mori, or remembrances of death abound, with death and decay a constant presence and a lurking threat

Plastic Theatre

To express his universal truths Williams insisted that setting, properties, music, sound, and visual effects—all the elements of staging—must combine to reflect and enhance the action, theme, characters, and language.

American Dream

America seemed like a blank slate where success depended not on birth or privilege but on hard work and courage.

Stanley attempts to fulfill the American dream, not only through his individual labour, but relying on Stella's selling family property. Furthermore, he thinks of the US as the land of multiple opportunities and represents multiculturalism and industrialization of American society.

As far as Blanche is concerned, her only means to succeed, i.e. attain the American dream, is the social status attributed to her by her education and her origins, which are invoked whenever she is intimidated.

Elements of Plastic Theatre

His vivid and evocative stage directions

Symbolism

Lighting

Colours

Costumes

Props

Sound Effects-Digetic and Non Digetic

Effects of American Civil War

The South was defeated and slavery was officially abolished in 1865 and the industrialised North grew both politically and economically in comparison to the largely agricultural South.

The American South

More of an expression of a way of life rather than a geographical location.

antebellum

Often used of the Old South prior to the defining event of the American Civil War

Enduring legacy of American South

After the Civil war many white Southerners brought into an enduring nostalgic myth representation of the South in its antebellum heyday as a haven of peace, prosperity and chivalrous gallantry.

Economic context

Industrialization was starting to happen more rapidly in cities. While the plantations of the old South were decaying, urban growth and capitalism were doing well.

gritty realistic post-WWII theatre

A brutally honest account of life, often concerned with the middle and working classes

In the opening stage directions, Williams notes there is 'easy intermingling of races' in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Why would Blanche find this alien?

She's from the South where they used slavery to advance the economy

What is the term 'new South' used to describe in literature?

It is the term used to describe the South after the Civil War when slavery was abolished and the southern states began to experience the industrialization of the North

(It was a time of great social upheaval , immigration and shifting attitudes)

Why was the Old South falling into decline?

Following the end of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, the Old South began to steadily decline

Plantations no longer relied on free labour to profitable and this was no longer available, the way of life enjoyed by families such as the DuBois fell into decay

What does Belle Reve stand for?

'beautiful dream'

What is the shrinking of the Belle Reve estates symbolic of?

The shrinking of the Old South until only the house and graveyard remained

What are Southern Belles?

They are an archetype that has survived in Southern literature

The Southern Belle is white, from a wealthy background, cultured, pretty and charming

What is the Southern Gentleman?

He is cultured, gallant and wealthy

In the play he is typified by the mythical Shep Huntleigh

Why is the symbol of the locomotive important?

It is significant as it represents modernity; the fast and intrusive changes that the Old South underwent after the American Civil War

Symbolises the dominance and inevitability of Stanley's victory over Blanche

The End of WW2

When an idealistic and ambitious nation attempted and succeeded to squash the threat of the Nazis. After battling through the Great Depression and the war suddenly the national focus was on the middle and lower classes as the true bearers of the heroic American spirit. Many lives had been lost, but those young men who returned were ready to take back 'traditional values' ready to settle down, with wives, children and steady jobs, and took back many of these jobs from the working women. This also inspired Williams' realistic style of writing in A Streetcar Named Desire, as people had seen the brutal reality of war they weren't left with much hopeful imagination.

First performance

1947

Williams quote on autobiographical writing

"All work is autobiographical if it's serious. Everything a writer produces is his inner history, transposed into another time. I am more personal in my writing than other people."

Father and Mother

His father was a travelling salesman and a heavy drinker and his mother was a clergyman's daughter and prone to hysterical attacks. Williams loathed his father but later decided in therapy his father had given him his tough survival instinct.

Tennessee Williams' sister

Because his family life was so poor, he and his sister became very close in the early years. His sister Rose suffered from schizophrenia and became increasingly worse as she got older, eventually resulting in a full frontal lobotomy, which Williams always regretted doing nothing to stop. The results were disastrous meaning she was institutionalised.

Homosexuality

Williams had a relationship with Kip Kiernan (1918-1944), young Canadian dancer he met in Province, however he left him to marry a woman and 4 years later killed himself. Also struggled in his relationship with Frank Merlo as he was constantly looking for new sexual encounters.

In the late 40's, the Kinsey studies began to open up the discussion of sexuality as never before. Along with a new understanding of heterosexual relationships, homosexuality was for the first time discussed at the national level. Between 1947 and 1949 the two largest newsweeklies (Time and Newsweek) published just two articles about homosexuality. They relied largely on second hand sources and were highly critical of homosexuality, using words such as degenerate and disgusting. In the War homosexuals were given blue discharges as a dishonourable discharge to remove them from the army.

Aristotelian Tragedy

Traditional Greek tragedy was said by Aristotle to have a change in circumstance for the central character which could be good to bad fortune or vice versa. The central character should not be good or bad but one who has a 'fatal flaw' which brings on their downfall, which also makes the character much more like real people, making the play more relatable. The object of a tragedy is to arouse feelings of wonder and awe in the audience.

Hegelian Tragedy

expressing a tragedy as a battle of two opposing moral claims (ideas), which are both valid, but the claims cannot coexist, so one belief must be eradicated (tragic hero dies)

Nietzschean Tragedy

expressing tragedy as an internal conflict between the Apollonian ordered side of a character and the chaotic Dionysian side

Elia Kazan (Blanche)

'an emblem of a dying civilization... All her behaviour patterns are those of the dying civilization she represents'

Elia Kazan (Williams)

"Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life."

Marxist reading

Would view the play as a social drama working out the antagonism between the declining DuBois family and the newly assertive working class, represented by Stanley.

It might see Stella's passivity as an acceptance of the rise of the working class.

Similarly, it might see the Blanche-Stanley conflict as a doomed bourgeois attempt to resist working-class energy and realism.

Women in Streetcar

reside in a world in which they are expected to uphold an ideal of grateful subservience while providing a comfortable environment and serving as the physical outlet for their husband's desires. Women should be ascetic, restrained, passive, vulnerable and impervious to sexual desire.

Davis, "Gender-Based Behavior in A Streetcar Named Desire"

Men in Streetcar

bound by a masculine code that stresses power and dominance, which at the same time promotes' the male's responsibility as both financial provider and physical protector of the women they view as the weaker sex. Men should be hard, brash, gluttonous, aggressive, and predatory. In addition, they are the initiators of physical contact and are allowed a greater degree of sexual expressiveness than their female counterparts.

Davis, "Gender-Based Behavior in A Streetcar Named Desire"

Gender performativity

'in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time -an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts.

is instituted through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be under- stood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding identity

if instituted through acts which are internally discontinuous, then the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief'

Problematic gender

character's struggle against having their own roles predetermined, they seek to enforce upon others elements of those sexual roles that serve to gratify their own needs. As a result, Williams' characters find themselves struggling against the desires that drive them to behave in ways that contradict acceptable behavior and against those in society who seek to enforce a code of behavior upon them. It is this tension between individual desire and societal expectation that generates the dilemmas that the major characters encounter.

Davis, "Gender-Based Behavior in A Streetcar Named Desire"

Williams described the main theme of his work as ?

"the destructive impact of society on the sensitive, non-conformist individual."

Elia Kazan on Williams and Blanche?

"Tennessee Williams . . . is Blanche. And Blanche is torn between a desire to preserve her tradition, which is her entity, her being, and her attraction to what is going to destroy her traditions."

New Orleans

A city in Louisiana, a southern state in the USA, whose legal system was influenced by the Napoleonic code, cited by Stanley.

Known as something of a cultural melting pot, where in some parts, including the French Quarter (district), black and white lived alongside each other.A 'streetcar' (tram) went to an area called Desire, another to Cemeteries; there is also an avenue called Elysian Fields, referring to where the souls of heroes and the virtuous went in Greek mythology.

Known as a free-and-easy sort of place, with a lot of music (as in this play), especially jazz, bars and gambling - including poker.

Realist theatre

Use of techniques that link the world of the play to the real world and the real lives of the audience

Expressionist Theatre

Use of techniques throughout the play which are not realistic

lyricism

an artist's expression of emotion in an imaginative and beautiful way; the quality of being lyrical.