Context- A Streetcar Named Desire

Family life

• William’s father Cornelius was frequently absent with work, though at home he terrorized his family with alcohol filled violence and bullying, singled out Tennessee for his effeminate ways, triggered homophobic bullying

• This modelled on Stanley Kowalski, brutish behaviour

• Rose, one of William’s closest and sister was diagnosed with Schizophrenia, subjected to a pre-fronted lobotomy and institutionalized

• this affected Tennessee as he was affected with nervous disposition after Rose’s institutionalization, afraid he would too lose his mind

• William once his plays took off used his money to care fore rose in a Private hospital, he states caring for Rose was ‘probably the best thing I’ve done with my life, besides a few bits of work’

• Blanche reflects Rose, in the beginning Rose detached from reality to cope with stress and abuse, Rose was also very charming

• Most of William’s characters composites of his dysfunctional family and himself, he believed ‘if writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it’

William’s life and experiences

• 1945 William’s went to live in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the plays setting, William’s lived here with his partner Pancho Rodriguez Y Gonzalez and he had a passionate and stormy relationship

• Streetcar through his neighbourhood named desire

• The French Quarter of New Orleans was a life changing experience for him, the relaxed culture of the place allowed Williams to explore his sexuality and pursue relationships with men, having experienced a conservative, puritanical upbringing with his mother, William’s had repressed his desires for a long time

• Laissez faire vibe of the French quarter changed the conservative ideologies William’s was brought up on

• Inner conflict between pretentious gentility and raw human sexuality was an endless source of material for Williams, seen in the sexually charged relationship between Stella and Stanley, and in Blanche who insists on being perceived as chaste while harbouring a voracious appetite for young men

  ^ scene 5: attempted seduction of news boy, and tragedy of Alan

WW2/ Social contexts and the play

• Williams deals with sexuality and desire in the play with refreshing candor, mixture of romance and savagery that rings true to human nature but certainly pushed moral boundaries in post-war 1940s America

• the late 1940s was the dawn of the so-called golden age of American capitalism, the end of WW2 ushered in an era of economic prosperity and a resurgence of old-fashioned family values

• Military men like Stanley Kowalski returned from war to return to role as primary breadwinners, and traditional roles within the domestic sphere were reaffirmed the balance of power very much in men’s favour

  ^ expressed through Stanley’s frequent assertions of dominance in the Kowalski household, like his invocations of the Napoleonic code, Stella’s unconditional devotion to Stanley also reflects the feminine ideal of that era, we see glimpses of Stella’s resentment towards Stanley’s vulgarity

  • partly reflects the attitude of William’s mother Edwina towards his father, except her disappointment wasn’t fleeting like Stella’s, it was bitter and unrelenting and culminated in her separation from Cornelius in the 1930s

  • Edwina reflected Blanche too, she represented archetype of the Southern belle, she moved to Mississippi from Ohio and embraced the southern aristocratic lifestyle, and made her debut as a young lady- the class divide between William’s parents was obvious, like Stella Edwina had married down

  • Edwina and her children upon her husband finding a new job had to move to Missouri, away from the riches of Tennessee’s grandparent’s house, like Blanche Edwina was declassed

  • Blanche experiences similar mortification when she loses Belle Reve to creditors, Blanche was created which Tennessee’s mother’s attitudes and cultural affectations

  • Tennessee: ‘I write out of love for the south…I write about the south because I think the war between Romanticism and the hostility to it is very sharp there’

Southern Gothic masterpiece

• The tension between romanticism and hostility is what makes A Streetcar Named Desire a southern Gothic Masterpiece

• Genre or category of literature characterized by dark controversial stories set in the Southern states of America

• Kim Hunter the actor who played Stella in the original Broadway production asked William what’s the theme of the play, William’s answered ‘Well, I think it’s a plea for the understanding of the delicate people’

  ^ Scene 5 Blanche: ‘soft people must shimmer and glow, they’ve got to put on soft colours, the colours of butterfly wings, and put a paper lantern over the light’- beauty, artifice and imagination is what makes life bearable

• Blanche creates illusion using language, good theatre is a lie which tells the truth behind human nature- William’s first play expressed this ‘The Glass Menagerie’ 1945, play that catapulted him to stardom, his main character Tom’s first line expressing the artifice of theatre ‘I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion’

Cultural allusions and analysis in A Streetcar Named Desire

• cultural allusions serve to involve the audience in the real, existing New Orleans, they also serve to demonstrate Blanche’s quite opposing values, emphasising literature and fantasy.

Scene 8, Stanley quotes Huey Long ‘Remember what Huey Long said- “Every Man is a King!”

• Huey Long became the governor of Louisiana in 1928, then went on to become a U.S senator in 1932

• He championed the rights and living standards of the poor white population; himself coming from an impoverished background

• Stanley seems to echo the exact man Long aimed to inspire with his policies, and Long’s control over Louisiana indeed parallels Stanley’s patriarchal, new-money position.

  • Stanley's appreciation of Huey Long shows his lower-class background as Huey Long decreased unemployment rates in the United States. However, he was also a tyrant and abused his position of power which is similar to Stanley as he definitely controls others using intimidation and aggression.

In Scene 1, Blanche exclaims: “Only Poe! Only Mr. Edgar Allen Poe! – could do it justice! Out there I suppose is the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir!”

• This rather melodramatic depiction of Stella and Stanley’s home emphasises how Blanche uses a culture she understands – in this case, Gothic literature – to shade a culture she does no

Closing Scene 5, Blanche asks the young man collecting for The Evening Star, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young prince out of the Arabian Nights?”

• Arabian Nights is a series of Middle Eastern folk stories, first published in English in the early 18th century

• Dramatic irony demonstrates Blanche’s projection of her desire here; the young man certainly does not appear the exotic figure Blanche makes him out to be, who “stands like a bashful kid”

• refers to having had a “cherry soda”, symbolic of American commercial culture and entirely juxtaposing the foreign influence Blanche imagines.

• This wildly unfitting comparison by Blanche reflects her misuse of literature (a comfort zone, as a former English teacher) for self-delusion.

Elysian Fields

Irony of name ‘Elysian’ means an imaginary utopia

Socio-cultural norms: Gender hierarchy and sexual taboos

• Sexuality in streetcar seen in manifestations in what would’ve ben deemed more socially deviant forms back in William’s times, such as promiscuity and homosexuality

• While the play is set in mid 20th century American South many of the gender values that Blanche subscribes to and is judged by has not really evolved from the antebellum era and 19th century, where men wielded power in both public and private domains expecting women to embody Madonna-esque virtues like purity

• Irony of how Stella and Blanche embody gender archetypes that contradict their core identities -

  • Blanche paradoxically pines for an old south where women were held to the impossible standards of sexual purity despite her behaving like a morally loose woman

  • Stella’s subservient attitude goes against her rebellious spirit that would’ve first motivated Stella to marry an immigrant upstart like Stanley

    ^tragically ironic that in seeking to liberate herself from the suffocating gender expectations of her Southern roots, Stella comes full circle in being within another equally constraining arrangement through marriage, a different flavour of patriarchy

• Cognitive dissonance of the DuBois sisters’ gendered choices and personal desires

Thomas Roderick Dew ‘Dissertation on the Characteristic Differences Between the Sexes’

States a woman’s power is to:

• perfect all those feminine graces;

  • which render her the centre of attraction

  • which delight and charm

  • by her meekness and beauty does she subdue all around her

Elements of Greek Tragedy

Catharsis- release/purge of emotions

Hubris- excessive pride before downfall

Anagnorisis- sudden realisation experienced by tragic hero

Pathos- invocated feelings of pity/ or sadness

Hamartia- fatal flaw

Peripeteia- turning point

Plastic Theatre

Focalises play through a perspective of of a character; props/sound etc

The language of Blanche and Stanley; Kinder

idiolect: The language that is particular to one individual , formed by where they live, their education, their family, class etc

sociolect: Distinctive language of a particular social group

• Blanche is diverging from Stanley, deliberately keeping her language formal to distance herself from him