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’