ASND critics

Dusenbury

“The world is unbearable for Blanche so she slips into insanity”

Kazan

“Blanche is dangerous. She is destructive … A phoney, corrupt, destructive woman”

Templeton

“Blanche is just as responsible for her fall as the Old South is for its own demise”

Tapp

“Blanche is a victim of the mythology of the Southern Belle”

Tennessee Williams

“I have only one major theme for my work, which is the destructive power of society on the sensitive non conformist individual”

Galloway

“The play has no clear victor, everyone loses something”

Bigsby

“Blanche tells the lies necessary for survival”

Bottoms

“Where he cannot dominate sexually Stanley uses force”

Bloom

Stanley “cannot be blamed for protecting his marriage against the force that would destroy it”

Hardison-Londres

“Emotional dependence on a patriarchal system of male protection for the helpless female”

Bordo - 1

“Stanley represents Hollywood ideals of post-war masculinity”

Brustein

“A play about the disintegration of a woman … or of a society”

Duerre

“Blanche is a delicate and sensitive woman pushed into insanity by a brutish environment presided over by chief ape-man Stanley”

Onyett

Blanche’s sexuality “refuses to conform to conventional moral values”

Cardullo

All of the characters are “mutual victims of desire”

McDonough

Stella is “imprisoned by her own desire”

Onyett - 2

The rape of Blanche is “the ultimate assertion of Stanley’s power”