streetcar named desire thesis

Thesis Ideas for "A Streetcar Named Desire"

The Symbolism and Imagery in "London" by William Blake

Death, sexuality, delusion and societal expectations create a dynamic rife with tension and power transfers in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Tennessee Williams' play tells the story of Blanche DuBois, an intelligent, fragile woman who moves in with her sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski after being expelled from her own community. Due to Williams' literary expertise and the bulk of existing scholarship the play inspired, it would be an excellent subject for a thesis in English or theater.

Power and Mental Illness

Blanche becomes gradually more immersed in her fantasy world as the play progresses, eventually claiming that her millionaire lover will whisk her away from New Orleans. Her circumstances exacerbate the condition, as it peaks in the aftermath of her rape by Stanley. Her brother-in-law exerts his authority by institutionalizing her, though as a rapist and abuser he is hardly the picture of mental health. A thesis on this topic would explore the ways in which Williams depicts the interplay of authority and delusion, specifically with regard to Blanche and Stanley.

A Place of Her Own

Blanche and Stella come from a wealthy family, and Blanche is deteriorating in part because she has lost so much of her status along with her ancestral property. Her sense of being displaced and dependent haunt her throughout the play; she is even willing to settle for the somewhat foolish Mitch to secure a home of her own. Conversely, Stella ran away from their home and seems unaffected by its loss, whereas the blue-collar characters who populate the play were born with no expectation of property. A thesis regarding the senses of place and status would explore the economic and immigration history of the postbellum South, as well as the psychology of ownership and belonging.

Diverting From the Norm

By Blanche's account, she found her husband Allan Grey in the embrace of another man, then later expressed disgust at a party. Grey committed suicide to spare himself further humiliation, whereas his young widow was left distraught with guilt, her innocence destroyed. Like Grey, Blanche would endure social stigma. In her case, she was turned away from an apartment for her numerous sexual liaisons and fired from a teaching post due to an affair with a student. "Streetcar" provides an abundance of material for a thesis regarding human sexuality, including Blanche's history as well as the somewhat primitive carnality expressed by Stanley and Stella.

The Pervasiveness of Death

Blanche arrives at Stella and Stanley's home in the Elysian Fields by riding two streetcars, one named "Desire" and one named "Cemeteries." Other references to death include a woman selling flowers for the Day of the Dead, the death of Allan Grey and Blanche's discussion of funerals. Some scholars believe these serve as harbingers of Blanche's death, but they may also indicate her spiritual death, as she is alive at the play's close. A thesis on this topic would explore these symbols and any relevant scholarship associated with them.

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• Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire; Philip K. Kolin
• Theater Journal: Authorizing History -- Victimization in a Streetcar Named Desire

Since 2003, Momi Awana's writing has been featured in "The Hawaii Independent," "Tradewinds" and "Eternal Portraits." She served as a communications specialist at the Hawaii State Legislature and currently teaches writing classes at her library. Awana holds a Master of Arts in English from University of Hawaii, Mānoa.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Introduction to a streetcar named desire.

A Streetcar Named Desire was written by the great American playwright, Tennessee Williams . It was first played on the stage on Broadway in 1947 after which it became Williams’s representative play . It is also considered one of the best plays of the last century and was performed and adapted into several other plays across the globe. The play presents the story of Blanche DuBois, a beauty from the South, who goes through tough times in her life after she sells her mansion and goes to live in a tiny apartment in New Orleans with her sister.

Summary of A Streetcar Named Desire

The play presents the story of two sisters; one is a teacher living in the town of Laurel in Mississippi, while Stella Kowalski, her elder sister is living in a rented yet shabby apartment in New Orleans. Blanche DuBois who is a teacher comes to New Orleans to live with her sister after she loses her inherited property. She rather expresses shock at the neglected condition of the apartment, which is nothing compared to their ancestral mansion, Belle Reve. Following that she also mentions her long teaching leave due to a nervous breakdown. Despite expressing outrage at the apartment’s condition, Blanche knows that she must adjust as she can’t afford to stay in a hotel, causing resentment and quarrel in the apartment. Stanley Kowalski rather dislikes her for her fake snobbery, making Stella pleased but simultaneously harboring ill will against Blanche, suspecting her of ditching them from the family legacy. To clarify her position, she tells that she has lost the property due to her financial debauchery and alcoholism.

On the other hand, Stella is seen as a victim of sexual desire by Stanley, her husband. He also hosts parties at home where his friend, Mitch falls for Blanche. When Stanley sees this, he storms into the bedroom to discourage their meeting. Stanley also finds a reason to physically abuse Stella. The game comes to an end after both sisters go to Eunice’s, the neighboring apartment. However, when Stanley cries for Stella, she instantly forgives and returns, embracing him passionately. Brooding over this matching mismatch, Blanche asks her sister to leave her husband, and meet Shep Huntleigh, a millionaire, inviting laughter from Stella. However, when they are engaged in feminine conversation, Stanley eavesdrops, causing alarm in Stanley’s mind on knowing about her past.

Meanwhile, Blanche even flirts with the newspaper boy once as she can’t afford to pay for it. On the same day, she goes with Mitch on a date. Both of them tell each other their sides of the story and commit to loving each other despite past issues. Around after a month, Stella is going to celebrate Blanche’s birthday, inviting Mitch as well. In bitterness, Stanley tells about Blanche’s past troubles as well as the reason for her job loss. Mitch deliberately misses her birthday, after knowing about her affairs. And Stanley brings a one-way back ticket, asking her to leave yet Stella’s imminent delivery of the baby prevents the issue temporarily. After a while, when Stella and Stanley leave, Mitch arrives and after both of them have discussed their issue, Mitch finally decides not to marry her due to her promiscuity. Yet he tries to make love to her. Blanche who felt betrayed raises an alarm and makes Mitch leave. Meanwhile, Stanley also arrives, finding Blanche alone and drunk. He insults her, teases her about the imaginary millionaire, Shep Huntleigh, and ravishes her.

That incident makes Blanche lose her sense of reality. Stella refuses to believe her claim that Stanley had abused her. Thus, she suffers from hysteria after which a doctor arrives to take her to the asylum, leaving Stella mourning for her sister’s insanity and Stanley comforting. Mitch to feels sorry and helpless.

Major Themes in A Streetcar Named Desire

• Fantasy : The play shows the theme of fantasy as Blanche DuBois lives in the world of fantasy. She thinks that she belongs to an elite class having a great mansion once in the recent past. She does not want to face the reality of losing her mansion and that the world does not accept a carefree and pretentious woman, even if she is not unkind toward anyone. Her illusion further gets complicated when she is dating Mitch but is ravished by Stanley, her brother-in-law. Stella, her sister, is a realist but still lives in her fantasy while ignoring the domestic and sexual abuse by her husband Stanely. However, contrary to both the sisters, Stanley is a realist who manipulates circumstances as well as people for his own interests.
• Dependence: The play demonstrates the theme of dependence and independence through Blanche DuBois and Stella Stanley, her sister with whom she comes to live in the messy apartment. Although Stella also suffers due to her husband’s unruly and untrustworthy behavior, she depends on him, a man, who is supposed to provide her home and comfort. On the other hand, Blanche has lost her home and her independence after losing her job due to her promiscuous behavior and nervous breakdown. Therefore, her dependence on Stella and Stanley leads to her lunacy and ultimately to the lunatic asylum.
• Gender Conflict : The play shows the theme of gender conflict through Stanley and Blanche. When Blanche visits her sister’s apartment, she comes to blows with her brother-in-law, deriding their poverty and criticizing their poor lifestyle. He doesn’t like Blanche’s sudden personal attack and retaliates crudely to her verbal attacks and even resorts to ravishing her. He even goes as far as to provoke Mitch into leaving her. This gender conflict ensues as suddenly and fiercely as it has ended with Blanche being taken away to a lunatic asylum and Stella standing firm with her husband and her child.
• Conflict of Old and Modern South: The play puts the old world of the South having Belle Reve in conflict with the new world of reality where Stella is living with her husband Stanley in a small apartment. Blanche sees this world as compared to her mansion, Belle Reve where the family has passed the prime time. The fading civilization of the old South has taken away its interdependence, leaving Blanche free to do and face the consequences and then leave for the new world where even a brother-in-law is revengeful and retaliatory. Thus, she finds herself in a lunatic asylum instead of living with her sister.
• Desire: The play shows the theme of physical as well as the mental desire of the main character Blanche Dubois. In fact, the carnal desires become the motivation for her social mobility literally and symbolically. When she reaches her sister, her behavior toward her sister and her household is noticed by Stanley, her brother-in-law. He doesn’t like what he hears launches retaliatory accusations and even ravishes her to satisfy her promiscuous desire. In fact, her eviction from Belle Reve and school points to her unhealthy lifestyle of satisfying her carnal desires, leaving aside her mental and spiritual desires.
• Class Differences: The play shows the theme of class difference through the identity that each character is having. Blanche shows her identity as the southern beauty engaged in the aesthetic pleasures of having a sense of evaluating art and poetic writings. However, her class consciousness faces a huge shock at the Kowalskis’ when she visits them. She comes to know that Stella has started abandoning her claim to this lifestyle after sensing the reality. Then when she faces the reality after some time and the pragmatism of the people around her, including her sister, she comes to her senses but it is too late.
• Loneliness: The theme of isolation and loneliness can be seen mostly through Blanche’s life. She has lost her house, Belle Reve. She arrives in New Orleans to live with her sister after being abandoned by her relatives and her first husband’s death. This loneliness forces her to make bad choices . Her behavior does not match the time in which she is living. She is sent to the asylum for having mental issues after her abuse and failed relationships.

Major Characters A Streetcar Named Desire

• Blanche Dubois: Blanche Dubois is the main character. She is a very complicated central figure of the play who is haughty outwardly but highly vulnerable on the inside. A symbol of a decayed southern belle tradition, she has lost her Belle Reve, ancestral mansion, and her job. After moving to her sister’s place, she berates the conditions of her apartment as well as her lowly husband. She starts dating her husband’s friend, Mitch, who is also from a simple background. Blanche has already lost one husband to suicide. She tries hard to escape realities by living in illusions. Her brother-in-law tries to send her away and even abuses her. She is finally sent to a lunatic asylum after Stanley, her brother-in-law calls a doctor and a nurse.
• Stella Kowalski: Stella is young and pregnant by Stanley Kowalski at the start of the play. She’s also a realist who fears her life will be ruined in case she leaves her husband. Impulsive in nature, she fights with her sister but compromises with her husband after the abuse immediately. In fact, their husband-wife relationship is based on physical passions instead of an idealistic outlook, unlike her sister. Although her love for her sister stays, she does not accept her mentally poor state to continue and lets the doctor take her to asylum.
• Stanley Kowalski: Stanley is the antagonist and physically sturdy. He is not only passionate but also aggressive and cunning. He doesn’t want Blanche at his home. He attacks her physically and sexually and breaks her relationship with Mitch in revenge. Despite his controlling and dominant nature, he wastes most of his time playing with his friends and proves very calculated. He calls for the doctor to take his sister-in-law to an asylum on account of her mental illness while hiding his crime.
• Harold Mitchell : In the story, he is known as Mitch. Harold Mitchell appears tough but he is sympathetic. He feels the heavy impact of the death of his mother. Initially, Blanche succeeds in attracting him but later when he comes to know her past and refuses to marry her.
• Eunice Hubbell: Eunice is a very social person who intervenes in every fight when it seems easy to resolve. She helps Blanche and Stella when Stanley becomes uncontrolled. She encourages Stella to stay calm and cool to make her married life work. Her advice works, and Stella stays with her husband despite the domestic violence.
• Steve Hubbell: Steve is significant in the course of the novel as the owner of the building and Stanley’s friend. He takes part in his games of poker. The cool manner in which he continues playing when Blanche leaves for asylum exposes his real personality.
• Pablo Gonzales: Pablo seems significant as another player with Steve, Mitch, and Stanley and often cuts them short with his Spanish utterances.
• The Doctor: The doctor comes to take away Blanche who was abused and lost her sense of reality. After the initial method fails, he calms her down and takes her with him with the help of a nurse.
• The Nurse: The nurse is seen as an impassionate person as she pins down Blanche and wrestles with her to control her.
• A Mexican Lady: She comes to sell flowers and appears in the play when Blanche recounts her stories of how she has been expelled from the school and lost her home.

Writing Style of A Streetcar Named Desire

The writing style of Tennessee Williams in the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, is direct but poetic. The dialogs expose the real nature of the character such as Blanche DuBois shows through her sarcastic character that she is a hollow lady and that she is hiding something. Similarly, some of the lines are very heavy in terms of meaning, showing the excessive stress Williams on the artificiality and impulsiveness of the female characters such as Blanche and Stella. However, in terms of sentence structure and phrases , Williams stays simple and to the point, yet becomes cumbersome when it comes to using figurative language where he uses the extended metaphors of the South with similes, irony , and sarcasm .

Analysis of the Literary Devices in A Streetcar Named Desire

• Action: The main action of the play comprises the arrival of Blanche DuBois to her sister’s apartment, her chagrin at their poverty, her ravishment by her brother-in-law, and the final arrival of the doctor to take her to asylum. The falling action occurs when Blanche faces expulsion after her sister plans to send her to the asylum after the violent attack. The rising action occurs when Stanley suspects her of expelling her sister from her inheritance.
• Anaphora : The play shows examples of anaphora such as, Now , then, let me look at you. But don’t you look at me, Stella, no, no, no, not till later, not till I’ve bathed and rested! And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare! (Scene-One) ii. No, now seriously, putting joking aside. Why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you write me, honey, why didn’t you let me know? (Scene-One) These examples show the repetitious use of “look at” and “why didn’t tell.”
• Allusion : The play shows good use of different allusions such as, i. You came to New Orleans and looked out for yourself! I stayed at Belle Reve and tried to hold it together! I’m not meaning this in any reproachful way, but all the burden descended on my shoulders. (Scene-One) ii. No, I have the misfortune of being an English instructor. I attempt to instill a bunch of bobby-soxers and drug-store Romeos with reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe! (Scene-Two) iii. I shall but love thee better—after—death!” Why, that’s from my favorite sonnet by Mrs. Browning! (Scene-Two) The first example shows the reference to a city, the second shows references to different authors, and the last one to a famous author, Mrs. Browning.
• Antagonist : It seems that as he is a violent person and also rapes a mentally destroyed sister-in-law, he is the real antagonist of the play.
• Conflict : The play shows the external conflict that is going on between Blanche and her sister on the one hand, and Blanche and her brother-in-law on the other hand.
• Characters: The play, A Streetcar Named Desire, shows both static as well as dynamic characters . The young girl, Stella, and her husband, Stanley, are dynamic characters as they show a considerable transformation in their behavior and conduct by the end of the play. However, all other characters are static as they do not show or witness any transformation such as Blanche, Mitch, the neighboring woman, or even Steve.
• Climax : The climax in the play occurs when Stanley rapes Blanche, taking advantage of her physical vulnerability and psychological weakness.
• Epigraph : The play shows the use of epigraphs in its initial pages such as i. And so it was I entered the broken world To trace the visionary company of hue, its voice An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled) But not for long to hold each desperate choice. (From “The Broken Tower” by Hart Crane)
• Hyperbole : The play shows the examples of hyperboles such as, But what I am is a one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polack. (Scene-Seven) ii. I was common as dirt. (Scene-Seven) Both of these examples show exaggeration of being an American person and common as dirt, which is not possible.
• Imagery : A Streetcar Named Desire shows the use of imagery such as, But when the rooster catches sight of the farmer th’owing the corn he puts on the brakes and lets the hen get away and starts pecking corn. And the old farmer says, “Lord God, I hopes I never gits that hongry!” (Scene-One) ii. I simply couldn’t rise to the occasion. That was all. I don’t think I’ve ever tried so hard to be gay and made such a dismal mess of it. I get ten points for trying! —I did try. (Scene-Six) These two examples show images of feeling, sight, and movement.
• Metaphor : A Streetcar Named Desire shows good use of various metaphors such as, Why no. You are as fresh as a daisy. (Scene-Two) ii. Their literary heritage is not what most of them treasure above all else! But they’re sweet things! (Scene-Three) iii. He didn’t know what he was doing. . . . He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself. (Scene-Four) These examples show that several things have been compared directly in the play such as the first one shows the lady compared to a flower, the second shows literature compared to sweet things, and the third shows the person compared to a lamb.
• Mood : The play, A Streetcar Named Desire, shows various moods; it starts with a carefree and jolly mood when Blanche arrives at her sister’s apartment and starts becoming tense, worrisome, and finally tragic when she goes to the asylum.
• Motif : Most important motifs of the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, are light, bathing and drunkenness.
• Personification : The play shows examples of personifications such as, Faded white stairs ascend to the entrances of both. (Scene-One) ii. You can almost feel the warm breath of the brown river beyond the river warehouses with their faint redolences of bananas and coffee. (Scene-One) iii. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees , strong, knotty , and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion’s designation. (Chapter-XII) These examples show that the watches and the trees have feelings and lives of their own.
• Protagonist : Blanche DuBois is the protagonist of the play despite her being not able to stand up to the stature of a good person in most situations.
• Setting : The setting of the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, is in the Downtown of New Orleans city in the French Quarter area.
• Simile : The play shows good use of various similes such as, And when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby. (Scene-One) ii. It’s a French name. It means woods and Blanche means white, so the two together mean white woods. Like an orchard in spring ! You can remember it by that. (Scene-Two) iii. Mitch is delighted and moves in awkward imitation like a dancing bear. (Scene-Four) These are similes as the use of the word “like” shows the comparison between different things.

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Tennessee Williams’ Play “A Streetcar Named Desire” Thesis

In his chef-d’oeuvre play, A Streetcar named Desire, Tennessee Williams explores how reality works to counter the escapist illusions that people create and use to dodge the harsh realities of life. The majority of people resort to fantasy after life becomes unbearable; unfortunately, such illusions only lead to self-destruction as laws govern the universe as opposed to chance and luck. Blanche DuBois’ illusions and her unrelenting quest to escape the reality as espoused by Stanley leads her to insanity.

Williams uses this opportunity to show that fantasy cannot overcome the reality irrespective of how one tries. Williams’ view towards the ideas of illusion and reality works to highlight the fact that reality will always overcome fantasy and the two cannot coexist peacefully, and while we cannot completely admire Stanley in his totally honest and brutal state, we can align ourselves with Blanche and her web of manipulations and lies.

After Blanche loses everything in her life, she resorts to fantasy as an escapist attempt to avoid confronting the harsh realities of her new status. Just like Blanche, people resort to fantasies when faced with seemingly insurmountable situations. Busch posits, “The fear that good objects have been destroyed leads to a fantasy of being alone with bad objects, adding to depressive feelings” (272). Similarly, Blanche responds to her crisis in the same manner. After losing her husband and Belle Reve, she does not have anything left in her life, and thus she resorts to fantasies as a way of dealing with her loss (Berkman 251).

In scene nine she admits, “I don’t want realism, I want magic” (Williams 117). Magic in this context can only be actualized through a fantasy, which explains why and how Blanche survives. Throughout the human history, people yearn to live in a world of plenty, free of pain, and full of bliss coupled with happiness. Unfortunately, Williams sends an awakening call to humanity that inasmuch as people want to live in a world of their creation, they have to wake up from their dreams and face the vagaries of the real world (Hawkins 27). Unfortunately, people do not accept this fact and in most cases, they resort to self-justification.

In scene two Blanche consoles herself by noting, “I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion” (Williams 41). When individuals cannot realize their full potential, they settle for mediocrity. Gilbert adds that due to laziness and lack of proper tools, individuals settle for the ‘available’ instead of striving to get the best, thus spiraling into mediocrity (84). Williams understood this aspect perfectly, which explains why he designs Blanche in this manner. In most cases, the deluded person cannot understand the reality and thus s/he chides those that embrace the reality. For instance, Blanche cannot understand why Stella goes back to her husband after a fight (Hovis 178). She nags Stella to call Shep Huntleigh, the millionaire fantasy boyfriend.

Williams uses Stanley’s realistic view of life as a contrast to Blanche’s illusions to indicate that the two aspects, viz. fantasy and reality cannot coexist peacefully. Right from the beginning, Blanche is at loggerheads with Stanley (Vlasopolos 334). He starts by pointing to the possibility that Blanche conned Stella of her inheritance by selling the Belle Reve. Stanley works tirelessly to expose Blanche’s lies and her dark past. As aforementioned, Williams uses Stanley purposely as a symbol of reality and Blanche to represent illusions (Rogoff 81).

Therefore, the reality always haunts fantasies just as Stanley haunts Blanche. No matter how one tries to run away from the reality, it will always find him or her. Stanley succeeds in getting information concerning Blanche’s past and he exposes her lies even to Mitch, the prospective boyfriend. Ultimately, in the battle between reality and fantasy, the former triumphs, just as Stanley conquers Blanche (Mood 10). At one point, Stanley is determined to get rid of Blanche. In scene seven Stanley asserts, “She’s not stayin’ here after Tuesday. You know that, don’t you? Just to make sure I bought her a ticket myself.

A bus ticket! She’ll go! Period. P.S. She’ll go Tuesday!” (Williams 104). This assertion qualifies the argument that reality and fantasy cannot co-exist peacefully and for peace to prevail, one has to leave and given that reality is permanent, fantasy must leave. In the final move to assert his preeminence and authority, Stanley rapes Blanche. In her masterpiece book, Recovering from Rape, Ledray notes that rape “is the most undignified thing that can happen to a woman, it is the ultimate loss of a woman’s battles” (103). Similarly, Stanley’s rape signifies that reality will ultimately overcome fantasy and if need be, the end of the battle between the two will be undignified.

However, Williams insinuates that irrespective of the shortcomings of fantasy, it is an indispensable tool of dealing with the harsh realities of the world. As the play ends, Blanche draws back to her fantasies and this aspect insulates her from the vagaries of reality (Dace 938). Even though Blanche seemingly loses her mind, her fantasies convince her that she is leaving to meet her millionaire boyfriend. In addition, she consoles herself by telling the doctor, “Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” (Williams 142).

This kind of approach towards life helps the majority of people to wade through the murky waters of the unkind world that they live in during their sojourn on earth. Instead of facing the reality and probably having a nervous breakdown, Williams uses Blanche’s unrelenting fantasies to show that it helps to fantasize (Fleche 499). We can align ourselves with Blanche. We all have our misgivings in life and when a disaster strikes, we shrink back to our secret fantasies where we see life from the perspective of how it should be as opposed to how it is. In a recap, Williams is saying that fantasy is not an evil thing after all as it offers Blanche an escape route from the harsh realities of life. Even though Blanche is defeated in every dimension, she soldiers on and maybe she recovers from her defeats to face a better tomorrow.

In the play, A Streetcar named Desire, Williams endeavors to prove that reality will always overcome fantasy. Blanche resorts to fantasies in a bid to escape from the reality that she had lost her husband and inheritance; however, Stanley as a representative of reality in the play, does not give her peace of mind. They two are always in conflict with Stanley working hard to expose Blanche’s lies. Ultimately, the reality conquers fantasies and Williams uses Blanche’s rape ordeal to certify this assertion. However, given that Blanche does not give up at the end of the play, Williams wants the audience to know that fantasies offer a good way of dealing with the harsh realities of life. Given that the real life is cruel, the audience can align itself with Blanche and at least identify with her lies and fantasies as survival mechanism.

Works Cited

Berkman, Leonard. “The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois.” Modern Drama 10.3 (1967): 249-257. Print.

Busch, Fredric. “Anger and Depression.” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 15.3 (2009): 271-278. Print.

Dace, Tish. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Reference Guide to American Literature . Ed. Jim Kamp. Ed. Detroit, St. James Press, 1994. 937-68. Print.

Fleche, Anne. “The Space of Madness and Desire: Tennessee Williams and Streetcar.” Modern Drama 38.4(1995): 496-509. Print.

Gilbert, Randy. Success Bound: Breaking free of Mediocrity, Mount Jackson: Bargain Publishers, 2001. Print.

Hawkins, Williams. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Critical Essays on Tennessee Williams. Ed. Robert Martin. New York, Twayne Publishers, 1997. 27-28. Print.

Hovis, George. “Fifty Percent Illusion: The Mask of the Southern Belle in Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and ‘Portrait of a Madonna’.” Tennessee Williams – Updated Edition. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2007. 177-179. Print.

Ledray, Linda. Recovering From Rape, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994. Print.

Mood, John. “The Structure of A Streetcar Named Desire.” Ball State University Forum 14.3 (1973): 9-10. Print.

Rogoff, Gorgon. “The Restless Intelligence of Tennessee Williams.” The Tulane Drama Review 10.4 (1966): 78-92. Print.

Vlasopolos, Anca. “Authorizing History: Victimization in A Streetcar Named Desire.” Theatre Journal 38.3 (1986): 334-35. Print.

Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire, New York: Signet Books, 1951. Print.

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Essays on A Streetcar Named Desire

Choosing the right essay topic is crucial for your success in college. Your creativity and personal interests play a significant role in the selection process. This webpage aims to provide you with a variety of A Streetcar Named Desire essay topics to inspire your writing and help you excel in your academic pursuits.

Essay Types and Topics

Argumentative.

• The role of gender in A Streetcar Named Desire
• The impact of societal norms on the characters' behaviors

Paragraph Example:

In Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, the portrayal of gender dynamics is a central theme that sheds light on the power struggles and societal expectations faced by the characters. This essay aims to explore the significance of gender in the play and its influence on the characters' decisions and relationships.

Through a close examination of the gender dynamics in A Streetcar Named Desire, this essay has highlighted the complexities of societal norms and their impact on individual lives. The characters' struggles serve as a reflection of the broader societal challenges, prompting us to reconsider our perceptions of gender roles and expectations.

Compare and Contrast

• The parallels between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski
• The contrasting symbols of light and darkness in the play

Descriptive

• The vivid imagery of New Orleans in the play
• The sensory experiences portrayed in A Streetcar Named Desire
• An argument for Blanche's mental state and its impact on her actions
• The case for the significance of the play's setting in shaping the characters
• Reimagining a key scene from a different character's perspective
• A personal reflection on the themes of illusion and reality in the play

Engagement and Creativity

As you explore these essay topics, remember to engage your critical thinking skills and bring your unique perspective to your writing. A Streetcar Named Desire offers a rich tapestry of themes and characters, providing ample opportunities for creative exploration in your essays.

Educational Value

Each essay type presents a valuable opportunity for you to develop different skills. Argumentative essays can refine your analytical thinking, while descriptive essays can enhance your ability to paint vivid pictures with words. Persuasive essays help you hone your persuasive writing skills, and narrative essays allow you to practice storytelling and narrative techniques.

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December 3, 1947, Tennessee Williams

Play; Southern Gothic

The French Quarter and Downtown New Orleans

Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, Stanley Kowalski, Harold "Mitch" Mitchell

1. Vlasopolos, A. (1986). Authorizing History: Victimization in" A Streetcar Named Desire". Theatre Journal, 38(3), 322-338. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3208047) 2. Corrigan, M. A. (1976). Realism and Theatricalism in A Streetcar Named Desire. Modern Drama, 19(4), 385-396. (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/50/article/497088/summary) 3. Quirino, L. (1983). The Cards Indicate a Voyage on'A Streetcar Named Desire'. Contemporary Literary Criticism, 30. (https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1100001571&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00913421&p=LitRC&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E8abc495e) 4. Corrigan, M. A. (2019). Realism and Theatricalism in A Streetcar Named Desire. In Essays on Modern American Drama (pp. 27-38). University of Toronto Press. (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781487577803-004/html?lang=de) 5. Van Duyvenbode, R. (2001). Darkness Made Visible: Miscegenation, Masquerade and the Signified Racial Other in Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll and A Streetcar Named Desire. Journal of American Studies, 35(2), 203-215. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/abs/darkness-made-visible-miscegenation-masquerade-and-the-signified-racial-other-in-tennessee-williams-baby-doll-and-a-streetcar-named-desire/B73C386D2422793FB8DC00E0B79B7331) 6. Cahir, L. C. (1994). The Artful Rerouting of A Streetcar Named Desire. Literature/Film Quarterly, 22(2), 72. (https://www.proquest.com/openview/7040761d75f7fd8f9bf37a2f719a28a4/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=5938) 7. Silvio, J. R. (2002). A Streetcar Named Desire—Psychoanalytic Perspectives. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 30(1), 135-144. (https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jaap.30.1.135.21985) 8. Griffies, W. S. (2007). A streetcar named desire and tennessee Williams' object‐relational conflicts. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 4(2), 110-127. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aps.127) 9. Shackelford, D. (2000). Is There a Gay Man in This Text?: Subverting the Closet in A Streetcar Named Desire. In Literature and Homosexuality (pp. 135-159). Brill. (https://brill.com/display/book/9789004483460/B9789004483460_s010.xml)

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire

Analysis of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on October 13, 2020 • ( 0 )

Tennessee Williams ‘s (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), is generally regarded as his best. Initial reaction was mixed, but there would be little argument now that it is one of the most powerful plays in the modern theater. Like The Glass Menagerie , it concerns, primarily, a man and two women and a “gentleman caller.” As in The Glass Menagerie , one of the women is very much aware of the contrast between the present and her southern-aristocratic past; one woman (Stella) is practical if not always adequately aware, while the other (Blanche) lives partly in a dream world and teeters on the brink of psychosis; the gentleman caller could perhaps save the latter were circumstances somewhat different; and the play’s single set is a slum apartment. It is located in Elysian Fields, a section of the French Quarter of New Orleans. The action takes place in the downstairs two-room apartment rented by the Kowalskis.

Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter in the 1951 adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire

Stella Kowalski relaxes in a shabby armchair in the bedroom of the small apartment. She eats chocolates and reads a movie magazine. Stella’s husband, Stanley Kowalski, enters, carrying a package of meat dripping with blood and yelling for his wife. Stanley tosses the meat to Stella, who catches it in a surprised reaction. Stanley leaves to go bowling with his friends, and Stella decides to tag along. She hurriedly primps in the living room mirror, quickly closes the apartment door behind her, and says hello to Eunice Hubbell and a Negro Woman who are sitting on the landing. As she exits, the two women laugh about Stanley’s lack of manners.

Blanche DuBois enters. She is carrying a small suitcase and a piece of paper. She is a fading Southern belle, whose appearance suggests she is going to a garden party, but her search for her sister, Stella, has landed her in the slums of the French Quarter. Eunice notices the confused Blanche, and she asks whether she is lost. Blanche explains that she was instructed to take a streetcar named Desire to Elysian Fields via a streetcar called Cemetery. Eunice informs her that she is indeed in the right place. Eunice lets her into the Kowalskis’ apartment to wait for Stella while the Negro Woman fetches Stella from the bowling alley. Blanche has arrived unannounced, and she is shocked to discover Stella living in such a dismal place.

Blanche searches for a drink, and Stella enters. The two sisters are ecstatic to be reunited. Blanche speaks excitedly, overwhelming Stella with criticism of the apartment. Stella is speechless and hurt by these remarks, and she notices that Blanche is shaking and anxious. Stella is concerned by her sister’s behavior, and she attempts to calm her nerves by offering her a drink. Blanche urges Stella to explain why she is living in such depressing conditions. Blanche says she has taken a leave of absence from her high school teaching job. She says that she is having a difficult time and needed a break. Blanche mentions the weight Stella has gained, and she compliments her on her appearance; however, Stella knows that her sister is being critical. Blanche demands that Stella stand so she can fully analyze the size of her hips, her less than perfect haircut. She asks Stella about having a maid, but the Kowalskis’ apartment only consists of two rooms. Blanche is horrified by this news. She pours another drink to curb her intolerance of the place. Blanche has been lonely; she feels her sister abandoned her when she left Mississippi and their father died. Blanche admits that she is not well. Stella insists that her sister stay at the apartment, and she directs her to a folding bed. She insists that Stanley will not mind the lack of privacy, as he is Polish. Stella advises her sister that Stanley is unlike the Southern gentlemen they knew back in Laurel, Mississippi. She confesses he is ill mannered, but she is madly in love with him.

Blanche confesses that she has lost Belle Reve, the family plantation. Blanche expresses her resentment of her sister because she was “in bed with [her] Polack” while Blanche scraped and clawed to hold on to Belle Reve. Stella is very upset to know that they have lost their homestead. Blanche bitterly blames the foreclosure on the many deaths in the family. Blanche is plagued with guilt, as well as being hopelessly adrift, and she projects her feelings of loss onto Stella, who runs into the bathroom to escape her sister’s wrath.

Stanley returns home. He shouts to his friends, Steve Hubbell and Mitch (Harold Mitchell), from the stairwell. Blanche speaks to him before he notices her presence. Stanley is cordial to her and asks for Stella, who has locked herself away in the bathroom. He offers Blanche another shot of whiskey, noticing that the bottle has already been sampled. Blanche declines the offer, stating that she rarely drinks. Her obvious dishonesty spurs Stanley to ask some very personal questions regarding her past, namely, about her husband. He sheds his sweaty shirt to find relief in the summer heat and welcomes her to stay with them. Upset by his meddlesome inquiries, Blanche replies that her young husband is dead. She grows nauseous discussing this subject and has to sit down to regain her composure.

Around six o’clock the following evening, Blanche and Stella plan to have dinner out and see a movie while Stanley and his friends have a poker night in the apartment. While Blanche readies herself in the bathroom, Stella tells Stanley that Belle Reve has been lost. She also warns him not to mention that she is pregnant because Blanche is already so unstable. Stanley is most concerned with the loss of the estate. He suspects Blanche sold the plantation and kept all of the profits for herself. Referring to the Napoleonic Code, Stanley wants to know whether he has been swindled. To find proof of the foreclosure he rummages through Blanche’s trunk. Appraising the furs and jewelry she has, he urges Stella to acknowledge that Blanche has deceived her. Stella fears the looming confrontation, so she escapes to the porch.

When Blanche emerges from her hot bath and realizes that Stella is not around, she flirts with Stanley as a means of winning him over; however, he is interested only in the profits from Belle Reve. When Stanley accuses Blanche of selling the plantation and keeping all of the money, she insists that she has never cheated anyone in her life. She says, “I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion, but when a thing is important, I tell the truth.” Stanley rifles through the trunk again, searching for documents that will prove Blanche is lying. Stanley discovers yellowing letters held together by aging ribbons, and he withholds these visibly precious items until she pulls two manila envelopes from her belongings. Blanche says that his touch has contaminated her cherished love letters. She tells Stanley that this paperwork is all that is left of the plantation, and he continues berating her by demanding to know how she could allow the foreclosure to happen. Blanche recoils with anger and retorts that the plantation has been lost by generations of negligent men who “exchanged the land for their epic fornications.” Stanley intends to have the documents read by a lawyer friend, and Blanche invites him to do so. Now that Stanley has been proved wrong, he justifies his concern with the fact that Stella is pregnant. This is a happy digression for Blanche, who is genuinely excited by this information. When Stella returns, Blanche expresses her joy about the baby. She brags that she handled Stanley and even flirted with him. The two sisters leave as Stanley’s friends arrive for their poker night.

Later that night in the Kowalski apartment, Stanley and his friends are still drinking and playing cards. Stella and Blanche return at 2:30 A.M., and Stanley asks them to visit Eunice until the game is over. When Stella does not comply, Stanley slaps her backside as a means of countering her disobedience in front of his friends. Blanche is intrigued by Mitch, who is uninterested in the poker game because he is worried about his ailing mother. Blanche is immediately attracted to his sensitivity. The two introduce themselves. Mitch offers her a cigarette, showing her the inscription on his cigarette case. She immediately recognizes it as the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Mitch explains the case is from a former girlfriend who died. Mitch’s story of his former lover resonates with Blanche’s own sense of loss of her young husband, Allan Grey. She tells Mitch, “Sorrow makes for sincerity,” and continues, “Show me a person that hasn’t known sorrow and I’ll show you a superficial person.” She asks Mitch to cover the naked lightbulb with a Chinese lantern she recently purchased.

Stanley grows more inebriated and increasingly irritated by the music Blanche is playing. He crosses the room, rips the radio from the wall, and throws it out of the window. He hits Stella when she tries to stop him. Humiliated and stunned, Stella runs into the kitchen area and orders Stanley’s friends to leave. Stanley chases and attacks Stella. Blanche begs Mitch to stop him, and the men restrain Stanley on the sofa. Blanche whisks Stella to Eunice’s apartment upstairs while the men attempt to sober Stanley. After a cold shower, he stumbles out of the bathroom, goes out onto the porch, and yells up to Stella. He continues to shout for Stella, who descends the stairs and returns to him. Stanley falls to his knees, pressing his head against her legs. Kissing passionately, the couple retreat to their bedroom. Blanche runs down after Stella. When she discovers them making love, she is angered by her sister’s weakness. Mitch calls out to Blanche. They share another cigarette. Blanche is thankful for Mitch’s kindness.

Early the next morning, Blanche returns to the Kowalski apartment after spending the night at Eunice and Steve’s apartment. When she realizes Stella is alone, she hugs her with nervous concern. Stella, on the other hand, is cheerful and content. Stella blames liquor and poker for Stanley’s behavior. She explains to her sister that she gets a thrill from her husband’s extreme actions. Blanche is infuriated. She says Stella has married a “madman.” While Blanche devises an escape plan for them, Stella tidies the apartment. Stella says she is happy with Stanley. Blanche is still bewildered by Stella’s cool resignation.

Blanche remembers an old beau, Shep Huntleigh, whom she plans to call on for their escape, but Stella does not want to be rescued. Blanche compares Stanley to an ape. During this conversation, Stanley has returned unnoticed. He has heard everything that has been said. All of Blanche’s persuading has been in vain: When Stella sees Stanley, she runs over and jumps into his arms.

Blanche has been living at the Kowalskis’ apartment for three months. While she finishes writing a letter to Shep about imaginary cocktail parties she has been attending, Stanley enters. He slams drawers and creates noise to express his irritation by Blanche’s presence. To provoke Stanley, she asks him his astrological sign. He remarks that he is a Capricorn (the goat) and Blanche replies she is Virgo, the sign of the virgin. Stanley laughs and asks her about a man by the last name of Shaw who claims to have spent an evening with Blanche at the Flamingo Hotel. Blanche adamantly denies this accusation, but her face registers panic and alarm. Stanley is victorious and exits to go bowling.

Analysis of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie

Blanche becomes hysterical. She asks Stella whether she has heard rumors about her, but Stella gracefully denounces gossip. Blanche confesses that she did not maintain a good reputation when she was losing Belle Reve. She admits her fears of being a “soft” person, of needing people too much, and of her fading beauty. Blanche fears she will not be able to “turn the trick” much longer because she is visibly aging. She also confesses that she lied about her age to Mitch because she wants him to fall in love with her. Blanche has presented an illusion of herself as a prim and proper woman to Mitch. Stella is accustomed to Blanche’s nervous tirades, and she pays little attention to what her sister is actually saying. Stella comforts her by pouring her a drink. A young boy stops by the apartment selling newspapers. On his way out, Blanche calls him back inside and kisses him. Blanche chastises herself for putting “her hands” on the boy. He leaves and Mitch arrives with a bouquet of roses for her.

Later that night, Blanche and Mitch return from a disappointing date. Blanche blames herself for the dull evening. Mitch asks whether he may kiss her good night, and she consents but says their actions can go no further because she is a single woman. Stanley and Stella are not home, so Blanche invites Mitch in for a nightcap. Blanche plays the coquette while Mitch perspires with desire for her. While she searches for a bottle of whiskey, Blanche asks Mitch in French whether he would like to sleep with her. She comments that it is a good thing Mitch does not understand French. She encourages him to take off his coat, but he is embarrassed by his sweatiness. Blanche asserts that he is just a healthy man.

When Mitch suggests that the four of them go out together sometime, Blanche makes it clear that Stanley hates her. She asks whether Stanley has said anything derogatory about her. Mitch replies that he does not understand how Stanley could behave so rudely to her. Blanche says she plans to leave as soon as Stella has the baby.

Mitch asks Blanche her age, and Blanche refuses to answer. He explains that he asks because he has been with his mother talking about her. Blanche presumes Mitch will be very lonely when his mother dies. She explains that she knows this sort of loneliness firsthand because her one true love has passed away. She tells Mitch about Allan’s tenderness and sensitivity and says that she never understood him until she discovered he was having an affair with an older man. Blanche explains that Allan needed her to help him, but she could not see what was happening until it was too late. She confronted him while they were drunk at a dance at Moon Lake Casino. Her words provoked him to run to the edge of the lake and commit suicide. She can still hear the polka music that was playing during the time. Blanche cannot forgive herself for condemning Allan’s desires and pushing him to such drastic measures. She compares her love for Allan to a“blinding light.” Mitch answers that they are both lonely, and they both need someone. The polka tune that continually plays in Blanche’s mind ceases. Mitch and Blanche embrace with thoughts of marriage.

Several weeks later, Stanley arrives home after a day of work to find the apartment decorated for Blanche’s birthday party. He is disgruntled to know that Blanche is taking a hot bath, making the apartment even hotter and increasingly unbearable. Stanley proudly announces to Stella that he has found out the real story behind her sister’s extended visit. She was fired from her teaching job because she had an indecent relationship with a 17-year-old boy and set up residency at the Flamingo Hotel, which she was then forced to leave because of her sexual excesses. She has become the laughingstock of Laurel, Mississippi. Stella is profoundly stunned by this information, and she tries to defend Blanche by explaining the tragic situation with Allan. Stanley informs Stella that he felt it was his duty to warn his friend about Blanche. Blanche calls for a towel and notices a strained expression on Stella’s face, but Stella assures her nothing is wrong. Stella is fraught with worry about what will happen to Blanche now that Mitch is likely to abandon her. Stanley implies that Mitch may not be through with Blanche, but he certainly will not marry her. He remarks that he bought Blanche a bus ticket back to Laurel. Stanley yells for Blanche to get out of the bathroom so that he can use it. Sensing something is wrong, Blanche cautiously enters the room.

Nearly one hour passes. Stella, Stanley, and Blanche are eating dinner. Blanche is trying to ignore the empty chair where Mitch would be sitting. Blanche tries to lighten the mood of the party by telling a joke, but no one finds it funny. Stella says Stanley is “too busy making a pig of himself.” She instructs him to wash up and help her clean the table. Stanley flies into a rage, sweeping the table’s contents to the floor, and declares that he is the king in his home. When Stanley leaves the table and goes out onto the porch, Blanche begs Stella to tell her what is going on. Blanche calls Mitch’s home while Stella chastises her husband for passing rumors to Mitch. Stanley presents the bus ticket to Blanche. She runs into the bedroom crying. Stella yells at Stanley for being so terrible to Blanche. Stanley reminds his wife that she loves his commonness, especially at night in their bedroom. As he shouts for Blanche, Stella doubles over with pain. She is rushed to the hospital.

Later that evening, Blanche sits alone in the darkness of the apartment drinking liquor. Mitch enters wearing his work uniform. Although he is dirty and unshaven, she admits that she is happy to see him, as his presence stops the polka music that otherwise persistently plays in her mind. She searches for more liquor to serve him, but he declines drinking Stanley’s liquor. Mitch inquires why Blanche keeps the apartment so dark and insists on seeing him only at night. He wants to turn on the light, but Blanche begs him to allow the magic (illusions) to continue. When he wrenches the lantern off the lightbulb, Blanche’s aged face is revealed. He proceeds to tell her what he has heard about her promiscuous life in Laurel. Blanche immediately pleads that after Allan and the loss of Belle Reve, she could only find relief from the pain in the arms of strangers. A vendor is heard outside selling flowers for the dead. This sparks Blanche to talk about all of the deaths in her life. She says she was “played out” when she finally landed in New Orleans. She found solace and love with Mitch, believing that she could possibly find happiness and rest. Mitch embraces her, and she pleads for marriage. Mitch says she is unsuitable. He pulls her hair and demands the physical intimacy she has denied him all summer. Blanche orders him to leave, and when he does not, she runs to the window and shouts, “Fire!” This action prompts Mitch to leave.

A few hours later, Blanche is still alone and drinking heavily. She is wearing an old gown and a rhinestone tiara. Stanley enters carrying liquor. He informs Blanche that Stella will not have the baby before the morning, so he has come home. Blanche is nervous about being in the apartment alone with Stanley all night. Stanley laughs at her and questions her attire. Blanche announces that she has received a telegram from Shep Huntleigh, inviting her on a cruise to the Caribbean. Stanley retreats to the bedroom and collects the red silk pajamas he wore on his wedding night. When he returns, Blanche says that Mitch came by begging for forgiveness, but she simply could not forgive his cruelty. Stanley angrily denounces her lies. Blanche rushes to the telephone and pleads with the operator to connect her with Shep Huntleigh. When she puts down the phone, Stanley corners her. Blanche retreats to the bedroom, where she smashes a bottle to use as a weapon against him. Stanley lunges at her, grabs the bottle, and gathers Blanche in his arms. She fights him, but he overpowers her, stating that they have had this date with each other from the moment she arrived.

Several weeks later, Stella cries as she packs Blanche’s belongings. Eunice holds the baby while Stanley and his friends play poker. Stella wonders whether she is doing the right thing in sending her sister to the state institution. Eunice responds that if Stella wants to save her marriage, she must believe that Stanley did not rape her sister. Blanche enters from the bathroom with a “hysterical vivacity.” She asks whether Shep has called while she dresses. The doorbell sounds and a doctor and attendant enter to collect Blanche. Blanche wants to leave the apartment, but she does not want to be seen by Mitch, Stanley, and the other men. When she sees that the man at the door is not Shep, she tries to run back into the apartment. Stanley blocks her way. He cruelly tells her that all she has left in this apartment is the paper lantern hanging over the lightbulb. He tears it down and hands it to her. Blanche screams, and Stella rushes to the porch, where Eunice comforts her. The doctor and attendant wrestle Blanche to the ground to restrain her.

Mitch attacks Stanley, blaming him for Blanche’s condition. The men fight and their friends pull them apart. Blanche is helped to her feet. The doctor helps her to the door and she says that she has “always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Stella is heartbroken by the scene. She sobs while the doctor escorts Blanche out of the apartment. Stanley consoles Stella by fondling her breasts. Steve announces the next round of poker.

When asked about the meaning of A Streetcar Named Desire ,Williams responded, “the ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate, by the savage and brutal forces of modern society” (Haskell, 230). All the characters in Streetcar have been ravished by life to some degree. Although Stanley clearly functions as the most damaging force against Blanche, he, too, has also been forced to grow up too quickly as he spent his youth as a soldier serving in World War II. Reintegration into a mundane, peaceful world does not keep him fulfilled. He is moody and restless, and his animalistic tendencies are challenged by the overly refined Blanche.

Stella is a submissive character, placed in the middle of a war between gentrified society, represented by Blanche, and the rugged, practical world of the working class personified by Stanley. In war there are the victors and the vanquished. Blanche ultimately suffers the most damaging defeat, being institutionalized, while Stanley continues to brutalize his way through life.

In the opening scene of the play, Stanley appears carrying a package of bloody meat, which immediately establishes his primitive nature. In stark contrast, Blanche enters the scene wearing white. Williams compares her to a moth, symbolically stressing her fragility, purity, and virtue. Her pristine attire serves as an effective camouflage for her sordid past. As Chance Wayne (in Sweet Bird of Youth), Sebastian Venable (in Suddenly Last Summer), and Lot (in Kingdom of Earth, or the Seven Descents of Myrtle) do, by wearing white, Blanche uses her clothing to disguise her “degenerate” selfperception. Her name, which is French, literally means “white of the woods.” Out of her unlucky and desperate wilderness, Blanche enters the Kowalski apartment a transformed, mothlike creature of nature, recast as a virginal character. Although she has been a prostitute, Blanche prefers to believe in her renewed chasteness. She lives in a world of illusion and believes that her sexual encounters with strangers never constituted love; therefore, she never forfeited any aspect of her true self.

As has Karen Stone in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone , Blanche has an aversion to being viewed in bright light that will reveal her true age. As early as the first scene, she asks Stella to turn off the overhead light. Blanche is most comfortable in the warm glow of a lamp that allows her to play the part of the innocent coquette completely. She lies about her age when she courts Mitch and avoids spending time with him in daylight. When Mitch returns in the final meeting with her, he insists on tearing the lantern off the overhead light so that he may finally have a good look at her. When Blanche asks why he wants the glare of bright light, he says he is just being realistic. Blanche replies:

I don’t want realism. I want—magic! . . . Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that’s a sin, then let me be damned for it! Don’t turn the light on!

Of course, Stanley has informed him that she has been lying about everything. However, her mothlike, youthful facade is not just used to fool Mitch; it is an integral part of who she is. Blanche wishes she could actually be what she pretends to be. She resigns from reality because it has been too harsh. The “magic” in which she chooses to dwell is her only means of survival, as her suffering has been so great. She fears that looking her age will further discredit her in a world that has already discarded her.

Blanche also drinks heavily, while pretending to adhere to a Southern gender code that restricts well-bred women from drinking in company or in public. This is another aspect of playing the innocent coquette. Late in the play, Mitch informs Blanche that Stanley has talked about how much of his liquor she has consumed, and she realizes that her subterfuge has failed.

Although it is a means of comfort and relief, alcohol has long been a source of shame and regret for Blanche. She particularly regrets her drunken criticism of Allan because she did not mean the words that drove him to take his own life. Leonard Berkman suggests:

It is not the existence of Allan’s homosexuality that signals the failure of Blanche’s marriage; it is, rather, that Blanche must uncover this information by accident, that Blanche is incapable of responding compassionately to this information, that in short there never existed a marriage between them in which Allan could come to her in full trust and explicit needs. (“The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois,” 2)

Blanche responded to Allan’s sexuality with a sense of wounded pride, and as Brick in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF does to his friend Skipper, she spends the rest of her life regretting that she did not love and accept him. Blanche responded too harshly. She loved Allan and truly believed in their marriage; however, she lived in a romantic world of delusion until she witnessed a real moment when Allan was having sex with another man, which completely shattered the illusion. As Blanche explains to Mitch:

[Allan] was in the quicksand clutching at me— but I wasn’t holding him out, I was slipping in with him! I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything except I loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself.

In this instance, it was Blanche who was cruelly responsible for the ravishment (or abuse) of one that was “tender, sensitive, and delicate.”

Allan Grey’s suicide scene is reminiscent of the final scene in The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. When Konstantin can no longer endure his life and the knowledge that he must live without the love he desires, he is drawn to the lake (like a seagull) and shoots himself. Konstantin and Allan are tragically similar characters, who are gravely misunderstood by those around them. Williams was enamored of Chekhov’s characters, finding them dynamically flawed and powerfully present. Chekhov’s dramaturgical influence is inherent in Streetcar , as the psychological reality of the characters creates the dramatic tension and fuels the action to an unavoidable conclusion.

Blanche tells the story of her homosexual husband to Mitch, who could very easily assume that Blanche and Allan’s marriage was never consummated. Even through her tragically truthful tales Blanche continues to create the illusion that she is prim and virginal. This makes the news of her promiscuous past more shocking and insulting to Mitch, who has respected her wish to abstain from sexual intimacy. Blanche presents the person she would like to be: naive, proper, and respectable. Blanche has found an Allan substitute in Mitch. She longs to have an opportunity to re-create that marriage and have a second chance to make up for her cruel past actions. Mitch is the answer as his sensitivity stops the haunting polka music in her mind (i.e., the painful memories of Allan’s death).

Throughout the play, Blanche frequently takes long hot baths in the sweltering heat of a New Orleans summer. This symbolic act of baptism absolves her of her past sins and cleanses her body in preparation for her husband-to-be. She repeatedly purifies her body in water, and in her mind, by each ritual bathing, she creates more distance from the sullied strangers she encountered at the Flamingo Hotel in Laurel. In moments of desperation and self-doubt, Blanche bathes. This repeated action greatly annoys Stanley.

Stanley and Blanche are archenemies because they possess antithetical personalities, and each lays claim to Stella. Whereas Stanley respects complete honesty, Blanche delights in experiencing the world through rose-colored glasses. She spends much of her time rejecting the harshness of life, and Stanley is always there to make her acknowledge the truth. Blanche enjoys the protocol of the Old South; she is nostalgic about the tradition of Southern life, whereas Stanley hates sentimentality. In his production notebook, Elia Kazan writes of Blanche:

Her problem has to do with her tradition. Her notion of what a woman should be. She is stuck with this “ideal.” It is her. It is her ego. Unless she lives by it, she cannot live; in fact her whole life has been for nothing. (Kazan, 22)

Blanche defines her existence according to the traditions of the Old South. She is completely immersed in that world, whereas Stanley symbolizes the new or modern world that is obliterating that former way of living.

Early in the play these two characters clash over the subject of Belle Reve. It is Blanche’s lost, beautiful dream, rich with family heritage and pride; Stanley is interested only in the property’s material or monetary real estate value. He is happy in the loud, harsh, and dirty world of the Vieux Carré of New Orleans, whereas Blanche prefers finer accommodations, the bucolic setting of hundreds of acres of land and large white pillars on a grand veranda that provide lounging quarters out of the midday sun. Some critics see Blanche as Williams’s most representative character, as she has lost the stability of her ancestral home and is now in exile.

According to Kazan, Blanche’s emotional decline begins when she is stripped of her plantation:

The things about the “tradition” in the nineteenth century was that it worked then. It made a woman feel important with her own secure positions and functions, her own special worth. It also made a woman at that time one with her society. But today the tradition is an anachronism which simply does not function. It does not work. So while Blanche must believe it because it makes her special, because it makes her sticking by Belle Reve an act of heroism, rather than an absurd romanticism, still it does not work. . . . She’s a misfit, a liar, her “airs” alienate people, she must act superior to them which alienates them further. (Kazan, 22)

Blanche is one of Williams’s “lost souls,” those characters who are caught between an old and a new world. As are Amanda Wingfield (in The Glass Menagerie ) and Alma Winemiller (in Summer and Smoke ), who also delight in tradition, Blanche is lost in a modern, industrial society because in it she does not have a special position simply by virtue of being a Southern woman. Belle Reve is her identification or authentication as a person, and without it, she does not possess a self and therefore must rely on others to supply stability, security, and substance. Blanche only realizes that she is responsible for her own financial and social status when it is too late. Her “airs” are her tragic flaw in this new world, Stanley’s world, a world that has been changed through hardship and struggles associated with industry, war, and economic depression. Blanche becomes “a last dying relic . . . now adrift in our unfriendly day” (Miller, 23). Although this situation may make her more pitiable, it does not make her less offensive to her peers.

Blanche’s very vocal disapproval of Stanley serves to isolate her from Stella, the one sympathetic person in her life. Her critical opinion of the dismal apartment and of Stanley’s brutish demeanor creates a chasm in the sisters’ relationship, and her chances of familial bonding are sacrificed. Blanche demonstrates her racial prejudices when she calls Stanley a “Polack,” and her gradual, yet persistent provocations lead to her ultimate violation. This act of rape wounds Blanche to a point of no return. The culmination of Stanley’s victory over Blanche occurs when Stella refuses to believe that her sister has been assaulted. Stella sides with her husband as Blanche’s past and world of illusions (or dishonesty) serve to silence her in her most desperate moment.

Williams’s ability to “capture something of the complexity of the novel within the dramatic form, especially in the area of character probity and psychology” (Adler, 9), has set Streetcar apart and is the reason it merits its status not only as a modern classic, but s a watershed moment in U.S. theater history. Essentially, Williams created a new genre in the modern theater: a heightened naturalism that allows dreams (or nightmares) to coexist with reality.

DuBois, Blanche

Described in the opening scene as “mothlike,” Blanche is an aging Southern belle. She is refined, delicate, and steeped in the traditions of Southern gentry. She first appears wearing white, symbolizing her feigned purity and virtuous nature. Blanche is one of Williams’s dreamers, forfeiting reality for a magical or romantic approach to life. She is not concerned with truth, but rather “what ought to be the truth.”

When she was a young woman, Blanche married her true love, Allan Grey. He was tender and sensitive, different from the other men in her life. Although he was not “the least bit effeminate looking,” she learned of his homosexuality when she entered a room uninvited and found Allan having sex with an older male friend. Later that night, the three of them attended a dance at Moon Lake Casino. During this evening of heavy drinking, Blanche confronted Allan about his sexuality while a polka played and lovers danced around them. Devastated by Blanche’s disgust toward him, Allan ran off the dance floor. He found refuge at the edge of the nearby lake, where he shot himself. Blanche is forever haunted by the guilt she feels over Allan’s suicide. She cannot move beyond the loss of her husband, and in moments of desperation she still hears the polka waltz in her mind. She drinks whiskey to cope with her self-reproach, but the cruelty she displayed toward Allan forever torments her.

Blanche’s life continues on a downward spiral with the deaths of several other family members. She is obligated to nurse them, witnessing the slow, torturous deterioration of life. Blanche is forced to earn her living as a high school English teacher because her ancestral home, Belle Reve (which means “beautiful dream” in French), in Laurel, Mississippi, is in danger of foreclosure. Severely lonely and desperate, she finds consolation in the embrace of strange men. When she is fired from her teaching position because of a “morally unfit” liaison with a 17-year-old boy, her reputation is completely ruined. Belle Reve is foreclosed and she is forced to live in a seedy hotel called the Flamingo. Because of her practice of entertaining men at the Flamingo, she is eventually forced to leave that establishment as well.

Destitute and homeless, Blanche travels to New Orleans, taking a “streetcar named Desire” to the slums of Elysian Fields, where her sister, Stella Kowalski, lives with her brutish husband, Stanley Kowalski. She arrives unannounced at the crampedtwo-room apartment. She immediately rejects Stanley because of his unrefined behavior and crude, straightforward response to life. Her worst opinions of Stanley are justified when she witnesses the beatings Stella suffers at the hands of her husband. Blanche believes that “a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion,” and she clashes with Stanley, who is determined to catch Blanche in all of her lies. Her facade quickly positions her as Stanley’s prime enemy. He is sickened by her exaggerations and false prudishness. Despite her past, Blanche remains married to the ideals of purity, creating the illusion of what she “ought to be.”

Stanley triumphs over her when he finds out about her promiscuous past in Laurel. He destroys her only chance of comfort by relating her sordid past to Mitch (Harold Mitchell), her only and final marriage prospect. Stanley then rapes Blanche, presuming that she has had so many sexual encounters that one more will make no difference. After this act, a deed that Stella refuses to acknowledge, Blanche is wounded once and for all. She loses her grip on reality and finds consolation in a type of magical world that will not allow her to hurt anymore. This world places her at the mercy of “the kindness of strangers.” The strange men in her life are replaced by the medical staff of a mental institution.

Hubbell, Eunice

Eunice is the wife of Steve Hubbell. She and Steve are the upstairs neighbors of Stanley and Stella Kowalski. As do Stanley and Stella, Eunice and Steve have a volatile marital relationship. In many ways, the older couple (Eunice and Steve) mirror Stanley and Stella and offer a vision of what the young couple will be in the future. Eunice is a confidante to Stella, and Eunice eases the younger woman’s transition into a life of denial and compromise. When Stella’s sister, Blanche DuBois, accuses Stanley of rape, Eunice instructs Stella to disavow Blanche’s claims for the sake of her marriage, her child, and her own sanity.

Hubbell, Steve

Steve is the husband of Eunice Hubbell. He and Eunice are the upstairs neighbors of Stanley and Stella Kowalski. As do Stanley and Stella, Eunice and Steve have a volatile marital relationship. In many ways, the older couple (Eunice and Steve) mirror Stanley and Stella and offer a vision of what the young couple will be in the future.

Kowalski, Stanley

He is a strong, brutish man of Polish descent. Stanley is a former soldier, who fought during World War II and who now lives in the mundane world of factory work. He is cruelly honest. His pastimes include bowling, drinking, playing poker with his friends and having sex with his wife, Stella Kowalski. Stanley enjoys the comforts of Stella’s love. Although he is unrefined, loud, and quick-tempered, he possesses a simplicity which makes him desirable to Stella. There is also an animal attraction between Stanley and Stella, and their relationship is based not on communication but on physical attraction. In the stage directions of Streetcar , Williams describes him as a “gaudy seed bearer [who] sizes women up at a glance.”

Stanley revels in the fact that Stella is from an old aristocratic Southern family and that she has rejected upper-crust society to live with him in a tenement house in the slums of New Orleans. Stanley functions with very basic objectives. He is strongwilled and responds to adversity with violence.

When his sister-in-law, Blanche DuBois, moves in, Stanley feels threatened by her presence and her rejection of his way of life. He does not like to share what is his: his wife, his liquor, and his apartment. When he finds out that the DuBois plantation, Belle Reve, has been foreclosed, he immediately demands proof that Blanche did not sell it and keep the money. Stanley expects to share any profits, as he is Stella’s husband. Stella and Blanche are personally devastated by the loss of their ancestral home; Stanley is only concerned with the practical, monetary side of the situation. He has no way of comprehending the emotional loss of such a thing. In addition, Blanche’s large personality leaves little room for him to be the center of attention. The two engage in a power struggle that draws out the worst in Stanley’s personality. The tension created by Blanche’s presence provokes Stanley to beat Stella and to seek a way to ruin his sister-in-law.

He triumphs over Blanche after searching for the truth of her disreputable past. When he has gathered this ammunition, he informs Blanche’s only marriage prospect, Mitch (Harold Mitchell)of her sordid past. By this he is able to pierce the virginal facade that Blanche has used to manipulate and control. Stella defends her sister by explaining that she has had a tragic past and she is weak, but Stanley is interested only in survival of the fittest. He rapes Blanche and denies that he did to Stella. This is Stanley’s ultimate triumph. In the end, Blanche is taken to a mental institution while Stanley comforts his wife by fondling her breasts.

Kowalski, Stella

She is the wife of Stanley Kowalski and the sister of Blanche DuBois. Stella is a member of a very refined and dignified Southern family, who has chosen to cast off her social status in exchange for marriage to Stanley, a vulgar and often brutal simpleton. She is caught in the war between Stanley and Blanche, whose constant bickering and fighting leads to Stanley’s sexually assaulting Blanche. Stella refuses to believe that her husband would rape her sister. After her accusations of rape, Stella commits Blanche to a mental institution. As does her sister, Stella glosses over harsh reality to live in the world of illusions to cope with Stanley’s abhorrent behavior.

Mitchell, Harold (Mitch)

A middle-aged man whose dedication to his ailing mother leaves him lonely and troubled. Mitch falls in love with Blanche Dubois, a refined, yet fading Southern belle. They engage in a respectable courtship, and Blanche insists on delaying sexual relations until they are married. When Stanley Kowalski informs Mitch of Blanche’s sordid past as a prostitute, he is shocked and offended that she has made him wait for sexual intimacy.

FURTHER READING Adler, Thomas P. A Streetcar Named Desire: The Moth and The Lantern. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Berkman, Leonard. “The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois,” Modern Drama 10, no. 2 (December 1967): 249–257. Kazan, Elia. “Notebook for A Streetcar Named Desire,” in Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Jordan Y. Miller. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, 1971, pp. 21–26. Shaw, Irwin. “Masterpiece,” in Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Jordan Y. Miller. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971, pp. 45–47. Sova, Dawn B. Forbidden Films: Censorship Histories of 125 Motion Pictures. New York: Facts On File, 2001.

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Davis, Jordan. "Gender-Based Behavior in "A Streetcar Named Desire"." W&M ScholarWorks, 1994. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625893.

Bauer, Christian. "Stereotypical Gender Roles and their Patriarchal Effects in A Streetcar Named Desire." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Sektionen för humaniora (HUM), 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-17170.

Maiman, Nichole Marie. ""Who wants real? I want magic!" musical madness in A streetcar named desire /." College Park, Md. : University of Maryland, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1903/1425.

Zúñiga, Hertz María del Pilar. "The glass menagerie and A streetcar named desire : Tennessee Williams and the confluence of experiences." Tesis, Universidad de Chile, 2013. http://www.repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/115664.

Cline, Gretchen Sarah. ""Madness, sexuality, and the dialectics of desire: Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying"." The Ohio State University, 1985. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1302706789.

Homan, Elizabeth A. "Cultural contexts and the American classical canon : contemporary approaches to performing Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 1997. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p9842537.

Borges, Guilherme Pereira Rodrigues. "Tradução e teatro : A Streetcar Named Desire, de Tennessee Williams, em múltiplas traduções para o português do Brasil." reponame:Repositório Institucional da UnB, 2017. http://repositorio.unb.br/handle/10482/24095.

Lee, Kenneth Oneal. "Plays of Tennessee Williams as opera: An analysis of the elements of Williams's dramatic style in Lee Hoiby's Summer and Smoke and André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2003. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc5536/.

Silveira, Gustavo Cardoso. "De A streetcar named desire a Um bonde chamado desejo: uma análise sob o enfoque da linguística sistêmico-funcional." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2018. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/21270.

Silva, Luciany Margarida da. "Character, language and translation : a linguistic study of character construction in a cinematic version of Williams' A Streetcar named Desire /." Florianópolis, SC, 1999. http://repositorio.ufsc.br/xmlui/handle/123456789/81105.

Goldstein, Emily R. "Reasons to be Desired." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/686.

Jarekvist, Anja. "The social construction of gender : A comparison of Tennessee Wiliam´s A Streetcar Named Desire and Eugene O´Neill´s Long Day´s Journey into Night." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Sektionen för lärarutbildning (LUT), 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-21784.

Weiss, Katherine, Stephen Bottoms, Philip Kolin, and Michael S. D. Hooper. "A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie; A Streetcar Named Desire; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Sweet Bird of Youth." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://www.amzn.com/1472521862.

Lee, Kenneth Oneal. "Plays of Tennessee Williams as opera an analysis of the elements of Williams's dramatic style in Lee Hoiby's Summer and smoke and André Previn's A streetcar named Desire /." connect to online resource. Access restricted to the University of North Texas campus, 2003. http://www.library.unt.edu/theses/open/20033/lee%5Fkenneth%5Foneal/index.htm.

Lane, Michelle I. ""Why do hurt people hurt people?" A SERIES OF CASE STUDIES EXPLORING ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN DRAMATIC TEXTS AND ONSTAGE WITH TONI KOCHENSPARGER'S MILKWHITE." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1492704228702652.

Joseph, Robert Gordon. "Playing the Big Easy: A History of New Orleans in Film and Television." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1522601211962016.

Quant, Brenda D. "From the Back of a Bus Named Desire." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2015. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2118.

Chritaro, Gustavo Rocha 1978. "A Streetmusic Named Desire : Jazz e Cinema no exemplo de Alex North." [s.n.], 2015. http://repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/285320.

GONCALVES, LUCIANA AFFONSO. "A CRY NAMED DESIRE: THE VOICE IN THE POLYPHONIC CREATION OF MARIO DE ANDRADE." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2006. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=9067@1.

Kotynski, Anne Elizabeth. "A Study Named Desire: How Global Versus Local Attentional Focus Priming Alter Approach Motivation for Desserts." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1467979803.

Özer-Chulliat, Sibel. ""Se mettre en scène" dans les adaptations contemporaines de textes classiques : un point tournant dans l'art de la mise en scène ?" Thesis, Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016USPCA133.

Wang, Pei-Wen, and 王佩雯. "Desire and Death in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire." Thesis, 2010. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/44889972383540849109.

Chang, Yu-chi, and 張渝琪. "A Contextualized interpretation of A Streetcar Named Desire." Thesis, 1997. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/92423740606890858846.

Chen, Chun-Yu, and 陳俊佑. "“Crash of Streetcar Named Desire”,Scriptwriting and Performance." Thesis, 2012. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/84565161669590579906.

Chen, Szu-chia, and 陳思嘉. "Normalization in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire." Thesis, 2000. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/07716302864137677139.

呂季青. "A Translation and Introduction of A Streetcar Named Desire." Thesis, 2004. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/33892955411328494662.

Chou, Mei-huei, and 周美慧. "Blanche's Attachment in A Streetcar Named Desire: A Zen Approach." Thesis, 1998. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/35275056495651806887.

Wang, Huiting, and 王惠亭. "An Analysis of the Use of Symbols in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire." Thesis, 2011. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/50121873008821372763.

賴榆樺. "Elia Kazans A Streetcar Named Desire and Woody Allens Blue Jasmine: a Comparative Analysis." Thesis, 2016. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/49970190534611369133.

Yu-ling, Hung. "Multiple Masquerades and Contradictory Female Images in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Summer and Smoke." 2005. http://www.cetd.com.tw/ec/thesisdetail.aspx?etdun=U0001-1407200510551300.

Hung, Yu-ling, and 洪毓羚. "Multiple Masquerades and Contradictory Female Images in Tennessee Williams'' The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Summer and Smoke." Thesis, 2005. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/45039599020817382707.

Luz, Svea Sophie Pahlke. "Reality and illusion in theatre - Blanche DuBois and her individual perception of life in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams." Master's thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/20280.

Rodrigues, Elisabeth Porto. "De A Streetcar Named Desire a Um Bonde Chamado Desejo : o percurso discursivo de apresentação da personagem Stanley Kowalski em duas traduções brasileiras." Master's thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10316/18165.

CHEN, LI-HUI, and 陳孋輝. "An Analysis of Tennessee William's "a Streetcar Named Desire", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", and "Rose Tattoo" from the Perspective of Symbolism and Actantial Model." Thesis, 2018. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/tac4ua.

林建輝. "Dream on: The Desire Named Thriller." Thesis, 2009. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/39048221369086790091.

"A streetcar named death: Public mourning, funeral directors, and the modernization of the New Orleanian funeral." Tulane University, 2021.

"A cry named desire: the voice in the polyphonic creation of mario de andrade." Tese, MAXWELL, 2006. http://www.maxwell.lambda.ele.puc-rio.br/cgi-bin/db2www/PRG_0991.D2W/SHOW?Cont=9067:pt&Mat=&Sys=&Nr=&Fun=&CdLinPrg=pt.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee williams, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

The play is set in the shabby but rakishly charming New Orleans of the 1940s. Stanley and Stella Kowalski live in the downstairs flat of a faded corner building. Williams uses a flexible set so that the audience simultaneously sees the interior and the exterior of the apartment.

Blanche DuBois , Stella’s sister, arrives: “They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then to transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at––Elysian Fields!” Blanche is a fading Southern belle from Laurel, Mississippi. An English teacher (though hardly a schoolmarm), dressed in all white, she is delicate and moth-like. Blanche tells Stella that Belle Reve, the family plantation, has been lost, and that she has been given a leave of absence from her teaching position due to her nerves. Blanche criticizes Stella’s surroundings and laments Stella’s fall from their elite upbringing.

In contrast to Stella’s self-effacing, deferential nature and Blanche’s pretentious, refined airs, Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski exudes raw, animal, violent sexuality. While Blanche flutters in semi-darkness, soaks in the bath, and surrounds herself in silky clothes and costume jewels, Stanley rips off his sweaty shirts under the bare kitchen light bulb. Though Stella still cares for her sister, her life has become defined by her role as Stanley’s wife: their relationship is primarily based on sexual chemistry. Stella’s ties to New Orleans rather than the lost Belle Reve are further emphasized through her pregnancy: she is bringing a new Kowalski, not a DuBois, life into the world.

While Blanche is bathing, Stanley rummages through her trunk, suspecting Blanche of having sold Belle Reve and cheated Stella – and thereby himself – out of the inheritance. Blanche reveals that the estate was lost due to a foreclosed mortgage, showing Stanley the bank papers to prove it”

Later that night, in the “lurid nocturnal brilliance, the raw colors of childhood’s spectrum” of the kitchen, Stanley and his friends are still in the thick of their drunken poker night when Blanche and Stella return from an evening out. Stanley’s friend Mitch catches Blanche’s eye, and as she asks Stella about him, she maneuvers herself skillfully in the light to be caught half-dressed in silhouette.

Blanche and Mitch flirt. Blanche hangs a paper lantern over a bare bulb. Stanley seethes that Blanche is interrupting the poker game. Eventually, Blanche turns on the radio, and Stanley erupts: he storms into the bedroom and tosses the radio out of the window. When Stella intervenes to try and make peace, Stanley hits her. Blanche and Stella escape upstairs to Eunice’s apartment. The other men douse Stanley in the shower, which sobers him up, and he is remorseful. Stanley stumbles outside, bellowing upstairs: “STELL-LAHHHHH!” Stella slips back downstairs into Stanley’s arms, and Mitch comforts Blanche in her distress.

The next morning, Stella is calm and radiant, while Blanche is still hysterical. Stella admits that she is “thrilled” by Stanley’s aggression, and that even though Blanche wants her to leave, she’s “not in anything that [she has] a desire to get out of.” Blanche suggests that they contact Shep Huntleigh, a Dallas millionaire, to help them escape. The only thing holding Stella and Stanley together, Blanche says, is the “rattle-trap street-car named Desire.” Stanley, unbeknownst to Stella and Blanche, overhears Blanche criticize Stanley as being coarse and sub-human. Blanche tells Stella, “In this dark march toward whatever it is we’re approaching . . . Don’t––don’t hang back with the brutes!”

Later, Stanley lets drop a few hints that he knows some repugnant details about Blanche’s past, and Blanche is nervous, but the tension does not crack just yet. While Blanche is in the apartment for Mitch to pick her up for a date, a Young Man comes to collect money for the paper. Blanche fervently flirts with him and kisses him on the mouth before Mitch arrives.

When Blanche and Mitch return from their date, she is exhausted with “the utter exhaustion which only a neurasthenic personality can know” and still nervous from Stanley’s hints. Blanche is still playing at being a naïve Southern belle who still blushes at a kiss. Mitch boasts of his strapping manliness, but by speaking quantitatively about his athleticism rather than stripping his sweaty shirt and baring his torso.

Blanche melodramatically tells Mitch about her tragic love life: when she was sixteen, she married an effeminate young man who turned out to be homosexual. Blanche reproached her husband while they were dancing the Varsouviana Polka , and her husband committed suicide. Blanche is still haunted by his death (and the play will become increasingly haunted with the background music of the polka).

About a month later, Blanche is offstage soaking in the bath while Stella prepares Blanche’s birthday dinner. Stanley tells Stella all about Blanche’s sordid history in Laurel, as Blanche sings “Paper Moon” from the bathroom (“It’s a Barnum and Bailey world / Just as phony as it can be / But it wouldn’t be make-believe / If you believed in me!”). After losing Belle Reve, Blanche moved to the dubious Hotel Flamingo until getting kicked out for her promiscuous ways. Blanche is not taking a leave from her school due to her nerves: she has been fired for having an affair with a seventeen-year-old student. Stella, rushing to defend Blanche, is horrified, and she is equally horrified when Stanley tells her that he has also told these stories to Mitch . Stanley informs Stella that he’s bought Blanche a one-way bus ticket back to Mississippi.

Mitch does not show up for Blanche ’s birthday dinner. Blanche senses that something is wrong. Stanley and Stella are tense. Blanche tries to telephone Mitch but doesn’t get through; Stanley, Stella, and the audience know what Mitch knows, though Blanche does not. Stanley presents Blanche with the bus ticket. As we hear the faint strains of the polka, Blanche rushes out of the room. Stanley and Stella nearly begin a huge fight, but Stella goes into labor.

Later that evening, Blanche is alone in the apartment and drunk ; the Varsouviana is playing in her mind. Mitch , also drunk, arrives and confronts Blanche. She admits that Stanley’s stories are true – that after her husband’s suicide, she had sought solace in the comfort of strangers. A Mexican Woman comes to the door and offers “Flores para los muertos.” Mitch tries to have sex with Blanche but without agreeing to marry her, though he then stops himself. She cries “Fire! Fire!” and he stumbles away.

It’s several hours later the same night, and Blanche has been drinking steadily since Mitch left. Stanley comes home from the hospital to get some rest before the baby comes. Blanche has put on an absurd white evening gown and a rhinestone tiara. Blanche makes up a story about Shep Huntleigh sending her a telegram from Dallas, and then tells Stanley that Mitch came back on his knees with roses to beg for forgiveness. Stanley shatters her stories, saying, “You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light bulb with a paper lantern , and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile! Sitting on your throne and swilling down my liquor! I say––Ha!––Ha!” He bursts out of the bathroom in his brilliant silk pajamas, and advances on Blanche. She attempts to resist him, but Stanley overpowers her with physical force: “Tiger­––tiger! Drop the bottle top! Drop it! We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!” She sinks down, and he carries her limp body to the bed; the swelling music indicates that he rapes her (offstage).

Weeks later, Stella and Eunice are packing Blanche’s bags while the men play poker in the kitchen and Blanche takes a bath . They have made arrangements for Blanche to go to a mental asylum, but Blanche believes Shep Huntleigh is coming at last to take her away. Blanche has apparently told Stella about the rape, but Stella refuses to believe her. When Blanche emerges from the bath, she is delusional, worrying about the cleanness of the grapes and speaking of drowning in the sea. A Doctor and Matron from the asylum arrive, and Blanche sweeps through the poker players to the door. When she realizes that this is not Shep Huntleigh come to take her away, she initially resists, darting back into the house like a frightened animal, but she cannot hide from the Matron’s advances. Stanley yanks the paper lantern off the light bulb. The Matron catches Blanche and drags her out. The Doctor treats her more calmly, calling her by name, and Blanche is mollified, grasping at her final shreds of dignity: “Whoever you are––I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” The Doctor leads her offstage. Stella, holding her baby in her arms, breaks down in “luxurious sobbing,” and Stanley comforts her with loving caresses.

• Theater & Music Theater

A Senior Thesis Exploration of A Streetcar Named Desire

Event overview.

Free but tickets required

The Lewis Center for the Arts presents a senior thesis exploration of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play regarded by many as among the finest of the 20th century. The senior thesis of Nadia Diamond, Robby Keown, and Abby Melick, the exploration is guided by faculty member R.N. Sandberg.

In  Streetcar,  the vulnerable Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her determined brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, while Stanley’s pregnant wife, Stella, is torn between her husband and her distressed sister.  Streetcar solidified the position of Williams as one of the most important young playwrights of his generation and is well known for its harsh and realistic portrayal of family dynamics.

April 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 2017 8:00 p.m. Marie & Edward Matthews ’53 Acting Studio at 185 Nassau Street

The event is free but seating is limited. Tickets are required and are available through University Ticketing  online , by calling 609-258-9220, or by visiting the Frist Campus Center Ticket Office.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Seniors Nadia Diamond, Robby Keown, and Abby Melick proposed A Streetcar Named Desire  together as their senior thesis project. Having been friends since freshman year, they knew they wanted to collaborate on a project that featured three strong characters bouncing against one another. Diamond, Keown, and Melick also took an intermediate acting course together. Presentations of the play often put a focus on one of the three iconic characters. In this exploration, the seniors wanted to focus equally on all three.

Diamond, who is cast as Stella, is a History major pursuing certificates in both Theater and Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is interested in exploring how the issues in the play relate to her History thesis, which is on how poor women in Ireland were incarcerated in religious institutions, sometimes sent there by their own families. She sees a connection to the challenging decision that Stella faces in the play in regard to her sister Blanche and in humanizing that difficult decision and the reasons why someone might make this choice. Academic influences Diamond notes in regard to this project are acting classes in the Theater Program with the late Tim Vasen, Mark Nelson, and Bryan Doerries. She did a second thesis in Theater taking on the single role in an immersive, intimate theater experience, Request Programme by Franz Xaver Kroetz, a play without words that paints a portrait of a woman’s quiet desperation in a private apartment. She also appeared last fall in the senior thesis production of Lobby Hero , and has been in the casts of Lewis Center productions of Red Noses and The Seagull. She has performed in campus productions with Grind Arts Company, Theater Intime, and Princeton University Players. She plans to pursue theater after graduation either in education or theater-making.

Melick, who plays Blanche, is an English major pursuing certificates in Theater and American Studies. Her influences also include theater classes with Nelson, a professional actor and director, Vasen, and Tracy Bersley, a theater director and former Lewis Center faculty member, who returned this year as a guest director. Melick was interested in playing Blanche for the acting challenge it posed. Blanche is different than any other part Melick has had the chance to perform, which have thus far mostly been lighter or comedic supporting characters in musicals. Melick has appeared in a number of Lewis Center productions including Singin’ in the Rain and Mad Forest . She has also been involved with The Triangle Club all four years at Princeton and has appeared in shows produced by both Theater Intime and Princeton University Players. After graduation, she will be doing a Princeton in Latin America Fellowship in the Dominican Republic, and plans to pursue a career in theater when she returns to the U.S. the following year.

Keown takes on the role of Stanley. He is a Sociology major pursuing a certificate in Theater. In contemplating his senior thesis project, he was interested in the portrayal of violence in the theatrical canon and the emotional complexities of violence. He originally had considered plays dealing with military themes and settings, but when A Streetcar Names Desire was proposed as an opportunity, he became more interested in examining violence within a familial context through this role. Keown has appeared in a number of Lewis Center productions including Cloud 9 directed by Sandberg, The Other Shore, Lobby Hero with Diamond, the musical Annie & Rose, and Elektra , and has performed in campus productions with Grind Arts Company. After leaving Princeton he plans to move to New York City to pursue an acting career.

Sandberg notes that his role in this project has been in helping the students to deeply explore the play and these complex characters and to offer them new ideas to try. He made a point of not setting any of the action in order to see where the exploration went. The project has also explored the issues around placing the story in a less realistic setting.

Sandberg teaches in both the Theater Program and English Department at Princeton, and is a theater director and a playwright. He directed a number of recent Lewis Center productions including Cloud 9, Madman Robertson, Uncle Vanya, A Steady Rain, and How I Learned to Drive , as well as Princeton Summer Theater productions of Pygmalion and The Heidi Chronicles. His play, Roundelay, premiered at Passage Theater in 2013. His plays have been seen in Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Panama, and South Korea, as well as at theaters throughout the U.S. including the Barter, Dallas Children’s Theater, Providence Black Rep, Stages Repertory Theatre and Yale Cabaret. He has been commissioned by, among others, George Street Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, Metro Theater Company, and Seattle Children’s Theatre. Sandberg is a Princeton alumnus and in 2014 received the University’s President’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Vince di Mura, resident music director and composer for the Lewis Center will be providing live music based on Williams’ stage directions, from radio programs to music spilling out of nightclubs in the neighborhood. He will be improvising this music based on research from this period in New Orleans.

EVENT ARCHIVE

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Robert N. Sandberg

Vince di Mura

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Review: ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at Paramount has all of that Tennessee Williams pain

“I am not one who can find in Mr. Williams’ farewells the ray of light called hope,” Claudia Cassidy wrote in this very newspaper some 75 years ago. “As ‘The Glass Menagerie’ dimmed its candles on desolation, so ‘Streetcar’ opens the doors of the madhouse to a woman who only by the grace of God will be mad when she enters them.”

Indeed. Those words of the late, great drama critic — who adored Tennessee Williams and jump-started his career — always ring in my ears when I review Williams’ plays, especially “A Streetcar Named Desire,” which now can be seen in a truly wonderful little staging at the Copley Theatre in downtown Aurora, a production of sufficient artistry as to be well worth a train or a drive out to the western suburbs for city-based aficionados.

It’s part of the Paramount Theatre’s so-called Bold Series, a weird moniker for one of the great classics of American drama, now some 78 years old. The intention, I think, is to prepare audiences for not seeing a musical, even though this production is filled with all kinds of rich melodies.

“Streetcar” has not been seen much of late in Chicago; the last truly memorable production was David Cromer’s staging at Writers Theatre in Glencoe in 2010.  This one is right up there with that gobsmacker.

Paramount’s “Streetcar” is from the gifted veteran director Jim Corti, the man who has elevated big-scale musical productions in west suburban Chicago, and who clearly has been itching to try something different. He co-directs here with Elizabeth Swanson. As Blanche, Corti and Swanson have cast Amanda Drinkall, a highly accomplished Chicago actress known for (among others) “Venus in Fur” at the Goodman Theatre, “Othello” at Court Theatre, and Robert Falls’ valedictorian staging of “The Cherry Orchard” last year.  Stella is Alina Taber, who I last saw (believe it or not) as a fine Rizzo in Drury Lane’s “Grease.” Stanley is Casey Hoekstra, a veteran of American Players Theatre in Wisconsin.  This is a highly skilled cast, all palpably hungry to wrestle with these roles.

I had a sense this “Streetcar” was going to be really good when I first saw Taber’s face as Hoekstra’s Stanley entered. Blanche may depend on the kindness of strangers but “Streetcar” depends on Stella being so sensually consumed by all that Stanley has to offer her that she sells her sister down the river.

“Could anyone forget that last “Streetcar” scene?” Cassidy wrote of the the play’s first staging. “Pretentious, promiscuous Blanche of the pitiful airs and graces, who has found that the obverse of death is desire, is raped by her potent hulk of a brother in law, and her sex-obsessed sister has her committed rather than admit the truth.”

Cassidy hated Stella and felt deeply for Blanche. I think that’s because the critic saw herself in the poor woman, and also thought her beloved Williams resided there, too, forever pursued by his demons. You certainly feel Drinkall agrees — her Blanche has this wonderfully relentless quality, a existential kind of determination to keep powering on with all of her self-constructed artifice on pain of death. This is such a hard role to pull off nowadays and Drinkall is just spectacular.

If you read John Lahr’s biography of Williams, you come away believing that Williams had plenty of Stanley in him, too, and that idea is also richly reflected here. Hoekstra’s Stanley is as needy as he is cruel and violent, a disturbed man-child chaos agent, bringing anguish to two vulnerable women.

As the lynchpin of the play, Taber makes the case that Stella is only pursuing what she wants out of her adult life, which after all is a product of her rough youth. Until Blanche shows up, she’s happy.

But a kid coming? How would Stanley have coped with that, Blanche or no Blanche, I always wonder.

Paramount’s show doesn’t come with the typical Big Easy soundtrack, nor does it traffic in the standard sweaty sensuality, as advertised in the marketing materials.

Sex here is an act of both destruction and survival, as Williams knew and Cassidy hated to admit.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

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Review: “A Streetcar Named Desire” (4 stars)

When: Through April 21

Where: Paramount’s Copley Theatre, 8 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora

Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes

Tickets:  $40-$55 at 630-896-6666 and paramountaurora.com

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