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Streetcar Themes, Scene Summaries: Streetcar, Streetcar Techniques -…
Streetcar Themes
Context
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The play is ifluenced by Williams's own life; his mother was a 'Southern Belle' and his father an alcoholic travelling salesman. His sister was mentally unstable, given a lobotomy and spending the rest of her life in a mental institution.
Williams felt guilty about his sister and was afraid of mental disintegration.
He was also obsessed with death like Blanche (haunted by her husband's suicide)
'Belle Reve' (the name of the DuBois family mansion) means 'Beautiful Dream' in French
Lousiana originally a French territory
Poker: a game of chance involving concealment of a poor hand, traditionally considered a masculine game.
Similarly, characters conceal emotions and facts
In Greek Mythology, 'Elysian Fields' are the equivalent of paradise (ironic for a rundown street) and a resting place for the dead (Blanche's obsession with death)
Characterisation
Blanche: Complex, contradictory and endearing heroine, with all her faults.
Blanche's demeanor
As she arrives, the description of her unsuitably dainty dress ends with the ominous words: "There is something about her uncertain manner... that suggests a moth"
--Helpless, fragile, foreshadowing her tragic end
--Blanche's preference for the night, concealment of identity with lack of light (clarity)
--An earlier version of the play titled The Moth
Blanche's Weaknesses
her craving for drink is seen early on in Scene One and does not go unnoticed by Stella or Stanley - "Liquor goes fast in hot weather"
Points such as this is stressed through repetitive action due to it being a play (novels may use an authorial voice)
Views herself as superior due to social status: takes peoples' kindness for granted as it is expected of her social inferiors.
Condemns Stella's and Stanley's way of life
Stanley: Charismatic powerhouse, unquestioning self-confidence and raw sexuality make him fascinating, despite his cruelty
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Death, Madness and Tragedy
Humans; fascinated with death and violence
Death is a certainty which Blanche is obsessed with; decline into mental instability due to her experiences with it (husband's suicide and relatives passing)
Blanche's breakdown (Scene 11) can be seen as a kind of death, hinted by her fantasy of dying at sea "of eating an unwashed grape"
Play moves towards a tragic ending (individual dying rather than physically), acceptance in the inevitable decline.
Blanche becomes a sort of sacrafice, similar to the sacraficial origins of Greek Tragedy
Drama requires conflict, Stanley and Blanche's conflict builds slowly through the first ten scenes to its tragic resolution
Inner conflicts: Stella choosing between her sister and husband, Mitch being drawn to Blanche but unable to accept the reality of her past
Gender and Sexuality
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Stanley and Stella's sexual passion hinges on the idea that men should be dominant, Stella freely submitting herself entirely to Stanley
In contrast, Blanche's promiscuity is condemned by Stanley and echoed by Mitch's disgust which is typical for men of the era
Social Class
Blanche: "Southern Belle" - snobbish member of an old-established land-owning family, 'plantation' families which profited from slave labour
Stella is from the same background, but appears happy to leave behind her family's standards in order to enjoy the animal passion she gets with Stanley who is a working-class man from a Polish immigrant family
American Class system: based more on money and less on inherited status.
Contentment and suspicion between classes as with Blanche and Stanley is still common today.
Clash between Stanley and Blanche: declining 'aristocracy' of the South, which never fully recovered economically from the Civil War
After the second world war, men like Stanley came back with a bigger sense of entitlement to a share of the country's wealth.
They were also empowered by the growth of trade unions
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