'A Streetcar Named Desire' (Tennessee Williams) Essay Plans
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Course
Unit 1 - Drama
Institution
PEARSON (PEARSON)
'Streetcar' essay plans by both themes and characters. Some are very detailed, whereas some are more simple and condensed. Themes include: desire, illusion, social class, femininity, power, conflict, marriage, the play's opening, tragedy, masculinity, characters' inner lives, confrontation, the ris...
Desire
Thesis: Williams presents desire as both the driving and destructing force behind the play’s
drama.
● The treatment of desire is contingent on characters’ genders.
○ Female desire
■ Blanche vs Stella
○ Male desire
■ Stanley
● The cause of Blanche’s psychological disintegration.
○ Scene X
● …and therefore the catalyst of her downfall, and the demise of the ideologies and old
order she represents.
Illusion
Thesis: Illusion in ‘Streetcar’ is presented as a blindfold that shields characters from brutal
truths, and thus acts as a means of survival.
● Blanche’s avoidance of the past
○ Bathing: a form of spiritual cleansing of her guilt and memories.
○ Alcoholism.
○ However it always catches up with her → the ripped lantern, the Varsouviana
etc.
● Blanche’s performance and romanticisation
○ Costume: her trunk is somewhat theatrical, costume jewellery. Red vs white.
○ Shep Huntleigh: an romantic but elusive figure who is often mentioned but
never appears. The only positive depiction of masculinity is a fantasy.
○ Fragility of her performance: the flimsiness of a paper lantern → the light of
truth inevitably triumphs.
○ Context: Williams’ mother, Rose Williams’ lobotomy.
● Stella’s pragmatism means she blinds herself to Stanley’s violence as a means of
surviving the brutality of post-war America.
○ Reconciliation with Stanley in Scene III.
○ Avoidance of truth over Blanche’s rape.
○ The birth of her son as a consolidation of her new position in post-war
America.
Social class
Thesis: Social class and disparity is presented by Williams as a major agitator of conflict in
‘Streetcar’.
● Language
● Stagecraft
● Exacerbated by gender conflicts?
Femininity
Thesis: Femininity in ‘Streetcar’ is portrayed as a strict standard to which female characters
are to adhere to, and failure to do so invites ostracisation and punishment. Stella generally
embodies a meek, domestic femininity in her marriage to Stanley, while Blanche utilises her
, hyperfemininity as a disguise for her sexually promiscuous past to avoid further societal
judgement. However, the ultimate subjugation of femininity in all its forms is expressed
through its relations to masculinity, and how its presence in men is wrongly punished and its
absence is celebrated. Through the play’s exploration of gender dynamics, Williams critiques
the hypocritical attitudes post-war America held towards men and women, challenging
audiences’ perceptions of gender roles.
● Stella represents a traditional form of domestic femininity that allows her acceptance
in a new American society to which her genteel Southern background does not
conform to. However, Williams also proves that this does not exempt her from male
violence.
○ ‘Plump as a little partridge’ and ‘the little woman’ → contrasts with Stanley as
a ‘richly feathered male bird’, highlighting her subordination and delicacy, like
prey.
■ Context: post-war America expected working women to return to the
domestic sphere.
○ Emotionally and physically dependent on Stanley’s masculine presence: ‘I
can hardly stand it when he is away for a night’, and she says ‘slowly and
emphatically’ that ‘I’m not in anything I want to get out of’. Financially
dependent on him too: ‘Stanley doesn’t give me a regular allowance’,
‘Napoleonic Code’.
○ First described as ‘a gentle young woman’, revealing her genteel background.
Like Blanche, she wears white - ‘pretty white lace collar’.
■ However this invites Stanley to ‘pull her off those white columns’.
○ Accustomed to serving others → ‘complies reluctantly’ to Blanche’s orders in
S1. When she retaliates in S3 she receives violent treatment from Stanley.
● This traditional hyperfemininity is utilised by Blanche to hide her true embodiment of
an alternative form of femininity that deviates from societal expectations.
○ Costume is used to establish her vulnerability and create a facade of sexual
innocence → 'daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice’.
■ The colour white connotes purity, while the ‘fluffy bodice’ and ‘earrings
of pearl’ indicate her Southern aristocratic background and its
incongruity to the harsh, masculine setting of New Orleans. To survive
its brutality, she has to put on ‘soft colours’ and avoid the ‘merciless
glare’ of a reality that has ostracised her for her sexuality by retreating
into her ‘make-believe’ world.
● Context: Williams’ mother.
○ However, her fantasy is revealed to be fragile. Her image of purity is quickly
destroyed for the audience with her appearance in a ‘red satin robe’ shortly
after, connoting sexuality, danger and manipulation.
■ Blanche’s sexuality borders on predatory behaviour with her
interaction with the Young Man in S5. Her following interaction with
Mitch highlights that their courtship is doomed, her only saviour lost.
○ The punishment for her expression of sexuality is rape, which consolidates
her psychological disintegration and tragic downfall. Blanche, as the ultimate
symbol of femininity, provokes Stanley’s desire to destroy it.
● Feminine expression in men is punished, whereas an absence of and dominance
over femininity is celebrated.
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