A Streetcar Named Desire

1. A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams

2. Summary • Blanche DuBois: A former beauty and member of an elite social set. She has not, and cannot, adjust to her loss of standing and wealth • Stanley Kowalski: former soldier and current salesman. He is masculine, forceful and has a bestial sense of life • Stella Kowalski: caught in the middle. Chooses husband over sister. • Mitch: yearns for love and has gentle nature. • MAJOR THEMES: perception and reality, loyalty, honesty and choice • SETTING: New Orleans after WW11 (1948)

3. Blanche DuBois • Frightened • Unable to adjust to her changing situation • Guilt ridden • Uses her sexuality to gain protection/love • Faded Southern beauty • Symbol of the old South • Pretends to be what she is not • Moth-like • Borders on madness/driven to it • Yearning

4. Stanley Kowalski • Brutal • Energetic • Brash/loud • Modern • Sexist • Uses sexuality as symbol of power • Resentful of anyone who thinks they are better than he is • Overbearing • Crass • Physical

5. Stella Kowalski • Symbol of transition between old and new worlds • Gentle • Excited by Stanley’s physicality • Torn between loyalty to her husband and her sister • Sensitive • Weak • Pacifist • Understanding • Practical

6. Mitch • Lonely • Loyal • Weak • Sensitive • Gentle • Patient • Good-natured

7. Fantasy and Reality • Blanche creates a façade of illusion in order to cope with her past (shattered and harsh). • She tells what ‘ought to be the truth’ • When she finally retreats into her fantasy, she is hauled off as insane but is in fact, happier there than in her reality

8. Fantasy and Reality • Stanley refuses Blanche’s description of him as a ‘brute’ and ‘ape’ when they are in fact, accurate. • His illusion is that he is in control, yet he is merely a bully, using physical force • There is no superiority in him despite his claims that he is ‘King around here’ • He is cruel and cunning and deludes others into seeing that cruelty as honourable

9. Fantasy and Reality • Stella makes a clear choice between reality and fantasy because she ‘couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley’ • This echoes her willingness to overlook Stanley’s physical abuse

10. Desire and Death • The play suggests that the blind pursuit of desire leads to death itself – the Streetcar named Desire leads to the Cemeteries which lands you in Elysian Fields where residents are doomed to repeat the same errors in life • Blanche uses sexual desire to fill the emotional void – the kindness of strangers • Her desire to reconnect with her sister leads to her mental devastation • Sexual desire between Stella and Stanley pulls her from her columns and ends her gentility • The sexual act is used to connect the characters but in using it this way, they lose something of themselves.

11. Power and Vulnerability • All of the characters are vulnerable in the play and they each use all the power at their disposal to avoid exposing this. • Stanley – physical and verbal power prevents criticism • Stella – sexuality and submission to keep Stanley from using his power • Blanche – sexuality and powers of illusion to protect her from damage

12. Whose Reality? • How do the various elements of the play explore the issue of whose reality?

13. The SAC – Creating and Presenting • Prompt: there is no such thing as an absolute reality • Expository • Persuasive • Imaginative