Analysis of Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

1. Discuss how symbols are used in the play. You may want to consider the fact that Blanche arrives at the home of Stella and Stanley by the streetcars named Desire and Cemeteries. (Thus, one could represent sexual desire, while the other represents death. Also consider that Stanley and Stella live in an area called Elysian Fields and that this is a place of paradise in Greek mythology). You may also want to consider the use of light in the play. (Why does Blanche place a paper lantern over a light bulb? Why does Mitch tear it away and Stanley hand her the remains of it?)

Well the streetcar taking Blanche to Stella's apartment was named Desire, just like the sin that drove her out of laurel on her way to New Orleans was named Lust. The two can intertwine, but in this case neither was used in moderation, and lead to the social ousting of Blanche. The other streetcar named Cemeteries could represent the death of Blanche's façade as she had to face realities of being driven out of town, and later the death of her ideologies about gentlemen when she meets Stanley. However, the most compelling read into the name of that street car is that it could represent the death of all that Blanche thought she was, her own identity died, and with it went her sanity.

The use of light in the play is very telling about the dramatic moments, and makes the reader focus on certain parts of the situation. For instance, when Blanche is on the other side of the curtain that separates the room the light pours through so you can see her silhouette.

The paper lantern represents the façade that blanch has perpetrated of herself in an effort to manipulate or "misrepresent things" to the men in her life in order to get something from them. Mitch tears it off as a representation that he has found out what is beneath the clever cover, and Stanley hands it back to her as she is leaving the flat in the care of a doctor and a matron.

2. Compare and contrast Stella and Blanche.

Stella is the younger sister of Blanche who has married below her and her sister's shared upper-class heritage, to wed Stanley Kowalski, a parts manager in New Orleans. She lives in a duplex like setting with an upstairs neighbor Eunice who she is fond of.

Stella puts up with Stanley's abusive, crass, and Neanderthal behavior because of their animalistic sex life. She has forsaken her societal ideals, unlike Blanche, because she is willing to sacrifice that societal image for sexual satisfaction.

Blanche, much like her sister, has sought her own sexual satisfaction, but much to her own dismay it has fueled much gossip about her. After her exploits lead her to seduce a young boy that went to the school she taught at, she was basically run out of town. However, Unlike Stella, she hypocritically chooses to impress the people around her by creating a façade of virginal integrity, when really her whole act is a calculated attempt to deviously charm and ensnare a male suitor. She believes that once she has captivated a man enough to marry her, he will unwittingly provide her a way out of poverty considering she has lost the mansion she and her sister shared due to foreclosures on the mortgage. Oblivious to her scandalous past, she believes this man will not inquire much of it, and offers up numerous reasons as to why she had to act completely as she did in each circumstance. Her lack of actual options in life lead her to put full faith in unreasonable irrational hopes in order not to lose her sanity completely, as she says, "I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!---Don't turn the light on!". She is so lost in the own mirage she displays to other people that she is losing her own identity and sense of self.

3. In looking at Streetcar as a tragedy, how do the past and present affect Blanche? How does she view the two, and how is she caught between the two worlds?

The past of Blanche's romantic history in dating a gay man affected her greatly. She often heard the music in her head as they were out one evening dancing, and he later shot himself at that very dance while that music played. Whenever she is stressed that music starts to play, and its almost as if the past and the present intertwine for Blanche. She is no longer in that present moment, but appears to be totally involved in a flashback of one of the most traumatic times in her life. After that incident she apparently lost the mansion and all forms of social dignity.

However she is run out of town and attempts, unsuccessfully thanks to Stanley, to start a new life in her sister's town of New Orleans. Her attempt fails because Stanley is very determined to ruin the life of anyone that dares to utter an unfavorable word of his character even though he beats his pregnant wife. He tells Mitch of her past as a social outcast, and that love interest is ruined for Blanche, and with it her only chance out of poverty. She is once again a slave to her past actions, because the gossip mill runs a long route on any woman unfavorable to a man's image of what she should be.

4. One could say that Stanley has been victorious over Blanche at the end of the play. What do you think Stanley represents? What is his view of life? Is his happiness with Stella marred by his attack upon Blanche?

Stanley represents straight male oppressive hate of women. Not only does he beat his own wife, which was pregnant with his child, but he simply cannot stand that a woman, much less his possession of a wife's sister, disproves of him. He does everything he can to find out gossip about Blanche and vilify her to anyone he encounters that may interact with her. He goes so low as to condemn a woman for being openly sexual and satisfied by her sexual exploits even if they were an attempt to gain a way out of poverty. He cannot stand the fact that she may use her charm and feminine wit to entice a male suitor too oblivious to really understand WHY she did the things she did, nor have any empathy for a woman's struggle with the glass ceilings of her time.

His view of life is that he is the breadwinner and the hero. Without him, the house would not run and life as anyone knew it would stop. He believes that since he is a hard-working man of such dignified moral standards that he should be able to use his house for whatever reason whenever it pleased him and only him. He has no regard for the feelings of his wife or her sister, for how could he beat her in such a vulnerable state as pregnancy, and how could he rape Blanche after condemning her as a whore?

His happiness as a human being should be destroyed for what he's done to Blanche. Even though she may not have had the most honest of approaches, she wasn't entirely manipulative in her feelings. She was actually upset when Mitch didn't show up for her birthday, and compounded by that was the lovely thoughtful gesture of the ever considerate and empathetic Stanley. He gives her the bus ticket so concerned for her feelings of just being rejected and she, "tries to smile. Then she tries to laugh. Then she gives both up and springs from the table and rus into the next room. She clutches her throat and then runs into the bathroom. Coughing, gagging sounds are heard.". She even "rushes about frantically" when he shows up, only to be confronted by more oppressive male behavior as Mitch says, "you're not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother". And the final blow to her sanity after putting up with such infuriating tripe and unfair gender-biased circumstances, she is raped by Stanley. One can only hope there would be a Hell for a person of such character, but if their isn't, hopefully Stella will finally realize the animal she is married to, and either leave him, or constantly remind him of the sister he was unkind to.