UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO

FACULDADE DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS E CIÊNCIAS HUMANAS

Departamento de Letras Modernas
Introdução ao Teatro – FLM0589
Professor Responsável: Marcos Cesar de Paula Soares

Mariana Zacarias Pilatti N° USP 9881330

Final Paper: The Presence of Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neil in Woody Allen

1. Introduction
This final paper’s objective is to demonstrate how the elements of A streetcar
named Desire (Tennessee Williams) and A long day’s journey into the night (Eugene
O’Neil) appears in the movies Blue Jasmine and Wonder Wheel both by Woody Allen.
The analysis will be divided in two parts: the first one will deal with the relation of
Blue Jasmine and Streetcar named Desire and the second will deal with the similarities
and contrasts between Wonder Wheel and Long day’s Journey into the night.
Both movies were recorded less than ten years, while the plays were written and
interpreted among 50’s and 60’s. We will see that despite the temporal distance between
the authors and their works, Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neil are still relevant until
nowadays. Their themes are keeping explored by contemporary authors and readers.

2. Blue Jasmine as a contemporary retelling of A Street Car Named Desire

Blue Jasmine was premiered in 2013, starring Cate Blanchett. As in the play of
Tennessee W. the story tells about a woman that arrives to her sister’s house without any
other place to go or whom to count. Jasmine is very similar to Blanche. The two characters
have persistent recollections of scenes and conversations from their high-society past.
Besides that, despite the arrogant aura that both bring in their appearance, the two are
completely traumatized and fragilized by the ex-husbands. Because of these elements,
the dialogues in both cases are full of mental breakdowns of the main characters.
 In the film and in the play, some words work like a trigger to reveal the traumatic
memories. But mainly, in both cases, there is a song that is represented as the theme of
tragedy. In Blanche’s case, is the Varsovia valse, the song which was playing at the
moment the shot of her husband’s suicide was herd. In Jasmine’s case, the Blue Moon
was playing when she

The boyfriend of Jasmine’s sister is very similar to the husband of Blanche’s sister.
The two men are aggressive, unpolished and constitute the social type that represents
the working class.