Tennessee Williams – A Streetcar Named Desire

1. What is the setting of the play? What two places are mentioned? What do they stand
for?

A Streetcar Named Desire is set in the late 1940s, post-World War II New Orleans (specific
address in that city: 632 Elysian Fields Avenue)
The setting helps outline Blanche's personality, understand the dynamics of Stanley and
Stella's relationship as well as a bit of Stanley character, and also aids the audience in
understanding why Stanley patronizes Blanche.

2. Consider the characters a. as individuals, b. in relation to other characters, c. and

what they stand for/ represent.

Blanche DuBois

What is Blanche’s past?

When the play begins, Blanche is already a fallen woman in society's eyes. Her family fortune
and estate are gone, she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and she is a social
pariah due to her indiscrete sexual behavior. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she
covers up poorly.

Why does she come to New Orleans?

She has come to New Orleans because her nerves have forced her to take a leave of absence
from her job as a schoolteacher during the middle of the term. Also, one of the main reason
was because the family property, Belle Reve, was lost.

Why does Blanche avoid strong light?

Throughout the play, Blanche avoids appearing in direct, bright light, especially in front of
her suitor, Mitch. She also refuses to reveal her age, and it is clear that she avoids light in
order to prevent him from seeing the reality of her fading beauty.

How do Blanche’s many baths influence the action of the drama? What do they
symbolize?
Her pre-occupation with washing herself is a symbolic attempt to cleanse herself of her past
sins. By her baths, she subconsciously hopes to cleanse her sins away.

Using evidence from the play, try to determine which is the real Blanche, the innocent
and charming Blanche or the degenerate and promiscuous Blanche.

Why does Blanche’s rape totally destroy her?

Stanley’s rape of Blanche just before his child is born, when he is at his most triumphant and
she at her most psychologically vulnerable, is the ultimate act of cruelty. If rape is realism,
then surely Blanche’s world of dreams and fantasies is a better alternative. To confirm the
terrible nature of reality, the back of Blanche’s make-believe world falls away, and the world
of the street, with its prostitution, drinking, and thievery, impinges upon her surroundings.
Each of these three characters—the prostitute, the drunkard, and the thief—reflects to Blanche
an aspect of her personality.

Stanley Kowalski

How are specific physical symbols used to characterize the essential nature of Stanley
Kowalski?

The symbols connected with Stanley support his brutal, animal-like approach to life. In the
first scene, he is seen bringing home the raw meat. His clothes are loud and gaudy. His
language is rough and crude. His outside pleasures are bowling and poker. When he is losing
at poker, he is unpleasant and demanding. When he is winning, he is happy as a little boy. He
is, then, "the gaudy seed-bearer," who takes pleasure in his masculinity.

Justify Stanley’s antagonism toward Blanche.

Stanley's intense hatred of Blanche is motivated in part by the aristocratic past Blanche
represents. He also (rightly) sees her as untrustworthy and does not appreciate the way she
attempts to fool him and his friends into thinking she is better than they are. His antagonism
toward her increases as her stay lengthens, fueled by what he perceives as her snobbery and
her efforts to turn Stella against him.

Stella Kowalski

Stella is Blanche’s younger sister, but in many ways, she behaves like the elder of the two.
Stella appears more grounded, more tolerant, and less sensitive than Blanche; she also seems
to be a natural nurturer who “enjoys waiting on”

It is apparent that Stella is a battleground for the DuBois-Kowalski feud. Blanche

continually tries to turn Stella away from Stanley, by belittling him every chance she has.
She tries to prevent her sister from returning to her husband after Stella had been beaten by
Stanley during the card game. Blanche does not try to hide her opinion of Stanley when she
decides to tell Stella of her true feelings for her brother-in-law. She calls Stanley
"common," "bestial," and "sub-human." Stella seems to become the tangible symbol of
victory between the two warring parties.

3. Characterize the essential differences between the Kowalski and the DuBois worlds.
Justify the Kowalski world as being superior to the DuBois world.

Blanche DuBois comes from aristocracy family, and Stanley Kowalski comes from lower
class. The factors of the conflict are the background and character. The background
differences are heritage, wealth, and education. A Kowalski, as seen in Stanley, is "simple,
straightforward, and honest." He tolerates nothing but the bare, unembellished truth. Blanche,
so to speak, "puts a gaily-colored paper lantern" on the harshness of truth. This isn't lying to
her. A lie, for Blanche, would be a betrayal of herself, of everything she believes in. Stanley
tolerates no compromise. His primitive, honest manner threatens to destroy her. The two ways
of life are totally incompatible; there can be no peaceful coexistence. Kowalski’s world is
being superior to the latter since its prevalence in violence ‘naturally’ dominates the delicate,
fragile world of DuBois.
  
4. Where do you consider Williams’s final view toward illusion and reality to lie? Does
he align himself with Stanley’s reality and brutal honesty, or with Blanche’s illusion and
pretense?

Although Stanley Kowalski was an infamously effeminate "alpha male," Tennessee Williams
clearly appreciated strong, demanding "alpha males" like him. He appears to support Stanley's
"truth and stark honesty" while lamenting the decline of the Old South's culture and elegance
as exemplified by Blanche du Bois.

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