A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1947)

Scene 1 Scene 2 Williams’s father was overbearing; his

Blanche Dubois arrives at Stanley, irked by his sister-in- mother was pretentious.
‘Elysian Fields’ via a law’s arrival, reminds Stella of the
streetcar named desire. She ‘Napoleonic code’ and his rights to and controlling
is described as moth-like her property or estate. The
(‘suggests a moth’) and contrast is showcased by the line,
‘incongruous to the setting’. "The Kowalskis and the DuBois
She reveals to her sister, ‘Blanche belongs to have different notions". Blanche Scene 3
Stella, that ‘Belle Reve’ (the the crumbling notes that Stanley is ‘a little bit on The Poker Night sets the scene, with Williams
ancestral family home) has grandeur of the the primitive side’, yet he refuses focusing on masculinity (‘the peak of their
been ‘lost’ and disapproves to be ‘took in by this Hollywood ‘Streetcar is a cry for pain’
Southern physical manhood’) which eventually boils over
of her sister’s husband, the glamour stuff’ and reveals that (Arthur Miller) into violence with Stanley attacking his wife, ‘the
‘Polak’, Stanley Kowalski. plantations’ (Weiss) Stella is ’going to have a baby’. sound of a blow’. Ultimately, following his
desperate pleas ‘Stell-lahhhhh’, she returns to
'The Aristotelean terror comes from the ‘The conflict between the two ways of life is concentrated within him, and they come together with ‘'low, animal
audience's recognition that Blanche's destruction the battle between Blanche and Stanley’ (Bigsby) moans’.
is inevitable.' (Bigsby)
‘Blanche is like a decorative fungus; her only ‘Williams acknowledged that Blanche was in some
‘Williams described his writing as cathartic or purging process, a means of survival in the modern world is to batten ways a projection of himself’ (Weiss)
way of coming to terms with his life.’ (Weiss) onto someone else and live off their emotional,
physical and material resources’ (Weiss)
Scene 6
Scene 4 While Williams was writing A Scene 5 Blanche and Mitch return from their date, and she
Blanche expresses her Streetcar Named Desire, he was Stanley begins to cast aspersions over professes her innocence and disapproval of any
disapproval at Stella’s involved with Pancho Rodriguez Blanche’s behaviour, noting how he had been sexual advances, telling him ‘that there’s ‘no reason
decision yet is rebuked Gonzalez, a rough man who informed she had been spotted at the that you shouldn’t behave like a gentleman’. She
by her sister’s some critics see as the source of ‘Flamingo’. She confides in Stella how she seizes the opportunity to criticise Stanley, labelling
description of her inspiration for Stanley Kowalski. has not informed Mitch of ‘my real age’. Her him ‘insufferably rude’. She recalls the death of her
relationship as a desires are illustrated in her demand to kiss ex-husband, Allan Grey, and his suicide ‘he’d stuck
‘powder-keg’, and how the young paper boy, ‘softly and sweetly on the revolver into his mouth, and fired’. The symbolic
she is ‘sort of-thrilled’ the mouth’ before greeting her date (Mitch) ‘Varsouviana’ plays to illustrate her guilt over her
by Stanley’s violent as her ‘Rosenkavalier’. refusal to help her former husband prior to his
outbursts. Blanche death.
fantasises about saving
her sister, and criticises
Stanley’s ‘bestial’ nature
using the metaphor, ‘the
survivor of the Stone
Age!’.

“If Tennessee would tell you something, it

‘His (Stanley) code is simple and simple-minded.
wouldn’t be necessarily true... And so, everything
He’s deeply dissatisfied, deeply hopeless, deeply ‘the trauma that underpins Blanche’s reality is not
in Blanche was really like Tennessee.”
cynical. He is marvellously selfish’ (Elia Kazan) Allen Grey being a ‘’degenerate’’, as Stella believes,
(Dakin Williams, Tennessee’s brother)
but the fact that she caused his suicide’ (Berkman)
 Scene 7
Stella aims to defend her sister from her husband’s
criticisms, who claims that ‘Sister Blanche is no lily!’. He
unveils his findings on Blanche and how she has been told
by the ‘mayor (of Laurel) to get out of town’ due to her
getting ‘mixed up with’ a seventeen-year-old-boy. He has
informed Mitch of Blanche’s wrongdoings (‘wised up’), much
to Stella’s horror, and this contradicts with Blanche’s
statement that she ‘feels refreshed’ (following yet another
bath).
Like Williams himself, Blanche drinks and
pursues liaisons with inappropriate suitors.
“the ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate,
by the savage and brutal forces of modern society”
(Tennessee Williams)
Scene 10
Stanley returns home after the birth of the baby, and is
alone with Blanche. She continues her descent into her
fantasy world, informing him of her escape route with ‘Shep
Huntleigh’ and telling him that ‘Physical beauty is passing. A
transitory possession’ underlining her fragility. Stanley
forces her to confront her deceptions, showcased by his
outburst, ‘And look at yourself! Take a look at yourself in
that wornout Mardi Gras outfit, rented for fifty cents from
some ragpicker!’ Williams’ stage directions foreshadow
Stanley’s raping of Blanche, illustrated by ‘Lurid reflections
appear on the wall around Blanche. The shadows are of a
grotesque and menacing form’. His pre-mediated intentions
are underlined by his threatening warning ‘Tiger--tiger!
Drop the bottle top! Drop it! We've had this date with each
other from the beginning!’ and the scene culminates with
Stanley ‘picks up her inert figure and carries her to the bed’.
‘Offers an image familiar to any cinema-goer who has seen Hollywood classics such as
the 1932 King Kong in which the massive ape with the sentimental heart carries Fay
Wray’s limp body off to his lair.’ (Weiss)
Scene 8 Scene 9
The tension builds as Blanche, initially alone, welcomes Mitch, but notices
Blanche has been ‘stood up his ‘face like a thundercloud’. He questions her sanity,
by my beau (Mitch)’. Stanley ‘are you boxed out of your mind?’ as she continues to
admonishes Stella, ‘Don’t be plagued by ‘the polka tune they were playing when
ever talk that way to me! Allan’ died. Mitch states ‘I don't think I ever seen you
Pig-Polack…’., instead in the light’ as he confronts Blanche’s lies, justifying
reasserting ‘I am….one his actions with the line ‘So I can take a look at you
hundred per cent American.’ good and plain’. Blanche is devastated and poignantly
He issues his sister-in-law states that ‘I don't want realism. I want magic!’,
with a ‘ticket back to Laurel’. ultimately rejecting his advances by repeatedly
Blanche is horrified, calling out ‘Fire!’.
‘clutches her throat’ as
Stella goes into labour. Old America vs New America
‘She (Blanche) is capable of exciting pity and terror in
the audience- responses described by Aristotle as
hallmarks of tragedy.' (Weiss)
'The music in Blanche's mind is also heard by the
audience in the theatre. Williams uses a theatrical
device (plastic theatre) to draw the audience into
‘Tragedy, I write that word knowing the full meaning Blanche's nightmare.' (Weiss)
of it.’ (Tennessee Williams)
Scene 11
As the play concludes, it is evident that Stella refuses to acknowledge the
events of the previous episode, she confides in Eunice that ‘she couldn’t
believe her story and go on living with Stanley’. The arrival of a Doctor and
Matron indicates Stella’s decision to institutionalise her sister, and
Blanche’s poignant admits that she ‘is just passing through’. Stella,
anguished and wracked by guilt, cries out ‘What have I done to my sister?
Oh, God, what have I done to my sister?’. Violence erupts as Mitch ‘lunges
and strikes at Stanley’, actions mirrored by Blanche’s desperation to avoid
‘Stanley’s recognition of Blanche as the Matron, who ‘pinions her arms’. Eventually, she relents, stating ‘I have
a potentially dangerous invader of always depended on the kindness of strangers’, and upon her departure, life
his territory’ (Weiss) in Elysian Fields seems to continue seamlessly, with the return to the poker
game, ‘this game is a seven card stud.’
Williams’ sister Rose was a schizophrenic and had ‘Indeed, the tragedy of the play’s closing
to be lobotomised in 1943 (partly due to her scene is desperately total: everybody loses’
mother’s concerns about her sexual promiscuity). (Clements)
Elia Kazan (1951 film
adaptation) Stella abandons
Stanley at the conclusion.