A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

INTRO
855 performances Brooklin
Pullitzer awards
Look at the play as confrontation btw two many forces embodied in 2 different
CHARACTERS
Characters continue conflict btw forces of Stanley and blanche, this two forces
keep fighting upon play. Balance becomes reverse
Progresses through clashes btw Stanley and blanche
Tennessee Williams Greek mythology, used that to enhance principal
characters
Greatest characters no realistic but larger than life
Stanley: Kowalski is blacksmith and connected to hades (fire) king of this under
world (hell), Stanley, stone (primitive person) package of red meat (hunting,
flesh) also connected with Dionysus (god of fertility) carnal, physical enjoyment,
phallic figure, anti intellectualism, bull, Capricorn (described as the seed
bearer), brings regeneration , represents reality (although is it a harsh reality )
he is used as a tool
Blanche: (Williams thinks that all of us have the other self, androgynous)
Has a side of carnality (resembles Stanley but also a different side Blanche
Dubois (white woods, bucolic) double nature
Connected with Orpheus, her journey to hell, lost a romantic love in order to
recover it she has to go under the underworld, related with art (literature,
music), also Orpheus felt guilty (and that guilt haunts her during the play)
setting has also mythic connotations name elysian fields (under world , place
where the dead go) she is looking for love (poem by Hart Crane at the
beginning, premonitory)
This mythic opposition makes the opposition more clear but also there is a side
of Blanche (flesh carnal) that resemblance of both and approaches them
Also; who is the main protagonist? Blanche triggers the action in the play , is
more complex more complete (also titles , The passion of the moth, symbol of
the soul, the spirit, she is also attracted to the light and she ends up getting
burned, The Moth, Blanches chair in the Moon, )
INFLUENCES
Southern American literature (Faulkner, Gone with the wind , archetypical story
of decline of the South ) actresses performing the role receive Oscars (Woody
Allen revision)
Carlson Mc Allen
D. H. Lawrence (The princess, short story )
European dramatists , most important Anton Chekov, The cherry orchard (1904)
REVISION OF THE PLAY
Scene 1
Main characters and main themes are introduced
(Stella, Stanley and Blanche)
Introduction of the setting multiracial cosmopolitan (black woman never has
name)
Change of Stellas lifestyle,
Way she is described moth, her innocence, like a southern belle
Blanches past dead boy
From beginning Stanley touches her weak spots

Stanley as image of Tennessee of her own father

Mitch attachment father also Williamss own characteristics
Importance of colours (ropes, one is red and other is blue) also mitch and
Stanleys colours
Stella sides with husband because she is pragmatic, she also represents
adaptation (mix btw old and new south),
Neigbours comic version of Stanley and stella
Inheritance lost plantation another theme main conflict
She is somehow superios or feels superior inmigrats like Stanley
Vitality new classes vs decline of a regime that belongs to the past
Comparaison two poker nights, stan is loosing and blanche is winning she is
very self confident and behaving like the place is hers
He ends up inside the shower to sober up
Post traumatic stress syndrome (whenever we go to traumatic experience and
we dont overcome it, Blanche is haunted by her images of her past she has
been unable include event present life, state of melancholia that leads to reenactments and haunting, the polka the Varsociana does that)
(Freuds Theory of traumawork through it(not completely healing) +
melancholia, re-enactment
covering the light, Blanche huye de ella para seconder su vejez
mitch changing behaviour