A Streetcar Named Desire

1
A Streetcar Named Desire

• By Tennessee Williams

2
Introduction of the playwright

• Born in Columbus, Miss 1911
• Relationship with his parents
• BA degree from University of Iowa in 1938

3
Major works

• The Glass Menagerie (1944) The New York Drama
  Critics Circle Award
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) Drama Critics
  Circle Award and Pulitzer Award

4
Literary Style

• Poetic realism
• Symbolism
• Stage effect sound, movement, action, lighting,
  music, etc

5
Epigraph

• And so it was I entered the broken world
• To trace the visionary company of live, its voice
• An instant in the wind (I know not whither
  hurled)
• But not for long to hold each desperate choice
• ---The Broken Tower by Hart Crane (1899-1932)

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setting

• Realism following the Depression and WWII, in
  postwar American south

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Protagonist

• Blanche Dubois a fading southern belle, fallen
  woman, social pariah with drinking problem.
  insecure, dislocated, aging southern belle with
  perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Prefers
  to live in fantasy. Pretends to be innocent,
  false propriety, depends on male sexual
  admiration for self-esteem, in the end blindly
  allows herself to be led away by a kind doctor
  triumph or defeat, total dependence on men for
  happiness. Represent the decaying aristocratic
  south

8
Antagonist

• epitome of vital force, no patience for Bs
  distortions of truth, lack ideals and
  imagination, proud family man. Represent the
  changing face of America with vitality and
  survival instincts, less refined, civilized.

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Major Themes

• Fantasy vs. reality
• Sex and death
• Dependence on men

10
Symbols and motifs

• Light
• Bathing her efforts to forget and shed her
  illicit past, to cleanse herself of her odious
  history
• Polka music connected with her past, the moment
  when she lost her innocence. She hears the music
  whenever she panics and loses her grip on reality
  
• Paper moon her fantastical understanding of
  herself with Mitch. But in reality, once Mitch
  learns the truth about her, he can no longer
  believes her tricks and lies.