Edexcel English Literature A-level

Drama: A Streetcar Named Desire

Overview

This work by PMT Education is licensed under https://bit.ly/pmt-cc

https://bit.ly/pmt-edu-cc CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
A Streetcar Named Desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams, first performed in 1947,
and set in the post-war American South. It centres around the encounter between two sisters
who have followed different paths, with schoolteacher Blanche still holding onto her
Southern Belle upbringing; and Stella having moved to New Orleans and married Stanley,
a Polish auto-parts supply man. The play explores a changing time in American society
through a family encounter within the intimate setting of Stella and Stanley’s New Orleans
apartment. It explores the roles of gender, sexuality, desire, illusion, delusion, social class
and status within this context.

Synopsis

The play begins with Blanche’s arrival in New Orleans, having ridden a streetcar to Stella’s
home. The tension between their upbringing and Stella’s current lifestyle is made explicit
from the beginning through Blanche’s critique of the place. Blanche’s discomfort in this
setting and general distress is clear as Blanche tells Stella that she has lost their old home,
Belle Reve. There’s a sense of ambiguity around what actually happened to the house,
which echoes Blanche’s wider ambiguous attitude to talking about herself and her past. She
tells Stella that she had to take a break from her teaching position due to her nerves.
Stanley’s blunt, confrontational nature is then established when he questions Blanche
about her past, leaving her visually and physically uncomfortable by forcing her to confront
memories of her dead husband.

When Stanley holds a poker night, Blanche is introduced to Mitch, one of Stanley’s friends.
Blanche sees a kindness and sensitivity in Mitch which she believes sets him apart from
the other men, and, as he expresses affection for her, he soon becomes a vessel of hope in
Blanche’s eyes. Their first conversation is interrupted by Stanley erupting into the space in a
drunken rage, which results in him physically hurting Stella. Blanche and Stella escape to
Eunice’s apartment, and Stanley eventually cries out for Stella in the street, leading to
Stella’s forgiveness of his violence. The two embrace, something which Blanche, shaken by
the encounter, cannot understand.

Over the following weeks, the tension between Blanche and Stanley, who act as
representations of opposing binary ideals, grows. Stanley increasingly tries to turn Stella
against Blanche, accusing Blanche of having a suspicious past, and suspicious intentions
with her visit. Blanche opens up to Stella about needing Mitch. Blanche and Mitch continue
to develop a relationship. They go on a date where she opens up to him about her past,
telling him that she was married to a young boy, who had a softness and sensitivity unlike
other men she knew. After discovering him having an affair with another man, the three of
them had gone to a casino together, and at the end of the night Blanche’s husband had shot
himself. Mitch supports her, telling her they need each other.

On Blanche’s birthday, Stanley is convinced he has discovered the truth about Blanche. He
tells Stella that the supply-man at the plant knows about her past in Laurel. He accuses her
of sexual promiscuity and of having had an affair with one of her students, claiming she
had moved into a hotel. Eventually she was forced to leave town due to her lifestyle.
Stanley tries to force Blanche to leave, telling Stella that he doesn’t want Mitch to be
involved with her. Stanley then tries to confront Blanche with a ticket back to Laurel, making
her physically sick. Stella’s angry, but Stanley continues to try to get close to her,

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
consistently trying to remind her of their relationship before Blanche came. Stella goes into
labour, and Stanley drives her to the hospital.

Mitch, who Blanche had been expecting earlier, arrives at the house and begins confronting
Blanche about her past. She tries to explain that after her husband’s death she pursued
intimacy with strangers in order to feel love and meaning. However, he continues to accuse
her of lying to him and tries to approach her sexually, saying he no longer wants to marry
her. She manages to get him to leave by screaming “Fire”, and goes back to drinking until
Stanley gets home later. Stella is at the hospital for the night, leaving Blanche feeling
frightened and uncomfortable to be with Stanley. He confronts her about her past,
accusing her of being a liar. The situation escalates until he rapes her.

The play ends with Blanche being taken away to a mental institution a few weeks later,
with Stella refusing to believe that Stanley raped her, being convinced it’s the help she
needs. Blanche is frightened and confused, having been expecting to be taken away by an
old boyfriend. She tries to physically fight her way out, but is eventually convinced by the
doctor’s kindness, and follows him willingly. Stella cries after Blanche, and Stanley
embraces her.

Main characters

Blanche Dubois

Stella’s older sister, a schoolteacher born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi. She clings
onto her family home and everything her upbringing stands for. Having endured emotional
trauma, Blanche’s character is marked by a sensitive personification of the idea of clinging
on to the past and living in a fantasy. She is unable to progress with the American South.
Blanche is visually associated with traditional notions of femininity and delicacy, often
dressed in white and obsessed with maintaining an illusion of ageless beauty. The
unrealistic pressures Blanche has been conditioned to put on herself are linked to her
deteriorating mental state as the play’s men continue to put conflicting expectations on her.
She is accused of being a liar due to her fantasy and illusion, but her true past and sexual
promiscuity is condemned as vulgar; the shame surrounding her sexuality perpetuates her
mental demise. Blanche’s ex husband, Allan Grey, is also worth noting as a character
representing societal taboos surrounding homosexuality. His sexuality is linked to a poetic
sensitivity similar to Blanche’s, crushed out by the world to the point of suicide.

Stella Kowalski

Blanche’s younger sister, Stella, comes from the same aristocratic Southern upbringing,
but left Mississippi at a young age and decided to embrace the changing times in New
Orleans. Stella is a mild, kind character who spends the majority of the play torn between
her love for Stanley and Blanche. Her affection for Stanley clearly stems from a deep inner
connection, and allows her to explore her own primal sexual nature within the confines of
societal expectations for women. The two make consistent references to coming from wildly
different worlds, but finding a mutual connection regardless. Her tolerance for Stanley’s
violence and eventual dismissal of Blanche’s rape story shows a similarity to Blanche’s
attitude of delusion that Stella herself may not realise.

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
Stanley Kowalski

Stanley is Stella’s husband and stands as the personification of pure force, hard work, and
blunt realism. Stanley is a working class immigrant, having just returned home from the
war, epitomising the ideal of the American Dream in the mid 20th century. He sees himself
as an equaliser, and aims to crush out Blanche’s old fashioned pretensions. However, his
individualism easily turns to brutish force and aggression as his primal, sexual love for
Stella into physical violence. Additionally, his hatred for Blanche is expressed as rape. He
is an exploration of our glorification of the American family man, portraying the seedy
underside to this form of masculine perseverance and achievement.

Harold “Mitch” Mitchell

Stanley’s friend who Blanche takes romantic interest in, Mitch is introduced as a kinder,
more sensitive version of the all-American working class man. His social status is similar
to Stanley’s, having fought in the war and returned to the workforce. His clumsy, lowly
nature contrasts heavily with Blanche’s poetic fantasy of a gentleman. However, his attitude
differs from Stanley; Blanche is initially attracted to him because she sees him as softer,
more gentlemanly than the other men. This is due to his commitment to taking care of his ill
mother, meaning that he doesn’t possess the same kind of go-getter individualism as
Stanley. Their moments of intimacy emphasise this side of Mitch. He is understanding and
patient with her. This comes to an abrupt halt when he learns of her sexual past from
Stanley, and turns against her, frightening her with sexual advances and making her feel like
he is owed something for this gentility.

Side Characters

Side characters include Eunice, an upstairs neighbour who shelters and advises Stella
when needed. There are also Stanley’s poker buddies (one of them Eunice’s husband
Steve), who function largely to create the sense of a mass of masculine energy.Lastly, there
are several unnamed passerbys including a black woman, a mexican woman, a young
collector, a nurse and a doctor.

Themes

The Tension Between Femininity and Masculinity

Femininity and masculinity are explored in visual and material terms, through a sense of
sensitivity as it clashes with blunt primalism and aggression. Blanche and Stanley
represent this binary approach to gender,

The two main characters, Stanley and Blanche, are pitted against each other in a
Darwinian struggle of the sexes throughout the play, with hegemonic masculinity
eventually crushing the feminine.

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
Social Class

The tension between the Dubois family’s aristocratic, old money status and Stanley and
Mitch’s working class backgrounds is central throughout the play. This is the root of many
of Blanche and Stanley’s conflicts. Stanley is proud of his achievement of the American
Dream and his hatred for Blanche is fuelled by the fact that she will always dismiss him, and
treat him as “common” due to her pretensions. She represents a side of society that
refuses to accept social mobility.

Sexual Desire

Sexual desire is represented most pointedly as primal, unavoidable, and somewhat dark.
There’s a fundamental inequality to the way that Williams sees desire; some are allowed it,
and some aren’t. For instance, whereas Stanley and Stella are free to explore their sexuality
as a married couple, characters like Blanche and Allan Grey face such great judgement
from society regarding their desire that it shakes them to their core, deeply impacting their
mental health. In both instances, however, desire is inherently dangerous - be it the fine
line between Stanley’s sexual desire and physical aggression or Allan’s death due to his
internalised fear of his sexuality.

Secrecy, Fantasy and Delusion

Blanche is a character who has come to cope through fantasy. By creating a sense of
magic around her, she holds onto the illusion of beauty. This is associated with her southern
belle persona, as she tries to escape from her past. The line between fantasy and delusion
is constantly being explored through her deteriorating mental state, flashbacks, and
eventual confinement to a mental institution. Stanley’s blunt, often aggressive realism is
used as a foil for this, especially through his consistent accusations towards Blanche being
a liar.

The American Dream/ Old vs New South

Blanche and Stella are the only surviving members of their family. As their family home is
lost, they represent the last traces of bourgeois old Southern ideals. Blanche’s fading
beauty echoes the fading away of the illusionary beauty of this time; the appearance of
timeless, ethereal glamour built on the backs of slaves. Williams uses her character to
come to grips with the fundamental imperfections of these ideals. He highlights the glossy
mask, the air of fantasy that was used to uphold their glorification. As time passes, and
Blanche’s upbringing slips away, these ideals are replaced by the individualistic hard
work of the American dream. Stella is able to adapt to this, while Blanche remains stuck.

Key Symbols and Motifs

Light and Shadow

Where stark light represents the revelation of truth, shadows represent Blanche’s
illusions, emphasising obscurity she surrounds herself with to cope with her fear of her

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
reality. This is probably one of the most heavily used symbols in the entire play - we
consistently see Blanche inching away from stark daylight, afraid that people will see her
true appearance. Harsh light has a blunt aggression about it that is enough to overwhelm her
sensitive mind. This also extends into the symbol of the paper lantern, which Mitch
eventually rips off of the lightbulb to reveal Blanche’s true nature.

Bathing and Cleanliness

Blanche’s obsession with bathing shows us her need to purify herself from her past, and is
another way in which she escapes from her reality. In particular, Williams depicts this
through the apartment, which she consistently refers to as overly hot and stuffy. This motif
gains significance throughout the play, as cleanliness becomes increasingly associated with
purity and virginity. This is especially apparent when Mitch finds out about Blanche’s
promiscuous past and regards her as too unclean to bring into his family home. Blanche is
constantly trying to cleanse herself of the ‘dirty’ elements of her past and become the
epitome of perfect, traditional femininity.

Alcohol

Alcohol is an important instigator of action throughout the play as it is heavily linked to both
Blanche and Stanley. For Blanche, it is mainly just another form of escape. One of the key
things to note about Blanche’s drinking is her dismissal of it, constantly trying to brush it off
and cover it up. In relation to Stanley, alcohol becomes a catalyst for his violence and
aggression.

Assessment Objectives

AO4 and AO5:

Williams’ own dad’s was a heavy alcohol drinker and Stanley is said to be based on this
“domineering” man..

The Polka

The polka was playing the night of Blanche’s husband’s suicide, which comes on every
time that Blanche is descending into a traumatic flashback. When we see Blanche
suddenly becoming aware of her true reality and her past, the polka starts playing until
something suddenly stops it, such as a gunshot, the end of the scene, or a distraction.

Assessment Objectives

AO2 and AO3:

Williams adds this motif so that the audience comes to an understanding that, when the
polka is playing, what they are seeing can no longer be trusted - they are transported into
Blanche’s head, witnessing her struggles from within.

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
White and Bright Colours

Williams is very visual with his characterisation. The association of Blanche with white,
and of Stanley with bold colours, is just a visual representation of what we know about their
characters. White associates Blanche with a very ethereal, traditional feminine beauty, and
Stanley with bold, uncompromising masculinity. However, it is also important to note that
white is the colour of virginity, cleanliness and purity. This is something Blanche aims for as
she tries to repress and cleanse herself of her promiscuous past.

Social and Political Context

The play explores a time of transition for the American South, exploring the tensions
involved in a move away from the high time of old money into modernity and diversity.
Blanche and Stella’s money would likely have been built on slavery. Blanche as a
character represents the struggle of being stuck in the past, unable to keep up with a rapidly
changing society. Her tension with Stanley is therefore often represented in these terms, with
many of the insults she hurls at him implying a sense of brutishness and vulgarity related
to his status as an immigrant of working class status.

The changing context of the South is part of a wider shift towards modernity during the
twentieth century, with slavery having been abolished in the South in 1865 as a result of the
Civil War. This led to the decline of families like the Dubois. America in the twentieth
century becomes centred around the idea of the American Dream. This involved the
welcoming of immigrants like Stanley, who feels he is intrinsically all-American. Stanley
represents this dream, as well as the go-getting thrust of immigrants and working class
people. They often felt like they could achieve what they desire through hard work,
perseverance, and individualism. This promise is fundamentally at odds with everything
that allows Blanche to live in her Southern belle fantasy.

This individualistic, all-American ideology was heavily accentuated after World War Two.
Although Williams hardly mentions the war, this period was defined by a sense of American
heroism pinned on surviving the great Depression and having defeated the Nazis. This
resulted in a national spotlight on working class men who, like Stanley, had survived the
war, returned to the workforce, and were now seen as bearers of American hard working
spirit. This also has implications for the championing of masculinity. This is because the
nation decides to embrace values centred around family and home, heroising these men
while placing women like Stella in a more domestic role alongside them. However, there’s a
strong conflict there, as the focus on traditional family values is disputed by the number of
women who had joined the workforce in the absence of men, who were now being shoved
back into a traditional role. Williams’ post-war New Orleans therefore encapsulates a
space being faced with the questioning of traditional gender roles and the collapse of
conservative Southern ideals.

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
 Assessment Objectives

AO4 and AO5:

Williams described the Mississippi he was raised in as “a dark, wide, open world- in
many ways, a world that no longer exists”- he has a strong relationship to the South and
experiences its changing nature in all its ambiguity, finding himself, in many ways, like his
characters, unable to progress, having been raised in accordance with conservative
Southern values despite always having been at odds with them.

It’s important to keep in mind the context of Williams’ own life, and where he sits in relation
to these shifts. Williams was born and raised in the South. His father was a traveling
salesman who adhered heavily to masculinist American ideals. He was also an alcoholic.
Mental illness was a predominant part of his family life, as his mother was prone to
hysterical attacks. He himself had experienced a nervous breakdown, while his sister Rose
was sent to a mental institution and lobotomised. Williams was also a practicing homosexual
at a time when it was still illegal. This was made more difficult at home, where his father
ridiculed his sensitivity and femininity his entire life. Williams therefore has a strong
relationship to the idea of softness being crushed out by masculine aggression.

Genre and Structure

Streetcar is a play, which means that the story is therefore told exclusively through dialogue
and Williams’ stage directions. These tend to be lengthy. Williams heavily uses Plastic
Theatre as a way to translate the sentiment, tone, and symbolism of the scene to the
audience. Plastic Theatre is the use of props, sound and staging to express abstract ideas. it
relies upon the visual explanation of concepts to the audience, so that, through theatrics,
Williams is able to express the straddling of the line between fantasy, delusion, and reality.
This kind of experimentation is important to Williams’ exploration of the boundary between
interiority and exteriority, as he uses it to illustrate the tensions between Blanche’s interior
mindset and exterior sense of identity. For instance, Blanche’s love of dressing up in
traditionally feminine, often white, attire illustrates the identity she clings on to, whereas
when she declines into traumatic flashbacks the use of music and confused dialogue shows
us how violently confused her mental state actually is. This leaves the audience perplexed,
because the boundaries between reality and fantasy are blurred.

Williams also draws thematic parallels with the set itself. This is evident in the way that he
visualises the boundary between the domestic space and the street. Similarly, this is
extended into the idea of privacy, and by extent secrecy, as precarious. The play is generally
said to fit into the Southern Gothic genre, which is marked by an awareness of being part of
a decaying society as expressed through supernatural, dark imagery. This fantasy element
also puts the play in the category of Magical Realism, in the ways that reality and
imagination become confused into a linear narrative. However, it’s also important to mark the
play’s association with Social Realism, due to its forthcoming exploration of themes of
class, immigration and gender.

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
The play is structurally broken up into eleven scenes, each one coming to a sort of
mini-climax, spanning about five months, with the climax of the play as a whole occurring in
scene 10, when Stanley rapes Blanche, marking the point of no return for her deteriorating
psychological state.

Glossary
● Binary opposites: The theory of Binary Oppositions is the ideology where concepts
that are strictly defined and exist as opposites to the other. Examples: Left and right
or black and white.
● Realism: Realism is defined as representation of an event, person or thing that is
accurate or close to its existence in real life.
● Social Mobility: Social Mobility is the movement of people and households up and
down the social strata or classes.
● Social Realism: Social realism is the representation of real socio-political conditions
of the working class in the arts to criticize the prevalent power structures behind the
conditions.
● Magical Realism: Magic realism is a type of device or style in fiction that depicts a
realistic view of the world but also has some magical elements, which can lead to the
blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality.
● Southern Gothic: Southern Gothic is a sub-genre of literature. It is gothic literature
that takes place in the American South and categorized inclusive of grotesque
characters, horrific deeds, desire and impulses.
● American Dream: A national ethos of the USA, the American Dream is an ideology that
propagates freedom and opportunity for prosperity and success to all.

https://bit.ly/pmt-cc
https://bit.ly/pmt-edu https://bit.ly/pmt-cc