essay for a street car named desire

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Plays — A Streetcar Named Desire

Essays on A Streetcar Named Desire

Choosing the right essay topic is crucial for your success in college. Your creativity and personal interests play a significant role in the selection process. This webpage aims to provide you with a variety of A Streetcar Named Desire essay topics to inspire your writing and help you excel in your academic pursuits.

Essay Types and Topics

Argumentative.

The role of gender in A Streetcar Named Desire
The impact of societal norms on the characters' behaviors

Paragraph Example:

In Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, the portrayal of gender dynamics is a central theme that sheds light on the power struggles and societal expectations faced by the characters. This essay aims to explore the significance of gender in the play and its influence on the characters' decisions and relationships.

Through a close examination of the gender dynamics in A Streetcar Named Desire, this essay has highlighted the complexities of societal norms and their impact on individual lives. The characters' struggles serve as a reflection of the broader societal challenges, prompting us to reconsider our perceptions of gender roles and expectations.

Compare and Contrast

The parallels between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski
The contrasting symbols of light and darkness in the play

Descriptive

The vivid imagery of New Orleans in the play
The sensory experiences portrayed in A Streetcar Named Desire
An argument for Blanche's mental state and its impact on her actions
The case for the significance of the play's setting in shaping the characters
Reimagining a key scene from a different character's perspective
A personal reflection on the themes of illusion and reality in the play

Engagement and Creativity

As you explore these essay topics, remember to engage your critical thinking skills and bring your unique perspective to your writing. A Streetcar Named Desire offers a rich tapestry of themes and characters, providing ample opportunities for creative exploration in your essays.

Educational Value

Each essay type presents a valuable opportunity for you to develop different skills. Argumentative essays can refine your analytical thinking, while descriptive essays can enhance your ability to paint vivid pictures with words. Persuasive essays help you hone your persuasive writing skills, and narrative essays allow you to practice storytelling and narrative techniques.

Reality Versus Illusion in The Streetcar Named Desire

The theme of abandonment and brutality in a streetcar named desire, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

How Blanche and Stella Rely on Self-delusion in a Streetcar Named Desire

The character of blanche in the play a streetcar named desire, the truth of blanche in a streetcar named desire, a marxist criticism of a streetcar named desire, let us write you an essay from scratch.

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

An Examination of The Character of Blanche in a Streetcar Named Desire

The flaws of blanche and why she ultimately failed, analysis of stanley kowalski’s role in tennessee williams’ book, a streetcar named desire, analysis of blanche and stella relationship in a streetcar named desire, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

The Concealed Homosexuality in a Streetcar Named Desire

Oppression, its brutality and its inescapability, is a dominant theme in literature, similar themes in a streetcar named desire by tennessee williams and water by robery lowell, first impression lies: the power and masculinity exuded by stanley kolawski, determining the tragedy potential in a streetcar named desire, how tennessee williams is influenced by the work of chekhov, the use of suspense in a streetcar named desire, a streetcar named desire by tennessee williams: personal identity of blanche, the portrayals of sexuality in cat on a hot tin roof and a streetcar named desire, evaluation of the social class ranking as illustrated in the book, a streetcar named desire, blanche and mitch relationship in a streetcar named desire, female powerlessness in the duchess of malfi and a streetcar named desire, a comparison between the plastic theatre and expressionism in a streetcar named desire, morality and immorality in a streetcar named desire and the picture of dorian gray, oppositions and their purpose in "a streetcar named desire" and "the birthday party", how femininity and masculinity are presented in ariel and a streetcar named desire, tennessee williams’ depiction of blanche as a casualty as illustrated in his play, a streetcar named desire, history defined the themes of a streetcar named desire, comparing social and ethnic tensions in a streetcar named desire and blues for mister charlie, the use of contrast as a literary device at the beginning of a streetcar named desire.

December 3, 1947, Tennessee Williams

Play; Southern Gothic

The French Quarter and Downtown New Orleans

Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, Stanley Kowalski, Harold "Mitch" Mitchell

1. Vlasopolos, A. (1986). Authorizing History: Victimization in" A Streetcar Named Desire". Theatre Journal, 38(3), 322-338. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3208047) 2. Corrigan, M. A. (1976). Realism and Theatricalism in A Streetcar Named Desire. Modern Drama, 19(4), 385-396. (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/50/article/497088/summary) 3. Quirino, L. (1983). The Cards Indicate a Voyage on'A Streetcar Named Desire'. Contemporary Literary Criticism, 30. (https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1100001571&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00913421&p=LitRC&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E8abc495e) 4. Corrigan, M. A. (2019). Realism and Theatricalism in A Streetcar Named Desire. In Essays on Modern American Drama (pp. 27-38). University of Toronto Press. (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781487577803-004/html?lang=de) 5. Van Duyvenbode, R. (2001). Darkness Made Visible: Miscegenation, Masquerade and the Signified Racial Other in Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll and A Streetcar Named Desire. Journal of American Studies, 35(2), 203-215. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/abs/darkness-made-visible-miscegenation-masquerade-and-the-signified-racial-other-in-tennessee-williams-baby-doll-and-a-streetcar-named-desire/B73C386D2422793FB8DC00E0B79B7331) 6. Cahir, L. C. (1994). The Artful Rerouting of A Streetcar Named Desire. Literature/Film Quarterly, 22(2), 72. (https://www.proquest.com/openview/7040761d75f7fd8f9bf37a2f719a28a4/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=5938) 7. Silvio, J. R. (2002). A Streetcar Named Desire—Psychoanalytic Perspectives. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 30(1), 135-144. (https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jaap.30.1.135.21985) 8. Griffies, W. S. (2007). A streetcar named desire and tennessee Williams' object‐relational conflicts. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 4(2), 110-127. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aps.127) 9. Shackelford, D. (2000). Is There a Gay Man in This Text?: Subverting the Closet in A Streetcar Named Desire. In Literature and Homosexuality (pp. 135-159). Brill. (https://brill.com/display/book/9789004483460/B9789004483460_s010.xml)

Relevant topics

Macbeth Ambition
Romeo and Juliet
Antigone Tragic Hero
Death of a Salesman
The Importance of Being Earnest
Merchant of Venice
Hamlet Theme

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Bibliography

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee williams, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

A Streetcar Named Desire: Introduction

A streetcar named desire: plot summary, a streetcar named desire: detailed summary & analysis, a streetcar named desire: themes, a streetcar named desire: quotes, a streetcar named desire: characters, a streetcar named desire: symbols, a streetcar named desire: theme wheel, brief biography of tennessee williams.

Historical Context of A Streetcar Named Desire

Other books related to a streetcar named desire.

Full Title: A Streetcar Named Desire
When Written: 1946-7
Where Written: New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans
When Published: Broadway premiere December 3, 1947
Literary Period: Dramatic naturalism
Genre: Psychological drama
Setting: New Orleans, LA
Climax: Stanley’s rape of Blanche at the end of Scene Ten
Antagonist: Stanley Kowalski

Extra Credit for A Streetcar Named Desire

That Rattle-trap Streetcar Named Desire. The Desire streetcar line operated in New Orleans from 1920 to 1948, going through the French Quarter to its final stop on Desire Street.

Streetcar on the silver screen. The original 1947 Broadway production of Streetcar shot Marlon Brando, who played Stanley Kowalski, to stardom. Brando’s legendary performance cemented the actor’s status as a sex symbol of the stage and screen. Elia Kazan, who directed both the original Broadway production and the 1951 film adaptation, used the Stanislavski method-acting system, which focuses on realism and natural characters instead of melodrama. The Stanislavski system asks actors to use their memories to help give the characters real emotions. Brando based his depiction of Stanley on the boxer Rocky Graziano, going to his gym to study his movements and mannerisms. Largely due to Brando’s Stanley and Vivian Leigh’s iconic Blanche, Kazan’s film has become a cultural touchstone, particularly Brando’s famous bellowing of “STELL-LAHHHHH!”

Oh, Streetcar! In an episode of The Simpsons , the characters stage a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire called Oh, Streetcar! Mild-mannered Ned Flanders as Stanley gives the famous “STELLA” yell, singing, “Can’t you hear me yell-a? You’re putting me through hell-a!”

A Streetcar Named Desire

Introduction to a streetcar named desire.

A Streetcar Named Desire was written by the great American playwright, Tennessee Williams . It was first played on the stage on Broadway in 1947 after which it became Williams’s representative play . It is also considered one of the best plays of the last century and was performed and adapted into several other plays across the globe. The play presents the story of Blanche DuBois, a beauty from the South, who goes through tough times in her life after she sells her mansion and goes to live in a tiny apartment in New Orleans with her sister.

Summary of A Streetcar Named Desire

The play presents the story of two sisters; one is a teacher living in the town of Laurel in Mississippi, while Stella Kowalski, her elder sister is living in a rented yet shabby apartment in New Orleans. Blanche DuBois who is a teacher comes to New Orleans to live with her sister after she loses her inherited property. She rather expresses shock at the neglected condition of the apartment, which is nothing compared to their ancestral mansion, Belle Reve. Following that she also mentions her long teaching leave due to a nervous breakdown. Despite expressing outrage at the apartment’s condition, Blanche knows that she must adjust as she can’t afford to stay in a hotel, causing resentment and quarrel in the apartment. Stanley Kowalski rather dislikes her for her fake snobbery, making Stella pleased but simultaneously harboring ill will against Blanche, suspecting her of ditching them from the family legacy. To clarify her position, she tells that she has lost the property due to her financial debauchery and alcoholism.

On the other hand, Stella is seen as a victim of sexual desire by Stanley, her husband. He also hosts parties at home where his friend, Mitch falls for Blanche. When Stanley sees this, he storms into the bedroom to discourage their meeting. Stanley also finds a reason to physically abuse Stella. The game comes to an end after both sisters go to Eunice’s, the neighboring apartment. However, when Stanley cries for Stella, she instantly forgives and returns, embracing him passionately. Brooding over this matching mismatch, Blanche asks her sister to leave her husband, and meet Shep Huntleigh, a millionaire, inviting laughter from Stella. However, when they are engaged in feminine conversation, Stanley eavesdrops, causing alarm in Stanley’s mind on knowing about her past.

Meanwhile, Blanche even flirts with the newspaper boy once as she can’t afford to pay for it. On the same day, she goes with Mitch on a date. Both of them tell each other their sides of the story and commit to loving each other despite past issues. Around after a month, Stella is going to celebrate Blanche’s birthday, inviting Mitch as well. In bitterness, Stanley tells about Blanche’s past troubles as well as the reason for her job loss. Mitch deliberately misses her birthday, after knowing about her affairs. And Stanley brings a one-way back ticket, asking her to leave yet Stella’s imminent delivery of the baby prevents the issue temporarily. After a while, when Stella and Stanley leave, Mitch arrives and after both of them have discussed their issue, Mitch finally decides not to marry her due to her promiscuity. Yet he tries to make love to her. Blanche who felt betrayed raises an alarm and makes Mitch leave. Meanwhile, Stanley also arrives, finding Blanche alone and drunk. He insults her, teases her about the imaginary millionaire, Shep Huntleigh, and ravishes her.

That incident makes Blanche lose her sense of reality. Stella refuses to believe her claim that Stanley had abused her. Thus, she suffers from hysteria after which a doctor arrives to take her to the asylum, leaving Stella mourning for her sister’s insanity and Stanley comforting. Mitch to feels sorry and helpless.

Major Themes in A Streetcar Named Desire

Fantasy : The play shows the theme of fantasy as Blanche DuBois lives in the world of fantasy. She thinks that she belongs to an elite class having a great mansion once in the recent past. She does not want to face the reality of losing her mansion and that the world does not accept a carefree and pretentious woman, even if she is not unkind toward anyone. Her illusion further gets complicated when she is dating Mitch but is ravished by Stanley, her brother-in-law. Stella, her sister, is a realist but still lives in her fantasy while ignoring the domestic and sexual abuse by her husband Stanely. However, contrary to both the sisters, Stanley is a realist who manipulates circumstances as well as people for his own interests.
Dependence: The play demonstrates the theme of dependence and independence through Blanche DuBois and Stella Stanley, her sister with whom she comes to live in the messy apartment. Although Stella also suffers due to her husband’s unruly and untrustworthy behavior, she depends on him, a man, who is supposed to provide her home and comfort. On the other hand, Blanche has lost her home and her independence after losing her job due to her promiscuous behavior and nervous breakdown. Therefore, her dependence on Stella and Stanley leads to her lunacy and ultimately to the lunatic asylum.
Gender Conflict : The play shows the theme of gender conflict through Stanley and Blanche. When Blanche visits her sister’s apartment, she comes to blows with her brother-in-law, deriding their poverty and criticizing their poor lifestyle. He doesn’t like Blanche’s sudden personal attack and retaliates crudely to her verbal attacks and even resorts to ravishing her. He even goes as far as to provoke Mitch into leaving her. This gender conflict ensues as suddenly and fiercely as it has ended with Blanche being taken away to a lunatic asylum and Stella standing firm with her husband and her child.
Conflict of Old and Modern South: The play puts the old world of the South having Belle Reve in conflict with the new world of reality where Stella is living with her husband Stanley in a small apartment. Blanche sees this world as compared to her mansion, Belle Reve where the family has passed the prime time. The fading civilization of the old South has taken away its interdependence, leaving Blanche free to do and face the consequences and then leave for the new world where even a brother-in-law is revengeful and retaliatory. Thus, she finds herself in a lunatic asylum instead of living with her sister.
Desire: The play shows the theme of physical as well as the mental desire of the main character Blanche Dubois. In fact, the carnal desires become the motivation for her social mobility literally and symbolically. When she reaches her sister, her behavior toward her sister and her household is noticed by Stanley, her brother-in-law. He doesn’t like what he hears launches retaliatory accusations and even ravishes her to satisfy her promiscuous desire. In fact, her eviction from Belle Reve and school points to her unhealthy lifestyle of satisfying her carnal desires, leaving aside her mental and spiritual desires.
Class Differences: The play shows the theme of class difference through the identity that each character is having. Blanche shows her identity as the southern beauty engaged in the aesthetic pleasures of having a sense of evaluating art and poetic writings. However, her class consciousness faces a huge shock at the Kowalskis’ when she visits them. She comes to know that Stella has started abandoning her claim to this lifestyle after sensing the reality. Then when she faces the reality after some time and the pragmatism of the people around her, including her sister, she comes to her senses but it is too late.
Loneliness: The theme of isolation and loneliness can be seen mostly through Blanche’s life. She has lost her house, Belle Reve. She arrives in New Orleans to live with her sister after being abandoned by her relatives and her first husband’s death. This loneliness forces her to make bad choices . Her behavior does not match the time in which she is living. She is sent to the asylum for having mental issues after her abuse and failed relationships.

Major Characters A Streetcar Named Desire

Blanche Dubois: Blanche Dubois is the main character. She is a very complicated central figure of the play who is haughty outwardly but highly vulnerable on the inside. A symbol of a decayed southern belle tradition, she has lost her Belle Reve, ancestral mansion, and her job. After moving to her sister’s place, she berates the conditions of her apartment as well as her lowly husband. She starts dating her husband’s friend, Mitch, who is also from a simple background. Blanche has already lost one husband to suicide. She tries hard to escape realities by living in illusions. Her brother-in-law tries to send her away and even abuses her. She is finally sent to a lunatic asylum after Stanley, her brother-in-law calls a doctor and a nurse.
Stella Kowalski: Stella is young and pregnant by Stanley Kowalski at the start of the play. She’s also a realist who fears her life will be ruined in case she leaves her husband. Impulsive in nature, she fights with her sister but compromises with her husband after the abuse immediately. In fact, their husband-wife relationship is based on physical passions instead of an idealistic outlook, unlike her sister. Although her love for her sister stays, she does not accept her mentally poor state to continue and lets the doctor take her to asylum.
Stanley Kowalski: Stanley is the antagonist and physically sturdy. He is not only passionate but also aggressive and cunning. He doesn’t want Blanche at his home. He attacks her physically and sexually and breaks her relationship with Mitch in revenge. Despite his controlling and dominant nature, he wastes most of his time playing with his friends and proves very calculated. He calls for the doctor to take his sister-in-law to an asylum on account of her mental illness while hiding his crime.
Harold Mitchell : In the story, he is known as Mitch. Harold Mitchell appears tough but he is sympathetic. He feels the heavy impact of the death of his mother. Initially, Blanche succeeds in attracting him but later when he comes to know her past and refuses to marry her.
Eunice Hubbell: Eunice is a very social person who intervenes in every fight when it seems easy to resolve. She helps Blanche and Stella when Stanley becomes uncontrolled. She encourages Stella to stay calm and cool to make her married life work. Her advice works, and Stella stays with her husband despite the domestic violence.
Steve Hubbell: Steve is significant in the course of the novel as the owner of the building and Stanley’s friend. He takes part in his games of poker. The cool manner in which he continues playing when Blanche leaves for asylum exposes his real personality.
Pablo Gonzales: Pablo seems significant as another player with Steve, Mitch, and Stanley and often cuts them short with his Spanish utterances.
The Doctor: The doctor comes to take away Blanche who was abused and lost her sense of reality. After the initial method fails, he calms her down and takes her with him with the help of a nurse.
The Nurse: The nurse is seen as an impassionate person as she pins down Blanche and wrestles with her to control her.
A Mexican Lady: She comes to sell flowers and appears in the play when Blanche recounts her stories of how she has been expelled from the school and lost her home.

Writing Style of A Streetcar Named Desire

The writing style of Tennessee Williams in the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, is direct but poetic. The dialogs expose the real nature of the character such as Blanche DuBois shows through her sarcastic character that she is a hollow lady and that she is hiding something. Similarly, some of the lines are very heavy in terms of meaning, showing the excessive stress Williams on the artificiality and impulsiveness of the female characters such as Blanche and Stella. However, in terms of sentence structure and phrases , Williams stays simple and to the point, yet becomes cumbersome when it comes to using figurative language where he uses the extended metaphors of the South with similes, irony , and sarcasm .

Analysis of the Literary Devices in A Streetcar Named Desire

Action: The main action of the play comprises the arrival of Blanche DuBois to her sister’s apartment, her chagrin at their poverty, her ravishment by her brother-in-law, and the final arrival of the doctor to take her to asylum. The falling action occurs when Blanche faces expulsion after her sister plans to send her to the asylum after the violent attack. The rising action occurs when Stanley suspects her of expelling her sister from her inheritance.
Anaphora : The play shows examples of anaphora such as, Now , then, let me look at you. But don’t you look at me, Stella, no, no, no, not till later, not till I’ve bathed and rested! And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare! (Scene-One) ii. No, now seriously, putting joking aside. Why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you write me, honey, why didn’t you let me know? (Scene-One) These examples show the repetitious use of “look at” and “why didn’t tell.”
Allusion : The play shows good use of different allusions such as, i. You came to New Orleans and looked out for yourself! I stayed at Belle Reve and tried to hold it together! I’m not meaning this in any reproachful way, but all the burden descended on my shoulders. (Scene-One) ii. No, I have the misfortune of being an English instructor. I attempt to instill a bunch of bobby-soxers and drug-store Romeos with reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe! (Scene-Two) iii. I shall but love thee better—after—death!” Why, that’s from my favorite sonnet by Mrs. Browning! (Scene-Two) The first example shows the reference to a city, the second shows references to different authors, and the last one to a famous author, Mrs. Browning.
Antagonist : It seems that as he is a violent person and also rapes a mentally destroyed sister-in-law, he is the real antagonist of the play.
Conflict : The play shows the external conflict that is going on between Blanche and her sister on the one hand, and Blanche and her brother-in-law on the other hand.
Characters: The play, A Streetcar Named Desire, shows both static as well as dynamic characters . The young girl, Stella, and her husband, Stanley, are dynamic characters as they show a considerable transformation in their behavior and conduct by the end of the play. However, all other characters are static as they do not show or witness any transformation such as Blanche, Mitch, the neighboring woman, or even Steve.
Climax : The climax in the play occurs when Stanley rapes Blanche, taking advantage of her physical vulnerability and psychological weakness.
Epigraph : The play shows the use of epigraphs in its initial pages such as i. And so it was I entered the broken world To trace the visionary company of hue, its voice An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled) But not for long to hold each desperate choice. (From “The Broken Tower” by Hart Crane)
Hyperbole : The play shows the examples of hyperboles such as, But what I am is a one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polack. (Scene-Seven) ii. I was common as dirt. (Scene-Seven) Both of these examples show exaggeration of being an American person and common as dirt, which is not possible.
Imagery : A Streetcar Named Desire shows the use of imagery such as, But when the rooster catches sight of the farmer th’owing the corn he puts on the brakes and lets the hen get away and starts pecking corn. And the old farmer says, “Lord God, I hopes I never gits that hongry!” (Scene-One) ii. I simply couldn’t rise to the occasion. That was all. I don’t think I’ve ever tried so hard to be gay and made such a dismal mess of it. I get ten points for trying! —I did try. (Scene-Six) These two examples show images of feeling, sight, and movement.
Metaphor : A Streetcar Named Desire shows good use of various metaphors such as, Why no. You are as fresh as a daisy. (Scene-Two) ii. Their literary heritage is not what most of them treasure above all else! But they’re sweet things! (Scene-Three) iii. He didn’t know what he was doing. . . . He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself. (Scene-Four) These examples show that several things have been compared directly in the play such as the first one shows the lady compared to a flower, the second shows literature compared to sweet things, and the third shows the person compared to a lamb.
Mood : The play, A Streetcar Named Desire, shows various moods; it starts with a carefree and jolly mood when Blanche arrives at her sister’s apartment and starts becoming tense, worrisome, and finally tragic when she goes to the asylum.
Motif : Most important motifs of the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, are light, bathing and drunkenness.
Personification : The play shows examples of personifications such as, Faded white stairs ascend to the entrances of both. (Scene-One) ii. You can almost feel the warm breath of the brown river beyond the river warehouses with their faint redolences of bananas and coffee. (Scene-One) iii. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees , strong, knotty , and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion’s designation. (Chapter-XII) These examples show that the watches and the trees have feelings and lives of their own.
Protagonist : Blanche DuBois is the protagonist of the play despite her being not able to stand up to the stature of a good person in most situations.
Setting : The setting of the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, is in the Downtown of New Orleans city in the French Quarter area.
Simile : The play shows good use of various similes such as, And when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby. (Scene-One) ii. It’s a French name. It means woods and Blanche means white, so the two together mean white woods. Like an orchard in spring ! You can remember it by that. (Scene-Two) iii. Mitch is delighted and moves in awkward imitation like a dancing bear. (Scene-Four) These are similes as the use of the word “like” shows the comparison between different things.

Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire

Analysis of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on October 13, 2020 • ( 0 )

Tennessee Williams ‘s (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), is generally regarded as his best. Initial reaction was mixed, but there would be little argument now that it is one of the most powerful plays in the modern theater. Like The Glass Menagerie , it concerns, primarily, a man and two women and a “gentleman caller.” As in The Glass Menagerie , one of the women is very much aware of the contrast between the present and her southern-aristocratic past; one woman (Stella) is practical if not always adequately aware, while the other (Blanche) lives partly in a dream world and teeters on the brink of psychosis; the gentleman caller could perhaps save the latter were circumstances somewhat different; and the play’s single set is a slum apartment. It is located in Elysian Fields, a section of the French Quarter of New Orleans. The action takes place in the downstairs two-room apartment rented by the Kowalskis.

Marlon Brando and Kim Hunter in the 1951 adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire

Stella Kowalski relaxes in a shabby armchair in the bedroom of the small apartment. She eats chocolates and reads a movie magazine. Stella’s husband, Stanley Kowalski, enters, carrying a package of meat dripping with blood and yelling for his wife. Stanley tosses the meat to Stella, who catches it in a surprised reaction. Stanley leaves to go bowling with his friends, and Stella decides to tag along. She hurriedly primps in the living room mirror, quickly closes the apartment door behind her, and says hello to Eunice Hubbell and a Negro Woman who are sitting on the landing. As she exits, the two women laugh about Stanley’s lack of manners.

Blanche DuBois enters. She is carrying a small suitcase and a piece of paper. She is a fading Southern belle, whose appearance suggests she is going to a garden party, but her search for her sister, Stella, has landed her in the slums of the French Quarter. Eunice notices the confused Blanche, and she asks whether she is lost. Blanche explains that she was instructed to take a streetcar named Desire to Elysian Fields via a streetcar called Cemetery. Eunice informs her that she is indeed in the right place. Eunice lets her into the Kowalskis’ apartment to wait for Stella while the Negro Woman fetches Stella from the bowling alley. Blanche has arrived unannounced, and she is shocked to discover Stella living in such a dismal place.

Blanche searches for a drink, and Stella enters. The two sisters are ecstatic to be reunited. Blanche speaks excitedly, overwhelming Stella with criticism of the apartment. Stella is speechless and hurt by these remarks, and she notices that Blanche is shaking and anxious. Stella is concerned by her sister’s behavior, and she attempts to calm her nerves by offering her a drink. Blanche urges Stella to explain why she is living in such depressing conditions. Blanche says she has taken a leave of absence from her high school teaching job. She says that she is having a difficult time and needed a break. Blanche mentions the weight Stella has gained, and she compliments her on her appearance; however, Stella knows that her sister is being critical. Blanche demands that Stella stand so she can fully analyze the size of her hips, her less than perfect haircut. She asks Stella about having a maid, but the Kowalskis’ apartment only consists of two rooms. Blanche is horrified by this news. She pours another drink to curb her intolerance of the place. Blanche has been lonely; she feels her sister abandoned her when she left Mississippi and their father died. Blanche admits that she is not well. Stella insists that her sister stay at the apartment, and she directs her to a folding bed. She insists that Stanley will not mind the lack of privacy, as he is Polish. Stella advises her sister that Stanley is unlike the Southern gentlemen they knew back in Laurel, Mississippi. She confesses he is ill mannered, but she is madly in love with him.

Blanche confesses that she has lost Belle Reve, the family plantation. Blanche expresses her resentment of her sister because she was “in bed with [her] Polack” while Blanche scraped and clawed to hold on to Belle Reve. Stella is very upset to know that they have lost their homestead. Blanche bitterly blames the foreclosure on the many deaths in the family. Blanche is plagued with guilt, as well as being hopelessly adrift, and she projects her feelings of loss onto Stella, who runs into the bathroom to escape her sister’s wrath.

Stanley returns home. He shouts to his friends, Steve Hubbell and Mitch (Harold Mitchell), from the stairwell. Blanche speaks to him before he notices her presence. Stanley is cordial to her and asks for Stella, who has locked herself away in the bathroom. He offers Blanche another shot of whiskey, noticing that the bottle has already been sampled. Blanche declines the offer, stating that she rarely drinks. Her obvious dishonesty spurs Stanley to ask some very personal questions regarding her past, namely, about her husband. He sheds his sweaty shirt to find relief in the summer heat and welcomes her to stay with them. Upset by his meddlesome inquiries, Blanche replies that her young husband is dead. She grows nauseous discussing this subject and has to sit down to regain her composure.

Around six o’clock the following evening, Blanche and Stella plan to have dinner out and see a movie while Stanley and his friends have a poker night in the apartment. While Blanche readies herself in the bathroom, Stella tells Stanley that Belle Reve has been lost. She also warns him not to mention that she is pregnant because Blanche is already so unstable. Stanley is most concerned with the loss of the estate. He suspects Blanche sold the plantation and kept all of the profits for herself. Referring to the Napoleonic Code, Stanley wants to know whether he has been swindled. To find proof of the foreclosure he rummages through Blanche’s trunk. Appraising the furs and jewelry she has, he urges Stella to acknowledge that Blanche has deceived her. Stella fears the looming confrontation, so she escapes to the porch.

When Blanche emerges from her hot bath and realizes that Stella is not around, she flirts with Stanley as a means of winning him over; however, he is interested only in the profits from Belle Reve. When Stanley accuses Blanche of selling the plantation and keeping all of the money, she insists that she has never cheated anyone in her life. She says, “I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion, but when a thing is important, I tell the truth.” Stanley rifles through the trunk again, searching for documents that will prove Blanche is lying. Stanley discovers yellowing letters held together by aging ribbons, and he withholds these visibly precious items until she pulls two manila envelopes from her belongings. Blanche says that his touch has contaminated her cherished love letters. She tells Stanley that this paperwork is all that is left of the plantation, and he continues berating her by demanding to know how she could allow the foreclosure to happen. Blanche recoils with anger and retorts that the plantation has been lost by generations of negligent men who “exchanged the land for their epic fornications.” Stanley intends to have the documents read by a lawyer friend, and Blanche invites him to do so. Now that Stanley has been proved wrong, he justifies his concern with the fact that Stella is pregnant. This is a happy digression for Blanche, who is genuinely excited by this information. When Stella returns, Blanche expresses her joy about the baby. She brags that she handled Stanley and even flirted with him. The two sisters leave as Stanley’s friends arrive for their poker night.

Later that night in the Kowalski apartment, Stanley and his friends are still drinking and playing cards. Stella and Blanche return at 2:30 A.M., and Stanley asks them to visit Eunice until the game is over. When Stella does not comply, Stanley slaps her backside as a means of countering her disobedience in front of his friends. Blanche is intrigued by Mitch, who is uninterested in the poker game because he is worried about his ailing mother. Blanche is immediately attracted to his sensitivity. The two introduce themselves. Mitch offers her a cigarette, showing her the inscription on his cigarette case. She immediately recognizes it as the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Mitch explains the case is from a former girlfriend who died. Mitch’s story of his former lover resonates with Blanche’s own sense of loss of her young husband, Allan Grey. She tells Mitch, “Sorrow makes for sincerity,” and continues, “Show me a person that hasn’t known sorrow and I’ll show you a superficial person.” She asks Mitch to cover the naked lightbulb with a Chinese lantern she recently purchased.

Stanley grows more inebriated and increasingly irritated by the music Blanche is playing. He crosses the room, rips the radio from the wall, and throws it out of the window. He hits Stella when she tries to stop him. Humiliated and stunned, Stella runs into the kitchen area and orders Stanley’s friends to leave. Stanley chases and attacks Stella. Blanche begs Mitch to stop him, and the men restrain Stanley on the sofa. Blanche whisks Stella to Eunice’s apartment upstairs while the men attempt to sober Stanley. After a cold shower, he stumbles out of the bathroom, goes out onto the porch, and yells up to Stella. He continues to shout for Stella, who descends the stairs and returns to him. Stanley falls to his knees, pressing his head against her legs. Kissing passionately, the couple retreat to their bedroom. Blanche runs down after Stella. When she discovers them making love, she is angered by her sister’s weakness. Mitch calls out to Blanche. They share another cigarette. Blanche is thankful for Mitch’s kindness.

Early the next morning, Blanche returns to the Kowalski apartment after spending the night at Eunice and Steve’s apartment. When she realizes Stella is alone, she hugs her with nervous concern. Stella, on the other hand, is cheerful and content. Stella blames liquor and poker for Stanley’s behavior. She explains to her sister that she gets a thrill from her husband’s extreme actions. Blanche is infuriated. She says Stella has married a “madman.” While Blanche devises an escape plan for them, Stella tidies the apartment. Stella says she is happy with Stanley. Blanche is still bewildered by Stella’s cool resignation.

Blanche remembers an old beau, Shep Huntleigh, whom she plans to call on for their escape, but Stella does not want to be rescued. Blanche compares Stanley to an ape. During this conversation, Stanley has returned unnoticed. He has heard everything that has been said. All of Blanche’s persuading has been in vain: When Stella sees Stanley, she runs over and jumps into his arms.

Blanche has been living at the Kowalskis’ apartment for three months. While she finishes writing a letter to Shep about imaginary cocktail parties she has been attending, Stanley enters. He slams drawers and creates noise to express his irritation by Blanche’s presence. To provoke Stanley, she asks him his astrological sign. He remarks that he is a Capricorn (the goat) and Blanche replies she is Virgo, the sign of the virgin. Stanley laughs and asks her about a man by the last name of Shaw who claims to have spent an evening with Blanche at the Flamingo Hotel. Blanche adamantly denies this accusation, but her face registers panic and alarm. Stanley is victorious and exits to go bowling.

Analysis of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie

Blanche becomes hysterical. She asks Stella whether she has heard rumors about her, but Stella gracefully denounces gossip. Blanche confesses that she did not maintain a good reputation when she was losing Belle Reve. She admits her fears of being a “soft” person, of needing people too much, and of her fading beauty. Blanche fears she will not be able to “turn the trick” much longer because she is visibly aging. She also confesses that she lied about her age to Mitch because she wants him to fall in love with her. Blanche has presented an illusion of herself as a prim and proper woman to Mitch. Stella is accustomed to Blanche’s nervous tirades, and she pays little attention to what her sister is actually saying. Stella comforts her by pouring her a drink. A young boy stops by the apartment selling newspapers. On his way out, Blanche calls him back inside and kisses him. Blanche chastises herself for putting “her hands” on the boy. He leaves and Mitch arrives with a bouquet of roses for her.

Later that night, Blanche and Mitch return from a disappointing date. Blanche blames herself for the dull evening. Mitch asks whether he may kiss her good night, and she consents but says their actions can go no further because she is a single woman. Stanley and Stella are not home, so Blanche invites Mitch in for a nightcap. Blanche plays the coquette while Mitch perspires with desire for her. While she searches for a bottle of whiskey, Blanche asks Mitch in French whether he would like to sleep with her. She comments that it is a good thing Mitch does not understand French. She encourages him to take off his coat, but he is embarrassed by his sweatiness. Blanche asserts that he is just a healthy man.

When Mitch suggests that the four of them go out together sometime, Blanche makes it clear that Stanley hates her. She asks whether Stanley has said anything derogatory about her. Mitch replies that he does not understand how Stanley could behave so rudely to her. Blanche says she plans to leave as soon as Stella has the baby.

Mitch asks Blanche her age, and Blanche refuses to answer. He explains that he asks because he has been with his mother talking about her. Blanche presumes Mitch will be very lonely when his mother dies. She explains that she knows this sort of loneliness firsthand because her one true love has passed away. She tells Mitch about Allan’s tenderness and sensitivity and says that she never understood him until she discovered he was having an affair with an older man. Blanche explains that Allan needed her to help him, but she could not see what was happening until it was too late. She confronted him while they were drunk at a dance at Moon Lake Casino. Her words provoked him to run to the edge of the lake and commit suicide. She can still hear the polka music that was playing during the time. Blanche cannot forgive herself for condemning Allan’s desires and pushing him to such drastic measures. She compares her love for Allan to a“blinding light.” Mitch answers that they are both lonely, and they both need someone. The polka tune that continually plays in Blanche’s mind ceases. Mitch and Blanche embrace with thoughts of marriage.

Several weeks later, Stanley arrives home after a day of work to find the apartment decorated for Blanche’s birthday party. He is disgruntled to know that Blanche is taking a hot bath, making the apartment even hotter and increasingly unbearable. Stanley proudly announces to Stella that he has found out the real story behind her sister’s extended visit. She was fired from her teaching job because she had an indecent relationship with a 17-year-old boy and set up residency at the Flamingo Hotel, which she was then forced to leave because of her sexual excesses. She has become the laughingstock of Laurel, Mississippi. Stella is profoundly stunned by this information, and she tries to defend Blanche by explaining the tragic situation with Allan. Stanley informs Stella that he felt it was his duty to warn his friend about Blanche. Blanche calls for a towel and notices a strained expression on Stella’s face, but Stella assures her nothing is wrong. Stella is fraught with worry about what will happen to Blanche now that Mitch is likely to abandon her. Stanley implies that Mitch may not be through with Blanche, but he certainly will not marry her. He remarks that he bought Blanche a bus ticket back to Laurel. Stanley yells for Blanche to get out of the bathroom so that he can use it. Sensing something is wrong, Blanche cautiously enters the room.

Nearly one hour passes. Stella, Stanley, and Blanche are eating dinner. Blanche is trying to ignore the empty chair where Mitch would be sitting. Blanche tries to lighten the mood of the party by telling a joke, but no one finds it funny. Stella says Stanley is “too busy making a pig of himself.” She instructs him to wash up and help her clean the table. Stanley flies into a rage, sweeping the table’s contents to the floor, and declares that he is the king in his home. When Stanley leaves the table and goes out onto the porch, Blanche begs Stella to tell her what is going on. Blanche calls Mitch’s home while Stella chastises her husband for passing rumors to Mitch. Stanley presents the bus ticket to Blanche. She runs into the bedroom crying. Stella yells at Stanley for being so terrible to Blanche. Stanley reminds his wife that she loves his commonness, especially at night in their bedroom. As he shouts for Blanche, Stella doubles over with pain. She is rushed to the hospital.

Later that evening, Blanche sits alone in the darkness of the apartment drinking liquor. Mitch enters wearing his work uniform. Although he is dirty and unshaven, she admits that she is happy to see him, as his presence stops the polka music that otherwise persistently plays in her mind. She searches for more liquor to serve him, but he declines drinking Stanley’s liquor. Mitch inquires why Blanche keeps the apartment so dark and insists on seeing him only at night. He wants to turn on the light, but Blanche begs him to allow the magic (illusions) to continue. When he wrenches the lantern off the lightbulb, Blanche’s aged face is revealed. He proceeds to tell her what he has heard about her promiscuous life in Laurel. Blanche immediately pleads that after Allan and the loss of Belle Reve, she could only find relief from the pain in the arms of strangers. A vendor is heard outside selling flowers for the dead. This sparks Blanche to talk about all of the deaths in her life. She says she was “played out” when she finally landed in New Orleans. She found solace and love with Mitch, believing that she could possibly find happiness and rest. Mitch embraces her, and she pleads for marriage. Mitch says she is unsuitable. He pulls her hair and demands the physical intimacy she has denied him all summer. Blanche orders him to leave, and when he does not, she runs to the window and shouts, “Fire!” This action prompts Mitch to leave.

A few hours later, Blanche is still alone and drinking heavily. She is wearing an old gown and a rhinestone tiara. Stanley enters carrying liquor. He informs Blanche that Stella will not have the baby before the morning, so he has come home. Blanche is nervous about being in the apartment alone with Stanley all night. Stanley laughs at her and questions her attire. Blanche announces that she has received a telegram from Shep Huntleigh, inviting her on a cruise to the Caribbean. Stanley retreats to the bedroom and collects the red silk pajamas he wore on his wedding night. When he returns, Blanche says that Mitch came by begging for forgiveness, but she simply could not forgive his cruelty. Stanley angrily denounces her lies. Blanche rushes to the telephone and pleads with the operator to connect her with Shep Huntleigh. When she puts down the phone, Stanley corners her. Blanche retreats to the bedroom, where she smashes a bottle to use as a weapon against him. Stanley lunges at her, grabs the bottle, and gathers Blanche in his arms. She fights him, but he overpowers her, stating that they have had this date with each other from the moment she arrived.

Several weeks later, Stella cries as she packs Blanche’s belongings. Eunice holds the baby while Stanley and his friends play poker. Stella wonders whether she is doing the right thing in sending her sister to the state institution. Eunice responds that if Stella wants to save her marriage, she must believe that Stanley did not rape her sister. Blanche enters from the bathroom with a “hysterical vivacity.” She asks whether Shep has called while she dresses. The doorbell sounds and a doctor and attendant enter to collect Blanche. Blanche wants to leave the apartment, but she does not want to be seen by Mitch, Stanley, and the other men. When she sees that the man at the door is not Shep, she tries to run back into the apartment. Stanley blocks her way. He cruelly tells her that all she has left in this apartment is the paper lantern hanging over the lightbulb. He tears it down and hands it to her. Blanche screams, and Stella rushes to the porch, where Eunice comforts her. The doctor and attendant wrestle Blanche to the ground to restrain her.

Mitch attacks Stanley, blaming him for Blanche’s condition. The men fight and their friends pull them apart. Blanche is helped to her feet. The doctor helps her to the door and she says that she has “always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Stella is heartbroken by the scene. She sobs while the doctor escorts Blanche out of the apartment. Stanley consoles Stella by fondling her breasts. Steve announces the next round of poker.

When asked about the meaning of A Streetcar Named Desire ,Williams responded, “the ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate, by the savage and brutal forces of modern society” (Haskell, 230). All the characters in Streetcar have been ravished by life to some degree. Although Stanley clearly functions as the most damaging force against Blanche, he, too, has also been forced to grow up too quickly as he spent his youth as a soldier serving in World War II. Reintegration into a mundane, peaceful world does not keep him fulfilled. He is moody and restless, and his animalistic tendencies are challenged by the overly refined Blanche.

Stella is a submissive character, placed in the middle of a war between gentrified society, represented by Blanche, and the rugged, practical world of the working class personified by Stanley. In war there are the victors and the vanquished. Blanche ultimately suffers the most damaging defeat, being institutionalized, while Stanley continues to brutalize his way through life.

In the opening scene of the play, Stanley appears carrying a package of bloody meat, which immediately establishes his primitive nature. In stark contrast, Blanche enters the scene wearing white. Williams compares her to a moth, symbolically stressing her fragility, purity, and virtue. Her pristine attire serves as an effective camouflage for her sordid past. As Chance Wayne (in Sweet Bird of Youth), Sebastian Venable (in Suddenly Last Summer), and Lot (in Kingdom of Earth, or the Seven Descents of Myrtle) do, by wearing white, Blanche uses her clothing to disguise her “degenerate” selfperception. Her name, which is French, literally means “white of the woods.” Out of her unlucky and desperate wilderness, Blanche enters the Kowalski apartment a transformed, mothlike creature of nature, recast as a virginal character. Although she has been a prostitute, Blanche prefers to believe in her renewed chasteness. She lives in a world of illusion and believes that her sexual encounters with strangers never constituted love; therefore, she never forfeited any aspect of her true self.

As has Karen Stone in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone , Blanche has an aversion to being viewed in bright light that will reveal her true age. As early as the first scene, she asks Stella to turn off the overhead light. Blanche is most comfortable in the warm glow of a lamp that allows her to play the part of the innocent coquette completely. She lies about her age when she courts Mitch and avoids spending time with him in daylight. When Mitch returns in the final meeting with her, he insists on tearing the lantern off the overhead light so that he may finally have a good look at her. When Blanche asks why he wants the glare of bright light, he says he is just being realistic. Blanche replies:

I don’t want realism. I want—magic! . . . Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that’s a sin, then let me be damned for it! Don’t turn the light on!

Of course, Stanley has informed him that she has been lying about everything. However, her mothlike, youthful facade is not just used to fool Mitch; it is an integral part of who she is. Blanche wishes she could actually be what she pretends to be. She resigns from reality because it has been too harsh. The “magic” in which she chooses to dwell is her only means of survival, as her suffering has been so great. She fears that looking her age will further discredit her in a world that has already discarded her.

Blanche also drinks heavily, while pretending to adhere to a Southern gender code that restricts well-bred women from drinking in company or in public. This is another aspect of playing the innocent coquette. Late in the play, Mitch informs Blanche that Stanley has talked about how much of his liquor she has consumed, and she realizes that her subterfuge has failed.

Although it is a means of comfort and relief, alcohol has long been a source of shame and regret for Blanche. She particularly regrets her drunken criticism of Allan because she did not mean the words that drove him to take his own life. Leonard Berkman suggests:

It is not the existence of Allan’s homosexuality that signals the failure of Blanche’s marriage; it is, rather, that Blanche must uncover this information by accident, that Blanche is incapable of responding compassionately to this information, that in short there never existed a marriage between them in which Allan could come to her in full trust and explicit needs. (“The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois,” 2)

Blanche responded to Allan’s sexuality with a sense of wounded pride, and as Brick in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF does to his friend Skipper, she spends the rest of her life regretting that she did not love and accept him. Blanche responded too harshly. She loved Allan and truly believed in their marriage; however, she lived in a romantic world of delusion until she witnessed a real moment when Allan was having sex with another man, which completely shattered the illusion. As Blanche explains to Mitch:

[Allan] was in the quicksand clutching at me— but I wasn’t holding him out, I was slipping in with him! I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything except I loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself.

In this instance, it was Blanche who was cruelly responsible for the ravishment (or abuse) of one that was “tender, sensitive, and delicate.”

Allan Grey’s suicide scene is reminiscent of the final scene in The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. When Konstantin can no longer endure his life and the knowledge that he must live without the love he desires, he is drawn to the lake (like a seagull) and shoots himself. Konstantin and Allan are tragically similar characters, who are gravely misunderstood by those around them. Williams was enamored of Chekhov’s characters, finding them dynamically flawed and powerfully present. Chekhov’s dramaturgical influence is inherent in Streetcar , as the psychological reality of the characters creates the dramatic tension and fuels the action to an unavoidable conclusion.

Blanche tells the story of her homosexual husband to Mitch, who could very easily assume that Blanche and Allan’s marriage was never consummated. Even through her tragically truthful tales Blanche continues to create the illusion that she is prim and virginal. This makes the news of her promiscuous past more shocking and insulting to Mitch, who has respected her wish to abstain from sexual intimacy. Blanche presents the person she would like to be: naive, proper, and respectable. Blanche has found an Allan substitute in Mitch. She longs to have an opportunity to re-create that marriage and have a second chance to make up for her cruel past actions. Mitch is the answer as his sensitivity stops the haunting polka music in her mind (i.e., the painful memories of Allan’s death).

Throughout the play, Blanche frequently takes long hot baths in the sweltering heat of a New Orleans summer. This symbolic act of baptism absolves her of her past sins and cleanses her body in preparation for her husband-to-be. She repeatedly purifies her body in water, and in her mind, by each ritual bathing, she creates more distance from the sullied strangers she encountered at the Flamingo Hotel in Laurel. In moments of desperation and self-doubt, Blanche bathes. This repeated action greatly annoys Stanley.

Stanley and Blanche are archenemies because they possess antithetical personalities, and each lays claim to Stella. Whereas Stanley respects complete honesty, Blanche delights in experiencing the world through rose-colored glasses. She spends much of her time rejecting the harshness of life, and Stanley is always there to make her acknowledge the truth. Blanche enjoys the protocol of the Old South; she is nostalgic about the tradition of Southern life, whereas Stanley hates sentimentality. In his production notebook, Elia Kazan writes of Blanche:

Her problem has to do with her tradition. Her notion of what a woman should be. She is stuck with this “ideal.” It is her. It is her ego. Unless she lives by it, she cannot live; in fact her whole life has been for nothing. (Kazan, 22)

Blanche defines her existence according to the traditions of the Old South. She is completely immersed in that world, whereas Stanley symbolizes the new or modern world that is obliterating that former way of living.

Early in the play these two characters clash over the subject of Belle Reve. It is Blanche’s lost, beautiful dream, rich with family heritage and pride; Stanley is interested only in the property’s material or monetary real estate value. He is happy in the loud, harsh, and dirty world of the Vieux Carré of New Orleans, whereas Blanche prefers finer accommodations, the bucolic setting of hundreds of acres of land and large white pillars on a grand veranda that provide lounging quarters out of the midday sun. Some critics see Blanche as Williams’s most representative character, as she has lost the stability of her ancestral home and is now in exile.

According to Kazan, Blanche’s emotional decline begins when she is stripped of her plantation:

The things about the “tradition” in the nineteenth century was that it worked then. It made a woman feel important with her own secure positions and functions, her own special worth. It also made a woman at that time one with her society. But today the tradition is an anachronism which simply does not function. It does not work. So while Blanche must believe it because it makes her special, because it makes her sticking by Belle Reve an act of heroism, rather than an absurd romanticism, still it does not work. . . . She’s a misfit, a liar, her “airs” alienate people, she must act superior to them which alienates them further. (Kazan, 22)

Blanche is one of Williams’s “lost souls,” those characters who are caught between an old and a new world. As are Amanda Wingfield (in The Glass Menagerie ) and Alma Winemiller (in Summer and Smoke ), who also delight in tradition, Blanche is lost in a modern, industrial society because in it she does not have a special position simply by virtue of being a Southern woman. Belle Reve is her identification or authentication as a person, and without it, she does not possess a self and therefore must rely on others to supply stability, security, and substance. Blanche only realizes that she is responsible for her own financial and social status when it is too late. Her “airs” are her tragic flaw in this new world, Stanley’s world, a world that has been changed through hardship and struggles associated with industry, war, and economic depression. Blanche becomes “a last dying relic . . . now adrift in our unfriendly day” (Miller, 23). Although this situation may make her more pitiable, it does not make her less offensive to her peers.

Blanche’s very vocal disapproval of Stanley serves to isolate her from Stella, the one sympathetic person in her life. Her critical opinion of the dismal apartment and of Stanley’s brutish demeanor creates a chasm in the sisters’ relationship, and her chances of familial bonding are sacrificed. Blanche demonstrates her racial prejudices when she calls Stanley a “Polack,” and her gradual, yet persistent provocations lead to her ultimate violation. This act of rape wounds Blanche to a point of no return. The culmination of Stanley’s victory over Blanche occurs when Stella refuses to believe that her sister has been assaulted. Stella sides with her husband as Blanche’s past and world of illusions (or dishonesty) serve to silence her in her most desperate moment.

Williams’s ability to “capture something of the complexity of the novel within the dramatic form, especially in the area of character probity and psychology” (Adler, 9), has set Streetcar apart and is the reason it merits its status not only as a modern classic, but s a watershed moment in U.S. theater history. Essentially, Williams created a new genre in the modern theater: a heightened naturalism that allows dreams (or nightmares) to coexist with reality.

DuBois, Blanche

Described in the opening scene as “mothlike,” Blanche is an aging Southern belle. She is refined, delicate, and steeped in the traditions of Southern gentry. She first appears wearing white, symbolizing her feigned purity and virtuous nature. Blanche is one of Williams’s dreamers, forfeiting reality for a magical or romantic approach to life. She is not concerned with truth, but rather “what ought to be the truth.”

When she was a young woman, Blanche married her true love, Allan Grey. He was tender and sensitive, different from the other men in her life. Although he was not “the least bit effeminate looking,” she learned of his homosexuality when she entered a room uninvited and found Allan having sex with an older male friend. Later that night, the three of them attended a dance at Moon Lake Casino. During this evening of heavy drinking, Blanche confronted Allan about his sexuality while a polka played and lovers danced around them. Devastated by Blanche’s disgust toward him, Allan ran off the dance floor. He found refuge at the edge of the nearby lake, where he shot himself. Blanche is forever haunted by the guilt she feels over Allan’s suicide. She cannot move beyond the loss of her husband, and in moments of desperation she still hears the polka waltz in her mind. She drinks whiskey to cope with her self-reproach, but the cruelty she displayed toward Allan forever torments her.

Blanche’s life continues on a downward spiral with the deaths of several other family members. She is obligated to nurse them, witnessing the slow, torturous deterioration of life. Blanche is forced to earn her living as a high school English teacher because her ancestral home, Belle Reve (which means “beautiful dream” in French), in Laurel, Mississippi, is in danger of foreclosure. Severely lonely and desperate, she finds consolation in the embrace of strange men. When she is fired from her teaching position because of a “morally unfit” liaison with a 17-year-old boy, her reputation is completely ruined. Belle Reve is foreclosed and she is forced to live in a seedy hotel called the Flamingo. Because of her practice of entertaining men at the Flamingo, she is eventually forced to leave that establishment as well.

Destitute and homeless, Blanche travels to New Orleans, taking a “streetcar named Desire” to the slums of Elysian Fields, where her sister, Stella Kowalski, lives with her brutish husband, Stanley Kowalski. She arrives unannounced at the crampedtwo-room apartment. She immediately rejects Stanley because of his unrefined behavior and crude, straightforward response to life. Her worst opinions of Stanley are justified when she witnesses the beatings Stella suffers at the hands of her husband. Blanche believes that “a woman’s charm is fifty percent illusion,” and she clashes with Stanley, who is determined to catch Blanche in all of her lies. Her facade quickly positions her as Stanley’s prime enemy. He is sickened by her exaggerations and false prudishness. Despite her past, Blanche remains married to the ideals of purity, creating the illusion of what she “ought to be.”

Stanley triumphs over her when he finds out about her promiscuous past in Laurel. He destroys her only chance of comfort by relating her sordid past to Mitch (Harold Mitchell), her only and final marriage prospect. Stanley then rapes Blanche, presuming that she has had so many sexual encounters that one more will make no difference. After this act, a deed that Stella refuses to acknowledge, Blanche is wounded once and for all. She loses her grip on reality and finds consolation in a type of magical world that will not allow her to hurt anymore. This world places her at the mercy of “the kindness of strangers.” The strange men in her life are replaced by the medical staff of a mental institution.

Hubbell, Eunice

Eunice is the wife of Steve Hubbell. She and Steve are the upstairs neighbors of Stanley and Stella Kowalski. As do Stanley and Stella, Eunice and Steve have a volatile marital relationship. In many ways, the older couple (Eunice and Steve) mirror Stanley and Stella and offer a vision of what the young couple will be in the future. Eunice is a confidante to Stella, and Eunice eases the younger woman’s transition into a life of denial and compromise. When Stella’s sister, Blanche DuBois, accuses Stanley of rape, Eunice instructs Stella to disavow Blanche’s claims for the sake of her marriage, her child, and her own sanity.

Hubbell, Steve

Steve is the husband of Eunice Hubbell. He and Eunice are the upstairs neighbors of Stanley and Stella Kowalski. As do Stanley and Stella, Eunice and Steve have a volatile marital relationship. In many ways, the older couple (Eunice and Steve) mirror Stanley and Stella and offer a vision of what the young couple will be in the future.

Kowalski, Stanley

He is a strong, brutish man of Polish descent. Stanley is a former soldier, who fought during World War II and who now lives in the mundane world of factory work. He is cruelly honest. His pastimes include bowling, drinking, playing poker with his friends and having sex with his wife, Stella Kowalski. Stanley enjoys the comforts of Stella’s love. Although he is unrefined, loud, and quick-tempered, he possesses a simplicity which makes him desirable to Stella. There is also an animal attraction between Stanley and Stella, and their relationship is based not on communication but on physical attraction. In the stage directions of Streetcar , Williams describes him as a “gaudy seed bearer [who] sizes women up at a glance.”

Stanley revels in the fact that Stella is from an old aristocratic Southern family and that she has rejected upper-crust society to live with him in a tenement house in the slums of New Orleans. Stanley functions with very basic objectives. He is strongwilled and responds to adversity with violence.

When his sister-in-law, Blanche DuBois, moves in, Stanley feels threatened by her presence and her rejection of his way of life. He does not like to share what is his: his wife, his liquor, and his apartment. When he finds out that the DuBois plantation, Belle Reve, has been foreclosed, he immediately demands proof that Blanche did not sell it and keep the money. Stanley expects to share any profits, as he is Stella’s husband. Stella and Blanche are personally devastated by the loss of their ancestral home; Stanley is only concerned with the practical, monetary side of the situation. He has no way of comprehending the emotional loss of such a thing. In addition, Blanche’s large personality leaves little room for him to be the center of attention. The two engage in a power struggle that draws out the worst in Stanley’s personality. The tension created by Blanche’s presence provokes Stanley to beat Stella and to seek a way to ruin his sister-in-law.

He triumphs over Blanche after searching for the truth of her disreputable past. When he has gathered this ammunition, he informs Blanche’s only marriage prospect, Mitch (Harold Mitchell)of her sordid past. By this he is able to pierce the virginal facade that Blanche has used to manipulate and control. Stella defends her sister by explaining that she has had a tragic past and she is weak, but Stanley is interested only in survival of the fittest. He rapes Blanche and denies that he did to Stella. This is Stanley’s ultimate triumph. In the end, Blanche is taken to a mental institution while Stanley comforts his wife by fondling her breasts.

Kowalski, Stella

She is the wife of Stanley Kowalski and the sister of Blanche DuBois. Stella is a member of a very refined and dignified Southern family, who has chosen to cast off her social status in exchange for marriage to Stanley, a vulgar and often brutal simpleton. She is caught in the war between Stanley and Blanche, whose constant bickering and fighting leads to Stanley’s sexually assaulting Blanche. Stella refuses to believe that her husband would rape her sister. After her accusations of rape, Stella commits Blanche to a mental institution. As does her sister, Stella glosses over harsh reality to live in the world of illusions to cope with Stanley’s abhorrent behavior.

Mitchell, Harold (Mitch)

A middle-aged man whose dedication to his ailing mother leaves him lonely and troubled. Mitch falls in love with Blanche Dubois, a refined, yet fading Southern belle. They engage in a respectable courtship, and Blanche insists on delaying sexual relations until they are married. When Stanley Kowalski informs Mitch of Blanche’s sordid past as a prostitute, he is shocked and offended that she has made him wait for sexual intimacy.

FURTHER READING Adler, Thomas P. A Streetcar Named Desire: The Moth and The Lantern. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Berkman, Leonard. “The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois,” Modern Drama 10, no. 2 (December 1967): 249–257. Kazan, Elia. “Notebook for A Streetcar Named Desire,” in Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Jordan Y. Miller. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, 1971, pp. 21–26. Shaw, Irwin. “Masterpiece,” in Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Jordan Y. Miller. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971, pp. 45–47. Sova, Dawn B. Forbidden Films: Censorship Histories of 125 Motion Pictures. New York: Facts On File, 2001.

A Streetcar Named Desire Essays

Blanche Dubois, the protagonist in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire play seeks to reside with Stella Kowalski, her sister, but Stanley Kowalski, Stella’s husband, is against the idea. Blanche used to live at her parent’s home in Mississippi’s Laurel area but the mansion has been...

A Streetcar Named Desire In many modern day relationships between a man and a woman, there is usually a controlling figure that is dominant over the other. It may be women over man, man over women, or in what the true definition of a marriage is an equal partnership. In the play A Streetcar Named...

Tennessee Williams is known for his powerfully written psychological dramas. Most of his works are set in the southern United States and they usually portray neurotic people who are victims of their own passions, frustrations, and loneliness. The play represents the conflict between the sensitive...

The evidence of masculinity in scene three is shown through dialogue, stage direction and description of the surroundings. The introduction to the dramatic purpose of the poker party demonstrates Stanley's domination over his friends through the way in which he makes all the decisions about the...

2 084 words

Blanche Dubious, appropriately dressed in white, is first introduced as a symbol of innocence and chastity. Aristocratic, refined, and sensitive, this delicate beauty has a moth-like appearance. She has come to New Orleans to seek refuge at the home of her sister Stella and her coarse Polish...

A Streetcar Named Desire Summary Essay Reality vs. Illusion In Tennessee William's masterful play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the reader meets a middle ? aged woman by the name of Blanche DuBois. Blanche lives in her own faerie tale world, one of a young, beautiful debutante, surrounded by admirers...

In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the character of Blanche Dubois is a vivid example of the use of symbolism throughout the play. Blanche wants to view things in an unrealistic way. "I don't want realism. I want magic? I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them...

A Streetcar Named Desire In what way can A Streetcar Named Desire be seen as an exploration of"old" America versus the "new" America? In the play, Blanche represents old America and Stanley represents new America. Why Blanche represents old America is because of her way of thinking, lifestyle and...

1 717 words

'Symbols are nothing but the natural speech of drama? the purest language of plays. ' Once, quoted as having said this, Tennessee Williams has certainly used symbolism and colour extremely effectively in his play, ? A Streetcar Named Desire'. A moving story about fading Southern belle...

1 276 words

A Streetcar Named Desire Summary And Comprehension scene 4 1)Stella tries to explain to Blanche her relationship with Stanley at the beginning of scene 4 and mentions that she was ? sort of thrilled' by his violence. I think by this she means that she is quite taken in by Stanley's display of...

The Desire to Justify Cruelty When do we overlook malicious behavior? Is our emotional appeal to like a person enough for us to look past deliberate cruelty? Bound up in the play A Streetcar Named Desire is the fundamental question of how the characters are dialectically cruel and the ways they...

1 238 words

A Streetcar Named Desire It is a rare occasion in the world of cinema that an author plays a part in his story's translation to film. One of the few given this opportunity was Tennessee Williams. In Elia Kazan's 1951 "big screen" adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams penned not only the...

Discuss the various ways the confidant or confidante functions in one of the following works. In the play, A Streetcar named Desire, Tennessee Williams depicts a conflict through his main character, Blanche Dubois. Blanche has a problem in believing that she is in a fantasy world. In this play one...

2 196 words

Critique of the movie ? A Streetcar Named Desire' A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) was a play by Tennessee Williams who also wrote the play The Glass Menagerie. It was a film of anger, loneliness, and shame. Every actor in the film made his or her own brilliant performance. The director was Elia...

‘A Streetcar named Desire,’ is an interesting play, by Tennessee Williams. The character 'Blanche DuBois' is created to evoke sympathy, as the story follows her tragic deterioration in the months she lived with her sister Stella, and brother-in-law Stanley. After reading the...

1 099 words

An analysis of some of the many symbols found in "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams, with the help of psychoanalytical theory. Williams' expert use of these symbols helped him to convey the meaning of many characteristics of the protagonists in the play. Was Tennessee Williams a...

2 665 words

Within the play Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams, the lives and relationship of Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski are plotted out in a scene of events that depicts astute betrayal and out of the ordinary family matters. Based on the time period of this play, that being of the...

1 341 words

STANLEY. Hey, there! Stella, Baby! [Stella comes out on the first floor landing, a gentle young woman about twenty-five, and of a background obviously quite different from her husband’s. ] (13) This is the opening line from A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennesee Williams, one of many differences in...

1 375 words

Explore how Williams builds up to the inevitable rape of Blanche in Scene 10. Consider his use of setting, character and stage directions in your answer. Old and new, weak and aggressive, intellect and brute force: Blanche and Stanley. The battle between old and new America in the 1940’s was in...

1 321 words

In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, there are many examples where the characters are using illusions in an attempt to escape reality. The best example is found by looking to the main character. Blanche Dubois was a troubled woman who throughout the play lives her life in...

1 233 words

A Streetcar Named Desire: Tragedy of Ephemeral Dreams

This essay about explores the poignant tragedy of Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Residing in the fading opulence of New Orleans, Blanche’s delicate façade conceals a tumultuous past. The narrative delves into her collision with primal forces, embodied by her brother-in-law Stanley, and the unraveling of her fragile sanity. As her illusions crumble, Blanche faces rejection and ultimately embarks on a harrowing journey into the unknown, symbolized by the streetcar named “Desire.” The short summary captures the essence of Blanche’s tragic tale without delving into elaborate details. PapersOwl showcases more free essays that are examples of Blanche DuBois.

How it works

In the smoky ambiance of a forgotten epoch, amid the meandering alleys of New Orleans, resided a woman of ephemeral poise and fractured aspirations – Blanche DuBois. Her life, a delicate ballet tiptoeing on the edge of actuality and fantasy, unfolded amidst the remnants of crumbling splendor.

Blanche, with her alabaster façade and haunting gaze, sought refuge in the modest sanctuary of her sister Stella. This was an escape from the wreckage of her own existence, a fractured mosaic of antiquated Southern nobility slipping through her fingers like grains of fine sand.

In the lyrical narrative woven by Tennessee Williams in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche emerged as a tragic muse, a vestige of Southern aristocracy corroded by time and the unyielding winds of transformation. Her genteel dresses and refined manners veiled the turmoil within – a storm of lost love, shattered ambitions, and a specter of scandal that clung to her like the humid air of the French Quarter.

The apartment, a crucible of yearning and desperation, became the stage for Blanche’s collision with her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Stanley, an elemental force of primal masculinity, saw through the fragile veneer Blanche projected. Their dynamic unfolded as a tango, a collision of sensibilities and social strata echoing through the suffocating chambers.

Blanche’s history, a mosaic of longing and disgrace, unraveled as the play excavated her memories. The phantoms of lost love and the reverberations of a marriage steeped in tragedy haunted her delicate psyche. The flickering lightbulbs cast shadows that pirouetted with the ghosts of her past, each step a hesitant dance with the demons she desperately aimed to elude.

Her tenuous grip on reality slackened further as she sought solace in Mitch, a tender suitor who glimpsed beyond the facades Blanche erected. Yet, as truth manifested like Spanish moss in the Southern breeze, Mitch recoiled from the tarnished veracity lurking beneath the veneer of Blanche’s genteel allure. The apartment, once a refuge, transformed into a confessional where Blanche laid bare her soul, only to be met with rejection.

The climax of Blanche’s descent unfurled in the merciless glare of a solitary lightbulb, a metaphorical spotlight on the unraveling tapestry of her frail sanity. The tragic revelation of her past sins, the violation she endured, and the fragmented remnants of her illusions were laid bare for all to witness. The streetcar named “Desire” arrived, a harbinger of the inevitable destiny awaiting Blanche.

As the curtain descended on the final act, Blanche, stripped of her illusions and garbed in the ragged remnants of her dignity, embarked on an odyssey into the unfamiliar – committed to a mental institution. The apartment, once an enclave for secrets, bore witness to the ephemeral nature of dreams and the unyielding reality awaiting those confronting the relentless march of time.

Blanche DuBois, a tragic figure sculpted by the quill of Tennessee Williams, became an enduring emblem of the fragility of the human spirit. Her chronicle, a haunting symphony of desire and desolation, resonated through the corridors of American literature, imprinting an indelible mark on the collective psyche. In the humid embrace of New Orleans, Blanche’s footsteps dissipated into the mist, a phantom of faded grandeur and shattered dreams lingering in the Southern breeze.

Cite this page

A Streetcar Named Desire: Tragedy of Ephemeral Dreams. (2024, Feb 20). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/a-streetcar-named-desire-tragedy-of-ephemeral-dreams/

"A Streetcar Named Desire: Tragedy of Ephemeral Dreams." PapersOwl.com , 20 Feb 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/a-streetcar-named-desire-tragedy-of-ephemeral-dreams/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). A Streetcar Named Desire: Tragedy of Ephemeral Dreams . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/a-streetcar-named-desire-tragedy-of-ephemeral-dreams/ [Accessed: 12 Apr. 2024]

"A Streetcar Named Desire: Tragedy of Ephemeral Dreams." PapersOwl.com, Feb 20, 2024. Accessed April 12, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/a-streetcar-named-desire-tragedy-of-ephemeral-dreams/

"A Streetcar Named Desire: Tragedy of Ephemeral Dreams," PapersOwl.com , 20-Feb-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/a-streetcar-named-desire-tragedy-of-ephemeral-dreams/. [Accessed: 12-Apr-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples

Welcome to our list of best A Streetcar Named Desire essay topics! Here, you will find interesting ideas for discussions, essay questions, Streetcar Named Desire research titles, and more. In addition, if you click on the links, you can read excellent A Streetcar Named Desire essay examples!

🔝 Top 10 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Topics

🏆 best a streetcar named desire topic ideas & essay examples, 🔎 good research topics about a streetcar named desire, 🖊️ interesting a streetcar named desire essay topics.

❓ A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questionse

✍️ A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Prompts

Blanche’s Descent into Madness
Blanche DuBois as a Tragic Heroine
The New vs. the Old South in the Play
Reality vs. Illusion in Williams’ Play
The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois
Light vs. Darkness in A Streetcar Named Desire
Stella and Blanche’s Struggle for Autonomy
Stanley Kowalski as a Symbol of Masculinity
Music and Sound in A Streetcar Named Desire
How Social Status Shaped the Characters’ Lives in the Play
Stanley and Blanche Relationship in A Streetcar Named Desire The “impurity” of Blanche’s past suggests the final of the play and it is a quite logical completion of the story.
Blanche’s Lies in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams Laurel is the hometown of Blanche DuBois. The lies of Blanche DuBois were concocted to win male suitors.
Tennessee Williams’ Play “A Streetcar Named Desire” Williams’ view towards the ideas of illusion and reality works to highlight the fact that reality will always overcome fantasy and the two cannot coexist peacefully, and while we cannot completely admire Stanley in his […]
Vulnerability in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams The author manages to demonstrate the power of vulnerability and raw emotions through the play’s characters, which keeps the story full of tension and interesting dynamics.
A Streetcar Named Desire A mentally stronger person, Stella is capable of surviving in the world that she and her husband live in and, more to the point, sacrificing the truth to preserve that world, even at the cost […]
Female Characters in A Streetcar Named Desire & The Great Gatsby: Comparative It can be seen in the case of Stella and Daisy wherein in their pursuit of what they think is their “ideal” love, they are, in fact, pursuing nothing more than a false ideal that […]
Costumes in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) Film Although Blanche’s and Stanley’s clothes belong to the same time period and, therefore, allow the characters to coexist within the same reality and interact naturally, the differences in the details and the style serve more […]
Blanche DuBois in Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” As DuBois is a female character, her tragedy is also to be seen as a result of her helplessness to transform her desires in a male-dominated world.
“A Streetcar Named Desire” and Other Hollywood Films: The Effect of Negative Sexual Acts and Values on Society The two entities feed off each other in a dependent state of co-existence, in that, the occurrences in society form the basis of the plots and ideas of various films, while films offer entertainment, inspiration, […]
A Streetcar Named Desire: The Passion of Blanche The very movement brings back the fleur of the England of the XVIII century, to “Southern-Gothic imp of Poe-etic perverse” with all its ideas of Gothic culture and the features that are due only to […]
Social Norms in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams In Blanche’s opinion, beauty is the true value of a woman since it enables her to win recognition of men. The main tragedy of Blanche DuBois is that she was conditioned to act and behave […]
Williams Tennessee’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” The fact that something wrong and evil will form part of Blanche’s life is depicted in the beginning of the work by the mysterious expressions that compound the descriptions of Elysian Fields.
Mann’s “Death in Venice” and Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” Altogether Mann succeeds to convey his messages through the character of the boy, the artist, and the other objects in the story.
Blanche in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Williams It is a perfect presentation of the two major characters Blanche DuBois whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly cover her alcoholism and illusions of greatness, and Stanley Kowalski, who is primitive, rough, and […]
The Movies “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cyrano de Bergerac” The movie is as tensed as the play. The sound is also very good as the music creates the necessary atmosphere.
Blanche Dubois’ Costume in “A Streetcar Named Desire” This is the shape of dress: a sleeveless sweetheart neckline, ruched bodice, with dropped basque waist and long multi-gored, multi-layered skirt falling from the hips, with translucent overlay. The color is a girlish pink, the […]
Comparison: Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire In the Death of a Salesman, Willy, the protagonist, is lost in the illusion that the American dream is only achievable via superficial qualities of likeability and attractiveness.
‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Literature Comparison Stella is a devoted wife struggling to make her marriage work, even though her husband Stanley, subjects her to a lot of pain and suffering.
A Streetcar Named Desire She is highly critical and snobbish when she regards the cramped up apartment that her sister and her husband lives in.
Gender Struggle in Tennessee Williams “A Streetcar Named Desire” This observation is not merely the central idea of the play, but is an enhancement to the basic personality trait that goes along with the horrifying aftermath of the warfare, conducted in the name of […]
The Conflict Between Stanley and Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
Alcoholism, Violence, Sexuality, and Happiness in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Two Different Worlds of Stella in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Link Between Desire and Death in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Theatrical Set Design of “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Loneliness, Female vs. Male Thoughts and Ways in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Presentation of Masculinity and Femininity in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Ariel”
Romantic Love as the Center of Conflict in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Realistic Fantasy of “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Interrelationship of Characters and Themes in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Themes of Illusion and Fantasy in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
Historical, Social, and Cultural Context of Tennessee Williams on “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Use of the Grotesque in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Blending of Tragic and Comic Elements in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Fusion of Eros and Thanatos in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Similarities and Differences in the Presentation of Female Characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Decline of the American Dream in “Great Gatsby” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Symbolic Interactions of the Characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Role of Family in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Importance and Danger of Illusions in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Uses of Colors an Lighting in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Dual Conflicts Between Civilization and Savagery, Old and New, Appearance and Reality in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Tragic Heroine Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Tragic Comedy of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
Self Deception and Silence in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Complexity of the Main Characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Use of Illusions as a Defense Mechanism Against the Real World and Inner Demons in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
Williams’ Use of Imagery and Symbolism in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
Deluded Fantasies About Love and Aspiration for Life in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Theme of Domestic Violence in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Relationship of Blanche and Stella to the Dramatic Effect of “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Picture of a Southern Belle in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Gender Stereotypes in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Theme of Past and Present in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Themes of Death and Desire in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
The Music’s Role in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Facing Reality Without Depending on Members of the Opposite Sex in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
The Skillful Use of Poetic Dialogue in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Prey and Predator in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
Powerless Women: A Comparison of “The Duchess of Malfi” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”

❓ A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions

How Are the Themes of Reality and Illusion Presented in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
Should Stella Leave Stanley in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams?
How Does Williams Present Conflict Between Old and New in Scene Two of “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
Do Women Seek Independence and Individualism in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Does Wolfing Mean in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Were Common Societal Expectations of Women in the Time When the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire” Was Written?
Why Are Women Dependent on Men in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
Can Stanley Be Named as the Ideal of American Masculinity in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
Why Has an Abused Woman Stayed With Her Abuser in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Changes Were Made to the Play’s Plot for the Screen Adaptation of “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1951?
How Does Blanche Die in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
How Is the Theme of Class Difference Portrayed in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
How Is the Idea of Naturalism Presented in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Message Does the Writer Try to Convey in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
How Does the Past Influence the Present in the Novel “The Reader” and the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
How Is Marriage Represented in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Elements of Southern Fiction Are Presented in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Is the Overall Concept of “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Role Does Sexuality Play in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
Why Are Blanche and Stella Attracted to Each Other Despite Their Conflicts in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Secrets From the Past Does Blanche Hide in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Literary Techniques Does Tennessee Williams Use to Enhance Themes in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
Why Has Blanche Dubois Failed at the End of “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Is Unique About Tennessee Williams’ Word Choice in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
How Does Mitch’s Image Change in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by the End of the Play?
What Is the Symbolic Meaning of the Shattered Mirror in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
Why Does Blanche Try to Escape the Reality in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Ideas of Gender Issues Does Tennessee Williams Try to Convey to the Reader in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
What Role Does Fantasy Play in Blanche’s Life in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
How Do Alcohol and Drugs Influence the Main Characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
Blanche DuBois’ Fatal Flaws and Downfall In this essay, you can delve into Blanche’s character arc. Explore her vulnerabilities, delusions, and how her past experiences contribute to her tragic end.
The Southern Belle Archetype in A Streetcar Named Desire Here, you can explore the Myth of Southern charm and fragility known as “Southern belle.” Examine Blanche’s portrayal as a Southern belle and how it reflects societal expectations regarding women during that time.
Symbols of Truth and Deception in A Streetcar Named Desire In this essay, you can analyze the play’s recurring motif of light and darkness. How does it enhance the themes of illusion versus reality?
A Streetcar Named Desire as a Critique of Masculinity and Patriarchy This literary analysis can explore how the character of Stanley Kowalski. Show how it embodies traditional masculinity. What are the implications of his dominance over the women characters?
Blanche DuBois as a Femme Fatale This essay can discuss Blanche’s seductive power and the consequences of her manipulative behavior on the people around her. Prove your point with quotes from the play.
The Southern Gothic Elements in A Streetcar Named Desire This interesting topic focuses on the Dark and Macabre Aspects of the play. Analyze the incorporation of Southern Gothic elements, such as decay, madness, and secrets.
The Theme of Desire and Its Manifestation in the Play Here, you can compare and contrast the characters’ desires. For example, focus on Blanche’s desire for security and love, Stanley’s desire for control, and Stella’s desire for stability.
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 22). 107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/a-streetcar-named-desire-essay-examples/

"107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples." IvyPanda , 22 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/a-streetcar-named-desire-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples'. 22 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples." February 22, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/a-streetcar-named-desire-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples." February 22, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/a-streetcar-named-desire-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples." February 22, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/a-streetcar-named-desire-essay-examples/.

The Glass Menagerie Paper Topics
Death of a Salesman Ideas
A Doll’s House Ideas
The Crucible Research Topics
Tuesdays With Morrie Questions
Othello Titles
Their Eyes Were Watching God Ideas
The Yellow Wallpaper Ideas
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Research Topics
The Things They Carried Questions
Macbeth Ideas
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Research Topics
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Research Topics
A Raisin in the Sun Essay Titles
Hamlet Essay Ideas

International
Schools directory
Resources Jobs Schools directory News Search

8x A* 'A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE' ESSAYS for A Level English Literature

Subject: English

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

22 June 2019

Share through email
Share through twitter
Share through linkedin
Share through facebook
Share through pinterest

This is a bank of 8 ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Essays submitted as part of the Edexcel A Level English Literature course. All of them were marked and were either a high Level 4 or Level 5, which, when using the grade boundaries from last year, means that they are all an A* standard. This is useful to teachers, who are looking to share exemplar essays with their students. It’s also useful to students themselves who are looking to compare their work or improve. All the questions answered cover various themes and characters to ensure students are best prepared for the exam. This resource might be useful for a reverse essay planning exercise, where students have to generate an essay plan from a pre-written essay. It might also be good for students to self-assess, to identify what the Exam Board are looking for and where

The questions answered are:

‘Despite the excitement and clamour, the play essentially shows us the vulnerability of human beings.’ In the light of this comment, explore Williams’ dramatic presentation of vulnerability in A Streetcar Named Desire. In your answer you must consider relevant contextual factors.

‘Williams viewed the characters he created as ‘my little company of the faded and frightened, the difficult, the odd, the lonely’. In light of this statement, explore Williams’ presentation of key characters. In your answer you must consider relevant contextual factors.

‘When a play employs unconventional techniques it is not, or certainly shouldn’t be, trying to escape its responsibility of dealing with reality.’ In the light of this comment, explore Williams’ dramatic presentation of reality. In your answer you must consider relevant contextual factors.

‘Elysian Fields is a world filled with violence, in which Blanche cannot survive.’ In the light of this comment, explore Williams’ dramatic presentation of violence in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. In your answer you must consider relevant contextual factors.

‘Mitch may be a weak character, but his treatment of Blanche is still disturbing and harmful.’ In the light of this comment, explore Williams’ dramatic presentation of Mitch. In your answer you must consider relevant contextual factors.

‘Blanche to Mitch: I don’t want you to think I am severe and old-maid school-teacherish or anything like that…I guess it is just that I have … old-fashioned ideals!’ In light of this quotation, explore Williams’ presentation of characters’ attitudes to sex and sexuality. In your answer you must consider relevant contextual factors.

‘A Streetcar Named Desire is a play concerned with the conflict between the old world and the new.’ In light of this comment, explore Williams’ presentation of the conflict between Blanche and Stanley so far. In your answer you must consider relevant contextual factors.

Evaluate Williams’ presentation of the setting and characters presented in the exposition of his play A Streetcar Named Desire. You should make links to relevant contextual factors.

Tes paid licence How can I reuse this?

Your rating is required to reflect your happiness.

It's good to leave some feedback.

Something went wrong, please try again later.

Empty reply does not make any sense for the end user

lizrose0131

The answers are okay, but they require more context and the writing style would be close to grade A.

Thank you for the feedback - I will change the listing appropriately.

Report this resource to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.

Not quite what you were looking for? Search by keyword to find the right resource:

A Streetcar Named Desire: Language and Imagery

Understanding language and imagery.

“A Streetcar Named Desire” is celebrated for its rich language and vivid imagery which helps communicate the tensions, themes and personalities of the characters.
Tennessee Williams cleverly uses various literary devices such as symbolism, metaphors, and figurative language to add layers of interpretation to the play.
Understanding this can enhance one’s appreciation of the depth of portrayal and insightfulness of the play.
The streetcar itself is a powerful symbol, reflecting the path that Blanche has taken in her life. Its name - ‘Desire’ - represents her past promiscuity while ‘Cemeteries’, its final destination, could represent the end of Blanche’s life as she knows it.
Light and Darkness : Blanche’s constant need to hide her age and her past is emphasized through the frequent mentions of light, shadows and darkness. Light represents reality, which Blanche fears, while darkness stands for illusion and secrecy.
The paper lantern she puts over the bulb is another symbol representing her attempts to mask and soften the harsh truth of her life.

Metaphors and Figurative Language

Animalistic Imagery : Williams frequently uses animal metaphors particularly to describe Stanley’s behaviour, emphasizing his primal, raw, and physical nature.
Floral Imagery : Blanche is often associated with flowers, signifying her frailty, delicacy and transient beauty.
Tarantula Arms : This metaphor underscores Stanley’s predatory nature against Blanche’s delicate vulnerability.

Significant Quotes

“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields!” – Blanche’s arrival sets up the symbolic trajectory of her character through the play.
“I can hardly stand it when he is away for the night” - Stella’s description of Stanley uses sensual, passionate language that demonstrates their carnal relationship.
Stanley’s description of Blanche as “the Queen of the Nile setting in state” is heavily saturated with sarcasm , highlighting his sneering contempt for her pretentious airs.

Key Themes Highlighted Through Language and Imagery

Illusion vs. reality : The deceptive nature of Blanche’s character and her desire to escape the reality of her past are amplified through symbolic use of light and darkness.
Animalistic Desire : Stanley’s raw and primitive character is emphasized through repeated use of animal metaphors.
Decay and death : The journey of the streetcar and its final destination, the decay of Blanche’s beauty and former life, all point towards the pervading theme of decay and death.

Studying the Use of Language and Imagery

An understanding of Williams’ use of language and imagery adds depth to the character analyis, offering insights into their motivations, conflicts, and complex personalities.
Attention to these details will provide a richer analysis in your critical essay, supporting your interpretations and arguments with textual evidence.

Review: ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at Paramount has all of that Tennessee Williams pain

“I am not one who can find in Mr. Williams’ farewells the ray of light called hope,” Claudia Cassidy wrote in this very newspaper some 75 years ago. “As ‘The Glass Menagerie’ dimmed its candles on desolation, so ‘Streetcar’ opens the doors of the madhouse to a woman who only by the grace of God will be mad when she enters them.”

Indeed. Those words of the late, great drama critic — who adored Tennessee Williams and jump-started his career — always ring in my ears when I review Williams’ plays, especially “A Streetcar Named Desire,” which now can be seen in a truly wonderful little staging at the Copley Theatre in downtown Aurora, a production of sufficient artistry as to be well worth a train or a drive out to the western suburbs for city-based aficionados.

It’s part of the Paramount Theatre’s so-called Bold Series, a weird moniker for one of the great classics of American drama, now some 78 years old. The intention, I think, is to prepare audiences for not seeing a musical, even though this production is filled with all kinds of rich melodies.

“Streetcar” has not been seen much of late in Chicago; the last truly memorable production was David Cromer’s staging at Writers Theatre in Glencoe in 2010. This one is right up there with that gobsmacker.

Paramount’s “Streetcar” is from the gifted veteran director Jim Corti, the man who has elevated big-scale musical productions in west suburban Chicago, and who clearly has been itching to try something different. He co-directs here with Elizabeth Swanson. As Blanche, Corti and Swanson have cast Amanda Drinkall, a highly accomplished Chicago actress known for (among others) “Venus in Fur” at the Goodman Theatre, “Othello” at Court Theatre, and Robert Falls’ valedictorian staging of “The Cherry Orchard” last year. Stella is Alina Taber, who I last saw (believe it or not) as a fine Rizzo in Drury Lane’s “Grease.” Stanley is Casey Hoekstra, a veteran of American Players Theatre in Wisconsin. This is a highly skilled cast, all palpably hungry to wrestle with these roles.

I had a sense this “Streetcar” was going to be really good when I first saw Taber’s face as Hoekstra’s Stanley entered. Blanche may depend on the kindness of strangers but “Streetcar” depends on Stella being so sensually consumed by all that Stanley has to offer her that she sells her sister down the river.

“Could anyone forget that last “Streetcar” scene?” Cassidy wrote of the the play’s first staging. “Pretentious, promiscuous Blanche of the pitiful airs and graces, who has found that the obverse of death is desire, is raped by her potent hulk of a brother in law, and her sex-obsessed sister has her committed rather than admit the truth.”

Cassidy hated Stella and felt deeply for Blanche. I think that’s because the critic saw herself in the poor woman, and also thought her beloved Williams resided there, too, forever pursued by his demons. You certainly feel Drinkall agrees — her Blanche has this wonderfully relentless quality, a existential kind of determination to keep powering on with all of her self-constructed artifice on pain of death. This is such a hard role to pull off nowadays and Drinkall is just spectacular.

If you read John Lahr’s biography of Williams, you come away believing that Williams had plenty of Stanley in him, too, and that idea is also richly reflected here. Hoekstra’s Stanley is as needy as he is cruel and violent, a disturbed man-child chaos agent, bringing anguish to two vulnerable women.

As the lynchpin of the play, Taber makes the case that Stella is only pursuing what she wants out of her adult life, which after all is a product of her rough youth. Until Blanche shows up, she’s happy.

But a kid coming? How would Stanley have coped with that, Blanche or no Blanche, I always wonder.

Paramount’s show doesn’t come with the typical Big Easy soundtrack, nor does it traffic in the standard sweaty sensuality, as advertised in the marketing materials.

Sex here is an act of both destruction and survival, as Williams knew and Cassidy hated to admit.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

[email protected]

Review: “A Streetcar Named Desire” (4 stars)

When: Through April 21

Where: Paramount’s Copley Theatre, 8 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora

Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes

Tickets: $40-$55 at 630-896-6666 and paramountaurora.com

Amanda Drinkall and Alina Taber in "A Streetcar Named Desire" at Paramount's Copley Theatre in Aurora.

IMAGES

Introduction to A Streetcar Named Desire Free Essay Example
A Streetcar Named Desire
street car named desire analysis blanche/stella/stanley
Essay on A Streetcar Named Desire Free Essay Example
A Streetcar Named Desire Essay
essay- A Streetcar Named Desire.

VIDEO

A street car named desire by Tennessee William
A Streetcar Named Desire: Scene 1[Guided Read]
'A Street Car Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams, characters, places, epigraph, games etc
"A Streetcar Named Desire" Mauricio Wainrot
A Streetcar Named Desire: Four Deuces
A Street Car Named Desire

COMMENTS

A Streetcar Named Desire Essay
An Examination of The Character of Blanche in a Streetcar Named Desire. 5 pages / 2287 words. In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the nature of theatricality, "magic," and "realism," all stem from the tragic character, Blanche DuBois. Blanche is both a theatricalizing and self-theatricalizing woman.
A Streetcar Named Desire: Mini Essays
A Streetcar Named Desire can be described as an elegy, or poetic expression of mourning, for an Old South that died in the first part of the twentieth century. Expand on this description. The story of the DuBois and Kowalski families depicts the evolving society of the South over the first half of the twentieth century.
A Streetcar Named Desire Study Guide
That Rattle-trap Streetcar Named Desire. The Desire streetcar line operated in New Orleans from 1920 to 1948, going through the French Quarter to its final stop on Desire Street. Streetcar on the silver screen. The original 1947 Broadway production of Streetcar shot Marlon Brando, who played Stanley Kowalski, to stardom. Brando's legendary ...
A Streetcar Named Desire: Study Guide
Overview. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, first performed in 1947, is a classic American play that unfolds in the vibrant and tumultuous setting of New Orleans. The story revolves around Blanche DuBois, a fragile and troubled woman who moves in with her sister, Stella, and her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.
A Streetcar Named Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire was written by the great American playwright, Tennessee Williams. It was first played on the stage on Broadway in 1947 after which it became Williams's representative play. It is also considered one of the best plays of the last century and was performed and adapted into several other plays across the globe.
Analysis of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams 's (March 26, 1911 - February 25, 1983) A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), is generally regarded as his best. Initial reaction was mixed, but there would be little argument now that it is one of the most powerful plays in the modern theater. Like The Glass Menagerie, it concerns, primarily, a man and two women and a ...
A Streetcar Named Desire Essays and Criticism
Theater Review of A Streetcar Named Desire. First published on December 4, 1947, this laudatory review by Atkinson appraises the play's debut and labels Williams's work as a "superb drama ...
A Streetcar Named Desire Essays for College Students
A Streetcar Named Desire: Short Essay. A Streetcar Named Desire In many modern day relationships between a man and a woman, there is usually a controlling figure that is dominant over the other. It may be women over man, man over women, or in what the true definition of a marriage is an equal partnership. In the play A Streetcar Named...
A Streetcar Named Desire Critical Overview
Critical Overview. A Streetcar Named Desire premiered in Boston and Philadelphia, then in New York on December 4, 1947, to almost unanimously laudatory reviews. The New Yorker described Streetcar ...
A Streetcar Named Desire: Full Play Analysis
Full Play Analysis. The central conflict in A Streetcar Named Desire occurs between two people representing disparate social backgrounds, incompatible natures, and opposing approaches to life. Blanche DuBois is a descendent of an aristocratic, decadent family of plantation-owners, and she is sensitive, cultured, and devoted to manners and ...
A Streetcar Named Desire Essays
In the 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, the relationship between Blanche and Mitch is a key subplot in the tale of Blanche's descent into madness and isolation. Whilst Williams initially presents Mitch as the answer to all... A Streetcar Named Desire literature essays are academic essays for citation.
A Streetcar Named Desire Critical Essays
It is for his plays that he is most widely known. The most successful of these, in both commercial and critical terms, are The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot ...
A Streetcar Named Desire: Tragedy of Ephemeral Dreams
Essay Example: In the smoky ambiance of a forgotten epoch, amid the meandering alleys of New Orleans, resided a woman of ephemeral poise and fractured aspirations - Blanche DuBois. ... In the lyrical narrative woven by Tennessee Williams in "A Streetcar Named Desire," Blanche emerged as a tragic muse, a vestige of Southern aristocracy ...
A Streetcar Named Desire
Stella is always critical and realistic while Blanche lives in the world of her illusions. When comparing Stella to Blanche, one might think of a much more simple and unsophisticated character - and, in a way, such manner of describing Stella will be correct. Stella is simpler, since she leads a much simpler and less glamorous life, which is ...
Sample Answers
This is explained in the opening scene: Blanche travels on a New Orleans streetcar 'named Desire', then changes to one called Cemeteries, to reach her sister's home. This implies that desire leads to death. Making the symbolism more obvious, Blanche tells Stella in Scene Four that the 'streetcar' of desire has led her to the Kowalski ...
A Streetcar Named Desire: Suggested Essay Topics
What does its presence or absence indicate? 2. How does Williams use sound as a dramatic device? 3. How does Blanche's fascination with teenage boys relate to her decline and fall? 4. Compare and contrast Mitch to the other men in the play. 5. Compare and contrast Blanche and Stella.
A Streetcar Named Desire: Context: The American South
Unlimited past paper questions on every topic. Personalised, examiner feedback on your answers. Everything you need to know about A Streetcar Named Desire: Context: The American South for the Higher English SQA exam, totally free, with assessment questions, text & videos.
107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples
Welcome to our list of best A Streetcar Named Desire essay topics! Here, you will find interesting ideas for discussions, essay questions, Streetcar Named Desire research titles, and more. In addition, if you click on the links, you can read excellent A Streetcar Named Desire essay examples!
8x A* 'A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE' ESSAYS for A Level English Literature
docx, 26.35 KB. This is a bank of 8 'A Streetcar Named Desire' Essays submitted as part of the Edexcel A Level English Literature course. All of them were marked and were either a high Level 4 or Level 5, which, when using the grade boundaries from last year, means that they are all an A* standard. This is useful to teachers, who are ...
Higher English
Introduction (conflict) In Tennessee Williams dramatic play 'A Streetcar Named Desire' there is a conflict explored between the two main characters of the play, Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski. The main action of the play focuses on the relationship between Stanley and Blanche as Blanche has travelled to stay with her sister, Stella and ...
A Streetcar Named Desire: Language and Imagery
"A Streetcar Named Desire" is celebrated for its rich language and vivid imagery which helps communicate the tensions, themes and personalities of the characters. Tennessee Williams cleverly uses various literary devices such as symbolism, metaphors, and figurative language to add layers of interpretation to the play.
A Streetcar Named Desire Essay
StreetCar Named Desire is a realist play written by Tennessee Williams in 1947. The play is set in New Orleans after the second world war. StreetCar Named desire can be interpreted in many different ways as it has several themes which are open ended. Some of the main themes in StreetCar Named Desire are the clash between the two world, New ...
A Streetcar Named Desire: Motifs
Throughout A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche bathes herself. Her sexual experiences have made her a hysterical woman, but these baths, as she says, calm her nerves. In light of her efforts to forget and shed her illicit past in the new community of New Orleans, these baths represent her efforts to cleanse herself of her odious history. Yet ...
A Streetcar Named Desire: Setting
A Streetcar Named Desire is set in the late 1940s, post-World War II, which is also the time period in which the play was written.Williams is highly detailed in identifying his setting—not just New Orleans but a specific address in that city: 632 Elysian Fields Avenue, "running between the L & N [railroad] tracks and the [Mississippi] River," adjacent to the French Quarter.
Review: 'A Streetcar Named Desire' at Paramount has all of that
"Streetcar" has not been seen much of late in Chicago; the last truly memorable production was David Cromer's staging at Writers Theatre in Glencoe in 2010. This one is right up there with ...

Essays on A Streetcar Named Desire

Essay Types and Topics

Paragraph Example:

Compare and Contrast

Descriptive

Engagement and Creativity

Educational Value

Reality Versus Illusion in The Streetcar Named Desire

How Blanche and Stella Rely on Self-delusion in a Streetcar Named Desire

An Examination of The Character of Blanche in a Streetcar Named Desire

The Concealed Homosexuality in a Streetcar Named Desire

Relevant topics

A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire: Introduction

Historical Context of A Streetcar Named Desire

Extra Credit for A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire

Summary of A Streetcar Named Desire

Major Themes in A Streetcar Named Desire

Major Characters A Streetcar Named Desire

Writing Style of A Streetcar Named Desire

Analysis of the Literary Devices in A Streetcar Named Desire

Related posts:

Post navigation

Literary Theory and Criticism

Analysis of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire

Share this:

Related Articles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

A Streetcar Named Desire Essays

A Streetcar Named Desire: Tragedy of Ephemeral Dreams

Cite this page

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples

🔝 Top 10 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Topics

✍️ A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Prompts

❓ A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions

8x A* 'A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE' ESSAYS for A Level English Literature

lizrose0131

Not quite what you were looking for? Search by keyword to find the right resource:

A Streetcar Named Desire: Language and Imagery

Metaphors and Figurative Language

Significant Quotes

Key Themes Highlighted Through Language and Imagery

Studying the Use of Language and Imagery

Review: ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at Paramount has all of that Tennessee Williams pain

IMAGES

VIDEO

COMMENTS