淮北师范大学
2012 届学士学位论文
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On Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire
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学院、 专 业
外国语、英语
研 究 方 向
英语语言学、英国/美国/
（英语国家选一个）文学、
翻译理论与实践、应用语
言学、英国/美国/（英语国
家选一个）文化
学 生 姓 名
学
号
指导教师姓名
指导教师职称
2012 年
月 日
On Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire
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Abstract: Symbolism is profoundly used in Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece, A
Streetcar Named Desire and plays an important role in the play by helping readers
understand the concept of the theme. This paper is an attempt to give a comprehensive
analysis of specific symbols in this play and to discuss how the misery and the inner
world of the characters are disclosed through the remarkable use of symbols. Symbols
are profuse in the play and they help to achieve a thematic importance when
combined with the romantic realism that Williams favored at the beginning of his
career. The thesis is made up of four parts. The first chapter gives a brief introduction
of the playwright and the play. Also a literature review which states some scholar’s
concerns in this play is given and in the second chapter, an elaborate analysis of the
individual symbols such as names, colors, sound, language and other images in life
applied in this play is presented. Chapter three is a thematic probe into the play based
on the symbolic understandings of the characters. Finally, a conclusion is given to
summarize symbolism in this play.
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Key words: symbolism; A Streetcar Named Desire; self-delusion; Southern culture
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论《欲望号街车》的象征主义
摘要：象征手法在田纳西·威廉斯的著作《欲望号街车》中得到了淋漓尽致的应
用。其对帮助读者理解戏剧主题起重要的作用。本文试图对此戏剧中的象征物进
行详尽的分析并讨论人物的悲惨境遇和内心世界如何通过象征物精彩的应用显
现出来。论文分为四部分。第一章简介剧作家及戏剧并在文学评论中简述一些学
者对此戏剧的研究。第二章详细分析戏剧中应用的各个象征物，包括名称，颜色，
声音，语言等。第三章在对人物的象征性理解基础上探索主题。最后一章总结戏
剧中的象征主义。
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300-400 个汉字
关键词：象征手法；《欲望号街车》；自我欺骗；南方文化
内容仅供参考，英汉摘要
和关键词内容必须一致
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Contents
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Abstract ……………………………………………………………………..….………I
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………….……1
2. Study of Individual Symbols………………………………………….….….……2
2.1 On Names………………………………………………………….…..……..…3
2.2 On Colors…………………………………………………………….….……...4
3. On Symbolic Understanding of Characters……………………………….………5
3.1 Victim of Self-delusions
……………………………………………………6
3.2 Victim of Social Circumstances………………………………………...………7
3.2.1 Victim of the Old Southern Culture……………………………..…………8
3.2.2 The Destruction of the Old South Genteel World…………….……………9
4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………….………10
References…………………………………………………………………...…….…11
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III
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On Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire
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1. Introduction
Tennessee Williams was one of the most important and talented playwright of all history.
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One of his masterpieces, A Streetcar Named Desire, which was opened on Broadway in 1947,
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was an immediate success, catapulting him into the mainstream idolatry as an American
playwright.
By now, scholars have paid much attention to various aspects in A Streetcar Named
Desire. For example, Fang Jun and Liu Nuoya probe into the mature of the dramatic
technique the poetic realism through meticulous study on the symbolic and expressionistic
writing techniques and the interrelations of them in The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar
Named Desire (23). In Desire, Death and Dementia, researches have been put into analysis of
the protagonist with understanding of symbolism (杨晋, 2002: 36-38) .
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2. Study of Individual Symbols
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2.1 On Names
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At the beginning of the play, readers are confronted with extremely obvious symbolic
names of places. When Blanche arrives at her sister’s place, she says, “They told me to take a
street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get
off at Elysian Fields.” (Williams, 1978: 471) Thus, it is possible he represents a cemetery for
Blanche. Stanislaus is the name of a king of Poland. Clearly, Stanley is the king of his
household.
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2.2 On Colors
When Blanche first appears, she is described as “daintily dressed in a white suit with a
fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat”. (Williams 471) Blanche's
white suit and gloves which are the symbol of purity shows her desire for purity and suggests
that she wants to forget her sordid past, to hide her inner sins and to stay as an image of a
dainty old south beauty. This is very ironic because white also is the color which is the most
easily stained and destroyed.
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3. On Symbolic Understanding of Characters
A Streetcar Named Desire can be described as an elegy, or poetic expression of mourning,
for the Old South that died in the first part of the twentieth century. Alcoholism, depression,
thwarted desire, loneliness, and insanity are all parts of this play. The character of Blanche
Dubois is a vivid example of the use of symbolism throughout the play. Blanche is victim of
her own self-delusions and Old South attitudes.
3.1 Victim of Self-delusions
Blanche arrives in New Orleans as an arrogant, fragile, and ultimately crumbling figure.
Clinging desperately to her self-delusion, unable to accept the savage reality of what has
happened to her, and just as unable to comprehend how her sister Stella can endure her current
living condition, Blanche is slowly losing her mind. Her desperate line, “I don't want realism!
I want magic!” (Williams, 1978: 545) is a cry from the heart. She wishes to view life as one
that is rose-colored and that goes along with her old-fashioned southern belle personality. The
loss of her young husband Allan has caused her loneliness, sexual desire, and even certain
signs of psychological instability. What Blanche does not realize is that she can not change
the past through the present. Blanche's youth is gone, and she tries to give the appearance of
being as youthful and innocent as she once was, but her illusion can not last. As an epigraph
to the play, Williams quotes from the poem “The Broken Tower”, by Hart Crane:
And so it was that I entered the broken world
To trace the visionary company of love, its voice
An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)
But not for long to hold each desperate choice.
The use of this poem helps to express Williams's choice of theme in A Streetcar Named
Desire. After Blanche’s young husband Allan Grey dies, she has entered a “Broken world” of
fear, longing, and sorrow because of her simple desire to hear “the visionary company of love,
its voice”, or tender, gentle words of love and appreciation from Stella and Mitch. However,
these words are only “visionary”. The loss of Allan and the desire to “trace” or recapture her
love lead her to make so many desperate choices. (Londre, 1997: 49)
3.2 Victim of Social Circumstances
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3.2.1 Victim of the Old Southern Culture
Given Mitch’s statement, it seems that Blanche’s bad sexual experiences and romantic
delusions have been the source of her fall. Yet Williams depicts the fallen, Southern women as
Blanche who is also a victim of society’s rules.
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Before we see Blanche’s miserable life experiences and fall, let’s first have a look at the
south land she has lost. In The Mind of the South, Cash present us a description of the land
which cultivates those old southern gentlemen and ladies. The warm pleasant climate and
leisure rich life there give this land certain atmosphere of romance. The plantation owners can
have their own way in their land and enjoy the harvest by the slaves’ labors. Thus, a spirit of
indulging and pleasure seeking is cultivated. But at the same time, Cash points out that those
old southern residents, especially women, are puritans that are sternly restricted by their value
of morality. The economic structure of the plantation leaves women highly dependent on
men because for a long time, they are detached from working and management of the
plantation. Thus they cling to men or become toys that entertain and please men. On one hand,
they should act and speak appropriately and be lady-like because of the puritan doctrines they
believe, on the other hand, they have to get men’s admiration and hearts in order to maintain
their dependent position. Therefore, there is a mixture of Puritanism and hedonism in them(汪
义群, 1992: 83). Clearly，we can see the contradiction of desire and soul in Blanche.
3.2.2 The Destruction of the Old South Genteel World
A Streetcar Named Desire describes the cultural and social differences and the arising
problems between two different “worlds”. On the one hand is the former “world” of Blanche
DuBois, a woman of the Old South and on the other hand is the “world” of Stella and Stanley
Kowalski, who belong to the working class and live in the downtown immigrant
neighborhood of New Orleans.
The Northern and Southern cultures at that time were acting against each other, mirrored
in Stanley and Blanche. The setting of New Orleans is important to the play. The city is one of
powerful contrasts: old French architecture and the new rhythms of jazz; a kind of old world
refinement mixed with a sign of poverty and modern life; decay and corruption with the
regenerative powers of desire and creation. The city is eternally in a state of mixture, a mix of
the modern world and New Orleans' confused history; in Americans’ eyes, New Orleans is
also associated with desire and sexuality. From the beginning, the three main characters in this
play are in a state of tension. Williams establishes that the apartment is small and confining,
the weather is hot and oppressive, and the characters have good reasons to come into conflict.
4. Conclusion
When the history of American theater is written for the 20th Century, Tennessee
Williams is one of the most prominent names to be mentioned. He pushed the exploration of
the human soul to the very limit in his work.
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Williams is fond of symbols and he successfully uses these varieties of symbols to help
the audience to understand the play, especially in A Streetcar Named Desire. The symbolic use
of images including names, colors, sound, language and other images in life in this play is the
purest device Williams applies to resonate with the theme. The hidden ugliness from the past,
both emotional and sexual neediness of Blanche and her fading beauty, vulnerability, and
weakness are successfully revealed through the images such as light, bath, color whose
symbolic functions have been specifically discussed in chapter two. The symbolic
understanding of the characters comes to the conclusion that Blanche and Stanley are
respectively the representations of the Old South and the New South and Blanche’s mental
deterioration into madness and the triumph of Stanley are the sign of the destruction of the old
south genteel world.
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References
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[1] Londre, Felicia Hardison. A Streetcar Running Fifty Years[A]. in Matthew C. Roudane.
The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams[C]. New York: Cambridge UP,
1997.
[2] Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire[M]. New York: New Directions, 1978.
[3] 方军、刘诺亚. 论田纳西.威廉斯‘诗化现实主义’的成熟——《玻璃动物园》和
《欲望号街车》中的象征主义和表现主义之比较研究[J]. 荆门职业技术学院学
报，2001（2）：23-26.
[4] 汪义群. 当代美国戏剧[M]. 上海：上海外语教育出版社, 1992.
[5] 杨晋. 欲望、死亡和疯癫——试论《欲望号街车》女主角布兰奇·杜波依斯的象征
之旅[J].
井冈山师范学院学报（哲学社会科学），2002(5): 36-38.
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3. 两行及以上悬垂缩进 3 个字符。
4. 参考文献要与文中夹注相对应。
5.
参考文献原则上应有 10 个左右，英文文献不少于 3 个。
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Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge all those people who have assisted me in the process of
completing my graduation thesis. Without their help, this thesis would have been impossible.
First and foremost, I would like to express my great appreciation to my supervisor, Mr.
Zhang Sanfeng, who has followed my toils with invariable kindness and patience, reading as
well as correcting this dissertation at different stages of its conception, giving me advice
instructive and constructive in addition to valuable encouragement.
My thanks also go to professor Wang and Professor Zhou for their encouragements and
suggestions in the opening defense of this paper which have given me much benefit in writing
it.
Finally, thanks go to my classmates and my dearest parents, who in one way or another
have given me help and encouragement during my work on this thesis.
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注: 先英文后中文，以字母顺序排列。英文部分 Times New Roman，小四；
汉语部分:宋体 小四号；均 1.5 倍行距，两行及以上悬垂缩进 3 个字符。
参考文献要与文中夹注项对应。
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