A
A Streetcar Named Desire
• Is one of the better known and much staged plays of
Tennessee Williams.
• The play was first produced in New York and Boston in
1947. A film version directed by Elia Kazan followed in
1951.
• Set in New Orleans, Louisiana, shortly after World War
II, the play explores the plight of impoverished
Southern gentry and the rapid changes of Southern
society in the industrial age.
• yet there is a certain universality about them, for his
own life aptly depicted the shattering of the American
Dream and its effect on the American people.
How do the street cars embody the
play’s interlinked themes of desire
and death?
Comparison Question
1) “ Man is driven by the basic human need to
secure a territory, a home, and defend it against
intruders.” Compare the ways two texts that you
have studied present themes related to the
individual and society in light of this comment.
.
2) “The flesh is weak and vulnerable, and
individuals are prone to fall from grace.” How far
do any of the two texts confirm or challenge the
view?
What do you compare?
Similarities and Differences in…
Themes
Style
Nature and degree of
Alienation/
Isolation/Assimilation
Language / Rhythm,
literal and
metaphorical
journeys
Nature and degree of
Displacement and
Rootedness
Stage Craft /
Dramatic Techniques
/ Dramatic Structure /
Dramatic
Conventions
Nature and degree of
Conflicts and
Tensions between
Public and Private/
Old and New etc
Setting / Tone / Mood
and Atmosphere
{Setting
Scene One
}
The exterior of a two-storey corner building on a street in
New Orleans which is named Elysian Fields and runs
between the L & N tracks and the river. The section is poor
but unlike corresponding sections in other American cities,
it has a raffish charm. The houses are mostly white frame,
weathered grey, with rickety outside stairs and galleries and
quaintly ornamented gables. This building contains two
flats, upstairs and down. Faded white stairs ascend to the
entrances of both. It is first dark of an evening early in May.
The sky that shows around the dim white building is a
peculiarly tender blue, almost turquoise, which invests the
scene with a kind of lyricism and gracefully and gracefully
attenuates the atmosphere of decay.
{Setting
Scene One
}
You can almost feel the warm breath of the brown
river beyond the river warehouses with their faint
redolences of bananas and coffee. A corresponding
air is evoked by the music of Negro entertainers at
a bar-room around the corner. In this part of New
Orleans you are practically always just around the
corner, or a few doors down the street, from a tinny
piano being played with the infatuated fluency of
brown fingers. This blue piano' expresses the spirit
of the life which goes on here.
Comparing Settings
A Streetcar Named Desire
• Brings us to the world of the
everyday ordinary - man in the
street (p.3) Elysian Fields, section
of New Orleans, is poor and has a
raffish charm – Single setting
• Much of the play takes place in
Stanley Kowalski’s domicile - the
buildings are described as
weathered, grey rickety…quaintly
ornamented gables BUT
• The sky is tender blue, almost
turquoise, which invests the scene
with a kind of lyricism and
gracefully attenuates the
atmosphere of decay
Othello
• Takes place mostly in the
pomp and grandeur of the
world of court
• 2 settings -Cosmopolitan
Venice and Cyprus
• Politics of power – mighty
generals, senators and their
lives
• Man depicted as a territorial
animal – having to defend
and protect what is his – talk
of invasions and wars on the
public level and love and
betrayal at the private level
{Historical Context}
• A Streetcar Named Desire is a stage play with
elements of tragedy and pathos.
• Play represents the decline of the aristocratic
families traditionally associated with the South.
• These onceinfluential families had lost their
historical importance when the South's
agricultural base was unable to compete with
the new industrialization.
• Many landowners, faced with large areas of land
and no one to work on it, moved to urban areas.
Setting (A Streetcar…)
• Much of the action is confined within the
Kowalski household and the street as an
extension of it.
• Tennessee maintains this ‘unity of place’
to present the territorial nature of Man.
• With the arrival of Blanche it is evident
that Stanley feels that his territorial rights
and his Manhood are being threatened.
Setting and ‘Unity of Place’
• With much of the play taking place in
Stanley’s apartment Tennessee depicts
Man as being fraught with insecurities
about being displaced.
• Thus, Tennessee explores “the
continuing human need to secure a
territory, a home, and defend it against
intruders” – Konrad Lorenz in On
Aggression
Comparing the Opening
A Streetcar Named
Desire
• New Orleans presented
as a racially tolerant and
diverse society
• There is little indication
of divisiveness in this
society – harmonious
interactions between
blacks and whites
(where are the
tensions/conflicts?)
•
(stage directions p.1 – relatively
warm and easy intermingling of races
white woman and black woman)
Othello
• Though Venice is
cosmopolitan there
seems to be suspicion
and hatred for
foreigners- tensions are
evident
• Moors and Florentines
appear to have made
inroads into the core of
Venetian society (with Othello
and Cassio having intimate connections
and relationships with the local Venetians)
evident in the speeches and language
Compare both protagonists fall from
grace
A Streetcar Named Desire
Othello
• Tragic heroine
• Blanche Dubois as the name
suggests is an immigrant in
America of French descent
• Blanche is presented as a
tragic heroine whose dreams
of a better life are shattered
as she “seeks refuge from
unhappiness in the pursuit of
pleasure”
• Tragic hero (Aristotelian
Definition)
• The play is named after its
protagonist giving you a
sense of the importance of
Othello the character –
general, a mighty warrior
• Drawing our attention to
Othello and his tragic fall
from grace
Variations in Syntactical Structures used to reflect
background, status, mental state, inner conflict, tensions
and dilemma
A Streetcar Named Desire
Othello
• The language captures the
music evident in colloquial
speech – raw and unmasked
• Blanche’s educated speech
and literary allusions contrast
with Stanley’s down-to-earth
and crude language—though
often effective and amusing—
imagery.
• The dialogue is rich in tropes,
including the commonplace
cliches of Stanley and the
literary allusions and
quotations of Blanche.
• Blank verse – elevates
• Shakespeare’s imagery has
been described as a technical
resource
• Wilson Knight analysed 2 styles,
“one diffuse, leisurely, like a
meandering river” which
“radiates a world of romantic,
heroic, and picturesque
adventure”
• Second style: “blatanly absurd,
ugly”
• Othello’s language changes to
reflect the inner turmoil and
anguish
Comparing Language Use
The Streetcar
Named Desire
• “You keep right on going
and you find it…”
• “Don’t let them sell you
a Blue Moon cocktail or
you won’t go out on your
own feet”
• “Hey, there! Stella, Baby!
• “Catch” – “Meat”
• “Hello Eunice. How are
you?”
Othello
“Rude am I in speech
And little blest with the soft phrase of
peace…”
“Wherein I spake of disastrous chances,
moving accidents by flood and field / of
hair-breath scapes…”
“Even now, now, very now an old Black
Ram is tupping your white ewe!”
O! O! O! (Othello falls on the bed”
“This look of thine will hurl my soul
from heaven.And fiends will snatch at it.
Cold, cold, my girl, Even like thy
chastity. O cursed, cursed slave! Whip
me ye devils, from the possession of this
heavenly sight!
Recall …Last week’s lecture
• Stage directions in A Streetcar Named Desire are extremely
detailed and cinematic in scope.
• Tennessee presents to us a sensory exploration of the poor
South getting the audience to see beyond the physical.
• The stage directions set the tone, mood or atmosphere of
the play however in Othello the stage directions reveal very
little about the background (Enter Roderigo and Iago).
• The Shakespearen play opens very abruptly with conflict in
mid-action. We know neither what has angered Roderigo
nor the identity of him.
Use of Language
• In both plays, variations in
Syntactical Structures are
used to reflect background,
status, mental state, inner
conflict, tensions and
dilemma
Allusions in A Streetcar Named
Desire
• Blanche’s educated speech
and literary allusions contrast
with Stanley’s down-to-earth
and crude language—though
often effective and amusing—
imagery.
Language in A Streetcar
Named Desire
• Blanche(with hysterical humour) sees the irony of the
situation as a literature teacher.
“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 allusions to literary work are used by
Tennessee to reveal her background and her attitude
towards the working class:
“You sit down, now, and explain this place to me! What
are you doing in a place like this?” … “Only Poe! Mr.
Edgar Allan Poe! Could do it justice! Out there I
suppose is the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir”
Blanche alludes to Poe’s ULALUME to reveal her horror at
seeing a place so ghastly revealing her snobbery
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir—
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
{Dramatic Techniques}
A Streetcar Named
Desire
• Staging – stage
directions cinematic in
scope
• Structure – 11 one-act
plays united by a
purpose– “moves from
hope and frustration to
destruction and despair”
• “Each scene is
contructed like a one-act
play” (Tischler)
Othello
• The use of dramatic irony
to create tensions and
expose Man’s vulnerability
and blind spots.
• Soliloquies are used
effectively to reveal inner
tensions, secrets and vile
evil plans of the villain
• Exposition, a crisis,
resolution, renewal
(hope)…
{Dramatic Techniques}
•
•
•
•
A Streetcar Named
Desire
Ends in despair or hope? – living
dead find no reprieve? Stella and
Stanley live with guilt?
Blanche’s desire for death evident
– “I can smell the sea-air. The rest
of my time I’m going to spend on
the sea. And when I die I’m going
to die on the sea…”
Does Blanche eventually escape
from the harsh reality of life?
Does the audience feel any sense
of resolution or catharsis?
Othello
• Tragedy is cathartic
with the hope of
renewal as the
villainy comes to
light, the dead
buried, including
Desdemona, the
sacrficial lamb and
new hands take the
reign
• Ends with hope not
despair
Tragic End? How Tragic?
A Streetcar Named
Desire
• The play ends with
Stanley “voluptuously,
soothingly” making love
to his wife, after Blanche
departs
“Now, honey. Now, love. Now,
now love (kneeling…) Now,
now, love. now, love…”
• And life goes on on the
social level “This game is
seven card stud”.
Othello
• Cassio: For he was of
great heart
Re-instates the audience
sympathy for Othello by
absolving him of guilt
Lodovico (to Iago): O
Spartan dog…This is thy
work.
Gratiano keep the house…
Myself with “heavy heart”
relate this “heavy act”
{Epigraph}
“And so it was 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 Broken Tower” by Hart Crane
{Epigraph}
• Function:
• Introduces reader to thematic concerns of the
play, raises questions essential to the play
• “Broken World” – metaphor for the themes of
love and loss
• Provides poetic language against which we can
measure the less formal linguistic register of
other characters in the play, illuminating
Blanche’s literary background
The Elysian Fields – A
Mythological Paradise
The Elysian Fields
How does the setting embody the
play’s interlinked themes of desire
and death?
{Setting
Scene One
Elysian Fields:
- Elysium or the Elysian Fields is
a conception of the afterlife
- Initial admission - reserved for
mortals related to the gods and
other heroes.
- Later, included those chosen
by the gods, the righteous, and
the heroic, where they would
remain after death, to live a
blessed and happy life.
}
{Setting
Scene One
Elysian Fields:
Part of the underworld and
a place of reward for the
virtuous dead.
However, viewed as a
temporary place of the
souls’ journey back to life.
}
The Elysian Fields
{Streetcar Symbols}
• Naked Light Bulb – truth, reality, epiphany
• Paper lantern – disguise reality, create illusion BUT
temporary
• Colour symbolism
– White clothing – symbolises purity and innocence
– Red stained meat package – sexuality, establish gender
roles
• Music as symbol for emotions
– Blue Piano – present when Blanche discusses loss and
hope
– Polka music that Blanche hears, real or imagined?
Represents for Blanche death and imminent disaster
• Animal symbolism
Imagery / Symbols
A Streetcar Named
Desire
• Light and dark imagery
• Animal imagery
• Music
• White/red/blue
• Streetcars –
Death/Desire
• Elysian Fields
Othello
• Light and dark imagery
• Animal imagery
• Music
• Imagery of entrapment
• Ocular imagery
• Poison
• Thievery
Both Playwrights and their use of
Animal Imagery
A Streetcar Named
Desire
• Animal imagery is used
in the stage directions to
explicitly associate
Stanley with Masculine
libido
• “a richly feathered male
bird among his hens”
p.13
• “Animal joy in his being
is implicit in all his
movements and
attitudes”
Othello
• However, animal imagery
has more negative
associations
• Iago uses coarse, bestial
and degrading sexual
images of animals in heat
to describe both Othello
and Desdemona
• Othello’s speeches,
gestures and actions do not
display such perverse
sexual behaviour.
Film Clip
• Notice how Stanley Kowalski portrayed in
this film version of the play
• And the tensions between Stanley and
Blanche
• Notice also how the private and public
space almost merge as the house
becomes an extension of the street
• Notice the layout of the Kowalski
apartment
Private and Public Space Merge
• Neighbourhood is situated between the
L&N railroad tracks near a bowling alley
and jazz bar.
• They live in a two room apartment that is
part of a two family house.
• Small and very cramped with three
adults sharing the space.
{Staging}
{Staging}
{Staging}
• Important that audience can see the upstairs, the
downstairs, the interior, and the exterior.
• Seeing the "outside" allows one to observe characters
on the street [racial relations]
• Dramatic action of play takes advantage of the
flexibility of this setting
{Staging}
• Cramp and tight space – increases tension/ conflict
between characters
• Stanley Kowalski’s small apartment = his kingdom. .
• Blanche = an outsider and intruder to his environment.
• She occupies the room adjacent to theirs - invading his
privacy, encroaching even between Stanley and Stella’s
sexual space
{Major}
•
•
•
•
Blanche Dubois
Stanley Kowalski
Stella Kowalski
Harold Mitchell (Mitch)
{Minor}
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Eunice & Steve Hubbel
Pablo Gonzales
Negro Woman (unnamed)
Newspaper Boy
Mexican Woman (flower vendor)
A Doctor
A Nurse