Overview (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes
Overview
Introduction to the play
A Streetcar Named Desire is a powerful drama written by Tennessee Williams and first performed in 1947. The play is set in the post-war American South, specifically in New Orleans, and focuses on two sisters whose lives have taken very different directions. Blanche, a schoolteacher, still clings to her Southern Belle upbringing, whilst her younger sister Stella has moved to New Orleans and married Stanley, a Polish auto-parts supply man from the working class.
Through this family encounter in the confined setting of Stella and Stanley's small New Orleans apartment, Williams examines how gender roles, sexual desire, and social expectations shape characters' lives. The play explores powerful themes including illusion versus reality, the clash between old Southern traditions and modern American life, and the often destructive nature of desire.
The play's setting in a cramped apartment creates a pressure-cooker atmosphere where tensions between different value systems and worldviews inevitably collide. This confined space becomes a symbolic battleground for larger social conflicts.
At its heart, the drama investigates questions of social class, status, and what happens when different worlds collide.
Synopsis
The play opens with Blanche's arrival in New Orleans, having taken a streetcar to reach Stella's home. Williams immediately highlights the contrast between their shared past and Stella's present circumstances through Blanche's critical reaction to the modest apartment. Blanche appears uncomfortable and distressed, telling Stella that they have lost their old family home, Belle Reve. The truth about the past remains unclear, which reflects Blanche's wider tendency to be vague and evasive when discussing herself and her history. She explains that she needed a break from her teaching job due to her nerves. Stanley's confrontational personality quickly emerges when he questions Blanche about her past, forcing her to face uncomfortable memories of her dead husband.
Key Scene: The Poker Night
During a poker night at the apartment, Blanche meets Mitch, one of Stanley's friends. She recognises a gentleness and sensitivity in him that she believes distinguishes him from the other men. As he shows affection towards her, he becomes a symbol of hope for Blanche. However, their first conversation is interrupted when Stanley erupts into a drunken rage and physically hurts Stella. Blanche and Stella escape to their upstairs neighbour Eunice's apartment, and Stanley eventually cries out for Stella in the street. Stella forgives this violence, and the two embrace in a way that Blanche, shaken by what she has witnessed, cannot comprehend.
Over the following weeks, tension between Blanche and Stanley escalates. They act as representations of conflicting value systems - the old Southern aristocracy versus the new working-class American Dream. Stanley increasingly tries to turn Stella against Blanche, making accusations about Blanche having a questionable past and suspicious intentions for her visit. Meanwhile, Blanche opens up to Stella about needing Mitch in her life. Blanche and Mitch develop a relationship, and they go on a date where she reveals aspects of her past to him.
Blanche's revelation to Mitch about her past demonstrates her desperate need for human connection. She tells him that she was married to a young man who possessed a softness and sensitivity unlike other men she knew. After discovering his affair with another man, the three of them went to a casino together, and at the end of the evening Blanche's husband shot himself. Mitch offers her support, telling her they need each other.
On Blanche's birthday, Stanley becomes convinced he has discovered the truth about her past. He tells Stella that the supply-man at the plant knows about her history in Laurel. He accuses her of sexual promiscuity and claims she had an affair with one of her students, which led to her moving into a hotel. Eventually, her lifestyle forced her to leave town. Stanley tries to force Blanche to leave, telling Stella he doesn't want Mitch involved with her. Stanley then attempts to confront Blanche with a ticket back to Laurel, making her physically unwell. Despite Stella's anger, Stanley continues trying to remind her of their relationship before Blanche arrived. Stella goes into labour, and Stanley drives her to hospital.
Mitch, whom Blanche had been expecting earlier, arrives at the house and begins confronting Blanche about her past. She tries to explain that after her husband's death, she sought intimacy with strangers in order to feel love and meaning. However, he continues to accuse her of lying to him and tries to approach her sexually, saying he no longer wants to marry her. She manages to get him to leave by screaming fire, and goes back to drinking until Stanley gets home later.
The Climactic Moment
Stella remains at hospital for the night, leaving Blanche feeling frightened and uncomfortable to be with Stanley. He confronts her about her past, accusing her of being dishonest. The situation escalates until he rapes her. This moment represents the ultimate triumph of brutal masculinity over vulnerable femininity and marks the point of no return for Blanche's psychological state.
The play concludes with Blanche being taken away to a mental institution a few weeks later. Stella refuses to believe that Stanley raped her, convincing herself it's the help Blanche needs. Blanche is frightened and confused, having expected to be taken away by an old boyfriend. She tries to physically resist, but is eventually convinced by the doctor's kindness and follows him willingly. Stella cries after Blanche leaves, and Stanley embraces her.
Main characters
Blanche Dubois
Blanche is Stella's older sister, a schoolteacher born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi. She clings desperately to her family home and everything her upbringing represented. Having experienced emotional trauma in her past, Blanche's character is defined by a sensitive personification of the idea of holding on to the past and living in a fantasy world. She struggles to make progress alongside the changing values of American society in the South.
Blanche is visually linked with traditional ideas of femininity and delicacy. She is often dressed in white and obsessed with maintaining an illusion of ageless beauty. The unrealistic pressures Blanche has been conditioned to place on herself are connected to her deteriorating mental state, as the play's men continue to place conflicting expectations on her.
Blanche faces an impossible double bind: she is accused of being dishonest due to her fantasy and illusions, but her true past involving sexual promiscuity is condemned as vulgar. The shame surrounding her sexuality perpetuates her mental decline, illustrating how society's contradictory expectations of women can be psychologically destructive.
Blanche's ex-husband, Allan Grey, is also significant as a character representing societal taboos surrounding homosexuality. His sexuality is connected to a poetic sensitivity similar to Blanche's, but was crushed by the world to the point of suicide.
Stella Kowalski
Blanche's younger sister, Stella, comes from the same aristocratic Southern upbringing but left Mississippi at a young age and decided to embrace the changing times in New Orleans. Stella is presented as a mild, kind character who spends much of the play torn between her love for Stanley and her loyalty to Blanche.
Her affection for Stanley clearly stems from a deep inner connection and allows her to explore her own primal sexual nature within the confines of societal expectations for women. The two characters make consistent references to coming from wildly different worlds, yet finding a mutual connection regardless.
Stella's tolerance of Stanley's violence and eventual dismissal of Blanche's rape demonstrates a similarity to Blanche's attitude of delusion - though Stella herself may not fully recognise this parallel. Both sisters, in different ways, rely on illusions to cope with harsh realities.
Stanley Kowalski
Stanley is Stella's husband and stands as the personification of pure physical force, hard work, and blunt realism. He is a working-class immigrant, having just returned home from the war, embodying the ideal of the American Dream in the mid-20th century. He sees himself as someone who equalises society and aims to crush Blanche's old-fashioned pretensions.
However, his individualism easily transforms into brutish force and aggression, driven by his primal, sexual love for Stella manifesting as physical violence. Additionally, his hatred for Blanche is expressed through rape.
Stanley serves as an exploration of society's glorification of the American family man, portraying the seedy underside to this form of masculine perseverance and achievement. Williams reveals the dangerous potential of unchecked masculine aggression when combined with societal celebration of "alpha male" behaviour.
Harold Mitch Mitchell
Stanley's friend whom Blanche develops romantic interest in, Mitch is introduced as a kinder, more sensitive version of the all-American working-class man. His social status is similar to Stanley's, having fought in the war and returned to the workforce. His clumsy, lowly nature contrasts heavily with Blanche's poetic fantasy of a refined gentleman.
However, his attitude differs from Stanley's. Blanche is initially attracted to him because she perceives him as softer and more gentlemanly than the other men. This is partly due to his commitment to caring for his ill mother, meaning he doesn't possess the same kind of go-getter individualism as Stanley. Their moments of intimacy emphasise this gentler side of Mitch. He is understanding and patient with her.
Mitch's transformation reveals the fragility of gentleness in a society that prioritises aggressive masculinity. This comes to an abrupt halt when he learns of her sexual past from Stanley and turns against her, frightening her with sexual advances and making her feel as though he is owed something for showing her gentility.
Side characters
Side characters include Eunice, an upstairs neighbour who shelters and advises Stella when needed. There are also Stanley's poker buddies, one of whom is Eunice's husband Steve. These characters function largely to create the sense of a mass of masculine energy pervading the space. Additionally, there are several unnamed passersby including a black woman, a Mexican woman, a young collector, a nurse and a doctor who appear throughout the play.
Themes
The tension between femininity and masculinity
Femininity and masculinity are explored through both visual and material terms, creating a sense of sensitivity as it clashes with blunt primalism and aggression. Blanche and Stanley represent this binary approach to gender throughout the play.
The two main characters, Stanley and Blanche, are positioned against each other in a Darwinian-style struggle of the sexes throughout the play. This presents hegemonic masculinity as eventually crushing the feminine.
Williams examines how society values certain expressions of gender whilst condemning others, and how these expectations have real psychological consequences for individuals like Blanche who cannot meet impossible standards. The play reveals that rigid gender roles damage everyone, not just those who fail to conform.
Social class
The tension between the Dubois family's aristocratic, old money status and Stanley and Mitch's working-class backgrounds remains central throughout the play. This forms the root of many conflicts between Blanche and Stanley. Stanley takes pride in his achievement of the American Dream, whilst his hatred for Blanche is fuelled by the fact that she will always dismiss him and treat him as common due to her pretensions. She represents a side of society that refuses to accept social mobility or recognise the value of working-class people.
The class conflict in the play reflects broader tensions in post-war America, where traditional hierarchies were being challenged by the promise of social mobility through hard work. Blanche's inability to accept Stanley's legitimacy reveals the deep-seated resistance of the old order to change.
Sexual desire
Sexual desire is represented most pointedly as primal, unavoidable, and somewhat dark. There's a fundamental inequality in the way that Williams presents desire. Some characters are free to explore their sexuality as a married couple, whilst characters like Blanche and Allan Grey face harsh judgement from society regarding their desire. This scrutiny shakes them to their core, deeply impacting their mental health.
In both instances, however, desire is inherently dangerous - whether it's the fine line between Stanley's sexual desire and physical aggression, or Allan's death due to his internalised fear of his sexuality.
Williams suggests that desire, whilst natural and powerful, can become destructive when society imposes rigid rules about acceptable and unacceptable forms of sexual expression. The play critiques how sexual double standards harm individuals psychologically and physically.
Secrecy, fantasy and delusion
Blanche is a character who has learned to cope through fantasy. By creating a sense of magic around herself, she maintains the illusion of beauty. This is associated with her Southern belle persona, as she tries to escape from her past. The line between fantasy and delusion is constantly explored through her deteriorating mental state, flashbacks to traumatic memories, and eventual confinement to a mental institution.
Stanley's blunt, often aggressive realism serves as a foil for Blanche's fantasy world, especially through his consistent accusations towards Blanche of being dishonest.
Williams complicates the simple fantasy versus reality binary by showing that everyone in the play engages in some form of delusion - including Stella's refusal to believe the truth about Stanley's rape of Blanche. This suggests that some level of illusion may be necessary for survival in a harsh world.
The American Dream and old versus new South
Blanche and Stella are the only surviving members of their family. As their family home is lost, they represent the last traces of bourgeois old Southern ideals. Blanche's fading beauty echoes the fading away of the illusionary beauty of this time - the appearance of timeless, ethereal glamour built on the backs of enslaved people. Williams uses her character to come to grips with the fundamental imperfections of these ideals.
He highlights the glossy mask and air of fantasy that was used to uphold their glorification. As time passes and Blanche's upbringing slips away, these ideals are replaced by the individualistic hard work of the American Dream. Stella is able to adapt to this shift, whilst Blanche remains stuck in the past, unable to progress.
The play doesn't simply celebrate the American Dream's replacement of old Southern values. Instead, Williams reveals the violence and brutality that can accompany this "progress," suggesting that both systems have their dark sides and victims.
Key symbols and motifs
Light and shadow
Light and shadow function as one of the most heavily used symbols in the entire play. Where stark light represents the revelation of truth, shadows represent Blanche's illusions and the obscurity she surrounds herself with to cope with her fear of reality. We consistently see Blanche moving away from stark daylight, afraid that people will discover her true appearance. Harsh light possesses a blunt aggression that is sufficient to overwhelm her sensitive mind.
The Paper Lantern
This symbolism is powerfully demonstrated through the paper lantern that Mitch eventually removes from the lightbulb to reveal Blanche's true nature. The act of removing the lantern becomes a metaphor for the brutal stripping away of Blanche's protective illusions. The contrast between light and darkness emphasises the play's central tension between truth and illusion.
Bathing and cleanliness
Blanche's obsession with bathing demonstrates her need to purify herself from her past, serving as another way in which she escapes from reality. In particular, Williams depicts this through the apartment, which she consistently describes as overly hot and stuffy. This motif gains significance throughout the play, as cleanliness becomes increasingly associated with purity and virginity.
This is especially apparent when Mitch finds out about Blanche's promiscuous past and regards her as too unclean to bring into his family home. Blanche is constantly trying to cleanse herself of the dirty elements of her past and become the epitome of perfect, traditional femininity - an impossible standard that contributes to her decline.
Alcohol
Alcohol is an important instigator of action throughout the play, as it is heavily linked to both Blanche and Stanley. For Blanche, it is mainly just another form of escape, providing temporary relief from reality. One of the key things to note about Blanche's drinking is her dismissal of it - she constantly tries to brush it off and cover it up.
In relation to Stanley, alcohol becomes a catalyst for his violence and aggression. It lowers his inhibitions and makes his brutality more explicit. The presence of alcohol in scenes often signals impending danger or emotional intensity.
The polka
The polka was playing the night of Blanche's husband's suicide, which comes on every time that Blanche is descending into a traumatic flashback. When we see Blanche suddenly becoming aware of her true reality and her past, the polka starts playing until something suddenly stops it, such as a gunshot, the end of the scene, or a distraction.
This musical motif allows Williams to show the audience that, when the polka is playing, what they are seeing can no longer be fully trusted. They are transported into Blanche's head, witnessing her inner struggles and traumatic memories. The polka blurs the line between objective reality and subjective experience.
White and bright colours
Williams uses colour very deliberately in his characterisation. The association of Blanche with white and of Stanley with bold colours serves as a visual representation of what we understand about their characters. White connects Blanche with a very ethereal, traditional feminine beauty, whilst Stanley is linked with bold, uncompromising masculinity.
However, it's also important to note that white is the colour of virginity, cleanliness and purity. This is something Blanche strives for as she tries to repress and cleanse herself of her promiscuous past. The visual symbolism reinforces the impossible standards of femininity that society places on women like Blanche.
Social and political context
The changing American South
The play explores a time of transition for the American South, examining the tensions involved in a move away from the high time of old money into modernity and diversity. Blanche and Stella's money would likely have been built on slavery. Blanche as a character represents the struggle of being stuck in the past, unable to keep up with a rapidly changing society.
Her tension with Stanley is therefore often represented in these terms, with many of the insults she hurls at him implying a sense of brutishness and vulgarity related to his status as an immigrant of working-class status.
The changing context of the South is part of a wider shift towards modernity during the twentieth century, with slavery having been abolished in the South in 1865 as a result of the Civil War. This led to the decline of families like the Dubois, whose wealth and status were built on the exploitation of enslaved people.
Post-war America and the American Dream
America in the twentieth century becomes centred around the idea of the American Dream. This involved the welcoming of immigrants like Stanley, who feels intrinsically all-American. Stanley represents this dream, as well as the go-getting thrust of immigrants and working-class people. They often felt like they could achieve what they desired through hard work, perseverance, and individualism. This promise is fundamentally at odds with everything that allows Blanche to live in her Southern belle fantasy.
This individualistic, all-American ideology was heavily accentuated after World War Two. Although Williams hardly mentions the war, this period was defined by a sense of American heroism pinned on surviving the Great Depression and having defeated the Nazis. This resulted in a national spotlight on working-class men who, like Stanley, had survived the war, returned to the workforce, and were now seen as bearers of American hard-working spirit.
This also has implications for the championing of masculinity. The nation embraced values centred around family and home, heroising these men whilst placing women like Stella in a more domestic role alongside them. However, there's a strong conflict there, as the focus on traditional family values is disputed by the number of women who had joined the workforce in the absence of men during the war, and were now being shoved back into a traditional role.
Williams' post-war New Orleans therefore encapsulates a space being faced with the questioning of traditional gender roles and the collapse of conservative Southern ideals.
Williams' own life
It's important to keep in mind the context of Williams' own life and where he sits in relation to these cultural shifts. Williams was born and raised in the South. His father was a travelling salesman who adhered heavily to masculinist American ideals and was also an alcoholic. Mental illness was a predominant part of his family life, as his mother was prone to hysterical attacks. He himself had experienced a nervous breakdown, whilst his sister Rose was sent to a mental institution and lobotomised.
Williams was also a practising homosexual at a time when it was still illegal. This was made more difficult at home, where his father ridiculed his sensitivity and femininity his entire life. Williams therefore has a strong personal relationship to the idea of softness being crushed out by masculine aggression. These personal experiences deeply inform the play's exploration of the damage caused by rigid gender expectations and intolerance.
Genre and structure
Plastic theatre
Streetcar is a play, which means that the story is told exclusively through dialogue and Williams' stage directions. These tend to be lengthy. Williams heavily uses Plastic Theatre as a way to translate the sentiment, tone, and symbolism of the scene to the audience.
Understanding Plastic Theatre
Plastic Theatre is the use of props, sound and staging to express abstract ideas. It relies upon the visual explanation of concepts to the audience, so that, through theatrics, Williams is able to express the straddling of the line between fantasy, delusion, and reality. This kind of experimentation is important to Williams' exploration of the boundary between interiority and exteriority, as he uses it to illustrate the tensions between Blanche's interior mindset and exterior sense of identity.
Plastic Theatre in Action
For instance, Blanche's love of dressing up in traditionally feminine, often white, attire illustrates the identity she clings on to, whereas when she declines into traumatic flashbacks, the use of music and confused dialogue shows us how violently confused her mental state actually is. This leaves the audience perplexed, because the boundaries between reality and fantasy are deliberately blurred.
Literary genres
Williams also draws thematic parallels with the set itself. This is evident in the way that he visualises the boundary between the domestic space and the street. Similarly, this is extended into the idea of privacy, and by extent secrecy, as precarious concepts in this setting.
The play is generally said to fit into the Southern Gothic genre, which is marked by an awareness of being part of a decaying society as expressed through supernatural, dark imagery. This fantasy element also positions the play in the category of Magical Realism, in the ways that reality and imagination become confused into a linear narrative.
However, it's also important to mark the play's association with Social Realism, due to its forthcoming exploration of themes of class, immigration and gender. These different genre classifications work together to create a complex, layered drama.
Structure
The play is structurally divided into eleven scenes, each one reaching a sort of mini-climax. The action spans about five months, with the climax of the play as a whole occurring in scene 10, when Stanley rapes Blanche. This marks the point of no return for her deteriorating psychological state and represents the ultimate triumph of brutal masculinity over vulnerable femininity.
The eleven-scene structure allows Williams to gradually build tension whilst also providing moments of temporary relief, mirroring Blanche's own cycles of hope and despair. Each scene functions as a self-contained dramatic unit whilst contributing to the larger tragic arc.
Glossary of key terms
Binary opposites: The theory of Binary Oppositions is the ideology where concepts are strictly defined and exist as opposites to one another. Examples include left and right, or black and white. Williams explores how this rigid thinking limits understanding of complex human experiences.
Realism: A literary approach defined as the representation of an event, person or thing that is accurate or close to its existence in real life. Stanley's character embodies this approach through his blunt, uncompromising attitude.
Social mobility: The movement of people and households up and down the social strata or classes. The play examines resistance to social mobility through Blanche's refusal to accept Stanley's new status.
Social realism: The representation of real socio-political conditions of the working class in the arts to criticise the prevalent power structures behind those conditions. Williams uses this to examine post-war American society.
Magical realism: A type of device or style in fiction that depicts a realistic view of the world but also has some magical elements, which can lead to the blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality. The play uses this through Blanche's subjective experiences.
Southern Gothic: A sub-genre of literature consisting of gothic works that take place in the American South and include grotesque characters, horrific deeds, desire and impulses. The play's dark themes and decaying setting reflect this genre.
American Dream: A national ethos of the USA that propagates freedom and opportunity for prosperity and success to all. Stanley embodies this ideal whilst Blanche represents the old order it replaced.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
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A Streetcar Named Desire explores the violent clash between old Southern aristocracy and the new American Dream through the characters of Blanche and Stanley, representing opposing value systems in post-war New Orleans.
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The play uses Plastic Theatre extensively, employing symbols like light and shadow, bathing, alcohol, and the polka to blur the boundaries between reality and fantasy, particularly in depicting Blanche's deteriorating mental state.
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Gender is presented through a binary lens, with Stanley's hegemonic masculinity ultimately crushing Blanche's vulnerable femininity, whilst the play critiques how society's rigid expectations around sexuality and class cause psychological damage.
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Williams draws on his own experiences of Southern life, family mental illness, and the crushing of sensitivity by masculine aggression to create a deeply personal exploration of social change and individual tragedy.
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The eleven-scene structure builds to a climactic moment of violence that represents both personal destruction and wider commentary on American society's treatment of those who don't fit its evolving ideals.