A streetcar named Desire (1947) By Tennessee
Williams
Fizzah Ali, intercalating medical student,
University of Birmingham
Tennessee Williams’
masterpiece, A streetcar named Desire, guaranteed his
reputation as one of the greatest dramatists of the twentieth
century. The carefully constructed plot laced with extravagant
symbolism and imagery revolves around the conflict between the
vulnerable female protagonist, Blanch Dubois, and the animalistic,
macho Stanley.
The play opens with the
arrival of this gentile Southern belle onto the ironically named
Elysian Fields. Blanche seeks refuge in New Orleans with her
younger sister following a series of distressing events, including
a succession of deaths as well as the loss of the family plantation
to bankruptcy. From the outset the playwright draws attention to
the two main characters of the play; the moth-like fragility of
Blanche holds in stark contrast with the ‘gaudy
seed-bearer’ and overt masculinity of Stanley Kowalski,
Stella’s husband. As the story unfolds several dominant themes come
to play and the initial sticky antagonism between Blanche and
Stanley grows. Blanche’s alcoholism, noted by her brother-in-law:
‘Liquor goes fast in hot weather’, as well as her
awareness of social distinctions, need for flattery and promiscuous
past are all key factors contributing to her heightening
victimisation by Stanley.
As spectators we are made
aware of Blanche’s fear of madness in Scene one: ‘I can’t be
alone! Because – as you must have noticed – I’m not very
well...’ Her mental instability stems from girlhood and
progresses amidst the circumstances of her husband’s death and the
ensuing string of mortalities at her former home. Promiscuity,
alcoholism and an illusory world provide escapism. Yet the real
world and past memories possess her; the memories of her husband’s
suicide are never far from her thoughts: her mind repeatedly plays
the ever-haunting sound of the polka terminating with a gun-shot:
‘There now, the shot! It always stops after that!’
Stanley’s disregard for Blanche’s emotional state, his contempt for
her dependence on a fantasy world and his progressively vicious
attacks, climaxing in rape, crush the feebly organised scaffolding
of her mind and she crumbles into psychotic delusion, committal to
a psychiatric institute ensues.
Like numerous artists,
Williams uses literary expression to reflect his own intra-psychic
conflicts; the playwright’s childhood, plagued by a rejecting
father, castrating mother and self-guilt for the mistreatment of
his sister are all elements of a painful internal conflict
dramatised into the emotional and behavioural state of the
characters and play at large. The Stanley/Blanche victim/victimiser
paradigm allows for fascinating analysis of the core conflict
within Williams himself.
A streetcar named
Desire provides a fascinating creative account of the capacity
of external events to render an individual helpless and the coping
strategies individuals employ in the face of adversities.
Furthermore it highlights the lack of insight present in psychotic
progression. Additionally, Williams poses as a prime example of
creative genius exploited in hope of managing real-life
overpowering emotional dysregulation.
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Page last updated on 16 May 2010
by E Baker-Glenn