A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire

1. Themes

   • Sexual Desire
     • Cigarette motif
       • 'May I have a drag of your cig'
     • 'Throws off her robe and slips into a flowered print dress'
     • 'I was fishing for a compliment, Stanley'
     • '[Slowly] Lay...her cards on the table'
   • New Social Order
     • The destruction of Belle Reve
     • 'I'm not in anything I want to get out of'
   • Power
     • Violence
       • 'Ape-like'
       • 'he heaves the package at her'
       • 'bellowing'
   • Gender
     • 'The hot trumpet and drums...sound loudly'
     • 'He smashed all the light bulbs with the heel of my slipper!'
     • 'I like an artist who paints in strong bold colours, primary colours. I don't like pinks and creams'
     • 'She didn't say nothing. That shut her up like a clam'
   • Fate
     • Mortality
       • 'Incongruous to her setting'
     • 'I am the king around here'
   • Morality
     • 'You're not clean enough to bring in the house with my own mother'
   • Fantasy vs. Reality
     • Fantasy
       • 'I don't want realism...I want magic'
       • 'We are going to pretend that we are sitting in a little artist's cafe on the left bank in Paris'
       • 'I stayed at a hotel called the Tarantula Arms'
       • Shep Huntleigh
       • 'ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir'
     • Reality
       • 'The headlight of the locomotive glares into the room as it thunders past'
       • 'Ha-ha! Do you hear me? Ha-ha-ha!'
   • Survival
     • Dependency
       • 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers'
       • 'I can hardly stand it when he's away for a night'
       • 'Your fix is worse than mine'
   • Lyricism vs Brutality
     • Lyricism
       • 'I can't imagine a witch of a woman casting her spell over you'
       • 'Kiefaber, Stanley and Shaw have tied an old tin can to the tale of the kite'
       • 'Virgo is the Virgin'
       • 'A young prince out of the Arabian Nights'
     • Brutality
       • [Booming]: Let's cut the re-bop!
       • 'She sprays herself with her atomizer; then playfully sprays him with it...He slams it on the dresser.
       • 'No ifs, no buts or and's'
   • Human Nature

2. Context

   • Williams' life
     • His hypermasculine Boyfriend Pancho
     • Labotomised and Schizophrenic sister Rose'
     • Alcoholic father. 'A raging drunkard'
     • Called 'Miss Nancy' by his father because he never accepted his sexuality
     • 'Terrific crush on the female members of my family'
     • Homosexual man
   • New America
     • Ubermensch (Nietzsche)-the superior man.
     • The collapse of the Old South built upon slavery and the aristocracy.
     • The influx of the working class immigrants to the South
     • After WWII, the USA was in a better economic position than any other country.
     • “America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.”
   • Tragedy
     • Amor Fati (Nietzsche)--the ability to accept one's past in order to have a meaningful future
     • Classical
       • Unities of time, space and action
       • Hamartia
       • Inexorablilty comes from harmatia
     • Modern
       • The life of the common man
       • 'The underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his 'rightful' position in society' Arthur Miller
       • Inexorability comes from the society in which we live in

3. Plastic Theatre

   • Costume
     • 'white clothes'
     • 'fluffy bodice'
     • 'necklace and earrings of pearl'
     • 'rhinestone tiara'
     • 'blue denim work clothes'
     • 'roughly dressed'
     • 'solid blues, a purple, a red and white check, a light green'
     • 'red satin robe'
   • Lighting
     • 'A light goes on behind the blind turning it blue'
     • 'The surrounding areas dim out as the interior is lighted'
     • Paper Lantern
   • Music
     • Blue Piano
     • Hot Trumpets
     • Varsouviana Polka
     • Loud Drums
   • Staging
     • 'the walls have become transparent'
     • 'lurid reflections'
     • 'she closes the drapes between the rooms'

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