A Streetcar Named Desire: Themes

A Streetcar Named Desire: Themes

1. Worlds

   • Old
     • Plantations, slavery/inequality
     • Poetry, literature and music
     • Decay and Death
       • Houses are white-framed, weathered and grey
     • Cavaliers and cotton fields
     • Elysian Fields and New Orleans
   • New
     • Industrial, cosmopolitan
       • Streetcar: driving force through play
     • American Dream: opportunities for all
       • New Orleans
     • Stanley and Stella

2. Death

   • Blanche
     • Obsessive thoughts
       • Dreams of being "buried at sea sewn up in a white sack" 85
       • Assertion of sexuality to younger men in the hope to avoid ageing and relive girlhood
       • Death of family members
         • "I,I took the blows in my face and body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard!"
     • Suicide of young husband
     • Reminders
       • Inscription on Mitch cigarette case/Mexican florist
   • Cemetries
     • Blanche: "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"

3. Survival of the Fittest

   • Stanley represents brute animal force
     • Stanley
       • Unrefined manhood
       • Primitive
         • Carries bowling jacket and red-stained package from Butcher
     • "Animal joy in his being is implicit in his movements and attitudes"
   • Stella
     • Survives by mixing DuBois blood with common stock of Kowalski
       • Old south can only live on in a diluted bastardised form
   • Blanche
     • Madness
       • "I can't be alone!"1
         • Tries to resolve loneliness in sexual affairs with strangers

4. Conflict

   • Romance vs. Realism
     • Blanche cannot tolerate bond between Stella and Stanley
       • Blanche is romantic vs. Stanley the realist
         • Blanche wants realism not magic: seeks to manipulate reality until it is what she wants it to be
   • Fantasy and Illusion
     • Blanche
       • Dwells in illusion, fantasy is her primary means of self defence
         • Fantasy protects her from tragedies she has to endure
       • "A women's charm is 50% illusion" SC2
   • Desire vs. Fate
     • Desire caused Blanche to be driven out of old world/life
       • Desire also Blanche's undoing-cant find a way of dealing with natural urges
     • Physical Desire at heart of Stella and Stanley relationship