A Streetcar Named Desire: Understanding the Text (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Literature)

Understanding the Text

All questions in the IGCSE encourage an informed personal response, which means that it is not enough just to know the text you are being examined on really well; you also need to develop a sound understanding of the themes, main ideas, settings, situations and events in the play you have studied, as well as an understanding of the significance of a particular moment or scene in relation to the whole text. You also need to demonstrate an awareness of the text as a piece of drama and show an appreciation of the play on stage. All of this will help you to develop a sustained, critical understanding of the text, which will allow you to demonstrate individuality and insight.

Each of the sub-topics below will help you to develop a better understanding of the text:

• Background information

• Dramatic context

• Key moments in context

Background information

A knowledge of the historical and social context of the play can help you to develop an informed personal response. However, it is very important that you do not include lots of historical information about Tennessee Williams and/or the time in which the play was written in your answer. Your response to the play should be firstly based on the focus of the question and the key theme, or themes, that the question prompts you to explore.

• Tennessee Williams was born in 1919 in Mississippi in America’s Deep South:

  • He published A Streetcar Named Desire in 1946, in the aftermath of World War II and during a time of transition for the American South following the American Civil War of the late 19th century

• Williams’s childhood was difficult:

  • His parents had an unhappy marriage

  • His father was a working-class salesman and an alcoholic

  • His mother was a “Southern Belle” who resented her husband’s ways and placed a lot of emphasis on social status

• Williams was very close to his sister, Rose, who later suffered from mental illness and was institutionalised for a time

• Williams himself struggled with loneliness, alcoholism, drug use and depression:

  • These themes and ideas were often depicted in his work

• Williams was also homosexual, at a time when homosexuality was criminal in the USA:

  • Williams was living and writing during a time when his sexual orientation and sexual promiscuity in general were considered morally wrong and taboo:

    • This is explored in the character of Blanche

  • This is also reflected in the implication in Scene 6 that Blanche’s husband was gay, and he saw marriage to Blanche as a way of hiding this:

    • Blanche discovered the secret, leading to tragic consequences

  • Hiding one’s passions and desires was the safest thing to do, as many homosexuals married the opposite sex in order to fit in with the norms of the time

• In addition, Williams addresses gender stereotyping in the play:

  • Stella and Stanley represent traditional, patriarchal gender roles

  • Following World War II, there was an emergence of an idea of American heroism that championed masculinity and a male-dominated nuclear family unit

  • Women like Stella were placed in a more domestic role

  • Stella and Eunice demonstrate that, despite physical and emotional abuse from their husbands, they are willing to overlook their treatment and take them back in order to survive

• However, the character of Blanche subverts conventional gender stereotypes:

  • She showcases masculine traits through her promiscuity, sexuality and arrogance

  • In addition, the characters of Mitch and Allan Grey (Blanche’s young husband) are used to show more feminine traits of sensitivity in men

• Societal gender norms and expectations have a negative impact on all of the main characters, driving them towards mental or moral destruction, or even death in the case of Blanche’s husband:
  

  • Blanche is seen to be struggling with the moral standards placed on her by society, and she is negatively labelled and judged through her actions

  • These, however, are seen to be double standards, as Stanley, as a man, gets away with domestic abuse and rape

  • The rape is a scene in which Stanley asserts his masculine power and authority over Blanche:

    • This portrays women as victims of the oppressive patriarchy, especially as Blanche also felt she needed to find a husband in order to be accepted by society

• Class prejudice is also evident in the play:

  • At the time of writing, even though slavery had been abolished following the American Civil War, inbuilt racism continued in the Southern States of America, with racial segregation still prevalent

  • New Orleans, where the play is set, was an exception, emerging as a champion of diversity with a large influx of immigrants from Europe and Africa and the development of a strong working class

• Blanche therefore represents the old ways of Mississippi, showing intolerance and prejudice against Stanley’s heritage and social status; she looks down on him as a working-class immigrant:

  • She represents a time of transition and tensions resulting from the shift from old money to modernity and diversity

• The post-war rise of the American Dream is represented by Stanley, who feels all-American and believes he can achieve whatever he desires through hard work and perseverance:

  • Staney could therefore be viewed as a champion of the working classes, who defeats the old, aristocratic ways by removing Blanche, the symbol of old money and privilege, and emerging as the victor in the end

Dramatic context

The literary context of a text can be thought of in terms of genre, as well as any ways that the text either conforms to or subverts the conventions of that genre. A Streetcar Named Desire is a play designed to be watched by an audience, so this is the context in which we should read the stage directions and any other relevant information Williams provides, in addition to the dialogue. It also contains elements of social realism and Southern Gothic, both of which will be explored further below.

Staging

Williams uses detailed stage directions in the play in order to not only bring the play to life, but to give the audience further insights into the themes of the play and the minds of the characters.

• Williams starts the text with a detailed description of Elysian Fields and its location within New Orleans:

  • It is in a poorer neighbourhood, surrounded by noise and a lack of privacy, with the background tune of the “Blue Piano” never far away

  • Williams establishes the “relatively warm and easy intermingling of races” in that part of town, suggesting that racial discrimination is never fully removed in this part of the world

  • Elysian Fields represents the opposite of Belle Reve and the old-fashioned Deep South it encompasses to Blanche

• Williams also uses colour and aspects of Expressionism to depict menacing shapes inside the apartment

• Sound effects are also used to symbolise emotions and feelings:
  

  • The Varsouviana polka is heard whenever Blanche thinks of her husband

  • The roar of the steam train and the jungle-like cries reflect Blanche’s delicate mental state, and her confusion and terror:

    • Williams is very careful with his use of these stage directions, especially in Scene 10, achieving a shocking visual and audio impact in keeping with the shocking spectacle of Stanley raping his sister-in-law while his wife is in labour in hospital

  • The drums that accompany Stanley represent power, action and dominance

Social realism

In A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams employs social realism to depict a deglamorised , highly detailed slice of the poorer side of 1940s New Orleans life.

• Social realist dramas are naturalistic works set in actual places with a realistic tone:

  • The characters are not just individuals, but also represent social classes, cultures, nationalities or races

  • The action in the drama explores character relationships and clashes

  • Typically, one character or group of characters rises, while another falls, symbolising a shift in society

• However, Williams subverts this form:
  

  • He placed his plot, setting and characters in real life, but also used expressionistic theatrical devices, such as flashbacks and juxtaposition, to tell the story

  • For example, the stage directions indicating a departure from realistic jazz music to incoherent sounds that only Blanche hears is used to convey her deteriorating mental state

  • The stage directions also specify the symbolic use of colour in costume:

    • For example, in Scene 10, Stanley enters wearing a “vivid green silk bowling shirt” and puts on brightly coloured silk pyjamas to match his identity as the “gaudy seed-bearer”

Southern Gothic

A Streetcar Named Desire can be considered a tragic drama, adhering to Aristotelian rules for classic Greek tragedy. The story unfolds over a set time period, within a single setting, and focuses on a single plot line. However, because it contains exaggerated emotions, dramatic events and theatrical effects, some critics class it more as a melodrama, and more specifically, a sub-genre called Southern Gothic.

• This Southern Gothic sub-genre was developed in the 1920s, typically by Southern-American writers:
  

  • These works are set in the American South affected by the legacy of the Civil War

  • They tended to feature an atmosphere of decay, poverty, grotesque characters, violent or sexual events and insanity:

    • All of these feature in A Streetcar Named Desire

• Williams was drawn to elements of the Gothic for what they revealed about human psychology and dark motives:

  • He explored extreme, anti-social behaviours that were a reaction against the confines of traditional codes of social conduct

Key moments in context

It is not enough to just analyse a passage or scene in isolation; you must also consider why that particular passage or scene is important to the text as a whole. What key themes or ideas does it represent? Does it foreshadow upcoming events? Does it reveal more about a character’s motivations, thoughts or feelings, given what has happened and/or what is to come? The following section includes some key moments from the play and how they are relevant to the rest of the text, but this list is not exhaustive, and you are encouraged to consider other moments and how these also relate to the play as a whole.

Key moment

Scene 2:

Stanley: “Yeah. I get the idea. Now let’s skip back a little to where you said the country place was disposed of”

Summary of key moment:

• Stanley questions Stella about the loss of Belle Reve, and is dismissive of her pleas to be kind to Blanche:

  • He demands to see the papers and tries to explain the Napoleonic code to Stella

Why this is important in relation to the play as a whole:

• Stanley’s aggression is hinted at when he raises his voice and does not care if Blanche hears:

  • This foreshadows his later violence

• The reference to the Napoleonic code establishes Stanley’s role as a working-class man with traditional values and a sense of justice:

  • If he feels he has been cheated he will fight to get what he feels he has a right to

  • The scene also shows his ignorance, which explains why he is so keen not to have the wool pulled over his eyes

  • He resents Stella and Blanche for making him feel a fool

• The scene also reinforces gender stereotypes, as at this point in time he has a right to everything Stella owns

• It also shows how Blanche’s visit has started to create conflict between Stanley and Stella:

  • Stella defends Blanche, which makes Stanley envious

Key moment

Scene 4 (the whole scene)

Summary of key moment:

• This scene opens after Stanley has physically assaulted Stella and then the couple have made up:

  • Stella wakes serenely, juxtaposing the violence of the previous scene

• Blanche cannot reconcile the physical violence she witnessed with Stella’s acceptance of the situation:

  • She tells Stella what she thinks of Stanley, unaware that he is outside and overhears

Why this is important in relation to the play as a whole:

• This scene demonstrates Blanche’s superior attitude towards Stanley

• It also explores the gender dynamics between Stella and Stanley:

  • It highlights her pregnancy as a physical connection to her husband, and her determination to make her marriage work despite the violence

  • It also reveals tensions between the sisters, as Stella reveals that she is used to Stanley’s aggression when drunk, and is even aroused by it

  • The fact that Stanley’s violence is so easily accepted by Stella highlights toxic masculinity

• There is then somewhat of a role reversal between the sisters, with Blanche trying to be practical and get Stella away from the situation (even though Stella does not want to be away from it):

  • Blanche associates Stanley’s violence with his social class

• The conversation turns to the theme of desire:

  • The allegory of the streetcar as sexual desire is resumed, with Blanche saying that this is what brought her to this place, where she is ashamed to be

  • This reveals more about Blanche’s past and shame

• This scene is also important because Blanche and Stella are unaware that Stanley has overheard their conversation, but the audience know – this is called dramatic irony

Key moment

Scene 10:

Stanley: “Was this before or after the telegram came from the Texas oil millionaire?”

Summary of key moment:

• Stanley has returned from the hospital to find Blanche drunk:

  • At this point, she knows that Mitch is not going to marry her, but creates a fantasy of being saved by an old “beau”

• Stanley angrily advances on her, verbally shattering her illusions one by one

• The play then reaches its climax:

  • Stella is in the hospital giving birth

  • Stanley and Blanche clash

  • Stanley rapes Blanche

Why this is important in relation to the play as a whole:

• This scene explores the themes of desire, fate and toxic masculinity

• Stanley hates the names that Blanche calls him, such as “Polack” and “swine”:

  • His subsequent verbal destruction of Blanche foreshadows his physical destruction of her

  • His assertion that “we’ve had this date with each other from the beginning” alludes to sexual attraction between the two, but also gives Stanley an excuse to do what he does – almost as if it is Blanche’s fault

• The rape can been seen as the final victory of the working-class American Dream over the Old South and its traditional, prejudicial ideals:

  • The rape itself is not explicitly shown, but is implied to be primitive and animalistic through the stage directions