A Streetcar Named Desire: Writer's Methods & Techniques (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Literature)
Revision Note
Writer’s Methods and Techniques
“Writer’s methods and techniques” is an umbrella term for anything the writer does on purpose to create meaning. Using the writer’s name in your response will help you to think about the text as a conscious construct and will keep reminding you that Tennessee Williams purposely put the text together.
The best responses at IGCSE don’t limit their analysis to individual words and phrases. Examiners are really looking for analysis of Williams’s overall aims, so try to take a “whole-text” approach to writer’s methods and techniques. There are a number of dramatic methods and techniques used in A Streetcar Named Desire:
Examiner Tip
Remember that the people in the text are conscious constructs, and so are the places being described, and the objects mentioned. Try to learn to notice deliberate things Williams has done to communicate his ideas.
As you read the play, try to consider: “why this, now?” For instance, our introduction to Stanley is him “bellowing” and throwing a packet of meat at Stella. What does this tell us about these two characters and their relationship?
Form
A Streetcar Named Desire qualifies as a tragic drama as it adheres to the three unities of time, place and action. It has also been called a melodrama and, more specifically, a sub-genre called Southern Gothic. It also has elements of social realism.
The play adheres to the three unities of time, place and action:
The events in the play take place either in Elysian Fields or just outside it
The play unfolds over a set time period from May to September
The play centres on Blanche and the escalating conflict between her and Stanley
The play can also be classed as a melodrama:
It contains exaggerated emotions, explosive effects and theatrical effects
The sub-genre Southern Gothic was developed in the 1920s:
These works are set in the American South and tend to feature an atmosphere of decay, poverty, violent or sexual events and insanity
Williams also contrasts the poetic style of Blanche with the straightforward and naturalistic style of Stanley:
In this way, the play reflects social realism, which are naturalistic works set in actual places with a realistic tone
But Williams also deliberately uses more expressionistic theatrical devices, such as the use of the Mexican woman selling flowers for the day of the dead
Examiner Tip
Understanding that a writer’s methods also include stagecraft will enable you to write about Williams’s intentions much more thoroughly than just analysing his use of language. Stagecraft includes:
Stage directions
Lighting
The opening and ending of each scene
How opening and closing lines are used
Dramatic irony, pace, as well as tension, suspense, surprise, etc.
All of the above are deliberate choices made by Williams, and so analysis of the above will improve your mark when exploring Williams's methods in your essay.
Structure
Williams structured his play into 11 scenes, but in one act. This further contains the play in one time span and setting, even though the play as a whole can be viewed in three distinct sections.
Each of the scenes ends with a punchline or dramatic gesture:
This may have been to sustain the dramatic tension in the play
The first six scenes take place in May, and set the scene for the events that will take place in the second group of scenes:
The later scenes take place within one day in September
The final scene follows a few weeks later, showing the outcome of the events
Williams also employs repetition, such as Blanche’s repeated bathing and the poker games:
This reinforces the idea that events are building up and the cycle of Stanley and Stella’s relationship
The play can also be seen to be structured as a series of confrontations between Stanley and Blanche:
These gradually increase in severity until one of them must be destroyed
Williams also employs a third-person omniscient point of view:
He does not tell the story through any one character’s eyes
The audience sometimes sees action happening in two different places at the same time
However, the focus is mainly on Blanche, as Williams presents us with sounds that only she can hear:
These instances put the audience inside Blanche’s head, increasing empathy for the character
Visual and sound effects
Music and other sound effects, as well as visual effects, play important roles in the drama to create mood and to give the audience further information about characters’ thoughts and motivations.
Realistic sound effects, such as the locomotive and the slamming of doors, tend to accompany Stanley in the play:
This emphasises the social realist aspect of the play and Stanley as representative of the real world
These sounds emphasise Stanley’s masculinity and brutality
The sound of people on the street and jazz music also adds to the sense of realism in the play:
It emphasises that this play is about an ordinary group of people as they go about their ordinary lives
Domestic violence is also conveyed in the play through sound effects:
When Stanley hits Stella, this is conveyed through the stage direction “there is a sound of a blow”
A disturbance is also heard upstairs when Eunice and Steve are fighting
In addition, music is used throughout the play as a device to emphasise Blanche’s thoughts and mental state:
Blanche and her young husband were dancing to the Varsouviana polka on the night he committed suicide
Whenever Blanche is asked about this, the music plays (but only she and the audience can hear it)
The song only stops when she hears a gunshot
The same music also plays in the background for a lot of scenes to do with Blanche:
This suggests that the memory of her husband is always with her
Williams also employs lighting to further highlight the decaying state of Blanche’s mind, and the contrast between her world and Stanley’s:
The men are often shown under bright lights and intense colours to show their masculinity and strength
Blanche attempts to hide in subdued light and shade, adding to her sense of illusion
This is symbolically stripped away when both Mitch and then Stanley tear down the paper lantern
The lurid reflections that play on the wall, accompanied by inhuman cries, represent Blanche’s state of terror:
This is a visual representation of Blanche’s hysteria and trauma
The shadows are also present in the rape scene, giving the impression of Blanche being trapped by Stanley
Examiner Tip
Examiners are looking to reward what you say about the craft of the writer, not the number of technical terms referenced in your response. You do not need to display an extensive knowledge of literary and linguistic methods, but are best advised to use simpler terminology (if any) to focus and build your argument.
Rather than just highlighting literary and linguistic methods, you can instead focus on characterisation, structure and plot development. For example, Williams’s use of dramatic irony allows the audience further insight into Blanche’s unravelling when she hears the polka music and gunshot, which the other characters cannot. Consider why this might be.
Imagery and symbolism
Imagery and symbolism in the play are present both in the motifs and in the dialogue.
Blanche is an English teacher and a poetry-lover:
She frequently uses figurative language, such as in Scene 6 when she describes love as being like “a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow”
The use of such poetic language emphasises Blanche’s role of representing a more old-fashioned, refined and genteel time
The streetcar itself is a symbol of the power of sexual desire as the driving force for the characters in the play:
When it takes over, the characters are carried along to the end of the line and are powerless to get off
Blanche uses bathing as an attempt to cleanse herself and forget her reality:
It may also be an attempt to wash away the guilt she feels for her husband’s suicide
Alcohol and drunkenness are also used in a symbolic way:
Stanley’s drinking exaggerates his masculinity and brutality
He makes a show of drinking and links it to his rights as a man
In contrast, Blanche tries to hide her drinking
She uses it as another escape mechanism, but it also further emphasises her delusions, as she constantly claims that she rarely drinks
Examiner Tip
In the exam, the question may involve the command word “how” and will make reference to the author. This invites you to explore the craft of writing/the writer’s methods and go beyond the “what” of the text, to thinking about the text as a conscious construct, exploring what the writer has done on purpose in order to create meaning.
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