A Streetcar Named Desire  

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A Streetcar Named Desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her privileged background to move into a shabby apartment in New Orleans rented by her younger sister and brother-in-law.

Williams' most popular work, A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the most critically acclaimed plays of the twentieth century. It still ranks among his most performed plays, and has inspired many adaptations in other forms, notably producing a critically acclaimed film that was released in 1951.

Plot & Interpretation

The play presents Blanche DuBois, a fading but still-attractive Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask delusions of grandeur, and alcoholism. Her poise is an illusion she presents to shield others, but most of all herself, from her reality, and an attempt to make herself still attractive to new male suitors. Blanche arrives at the apartment of her sister Stella Kowalski in New Orleans. The local transportation she takes to arrive there, includes a streetcar route named "Desire". The steamy, urban ambiance is a shock to Blanche's nerves. Explaining that her ancestral southern plantation, Belle Reve (translated from French as "Beautiful Dream"), in Laurel, Mississippi, has been "lost" due to the "epic fornications" of her ancestors, Blanche is welcomed with some trepidation by Stella, who fears the reaction of her husband Stanley. Blanche explains to them how her supervisor told her she could take time off from her job as an English teacher because of her upset nerves, when in fact, she has been fired for having an affair with a 17-year-old student. This turns out not to be the only seduction she has engaged in, and along with other problems, has left Laurel to escape. A brief marriage scarred by discovery of her spouse's homosexual affair and his subsequent suicide has led Blanche to live in a world in which her fantasies and illusions are seamlessly mixed with her reality.

In contrast to both the self-effacing and deferent Stella and the pretentious refinement of Blanche, Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, is a force of nature: primal, rough-hewn, brutish and sensual. He dominates Stella in every way and is physically and emotionally abusive. Stella tolerates his offensive crudeness and lack of gentility largely because of her self-deceptive love for him.

The arrival of Blanche upsets her sister and brother-in-law's system of co-dependence. Stella's concern for her sister's well-being emboldens Blanche to hold court in the Kowlaksi apartment, infuriating Stanley and leading to conflict in his relationship with his wife. Stanley's friend and Blanche's would-be suitor Mitch is trampled along Blanche and Stanley's collision course. Stanley discovers Blanche's past through a co-worker who travels to Laurel frequently, and Stanley confronts Blanche with the things she has been trying to put behind her, partly out of concern that her character flaws may be damaging to the lives of those in her new home, just as they were in Laurel, and partly out of a distaste for pretense in general. However, his attempts to "unmask" her are predictably cruel and violent. Their final, inevitable confrontation—a rape—results in Blanche's nervous breakdown. Stanley has her committed to a mental institution, and in the closing moments, Blanche utters her signature line to the kindly doctor who leads her away: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers", reminding us of one of the flaws that has led her to this point--relying too heavily on the attentions of men to fulfill and rescue her.

Blanche and Stanley, together with Arthur Miller's Willy Loman, are among the most recognizable characters in American drama.

The reference to the streetcar called Desire—providing the aura of New Orleans geography—is symbolic. Blanche indeed has to travel on a streetcar route named "Desire" to reach Stella's home on "Elysian Fields", presenting an abiding theme in the play.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "A Streetcar Named Desire" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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