Streetcar Themes
- Created by: rockboy3080
- Created on: 24-01-18 18:01
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- A Streetcar Named Desire- Themes
- Masculinity
- Stanley is portrayed throughout the play as antagonistic and animalistic.
- Throughout the play, masculinity means aggression, control, dominance, and violence. The traits of the women tend to counter that of the men, showing them as brutish
- Examples of this are: Stanley's assault of stella, Stanley attacking the room with his slipper, Stanley ****** Blanche, Mitch attempting to **** Blanche
- Marriage
- The main marriage in streetcar operates mainly off of the infatuation, aggression and sexual love of Stella and Stanley. The pairs relationship is often primitive and animalistic
- Marriage is further knocked down by Eunice and her husband
- Examples of marriage and its effect: Stella and Stanley's conflicts, Eunice and Steve fighting
- Society and Class
- Streetcar is deliberately set in one of the more progressive states of the 1940's, New Orleans.
- The setting is used to show the differences between the regular inhabitants of New Orleans and Blanche
- Key Ideas: Old South vs New America, Post war america, Dissolution of class boundaries (Stanley's Medal)
- Sex and Sexualisation
- Sex acts as a destructive force within Streetcar, and ruins in many different ways
- Ways in which sex can ruin in the play include: literal death, physical violence, mental degradation, the sullying of a good reputation, and even financial ruin
- Examples: Blanche's ****, Stella's pregnancy as it forces her to stay, Stanley's sexuaisation of Stella, Blanche's promiscuity
- Drugs and Alcohol
- Alcohol is used systemically by Blanche to remove herself from reality and to help her struggle through her day to day life
- Alcohol is also used systematically by the men in the play, and is tied into physical violence
- Examples of Alcohol in the play: Blanche getting drunk before Stanley ****s her, Stella's assault by Stanley, Stanley's drinking when they are carting out Blanche to the mental asylum
- Appearance
- Blanche's obsession with her looks is part of her attempts to create a facade around who she really is.
- Similarly, Stanley and the other men in the text rely on the use of appearance in order to retain their control in society
- Areas to Explore: Appearance is important to blanche but she still acts how she used to with the mail boy, Appearance isn't important to Stella and she is happy in life
- Madness
- Streetcar essentially follows Blanche's descent in mental ruin, showing the effects it has on her life along the way
- It also serves as a warning of the ideas between reality and dreaming. Blanche has her own American Dream that her life will return to how it was, and that Shep Huntley will save her. This acts as a indictment of the American Dream as such
- Areas to explore :Blanche singing its only a paper moon, Blanche's visions of Allen and others, The use of music
- Mortality
- Death seems to have a large feature in the play. It partly explains Blanche's descent into madness, but it also serves to many other functions
- Death is almost synoymous with sex in this play in both literal and figurative terms. However, Ironically, the characters also turn to sex to comfort themselves
- Areas to explore: Blanche and Allen, Death of Blanche's reputation,
- Fantasy and Reality
- It also serves as a warning of the ideas between reality and dreaming. Blanche has her own American Dream that her life will return to how it was, and that Shep Huntley will save her. This acts as a indictment of the American Dream as such
- Masculinity
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