A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire ~ Tennessee Williams 


Summary - Blanche moves to stay in New Orleans with her younger sister and her husband Stanley after losing the family estate. The longer she stays, the more they discover about her past and the more Blanche moves into insanity.


Struggles

• Sexual
• National - Stanley 
• Individual
• Social

Blanche

• 'Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light' - the first description of Blanche in the stage directions gives audience the impression of a fragile moth-like creature. The moth reference could also suggest that this character is annoying, by fluttering around and getting in the way.
• Blanche is incredibly vain; 'How do I look?', 'Clothes are my passion' and 'In my youth I excited some admiration.' This manner means the audience is prompted to dislike her character, as she is frustratingly self centred. This could however also show that the character is extremely unconfident.
• This lack of confidence or self-worth for Blanches character is explained to the audience later in the play; after losing her love at a young age, she slept around to try and find herself again, as after the death of her young husband, 'the searchlight that had been turned on the world was turned off again' and she has been unable to find that light again from anyone. 
• This creates some sympathy for Blanches character from the audience, as part of her individual identity was stripped away with the death of her love, and it could be suggested that she doesn't have a strong social identity in that she is 30 years plus and has not found a husband to settle down with, which was the 'proper' thing to do when the play was set in 1940's America and with Blanches upbringing in the South. 

Blanche has large sections of dialouge where her true self is revealed to the other characters and the audience.  These sections are always opened and closed with the sound of the trains passing outside Stella's flat; 'A locomotive is heard approaching. She claps her hands to her ears and crouches over.'

- The loud, impossible to miss sound of the train shows the audience the significance of what she is about to say and the significance of her speech to the outcome of the play.
- The loud noise and glaring light and Blanches reaction also adds to her characters weakness; it is too much for her to physically cope with, due to her fragmented mental state.


TBC

[EXPLORE THE LINKS TO LIGHT AND SOUND FOR BLANCHE AND HOW SHE RESPONDS TO MEN]