Introduction to A Streetcar Named Desire
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Sept. 23, 2002 -- Every spring, below a second-story balcony in New Orleans' fabled French Quarter, crowds gather to watch men tear at their T-shirts in agony and shout at the heavens. For the uninitiated bystander, such a ritual might seem cultish, or perhaps simply overindulgent. But to those who have taken in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, either on stage or on screen, the spectacle exposes a far different meaning.
To those men (and women) opening their hearts and vocal chords toward the open windows of the Vieux Carre, the name Stella on their lips, it's the opportunity to step into the shoes of a dramatic legend.
A Streetcar Named Desire fueled the legends of two of America's icons of drama: Tennessee Williams and the star of his play, the 23-year-old Marlon Brando. For Morning Edition, NPR's Debbie Elliott digs into the history of the play to find out how Williams created this potent mix of raw emotion and sex that would become what theater critics would later call the best play of the 20th century.
Before igniting the careers of its author and stars, Streetcar endured a somewhat lengthy gestation. Williams put the script through numerous revisions under many working titles, including The Moth and Blanche's Chair on the Moon. At the time he moved into an apartment in New Orleans' French Quarter to finish his work on the play, he was calling it The Poker Night.
Kenneth Holditch, who gives literary tours in New Orleans, says the location proved inspirational. "[Williams] said from that apartment he could hear that rattletrap streetcar named Desire running along Royal," Holditch says, "and one named Cemeteries running along Canal. And it seemed to him the ideal metaphor for the human condition."
That metaphor finds its expression within the play in the character of Blanche DuBois -- originally played by Jessica Tandy -- a fragile southern belle who visits her sister Stella, played by Kim Hunter, and Stella's working-class husband Stanley, played by Brando. Blanche, who hides a past not quite as pure as she'd like people to imagine, complicates matters immediately. Stanley suspects she's trying to swindle the couple. In the play's brutal climactic scene, he rapes Blanche, breaking her fragile grip on sanity.
Williams used more than just the name of a streetcar for inspiration. It has been suggested by some scholars that Stanley -- rough, masculine and short tempered -- was based on Williams' lover at the time he was writing the play, a man named Pancho Rodriguez Gonzalez.
Tennessee Williams may have inserted himself into the play as well, says his brother Dakin. "Blanche is Tennessee," Dakin insists. "If he would tell you something it wouldn't be necessarily true. And Blanche says in Streetcar, 'I don't tell what's true, I tell what ought to be true.' And so everything in Blanche was really like Tennessee."
Williams' use of gender role-playing as inspiration would surely have caused a stir had it been common knowledge at the time. But so, the play raised eyebrows. Williams' frank presentation of sexuality onstage shocked some audiences, but thrilled as many others.
Philip Kolin, a professor of English and author of several books on Streetcar, puts the magnitude of the play in perspective. "People have said that Williams absolutely invented the idea of desire for the 20th century," he says. "It was a play that dealt with for the very first time on the American stage, female sexuality and male sexuality."
When the curtains closed on the play's first night on Broadway, on Dec. 3, 1947, the crowd shared a moment of stunned silence, then burst into applause that lasted a full 30 minutes.
The play would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Williams, and was made into a movie by Elia Kazan, with help from the playwright and most of the original cast. The film would help cement Streetcar's place in history, garnering 12 Academy Award nominations -- Kim Hunter, Vivien Leigh (who replaced Jessica Tandy as Blanche), and Karl Malden as Stanley's friend Mitch took home statuettes for their performances, and the picture won for best art direction.
Not all of the response was so positive, but there was little that could be done to stop Streetcar's momentum. The Catholic Legion of Decency, which functioned as a sort of ratings board, threatened to condemn the film unless the more overtly sexual scenes, including Stanley's rape of Blanche, were removed. Williams acquiesced on some counts and wrote new dialogue that reduced the bisexuality of Blanche's husband to subtext, but refused to take out the rape scene. The Legion agreed, but only if Stanley was shown suitably punished for his actions.
But the complaints did little to stop Streetcar's momentum. The film was released in 1951, and more than 50 years later, Stanley's cries echo still.
Sept. 23, 2002 -- Every spring, below a second-story balcony in New Orleans' fabled French Quarter, crowds gather to watch men tear at their T-shirts in agony and shout at the heavens. For the uninitiated bystander, such a ritual might seem cultish, or perhaps simply overindulgent. But to those who have taken in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, either on stage or on screen, the spectacle exposes a far different meaning.
To those men (and women) opening their hearts and vocal chords toward the open windows of the Vieux Carre, the name Stella on their lips, it's the opportunity to step into the shoes of a dramatic legend.
A Streetcar Named Desire fueled the legends of two of America's icons of drama: Tennessee Williams and the star of his play, the 23-year-old Marlon Brando. For Morning Edition, NPR's Debbie Elliott digs into the history of the play to find out how Williams created this potent mix of raw emotion and sex that would become what theater critics would later call the best play of the 20th century.
Before igniting the careers of its author and stars, Streetcar endured a somewhat lengthy gestation. Williams put the script through numerous revisions under many working titles, including The Moth and Blanche's Chair on the Moon. At the time he moved into an apartment in New Orleans' French Quarter to finish his work on the play, he was calling it The Poker Night.
Kenneth Holditch, who gives literary tours in New Orleans, says the location proved inspirational. "[Williams] said from that apartment he could hear that rattletrap streetcar named Desire running along Royal," Holditch says, "and one named Cemeteries running along Canal. And it seemed to him the ideal metaphor for the human condition."
That metaphor finds its expression within the play in the character of Blanche DuBois -- originally played by Jessica Tandy -- a fragile southern belle who visits her sister Stella, played by Kim Hunter, and Stella's working-class husband Stanley, played by Brando. Blanche, who hides a past not quite as pure as she'd like people to imagine, complicates matters immediately. Stanley suspects she's trying to swindle the couple. In the play's brutal climactic scene, he rapes Blanche, breaking her fragile grip on sanity.
Williams used more than just the name of a streetcar for inspiration. It has been suggested by some scholars that Stanley -- rough, masculine and short tempered -- was based on Williams' lover at the time he was writing the play, a man named Pancho Rodriguez Gonzalez.
Tennessee Williams may have inserted himself into the play as well, says his brother Dakin. "Blanche is Tennessee," Dakin insists. "If he would tell you something it wouldn't be necessarily true. And Blanche says in Streetcar, 'I don't tell what's true, I tell what ought to be true.' And so everything in Blanche was really like Tennessee."
Williams' use of gender role-playing as inspiration would surely have caused a stir had it been common knowledge at the time. But so, the play raised eyebrows. Williams' frank presentation of sexuality onstage shocked some audiences, but thrilled as many others.
Philip Kolin, a professor of English and author of several books on Streetcar, puts the magnitude of the play in perspective. "People have said that Williams absolutely invented the idea of desire for the 20th century," he says. "It was a play that dealt with for the very first time on the American stage, female sexuality and male sexuality."
When the curtains closed on the play's first night on Broadway, on Dec. 3, 1947, the crowd shared a moment of stunned silence, then burst into applause that lasted a full 30 minutes.
The play would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Williams, and was made into a movie by Elia Kazan, with help from the playwright and most of the original cast. The film would help cement Streetcar's place in history, garnering 12 Academy Award nominations -- Kim Hunter, Vivien Leigh (who replaced Jessica Tandy as Blanche), and Karl Malden as Stanley's friend Mitch took home statuettes for their performances, and the picture won for best art direction.
Not all of the response was so positive, but there was little that could be done to stop Streetcar's momentum. The Catholic Legion of Decency, which functioned as a sort of ratings board, threatened to condemn the film unless the more overtly sexual scenes, including Stanley's rape of Blanche, were removed. Williams acquiesced on some counts and wrote new dialogue that reduced the bisexuality of Blanche's husband to subtext, but refused to take out the rape scene. The Legion agreed, but only if Stanley was shown suitably punished for his actions.
But the complaints did little to stop Streetcar's momentum. The film was released in 1951, and more than 50 years later, Stanley's cries echo still.
"Stella" in Popular Culture
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Music as a Symbol in the Play
Music plays an important role in A Streetcar named Desire because it appears in almost every scene and stresses the atmosphere in a very distinct way. There are two main types of music used in the stage directions: the blue piano and the Varsouviana Polka. Each one appears in scenes which are occupied by a certain emotional state of the main character Blanche.
The blue pianoThe blue piano is first mentioned in the introductory stage directions of the first scene: “This ‘blue piano’ expresses the spirit of the life which goes on there” (Williams 115). Throughout the play, the blue piano always appears when Blanche is talking about the loss of her family and Belle Reve, but it is also present during her meeting and kissing the young newspaper man. The blue piano thus stands for depression, loneliness and her longing for love, which the adjective blue already suggests. This quality is not identical with the color symbolism of blue. It describes Blanche’s emotions and represents her need for companionship and love, but also her hope, as the scene with the paper-boy shows. Mitch tells her in scene nine that he will not marry her due to her promiscuous past, “the distant piano is slow and blue” (Williams 207). Later, in scene ten, it grows louder when she is on the phone trying to get in touch with Shep Huntleigh. In this situation, her hopes are rising, and so does the piano. In the last scene, Blanche is being taken away to a mental institution, and Stanley and his friends play poker again: “The luxurious sobbing, the sensual murmur fade away under the swelling music of the ‘blue piano’ and the muted trumpet” (Williams 226). The blue piano, accompanying the card game, symbolises Stanley’s victory over Blanche.
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The Varsouviana PolkaThe Varsouviana Polka, on the other hand, appears when Blanche is being confronted with her past and the truth or when she talks about Allan. The reason for this seems obvious, for exactly this polka had been played when her husband Allan committed suicide. The polka represents death and immanent disaster. Blanche tells Mitch in scene six about Allan, and how she caught him cheating on her: “Polka music sounds, in a minor key faint with distance” (Williams 183). When Stanley gives her a ticket back to Laurel for a birthday presents, the situation means disaster for Blanche. She realizes that she is not wanted anymore, and that she has nowhere to go, for Laurel is an unacceptable place to go to after all the incidents there:
“The Varsouviana music steals in softly and continues playing” (Williams 198). Again, the polka represents disaster. In scene eleven, the connection between the polka and Blanche’s state of mind and emotion becomes even more obvious. She gets totally lost in her illusions about Shep Huntleigh and runs into her room when the doctor arrives: “The Varsouviana is filtered into weird distortion, accompanied by the cries and noises of the jungle” (Williams 222). Therefore the polka’s weird distortion matches the confusion in her mind, and gives a further dimension to the "Bois" element of Blanche's name as discussed earlier. |
Assessment - Character Analysis
Task:
- Write a character analysis of 2-4 pages, following MLA style.
- Your analysis may be of any one character or a comparative analysis of two characters in the text. You should develop a careful analysis that is well supported with evidence from the text and demonstrates your close reading and interpreting skills.
- Prewriting - Tuesday, April 9
- Peer Review/Revision - Monday, April 15
- Revision due - Wednesday, April 17, 11:59 PM
Character Analysis Prewritiing Chart | |
File Size: | 29 kb |
File Type: | doc |
Single Character Analysis
Focus on a single character
You can choose from several methods to develop your thesis:
- Consider the choices the character makes, his/her major physical and mental traits (ambitious, lazy, arrogant, kind), what the character says about him/herself, what the character does, whether the character grows (dynamic) or remains the same (static).
- Perhaps you feel that the character is controlled or determined by through which he or she is perceived (other characters, narrator, society).
- Try to be original, but do not go beyond what is in the text. Do not try to imagine the character outside the context of the story and do not include ideas or situations the author does not include. Remember that you are analyzing, which means that you are not only describing what is in the text that you demonstrate why it is in the text.
- From the list of traits you have amassed, come up with a stated, central idea and then formulate the clear thesis.
You can choose from several methods to develop your thesis:
- Organization around a central characteristic(s) using the what the character's words and actions, as well as, the words and actions of other characters to demonstrate how the qualities are developed..
- Organization around a development or change of character. Here you would show the character traits a character possesses at the start of the work and then describe the changes or developments that occur.
- Organization around central incidents that reveal primary characteristics. Certain key incidents will stand out in a work, and you can create an effective analysis by using three or four of these incidents as the basis for your analysis, taking care to show in your topic sentences that your purpose is to illuminate the character you have selected, not the incidents themselves. Therefore, regard the incidents only as they bring out the truths about the character.
Comparative Character Analysis
Focus on two characters with the intent of pointing out significant differences, similarities, or conflict.
When you write a comparison essay, you can organize it in one of two ways.
Block (A+B) Approach:
Body points are centered on individual characters and develop all points of comparison in relation to that character. Unless treated carefully, this structure can result in less cohesion and more repetition.
Alternating (A/B) Approach:
Body points are centered around the points of comparison. Both characters are discussed in relation to the point of comparison. This structure can have more cohesion and less repetition. Beware, however, of the Tennis-Ball method, where you feel you have to make a connection in every sentence. You should feel comfortable enough to develop a point about a character over several sentences before you bring in the comparison with another.
- Use the same techniques to gain an understanding of two characters that you would a single character.
- Decide on a specific focus and purpose for your comparison - simply stating that two characters are different or similar are not enough.
- Don't go for the obvious (and probably boring) comparison. Look for commonalities between different characters or differences between seemingly similar characters.
- Consider how characters participate in or respond to conflict - what traits are revealed?
When you write a comparison essay, you can organize it in one of two ways.
Block (A+B) Approach:
Body points are centered on individual characters and develop all points of comparison in relation to that character. Unless treated carefully, this structure can result in less cohesion and more repetition.
Alternating (A/B) Approach:
Body points are centered around the points of comparison. Both characters are discussed in relation to the point of comparison. This structure can have more cohesion and less repetition. Beware, however, of the Tennis-Ball method, where you feel you have to make a connection in every sentence. You should feel comfortable enough to develop a point about a character over several sentences before you bring in the comparison with another.