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The Influence of The Past The relationship between past and present is revealed through the figures as Willy Loman, James Tyrone and BlancheDuBois. In Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night andWilliams’ A Streetcar Named Desirethe characters’ attitudes to the past are ambivalent: the past is a place they must flee but also a haven from the present; it seems to be separate from the present and yet an inextricable part of it. On a private scale, in Death of a Salesman, the past is not merely where Willy came from, but rather exists simultaneously with the present.
Interestingly enough, the past in these plays is a place rather than a time, and thus is not only recalled by the characters but also lived in. The transparent “walls” of the set of Death and A Streetcar facilitate the simultaneous dramatization of past and present. Thus Willy Loman, Blanche DuBois and Mary Tyrone appear to be living in the present but in the course of the play discover that they are firmly planted in the past and that their hold on the present is tenuous at best. This understanding and consequent dramatic use of the past is very different from Ibsen’s usage in his play A Doll’s House where the past is not simply a sequence of events leading up to the present and exerting an influence on it, but rather events occurring simultaneously with “ present “ events and thus inevitably complicating them.
Technically, Williams has built the events of A Streetcar through joining the present incidents with the memories of the past. The construction of the play is very light, all the scenes are connected together and each one depends mainly on its predecessor. The play also presents a double vision of time as it passes through the present situations but usually refers to the previous events which remain frozen in the memories of certain characters. Building the play in such a double vision has caused the interior struggles and conflicts in Blanche’s character. Blanche has failed to make a complete control over her present by accepting the interfering of the past.
Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire Blanche DuBois is clinging to a past which cannot be recaptured, except in her imagination , and perhaps never even existed . A faith in the past, a supposedly more humane and civilized period of American life, provides emotional sustenance and integrity . When illusions concerning the past are shattered – usually by another character whose interest it is to unmask the heroine – the protagonist is destroyed as well: thus Blanche retreats into madness.
The past offers a haven to the troubled souls, but it is not as unblemished as they would like to believe. It harbors images of betrayal: Blanche’s turning away from her homosexual husband. Haunted and paralyzed by guilt, Blanche is caught between a past of unspoken complexities and an unbearable present. A fugitive from a past which is in part a product of her idealistic imagination, she is in the end mercilessly destroyed by a present which offers neither understanding nor solace to her conscience-ridden soul.
To adjust to the present ,self-betrayal is necessary; that is , one’s integrity must be forsaken. The ‘stable ‘ character in the play ( Stella) does not question the system ;she tries to make the best of the situation . She has accepted her fate and learned to tolerate Stanley’s brutality. Blanche, on the other hand, tries desperately to avoid the harsh light of reality , to protect her ‘delicate beauty’, for there is ‘something about her uncertain manner as well as her white clothes , that suggests a moth’ . She comments that she ‘can’t stand a naked light bulb, anymore than …a rude remark or a vulgar action ‘, and she hides in the shade of the paper lantern. In Scene Six, where she tells Mitch of her betrayal of Alan Grey, she describes her first discovery of love as the sudden turning on of ‘ a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow ‘ . When she had betrayed her husband, the light went off for ever. Since then, Blanche has been unable to face the light ; however, she is acutely aware of her fear of the truth when she exclaims: ‘ I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes , yes, magic !’. In the end, Blanche’s protective layers of illusion are stripped away by Stanley’s brutality because she is the product of a vanished world desperately clinging to tradition.
Not only do Blanche and Stanley represent the moral victor and the physical victor, the hunted and the hunter , refinement and barbarism , death and life , old and new , feminine and masculine , but Blanche herself – white as her name indicates and red as her robe suggests – embodies the dualities .She may be the moth destroyed by the harsh light , but she is also the tiger Stanley refers to in Scene Ten .It is her guilt regarding her husband’s suicide, as much as the loss of the plantation Belle Reve and the dawning of a new era , that causes her alienation from the present. After losing the plantation as well as her reputation, she refuses to forfeit her image of herself as a plantation belle and a woman of higher sensibilities .
She atones for this guilt through her suffering at the hands of Stanley. While she voices her disgust concerning him, her attitude is in fact ambivalent: she is both repulsed and attracted; she is attracted because she is repulsed. Stanley, ‘the gaudy seed bearer’, ‘ a richly feathered male bird among hens ‘ represents the brutality of the present .In her confrontation with Stanley, Blanche becomes a scapegoat of the brutish society he embodies and Stella passively accepts. Blanche must be sacrificed in order not to threaten Stanley and Stella’s relationship; in another sense, she must be sacrificed because she is the outsider whose destruction confirms the cohesiveness of the group.
Blanche sees herself as cultured and morally superior to Stanley, she speaks of progress in an attempt to gain her sister’s sympathy and turn her against her husband. While Stanley takes special pride in having brought down Stella to his own level and reminds her of his triumph . Viewing Blanche as an unpleasant intruder and a threat to his marriage, he is determined to strip off her mask of respectability and refinement , to pull her down from the columns and to reveal the debased creature he believes her to be .When Stanley finds out about Blanche’s past, he rapes her to demonstrate his mastery of her. Blanche is destroyed by Stanley’s uncovering of her past, his shattering of all her illusions and finally raping her.
The theme of social alienation is clear in the modern theatre; but there is a relationship between alienation and inwardness : the more the protagonists are viewed as victims of an overpowering social environment, the more intense their spiritual anguish; the more self-reflective they become, the greater and more total their alienation, and yet the more focused their desire to re-enter the alienating environment. For instance, the more Blanche is made to feel an intruder by an increasingly hostile world, the more she must depend ‘on the kindness of strangers’; and the more she depends on their kindness, the more alienating they become. Indeed, Blanche is torn between the necessity to remain an outsider and the desire to be a part of a larger community.
Williams dramatizes not only the alienation of his protagonist but also her tragic attempt at re-familiarization. Indeed, contrary to the expectations one might have about tragic alienation, A Streetcar shows an already alienated protagonist attempting to reintegrate into society. The desire for reintegration is often inseparable from the yearning for a return to an innocent past. Blanche is drawn to the past and repelled by it. The past constitutes not only the source of her fate but is also that already familiar territory where she thinks she can escape from a threatening present and an uncertain future. • In A Streetcar Named Desire the conflict of the idealistic protagonist with the materialistic society ends in her physical destruction but she also signals her moral triumph. The protagonist is destroyed, and the audience is made to believe that they have been condemned by an environment that failed to conform to the moral standards set by the playwright through the protagonist .
A Streetcar begins with the protagonist’s movement toward death; however it also indicates that the defeatist behaviour follows a time of disillusionment which was preceded by a long period of idealism. And it is this idealism that characterizes Blanche’s heroism; Blanche can now depend on the kindness of strangers. In a sense, the self-destructiveness is a direct result of the idealism, for it is the total dedication to the ideal that results in the disintegration of personality, alienation from the community and even death.
Structure Through Contrasts • The structure of A Streetcar is best seen through a series of confrontations between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. In the first scene the confrontation is not so severe, but it increases in severity until one of the two must be destroyed. There are differences between the DuBois world and the Kowalski world; the most obvious difference between these two worlds lies in the diversity of their backgrounds. The name DuBois completely contrasts with Kowalski as the first is an aristocratic name, possibly one with a proud heritage.
A DuBois wouldn’t be found working in a steel mill, she would speak softly while the latter speaks loudly and brutally especially in the poker parties. Blanche’s preferences for entertainment are teas, cocktails and luncheons. Speech, to Stanley, is a way of expressing his wants, likes, and dislikes while Blanche speaks on a higher level; she searches for values, reflecting education in her manner of speaking.
Kowalski regards money as the key to happiness; money is the power that will buy pleasures of life, thus Stanley’s interest in Belle Reve centers only upon the fact that he has lost his money. He doesn’t care for the tradition of the place but only its financial value. This gives him a type of animal superiority to the world of people ( like the DuBois ) who do not understand the value of money and then become destitute. • Stanley and Blanche, as individual representatives of these two worlds, show even more contrasts in their personalities. The use of colour differs remarkably; Stanley needs vividness to prove his physical manhood; his green and scarlet bowling shirt is an example whereas Blanche selects pastels or white.
A Kowalski, as seen in Stanley, is “simple, straightforward, and honest “, he is always seeking the truth, but Blanche “ puts a gaily-colored paper lantern” on the harshness of truth and to her, this isn’t lying. Stanley does not like Blanche because she is deceiving other people thus this conflict is irresolvable as it originates in the essence of their personalities. • The contrast between the two characters of Blanche and Stanley is explained through the main difference between the two worlds of illusion and reality. But the audience sometimes feel that the two worlds are mixing with one another as Blanche’s illusions are tinged a certain extent with reality. She is a realist- to a certain extent – when she tries to use all her womanly charms; she is a beautiful female who tries to attract men to her beauty and gentility thus she tries to captivate Stanley by flirting with him at the first encounter between them. If Blanche cannot function as a woman, then her life is invalid.
She has confessed to her sister about their need for such a strong man like Stanley to help them regain the lost plantation • But maybe he’s what we need to mix with our blood now • that we’ve lost Belle Reve and have to go on without • Belle Reve to protect us ……. • Blanche has some wisdom when she admits that it would have been better for her own world of illusion to mix with some realistic forces that Stanley has. Blanche’s declaration is ironically showing that Stanley’s world is the strongest and the fittest while hers is going to vanish and disappear. • Love is essential to both worlds but has entirely different significance for each. Stanley needs love to satisfy his animal desires, while Blanche’s sensitivity is the key to her approach to love, she needs someone not to fulfill her basic physical desires but to protect her and to seek some type of communication, some capacity of devotion. Thus Blanche’s concept of love is on a higher level than Stanley’s as she seeks security and protection for her sensitiveness against the rough edges of her surroundings.
Major Themes • 1- Clash between cultures / The decline of A Culture • 2- Loneliness • 3- Sexual struggle and Conflict • 4-Appearance and Reality
Symbolism • Williams has used symbols as a poetic means of expression to further the plot and meaning of his play, they enable the audience understand the emotional space surrounding the events and characters. The most obvious symbols used in A Streetcar are: • 1- Names • 2-The Streetcar named Desire and Cemeteries • 3- Elysian Fields • 4- Blanche’s Bathing • 5- Paper Lanterns • 6- Shep Huntleigh • 7- The Old Flower Vendor’s Cry / The Mexican Flower Woman • 8- Light • 9- Stella’s Baby
