‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Whose Reality?

1. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Whose Reality? AOS 2 – Creating & Presenting

2. Exam Booklet – Section B • Shade the context - ‘Whose Reality?’ - on the cover page of your script booklet for Section B (writing in context). • Write the text you have (mostly) referred to/drawn upon on the cover page of your script booklet also.

3. The prompt • The prompt is usually quite generic (broad/general) so students can explore ideas from either text. • You are required to deal with the CONCEPTS it raises. • ‘Shared experience does not mean that people see things the same way.’ (2011) • ‘Sometimes people find themselves living in a world created by other people.’ (2010)

4. The prompt • Your piece should clearly address the prompt but does not have to provide a definite ‘answer’ or stick rigidly to the prompt. • Shape your ideas around the prompt, using it as a starting point for wider discussion on the context . • DO NOT write a generic or pre-prepared piece that is unrelated to the prompt.

5. Assessing key ideas in prompts • Highlight/underline the key words • Look up words in the dictionary you’re uncertain of • Rephrase the prompt • Consider the context ideas that are relevant to it • How do these link to your chosen text? • What’s your opinion on it? • What texts, images, songs, quotes, theories spring to mind?

6. Writing Requirements • Expository • Persuasive • Creative/imaginative • ‘Hybrid’ or combined form • Aim for 600 – 1,000 words - you can definitely write more! It’s more about the quality and complexity of the ideas and the writing.

7. Texts • Draw upon the ideas related to “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams or “Spies” by Michael Frayne. • You can draw on both if you want! • DO NOT focus only on your selected text/s – these pieces tend to resemble text response essays and can only result in a mid-range mark of 4-7 out of a possible 10.

8. Written Explanation • You DO NOT need to write one! So DON’T! Woohoo!!  • Even if you want to, it cannot be taken into consideration – this may go against those who write creatively and produce something quite bizarre that needs explaining…

9. Good writing? • Dependent on the quality of your writing, the quality of your ideas and your ability to deal with the prompt. • ‘There can be no good writing without good ideas.’ – Bob Hillman (Carey Grammar) • Sophisticated understanding of the context; sophisticated and clear expression. • Be accurate and specific not general and vague. Assessors have found that the weakest responses are those that are too general and only ‘superficially’ explore key ideas.

10. Context ideas & statements • Reality is hard to define. Reality can be harsh. • There can be multiple realities/versions – sometimes these clash. • We can consciously shape our reality – writing and re-telling is reflexive and involves revising reality • There are universal truths • We all perceive reality differently – why? • Our past experiences impact on our perceptions • Significant people/events compel change

11. Context ideas & statements • We all (consciously/subconsciously) seek to avoid reality at times. • We can only imagine what it’s like to ‘walk in someone else’s shoes’. • The past affects the present. • Our ability to perceive something clearly can be limited by our current mental state. • Who’s to say what is real and what is not? • There’s a fine line between illusion, madness, conception, deception, genius, madman.

12. Context ideas & statements • William Wordsworth – ‘The child is father to the man.’ The experiences we have as a child shape who we are as adults. • Plato’s ‘cave allegory’ – Only those who truly question the world get to see it for what it is, not just ‘shadows on a wall’ (think ‘The Matrix’). • We construct reality by reflecting on and editing events from the past – this involves value judgments. • The brain shelters us from the harshness of reality by sustaining us with dreams and illusions – dangerous?

13. A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams

14. Summary • Blanche DuBois: A former beauty and member of an elite social milieu. She has not, and cannot, adjust to her various losses: husband, career, beauty, Belle Reve, etc • Stanley Kowalski: Former soldier and current salesman. He is masculine, forceful and has a bestial sense of life • Stella Kowalski: Caught in the middle. Chooses husband over sister. • Mitch: Yearns for love and has a gentle nature. • MAJOR THEMES: perception and reality, loyalty, honesty and choice • SETTING: New Orleans after WW11 (1948)

15. Blanche DuBois • Frightened • Unable to adjust to her changing situation • Guilt ridden • Uses her sexuality to gain protection/love • Faded Southern belle • Symbol of the old South • Pretends to be what she is not • Moth-like • Borders on madness/driven to it • Yearning

16. Blanche’s quotes • I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be truth. • Funerals are pretty compared to deaths…Why, the Grim Reaper had put his tent up on our doorstep!...Belle Reve was his headquarters…Where were you? In bed with your – Polack!...But you are the one that abandoned Belle Reve, Not I! I stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it! • Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare! • Daylight never exposed so total a ruin.

17. Blanche Cont… • Now don’t get worried, your sister hasn’t turned into a drunkard, she’s just all shaken up and hot tired and dirty. • Only Poe…could do it justice! • I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman’s charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth. • I hurt him the way you would like to hurt me, but you can’t! I’m not young and vulnerable anymore. • I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.

18. Blanche Cont… • He’s common! • Soft people have got to shimmer and glow…You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I-I’m fading now. • All I knew was that I’d failed him in some mysterious way and wasn’t able to give the help he needed but couldn’t speak of…“I saw! I know! You disgust me…” • “It wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me.” • I don’t want realism. I want magic…I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. • Never inside, I didn’t lie in my heart.

19. Blanche Cont… • A cultivated woman, a woman of intelligence and breeding can enrich a man’s life – immeasurably! I have those things to offer…Physical beauty is passing…But beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit and tenderness of the heart – and I have all of those things – aren’t taken away, but grow. Increase with the years! • Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable…and it is the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty. • Our attitudes and backgrounds are incompatible We have to be realistic about such things.

20. Stanley Kowalski • Brutal • Energetic • Brash/loud • Modern • Sexist • Uses sexuality as symbol of power • Resentful of anyone who thinks they are better than he is • Overbearing • Crass • Physical

21. Stanley’s quotes • Have you ever heard of the Napoleonic code? • I don’t like to be swindled. • Hat do you two think you are? A pair of queens? • “Every Man is a King!” • What I am is one hundred percent American…so don’t ever call me a Polack. • I was common as dirt. You showed me the snapshot of the place with the columns. I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it…Wasn’t it all okay till she showed here?

22. Stanley Cont… • There isn’t a goddam thing but imagination...And lies and conceit and tricks! • You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light-bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile. Sitting on your throne and swilling my liquor.

23. Stella Kowalski • Symbol of transition between old and new worlds • Gentle • Excited by Stanley’s physicality • Torn between loyalty to her husband and her sister • Sensitive • Weak • Pacifist • Understanding • Practical

24. Stella’s quotes • I can hardly stand it when he is away for a night…When he’s away for a week I nearly go wild! • The Kowalskis and the DuBois have different notions. • Stanley’s the only one of his crowd that’s likely to get anywhere. • I’m not in anything I want to get out of. • But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant.

25. Stella cont… • You didn’t know Blanche as a girl. Nobody…was as tender and trusting as she was. But people like you abused her, and forced her to change. • I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley.

26. Mitch • Lonely • Loyal • Weak • Sensitive • Gentle • Patient • Good-natured

27. Mitch’s quotes • I like you to be exactly the way that you are, because in all my – experience – I have never known anyone like you. • You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be – you and me, Blanche? • I don’t think I ever seen you in the light. That’s a fact. • I don’t mind you being a little older than I thought. But all the rest of it – Christ!...But I was fool enough to think you was straight.

28. Fantasy and Reality • Blanche creates a façade of illusion in order to cope with her past (shattered and harsh). • She tells what ‘ought to be the truth’ • When she finally retreats into her fantasy, she is hauled off as insane but is in fact, happier there than in her reality

29. Fantasy and Reality • Stanley refuses Blanche’s description of him as a ‘brute’ and ‘ape’ when they are in fact, accurate. • His illusion is that he is in control, yet he is merely a bully, using physical force • There is no superiority in him despite his claims that he is ‘King around here’ • He is cruel and cunning and deludes others into seeing that cruelty as honourable

30. Fantasy and Reality • Stella makes a clear choice between reality and fantasy because she ‘couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley’ • This echoes her willingness to overlook Stanley’s physical abuse

31. Desire and Death • The play suggests that the blind pursuit of desire leads to death itself – the Streetcar named ‘Desire’ leads to the Cemeteries which lands you in Elysian Fields where residents are doomed to repeat the same errors in life • Blanche uses sexual desire to fill the emotional void – the kindness of strangers • Her desire to reconnect with her sister leads to her mental devastation • Sexual desire between Stella and Stanley pulls her from her columns and ends her gentility • The sexual act is used to connect the characters but in using it this way, they lose something of themselves.

32. Symbols • Baths/bathing • Meat • Varsouviana Polka / interrupted by gun shot • Singing/song – ‘But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me!’ (Sc 7) • Colours – vivid reds and greens contrast with pastels • Moths – fragility (drawn to the light) • Dimmed lighting – shades drawn, paper lanterns – ‘daylight never exposed so total a ruin’ (Sc 1)

33. Symbols Cont… • Young boys • The Tarantula Arms / Hotel Flamingo • Jazz music • Mexican woman – flowers / coins for the dead>timing • Cigarette case inscribed with poem by Elizabeth Browning: And if God choose, I shall but love thee better – after – death.” • English teacher: POE - Gothic descriptions

34. Symbols Cont… • Drinking/addiction • Fake pearls/tiaras/clothing • Names – Stella (star); Blanche (white/pure); Belle Reve (beautiful dream) • Tram ride – Desire, Cemeteries, Elysian Fields (mirrors Blanche’s journey). • Fishing for compliments/laying cards on the table

35. Power and Vulnerability • All of the characters are vulnerable in the play and they each use the power at their disposal to avoid exposing this. • Stanley – physical and verbal power prevents criticism • Stella – sexuality and submission to keep Stanley from using his power • Blanche – sexuality and powers of illusion to protect her from damage

36. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ – Creative responses • A doctor writing a psychiatric report on Blanche • The conversation between the two sisters 10 years into the future… • Monologues from any of the characters • A magician who wants his audience to believe it’s real • Explore the façade Allen Grey maintains in a letter to Blanche • Second life/online identity gets in way of real life

37. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ – Expository responses • An exploration of the illusive nature of reality in popular texts taking into account ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, ‘Memento’, ‘Inception’, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’, ‘the Matrix’, etc… • A psychological examination of the brain’s response to trauma drawing upon victims of crime, abuse, loss and dependence… • The various ways and reasons why people seek to escape reality such as boredom and daydreaming, issues and avoidance, low self-esteem and self-help…

38. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ – Persuasive responses • A speech about the impact of guests who overstay their welcome. • An opinion article arguing that we need to take better care of those suffering from mental afflictions. • A university lecture aimed at 1st year psych students arguing that reality is a construction. • Letters to the editor and their responses based around the idea that ‘every man is/is not a king’ – this is in response to Andrew Bolt’s assertion that there is no glass ceiling at home or in the workplace. (HYBRID)

39. Sample prompts • 'The line between illusion and madness is a fine one.' • 'When we attempt to make order out of chaos then we risk distorting reality.' • 'Believing is seeing. The reality that we perceive is the reality that we want to perceive.' • 'An experience becomes real when others feel what it felt like for you.' • 'People's memories shape their understanding of themselves, their world and others.'

40. Sample prompts cont… • 'We can never attain a fully objective view of reality because we remain trapped in the prison of our subjectivity.' • 'When competing realities clash the result can be only tragedy.' • 'Our sanity depends on a clear understanding of what is and isn't real.' • 'A person's self-image can interfere with their ability to perceive reality clearly.'

41. Sample prompts cont… • ‘There are no facts, only interpretations.’ • ‘The truth means different things to different people.’ • ‘People re-create their memories to suit their current reality.’

42. Other Resources • Wheeler Centre lecture 2012 • http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video/texts-in-the-city-a-streetcar-named-desire1/ • VCAA Assessor’s Report 2011 • http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/exams/english/english_assessrep_11.pdf • Study Guide by Rachel Kafka • http://ebookbrowse.com/a-streetcar-named-desire-sbd-142164211-pdf-d345968998