Music Flashcards
(6 cards)
How is music presented in streetcar?(1)
-The most psychologically potent use of music in A Streetcar Named Desire is the recurring “Varsouviana Polka,” tied inextricably to Blanche’s memory of her young husband’s suicide. The music is described as playing “in her mind,” never heard by other characters — a theatrical decision that positions sound as an extension of her psyche
-It returns in moments of deep stress, especially when Blanche confronts her past: most strikingly in her confession to Mitch, as she recounts the night Allan ran “out of the casino and shot himself.” Williams orchestrates this moment with cinematic precision — the polka swells with her speech and stops only at the imagined sound of the gunshot
-Here, music is not simply a backdrop, but the form that Blanche’s trauma takes. It gives shape to what she cannot say fully in words, allowing the audience to inhabit her memory, rather than just hear about it
-The polka doesn’t reflect thought, but compulsion — its repetition mirrors her inability to escape the emotional loop she lives inside.This cyclical structure echoes the broader arc of classical tragedy, in which the past cannot be buried and fate repeats itself
How does Williams present music as not merely background noise from the beginning (2)
-Williams gestures to this tragic inevitability from the beginning: Blanche arrives at “Elysian Fields,” a name drawn from Greek mythology’s afterlife, where souls are rewarded with peace — yet what she finds is not peace, but brutal realism
-The irony is deliberate. The Varsouviana is the sound of that irony, undercutting Blanche’s fantasy of romantic renewal with a tune that only ever leads backward. It is significant that Williams uses music, rather than language or visual symbol, to stage this collapse. Unlike Blanche’s carefully crafted illusions — her claim to “old-fashioned ideals,” her insistence that she doesn’t want “realism” but “magic” — the polka cannot lie. It cuts through performance and reveals the emotional residue that remains
-In the final scenes, the polka becomes part of a wider soundscape of destruction: the train, the “inhuman voices,” and the Mexican vendor’s cry of “flores para los muertos” all converge to overwhelm Blanche
-By the end, her downfall is not narrated but orchestrated — a dissonant composition of unresolved grief. Through this motif, Williams shows that Blanche is not merely haunted by the past — she is trapped in it, scored by it, and finally silenced by it
How does Williams present the blue piano (2)?
-The “blue piano” motif in A Streetcar Named Desire embodies the living present — sensual, improvised, and unapologetically physical
-It is first described as “expressing the spirit of the life which goes on here,” anchoring the play within the sonic landscape of New Orleans: a city marked by migration, cultural hybridity, and African-American musical influence. Williams draws on the energy of jazz and blues not just for atmosphere, but to signal a deeper social and cultural shift
How does Williams present the blue piano in alignment with Stanley?(2)
-The piano aligns with Stanley, who represents the rise of post-war America — working-class, ethnically diverse, industrial, and immediate. He is a Polish-American man in a city defined by cultural miscegenation, and Williams leans into this hybridity by attaching him to a music that breaks from tradition, thriving on rhythm, repetition, and instinct
-When Stella returns to Stanley after the poker night, the blue piano “grows louder,” underscoring not just sexual tension but the triumph of raw physicality over emotional complexity
-In this way, the music becomes complicit in Stanley’s dominance, reflecting a world where power is asserted through action, not artifice
How does the blue piano capture Blanche’s cultural displacement?
-The piano also reinforces Blanche’s cultural displacement. As she begins to speak in heightened, lyrical registers about her past, the blue piano often plays beneath her — not in harmony, but in contrast. Its presence reminds us that this world is not Blanche’s; it moves too quickly, too physically, for her illusion to survive
-She is tied to memory, “old-fashioned ideals,” and the rituals of a fading aristocracy. The polka is her private, internal soundtrack — isolated and nostalgic — while the blue piano is public, communal, and modern
-Williams constructs this sonic opposition to dramatise a broader cultural conflict: the Old South versus the New America, illusion versus realism, performance versus presence
-The piano swells as Stanley’s control grows stronger, particularly in scenes rooted in masculinity, sex, or confrontation. It is not simply decoration, but a musical assertion of dominance — one that cannot be reasoned with or out-argued. Just as Stanley refuses to accommodate Blanche’s fantasies, the music refuses to soften itself into her imagined world
-Through this contrast, Williams does not just show the erosion of Blanche’s identity — he makes us hear it
What can you conclude about music in streetcar?
-music becomes the most revealing method of expression, exposing what language conceals and what illusion seeks to soften. The “blue piano” is not just ambient sound but Stanley’s anthem — bold, physical, and unyielding — while the “Varsouviana Polka” is Blanche’s requiem, looping endlessly through her psyche as both memory and punishment
-These motifs trace not only emotional decay but cultural transformation, scoring the collapse of old ideals under the weight of modern, unsentimental realism. As John McRae observes, Williams’s soundscape “makes audible the faultlines of the soul,” allowing trauma and desire to resonate long after words fall silent
-In this way, Williams composes a tragedy not only of failed communication, but of music misunderstood — where the most devastating truths are the ones heard, not said.
