Streetcar Context points

Question 1

Importance/background of the New South

Answer 1

• Like other Southern Gothic writers, Williams exposes the corruption of the OS, yet appreciating the civility that died along with it.
• Belle Reve, the ‘beautiful dream’, squandered through ‘epic fornications’ becomes associated with death and slow decline.
• Blanche’s own decline mirrors this, the lone survivor of the world, describes herself as ‘fading’, as is the old ways she lives for.

Question 2

The destruction of the old ways in scene three

Answer 2

• Blanche is a fierce defender of ‘art, and poetry, and music’, urging Stella to ‘cling’ onto the older, more civilised ways.
• Stanley throwing the ‘white radio’ in scene three is emblematic of the lost chivalric world, which B + M were desperately trying to re-create with the ‘waltz’.

Question 3

Importance of the new south

Answer 3

• Post ww2, new ways began to emerge, a ‘warm and easy intermingling of races’, a melting pot of culture, yet lacking in the old civility.
• Stanley represents the vitality of the new ways the ‘gaudy seedbearer’ status, with his admission that he’s the ‘unrefined type’.

Question 4

Primitive motif

Answer 4

• Blanche asserts Stanley as a ‘survivor of the stone age’, her dialogue is later reflected in Williams’ description of him, suggesting Williams feels the same way.
• Stella accepts his animalistic qualities, ‘low, animal moans’.
• Scene 10 repeats this motif, the expressionistic device of diegetic sound is used to create ‘inhumane jungle noises’, amplifying the savage nature of the attack.

Question 5

Stella’s confliction.

Answer 5

• Stella works as a bridge between the two worlds, she accepts the new world with excitement, whilst keeping Blanche in her thoughts, ‘Indeed they have, thank heavens!’
• She chooses the new world in the end, implying the ways in which women must work in the new world to survive, death belongs with Blanche, whilst a new life of vitality belongs to Stanley.

Question 6

Gender roles context?

Answer 6

• The return of the soldiers (Stanley included) saw a rise in appreciating masculinity which helped win the war, and thus a push to the roles of the nuclear family.
• Williams established the firm gender roles between Stella and Stanley, the ending evoking that their relationships survives off of this dynamic.
• Blanche however does not conform to this, showing masculine traits of sexuality and arrogance.
• Mitch + Allen Gray present a sensitivity, especially for AG, the pressures to conform to hegemonic values is deeply troubling.