streetcar critics

Question 1

John Chapman

Answer 1

shuns the reality of what she is and takes gallant and desperate refuge in a magical life she has invented for herself’

Question 2

Lart

Answer 2

Stanley is an ‘agent of Blanche’s destruction’

Question 3

Galloway

Answer 3

The play has no clear victor, everyone loses something

Question 4

Samuel Tapp

Answer 4

Both leading roles are portrayed as victims of their gendered languages and social norms

Question 5

Adler

Answer 5

Just as the plantation served as a symbol of the past, Stanley and Stella’s baby stands for the way the ‘working class’ ethos will be carried into the future

Question 6

Feminist - Elia Kazan (director of original)

Answer 6

Key idea: Saw Blanche as a tragic victim of a misogynistic society that discards “damaged” women.

Theory/term: Patriarchal oppression; sexual double standards.

Question 7

F - Jay Butler

Answer 7

Key idea: Blanche performs femininity in a way that reveals gender as constructed, not innate.

Theory/term: Gender performativity; unstable identity.

Question 8

Marxist - Raymond Williams

Answer 8

Key idea: Stanley represents the brutal emergence of a new working-class America, while Blanche represents a decaying aristocracy.

Theory/term: Class conflict; the decline of the Old South.

Question 9

Marxist - Terry Eagleton

Answer 9

Key idea: Desire and class are intertwined; Blanche’s downfall is partly due to her class-based illusions.

Theory/term: Ideology; false consciousness

Question 10

Psychoanalytical - Jacques Lacan

Answer 10

Key idea: Blanche is stuck in the Imaginary order, unable to reconcile with symbolic reality—hence her retreat into illusion.

Theory/term: Lacanian mirror stage; symbolic vs imaginary.

Question 11

Sigmund Freud

Answer 11

Key idea: Blanche’s trauma and repression manifest in hysteria, denial, and desire for death.

Theory/term: Repression; death drive (Thanatos); trauma theory.