Streetcar extras Flashcards
(20 cards)
1
Q
4
Stanley
A
- His declaration of being a proud American carries great thematic weight, for Stanley does indeed represent the new American society, which is composed of upwardly mobile immigrants. Blanche is a relic in the new America. The Southern landed aristocracy from which she assumes her sense of superiority no longer has a viable presence in the American economy, so Blanche is disenfranchised monetarily and socially.
- Stanley’s dual nature makes it difficult for us to condemn him as readers (or as the audience). The contrast between his caring side for Stella and the baby and his dominating primitive side.
- ‘Like a pair of queens!’ - Many critics have pointed out that Stanley represents the new America - land of opportunity and equality - as opposed to Blanche’s more archaic ideals. Again, this complicates our understanding of his character and any blanket categorization of him as a mere villain.
- Williams presents desire through Stanley, whose sexuality is at the core of their being. Though the antagonism between Blanche and Stanley is mostly about class, it is Stanley’s desire, brutish, patriarchal sensibilities and their need to dominate everyone that contribute to Blanche’s demise.
2
Q
Blanche
A
- That she speaks of talk and action as analogous to a lightbulb shows that she considers the remedy for uncouth behavior and appearance to be a paper lantern, an external cover, rather than a change from within.
- This is Blanche’s battle cry. It doesn’t matter whether the magic is real. It doesn’t even matter whether Blanche herself believes it. What’s important for Blanche is that she always have the option of the fantasy - that she can believe in and hope for something prettier and lovelier and kinder than the real world. - ‘I don’t want realism, I want magic!’
- Blanche’s relationship with Mitch is founded on her lies and intentionally distorted perceptions – she wants safety and security, fundamentally different from Stella and Stanley
- Blanche feels a sense of antebellum nostalgia about the image of ‘The Old South’ and continued to place emphasis on ancestry and heritage
3
Q
3
Stella
A
- “He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself.” - Stella
- Williams presents desire through the character of Stella. The theme of desire is interconnected with fate and illusion, and it is these things that influence Stella’s eventual betrayal of Blanche.
- Williams links desire with the inescapability of fate - ‘there are things that happen to a man and a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything else seem - unimportant.’ - destructive
4
Q
3
Context - diversity
A
- 1947, American Dream - Idea that anyone can suceed through hard work and personal endeavor
No matter your humble background, you can rise to top of society through hard work - Can be seen as social realist play - Deals with many issues e.g. class distinction, gender role, immigration and powerplays between genders, Sharp critique of the way the institutions and attitudes of post-war America (1961 was American civil war) placed restrictions on women’s lives - ‘Survival of the fittest’ - What Darwinian phrase from his evolutionary theory
- New Orleans – anomaly – doesn’t share same views on slavery and racism, multiculturalism – large influx of immigrants 1940s - ‘a cultural melting pot’
5
Q
2
Context - his life
A
- Williams - Tennessee quote for his main theme in his work
“I have only one major theme for my work which is the destructive power of society on the sensitive, non-conformist individual”
- His work is emblematic of his reality – mom – Stella, southern belle, Father – alcoholic, working class salesman, got his ear bitten off in a fight after a poker game, Kip Kierman left him to marry a woman
5
Q
5
Context - stagecraft
A
- Anagnorisis - characters insight into mankind through the plays unraveling
- Peripeteia - result of reversal of fortune
- What are the three unities (rules) adapted from the Aristotelian rules for classic Greek tragedy that make the play fit this genre and how does it link to ASND? - Time - Story unfolds over set time period (6 months)
Place -Occurs in single setting (Kowalski apartment in New Orleans)
Action -Adheres to single plot (Escalation conflict between Stanley and Blanche)
- Southern gothic - It takes place in the contemporary American South, but it remains affected by the legacy of the Civil War – similar to the Glass Merungue, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Impoverished settings, grotesque characters, violent or lurid events
Insanity
Sex figures prominently in the action - Plastic theatre - Using props, sound, stage direction and costume to present symbolism. It is not intended to be realistic, but symbolic - they mirror the emotional and mental psyche of Blanche and sometimes other characters.
6
Q
2
Symbolic moments in the play
A
- One of the most iconic moments of mid-20th century American drama – a tragedy about a Southern Belle futile longing for a historical and personal past of a bygone Golden Era when Confederacy plantation owners held dominant social power in Southern US. The Southern women born into such sociocultural gentility were shielded from the abrupt morphing multi-cultural nation
- Timeless – William’s skill in crafting deeply contradicting characters who inspire pity and disdain in equal measure, and in our conflicted emotional responses to figures like Blanche Du Bois and Stanley Kowalski, we are invited to consider if we should feel the same degree of judgement towards their delusion, arrogance or crudeness had we had been in similar desperate straits – there is a sharpness to the assertion of new social orders and existence in a world continuously seeking progress
7
Q
2
The Kowalskis and the DuBois have different notions – Scene 2
A
- A cursory reading of the play would have us characterize Stanley Kowalski as an ignorant meathead – more animal physicality than refined intellectualism – however he does have pragmatic savvy – intelligence is subjective – Napoleon Code – there is a hollow hypocrisy in the sister’s contempt towards him – Material acquisition and practical gain are the priorities
- Coming from no socioeconomic conditioning, Stanley’s world has little self-indulgent fancy – just a survivalist agenda – everything, comes with a Darwinian agenda. Existential and epistemological desire – make sense of the chaotic order that have disrupted lives
8
Q
2
The Kowalskis and the DuBois have different notions – Scene 2
A
- A cursory reading of the play would have us characterize Stanley Kowalski as an ignorant meathead – more animal physicality than refined intellectualism – however he does have pragmatic savvy – intelligence is subjective – Napoleon Code – there is a hollow hypocrisy in the sister’s contempt towards him – Material acquisition and practical gain are the priorities
- Coming from no socioeconomic conditioning, Stanley’s world has little self-indulgent fancy – just a survivalist agenda – everything, comes with a Darwinian agenda
9
Q
5
‘There are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark that sort of making everything else seem unimportant’ - Scene 3
A
- One of the most pertinent questions in the play in marriage is people gravitating to those who hurt them – little incentive to correct bad behaviour
- Scene 3 – the stage directions present their union with careful potency and through the delicate – the audience is made to feel, not understand, the blindness of love. Repetition of the word ‘moans’, first in personification of the low tone clarinet background to then their partnership carries obvious sexual connotations – but by characterizing the moans in both musical and carnal terms, Williams suggests the marriage is not just the crude, brutal desire that Blanche reduces it as
- When Stanley falls to his knees on the steps, it is a silent admission of contrition, an awkward gesture of supplication, symbolizing an essential devotion that remains despite his own glaring flaws
- Stella’s response to Blanche crystallizes the complexities and contradictions of marriage – love is whatever one wants to accept it to be – they are sisters, but this showcases a difference in worldview, and a different degree of realism in their view of human relations – Blanche sees people in moral binaries, Stella understands a nuanced contradictory and sometimes inexplicable shades of human character.
- The ambiguity in this diction – unexplainable dynamics – whilst objectively horrific, could be seen rose tinted within marriage – love is irrational – the senselessness of this is reinforced by her half-mocking, half-helpless retort to her sister’s histrionic disapproval
10
Q
4
‘I don’t want realism. I want magic!’ - Scene 9
A
- Indulges herself in magical thinking – this highlights the tragic inexorability of her dire straits because she finds reality more painful than being damned – the stronger she repudiates her brokenness, the sharper she relays to everyone else the extent of her pitiful delusion and glaring lack of self-awareness
- Willful dishonesty allows for temporary mental reprieve and this paralyzing fear is seen through people turning the light on
- Her fundamental fear is not living up to the cultural archetype of the Madonna - a standard of womanhood that patriarchal 19th century American South would have normalized in people’s gendered expectations
- In a pathologically hypocritical fashion, Blanche’s coping mechanism is to flamboyantly criticize others – this mirroring dynamic is embodied in Blanche’s hatred of Stanley’s similarly outsized humanity and flaws
11
Q
6
1940s New Orleans
A
- Interesting for post WW2 timing and postbellum southern environment - marks a point of turbulence and rupture for 20th century American history
- To understand this perception of the conflux of American energies – can look to the epigraph of the play – Hart Crane – the broken world he alludes to could be the new social order caught in the cusp of Old Confederacy South (reified past, racial hierarchy and aristocratic ideals) vs Emerging post-war America (cultural diversity, social mobility and ethnic heterogeneity) - this break between past and present sets the overall dynamic – not only in the heavy atmospheric descriptions, but equally through the Du Bois v Kowalski power struggle throughout the play
- Start of scene 1 the setting descriptions set a strong impression of New Orleans as a Nexus of contradictions - ‘one white but one coloured’ - their simultaneous presence – racial consciousness would have largely carried segregationist assumptions, ‘Elysian Fields’ - an imaginary utopia where presumably all people and things align in perfect harmony, however the various clashes so far about this French Quarter in New Orleans – whether it’s socioeconomic class, architectural aesthetic, sensorial experience or racial makeup, suggest that any Elysian state is probably more aspirational and fantastical, rather than achievable and realistic.
- Indeed, as the play progresses, we see this argument borne out in the character’s remarks about the quarter and New Orleans – with Blanche making no secret of dismissive disdain towards the lack of refinement, and others like Stella and Mitch accepting the ‘raffish charm’
- There is a divergence in values for Stella and Blanche – Blanche is fixated on the poverty and roughness of the French quarter whilst Stella believes in a much broader purview – she sees herself as a cosmopolitan aspirant in a dynamic, exciting, up and coming city - ‘New Orleans isn’t like other cities’ - radical self-fashioning. A large part of Blanche’s tragedy is her inability or refusal to accept the generational change symbolized by a place like New Orleans, as we see from a somewhat comical out of touch self-consciousness when Mitch invites her to chat after the poker game
- ‘That don’t make no difference in the Quarter’ ‘Such a pretty silver case’ - non-sequitur response – she refuses to accept the cultural codes
12
Q
Socio-cultural norms – gender hierarchy and sexual taboos
A
- Many of the gender values that Blanche is subscribed to and is judged by have not really evolved from the antebellum era in the 19th century, when patriarchal men wielded power in both public and private domains while expecting women to embody the Madonna-esque virtues like purity, innocence and docility. Same-sex relationships frowned upon – with values such as honour, possession and mastery rooted at the core of antebellum southern manhood, and the prescription of such strict, unforgiving codes on sexual identity meant that the concept of sexuality as often associated with deep shame and unfulfillment – applying to those who complied or defied social norms
- The gender archetypes that Stella and Blanche each embody in fact contradict their core identities in relation to the past history and present reality – Blanche’s pining for all these different men, she paradoxically pines for an Old South where women were held to be impossible exemplars of sexual impurity, and in a similar vein Stella conforms to the persona of an obedient and forbearing wife, accepting the abuse despite being the rebellious spirit that married Stanley in the first place – the cognitive dissonance between the DuBois sisters gendered choices and personal desires reflect a more complex internal struggle that most postbellum women would have faced, caught between the chasm of traditional expectations and gender possibilities
- Scene 5 monologue - ‘caught in the center between leaky roofs…’ - represent the perilousness of relying on external sources of protection is an apt representation of the cultural entrapment suffered by Southern women
- It is not the sexual code that is the problem, but the reaction it that cause such sin and tragedy – it would have removed the original source of trauma in the play – Scene 6 monologue - ‘in the quick sands’ - falling, downwards movement – it is a sin, ‘I loved him unendurably’ - perhaps a Freudian slip – taken literally, it was intolerable to begin with. As the moment continues the fusion of locomotive and noise and polka music confuse the contextual landscape as a dynamic chaos of sight and fury
- The motif of the Varsouviana – traditionally a Polish waltz but suffered a decline in popularity after the 19th century because of its ‘rhythmic vulgarization’ - there’s something within this musical genre that is echoed in Blanche’s trajectory – one of original sophistication, to now descend into moral vulgarity as a result of making unsound choices – this is the first time it has appeared, plays again near the end – any other musical accompaniments have been the blue piano.
13
Q
5
Love
A
- William’s mother said that he was intending to never marry, because he can’t bear to make another woman unhappy
- William’s portrayal of marital nuances and dynamics are sharp and poignant but perhaps carrying influences of Southern gothic grotesque that exaggerates interpersonal drama in such a melodramatic and turbulent way as to make their relationships not quite realistic to audience taste
- Stanley and Stella – code for dependency – paradoxically they love each other for the insecurity and anxiety that the other possesses – Stella loves Stanley’s primal dynamism and unbridled energy – it is what she lacks, meanwhile a Southern belle drawn to him revels his ego. Scene 3 – regresses to an auditorily infant state, resembling the cries of a newborn babe. Stella represents Stanley’s past, present and future – she becomes this symbol of boundless maternal forgiveness, which reinforces her role as a tripartite, all-encompassing role for Stanley.
- Final scene where he comforts her – as the scene exits with the intermingling of Stella’s luxurious sobbing, Stanley’s sensual murmur, and the recurring melancholic tune of the blue piano, the overall impression that one gets is that Stanley and Stella’s mutual love is a conflation of turbulent, contradictory, and often painful emotions
- From Stella’s vantage, love is a willful ignorance of her husband’s fault, and an unconditional acceptance of his flaws, at the expense of her well-being from his unrestrained transgressions – does marital love necessitate willful ignorance
14
Q
4
Mitch and Blanche – love as escape from the self
A
- Blanche is a character that inspires deep pathos – she seeks men’s attention and validation because her sense of self is cripplingly fragile and her upbringing in a Southern heartland with conservative gender values that normalize female dependence means she doesn’t know a better alternative to prop her identity up for her misfortune.
- Mitch’s emphasis on their mutual need for somebody suggests that his idea of love is denominated in terms of transaction and grounded in codependency – love is being able to take someone home to his mother as a testament to his conforming with social behaviour and convention – love is seen as a mirage in moments of vulnerability
- Blanche shows this drawn attitude to shades of someone’s vulnerability does not mean a full acceptance of another’s true self – which is the only foundation of true, sustained love
- Coda: is there real love in the play?
Are most forms of love just form of dysfunctional relating? Love is confused with problematic emotional attachment
15
Q
The Poker game
A
- A variation of poker called ‘seven-card stud’ which was a popular card game among American homes until the arrival of ‘texas hold-em’. In the play the poker night symbolises not just an occasion for social gathering, but as a site for masculine exhibitionism – where we see a truer side to their nature. It is an analogy for how individuals choose to approach the way they live their lives accordingly to the circumstances they live in – whether they have the free will to play the cards, so to speak, regardless of the randomness of their fate
- In seven-card stud they only get a set of private cards, some of which are visible, others hidden, and the aim of the game is to observe the player’s visible cards – to extraprolate this as a framework for understanding the play’s characters lives, we can say that Stanley, true to his aggressive persona, takes the same proactive approach to determine his life as he maintains power and control over the course of the household. Blanche, in comparison, is not a woman who ‘lays her cards out onto the table’, nor does she want to expose herself in the light of this game – she cannot play because she cannot bear having visible cards.
16
Q
6
Scene 3 analysis – playing poker as masculine performativity
A
- Men at the peak of their physical manhood – coarse, direct and powerful as the primary colours of their shirt – the kaleidosocope of bright, bold hues suggest a primary role in the household, with their wives taking a secondary, more muted approach. This desire to reinforce identity as a man would have been especially acute in post-war America, returning from their military duties, and wishing to dominate new social spaces. Similar to the game, the men’s masculinity is visible in their exhibitionism – their garish clothes, the bravado posturing, but the anxieties they harbour are private
- Steve’s inquiring but caging questions about everyone else’s cards, Pablo’s attempt to pause the game for takeout, Mitch’s declaration about wanting to go home soon. Stanley and to some extent, Steve, try to assert their dominance, not through strategic virtuosity, but crude bids for social attention.
- Sense of verified energy in the southern motifs of Master-slave power like the crisp, vivid slices of watermelon – a racist metonym for AA slaves during the postbellum period, and the bitter rinds Stanley dramatically throws on the floor during the game symbolizes his dominant power as a white man. Whiskey – strong alcohol, intoxicated violence and broad associations with the wealthy Southern man – which for Stanley and his working-class friends, can only be aspirational.
- Ironically though, this glaring expectation of hyper-masculinity is quickly undercut by the men’s own behaviour – meekness and dividince from everyone but Stanley – whilst loud and domineering on the surface, seems to be using his bombastic demeanor as a weapon to assert authority but also a shield to hide his self-consciousness and anxiety
- ‘Spit in the ocean’ - this game has reached an undesirable stage where all the men have minimal chance of winning – everyone dealt an unusually poor hand. The explosive combination of losing the poker game and patriarchal reigns over his household – must quickly seek a physical outlet to release his destabilized psyche
- The poker game can be seen as a sociological petri-dish for examining the consequences of fragile masculinity – both on an individual and interpersonal level
17
Q
2
Scene 11 – playing poker as a power struggle
A
- The abrupt turn to normalcy after Blanche’s rape is emotionally jarring. Despite the outward appearance of domestic routine – stage direction takes us back to emotional chaos, moral confusion, lapse of judgement – sharp foreshadowing. Portieres are ‘partly open’ - signifying throughout the play, characters have had something to hide – often hidden under exaggerated, traumatic displays of traits they wish they had possessed – Stanley with his hyper-masculinized aggression, Blanche’s hyper-feminized coquettishness. The overarching thread of hiding one part by amplifying the other is reflected in the rules of the seven-card stud poker game
- The poker game is seen to represent different social situations in life – the person who sets up the game will always call the final shot, whether ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - it is part of Stanley’s worldview, he shuffles the cards in Scene 9. It is an analogy for the play itself between Stella and Blanche, where each character hides their gendered anxieties by magnifying aspects of their idealized persona in disastrous ways within this ideological power struggle, where the characters try to sabotage each other. Power precedes justice.
18
Q
3
Should we feel bad for Stanley?
A
- Stanley’s final cards to Blanche
The Greyhound Bus ticket to Laurel Mississippi, then ripping off the paper lantern in the end – by doing this, he is declaring a pyrrhic victory – had to compromise his own humanity.
- Wants to find a place to anchor their disrupted self-identity. Virile, strong physique – Marlon Brando as Stanley in 1951 film adaptation
Beneath his outward masculinity lies deep insecurity, which stems first from the transitional historical times in which his character is set from men at war to reintegrating into society, and from the socioeconomic contrast that Blanche’s presence as an aristocratic Southern Belle possesses (jarring!)
- WW2 – women started taking the labour force – gender dynamics shift. The impulse to overcompensate and prove manhood was not uncommon, especially for those working class who, without wealth or assets, would have had to rely on their physicality in the labour force to assert their social value.
Blanche can be seen as a way for him to rehabilitate his masculinity
19
Q
3
Stanley’s inferiority complex
A
- Early on in Scene 2, Blanche can be seen as more predatory, even as an existential threat to the Kowalski household. Animal motif of ‘fox-pieces’ (seen as farm pests protruding to steal chickens)- Blanche is also seen as an unwelcome intruder – symbolic foreshadowing from ransacking - ‘champion safe-cracker’ - implying shady criminality explains her material extravagance – he violates boundaries, trangressions into other people’s territories, and is not to be trusted – his animosity towards Blanche – a doomed relationship rooted in mutual disdain, misunderstanding, and insecurity
- It is possible that Stanley sees Blanche beyond a woman – whilst feminist critics may argue that he is one of the strongest agents for the maintenance of the patriarchy, whom he, as a man can violate and by virtue of her biology be stripped of her power - a valuable alternative to consider is his primal regression – he has reverted from a state of human to that of beast – animal v animal – Scene 9 – ‘inhuman jungle voices rise up’ - no longer meant to view this as civilized, passions of bestial survival have taken over the logic of social civility.
- Blanche’s moral hypocrisy and naive idealism are countered to his worldview and value system – they threaten to steal Stella and Mitch away from his sphere of influence – they are sole pillars of emotional and practical support despite systematic abuse. May be driven by primal and existential fear instead of the need to reassert himself as a man.
