Streetcar Malfi, reputation

Question 1

F: ‘Thou art undone’

Answer 1

• Double meaning: meaning her dress is literally undone, figuratively her life is undone as her reputation has been destroyed – metaphorical death foreshadowing her real death
• Ferdinand is referring to the fact she has married a man of a lower class than her
• Expectation for widows to stay chaste at the time
• Contemporary audience probably agrees with F whereas modern audience sees the Duchess as innocent this is because of context of time + Elizabeth I supposedly married to England

Question 2

D: ‘Diamonds are of most value… that have past through most jeweller’s hands.’

Answer 2

• Proverbial, aphoristic
• Lacey Baldwin: ‘people were longing for the ‘sea faring strength’ of Elizabeth I’
• Comparing herself to a luxury item – yet it is objectification, but here she uses it to her advantage, empowering + connotations of innocence
• Challenging conventional views on widows – that women lose value the more sexual partners they have had.
• Contemporary audience would be shocked by this whereas modern audience would be in favour of sexual liberation

Question 3

‘you’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother’

Answer 3

• Purity and chastity
• Blanche takes these baths to try and clean herself from her corruptive reputation – ablution
• Audience empathises with Blanche due to sense of disgust from Mitch – rejection
• Emphasis that reputation is based on sexual promiscuity – women are supposed to be ‘easy’ yet also sexually pure and untouched – shift of values from the ante-bellum south to the new America

Question 4

B: ‘yes, a big spider! That’s where I brought my victims’

Answer 4

• Spider as a metaphor – trapping people in a web and then feeding on them
• Connotations of darkness
• Blanche is forced to do this to survive, like a spider, yet she is perceived as malignant – society will accept sexual promiscuity so long as it is a choice and with passion – like with Stella and Stanley again, values of the ante-bellum south

Question 6

F: ‘we must not now use balsamum, but fire’

Answer 6

• ‘Balsamum’ – healing
• Contrast with Fire – violent, destructive
• She must die
• Obsession with reputation and keeping the blood-line pure
• Ferdinand (or men) will corrupt the Duchess’ reputation
• Creates sense of disgust from audience

Question 7

‘Happily, with some strong-thighed bargeman’

Answer 7

• Reputation through male lens
• Incestuous nature of Ferdinand and his lust for his sister creates a sense of irony that he is shaming her for her promiscuity – explained by the gender norms of that time and the concept of the lusty widow
• Creates sense of disgust from audience at incestuous nature
• Male dominance over women as they are responsible for their reputation

Question 8

‘Their livers are more spotted than Laban’s sheep’

Answer 8

• About women who marry twice
• Liver believed to be the seat of erotic desire, “spotted” suggests Women have blighted livers
• Excess of sexual desire = unsightly and unhealthy
• Women’s reputation is dependant on their sexual promiscuity

Question 9

Mitch: (He tears the paper lantern off the light-bulb)

Answer 9

• Almost a sense of metatheatre – men controlling setting of the play they gain authority over women. Contrasting to principle of realism Williams seeks to have in his plays
• Blanche’s reputation finally revealed, she always avoids the light to avoid people seeing the truth about her

Question 10

‘Tiger – tiger’ (Blanche about to throw bottle at Stanley as he is going to rape her)

Answer 10

• Transformation of her image from a gentle, curious moth to a corruptive violent tiger – suggesting that she has succumbed to the primitive nature of post-war America that she so hates in Stanley. Her attempt to maintain the southern-belle reputation has been ruined
• Harold Bloom: Williams explores ‘the conflict between the old south and the new… the gentility and coarseness of human behaviour’
• Animalistic language – dehumanised, forced to see her through a different lense
• Audience = empathetic toward Blanche because of Stanley’s corruption of her – gives a sense that her sexual promiscuity has been forced on her – sense of helplessness – she keeps the fragility
• It’s Stanley (a man) who gives her this name, and even from the start there is that sense of inevitable doom

Question 11

C: ‘Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman reign most in her, I know not’

Answer 11

• Cariola reflects audience’s conflict – they can’t decide how they feel about D - whether her sexual reputation is corruptive or her masculine stoicism is admirable
• Crit: Blanche ‘occupies not only a feminine but a masculine space as well’.
• Also relevant to D here: as a prince she holds authority, power & boldness – masculine feature s
• Significant of misogyny at the time – women’s reputations once again are put down to their sexuality rather than their achievements as ‘greatness’ is not a feminine trait

Question 12

‘the diamonds were changed to pearls.’

Answer 12

• Foreboding the loss of her reputation
• As A says – pearls represent tears and therefore the Duchess will be forced to weep
• Also, pearls are less valuable than diamonds signalling the loss of her reputation

Question 13

‘(her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light… that suggests a moth)’

Answer 13

• Blanche is trying to hind behind the reputation of a southern belle – delicate and innocent – she is still stuck in the ante-bellum south of delicacy and cannot adapt to the animalistic and primitive nature of post-war America
• ‘moth’, ‘delicate’ also connotes fragility, D’s fragile mental state and reputation
• ‘strong light’, darkness to hide true reputation
• This fragility means that her reputation is bound to be destroyed, her white clothes are bound to be soiled

Question 14

Blanche is wearing a (somewhat soiled and crumpled satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers with brilliants set in their heels… now she is placing the rhinestone tiara in her head)

Answer 14

• Blanche wears bridal clothes when Stanley rapes her
• her metaphorical death in her sexual corruption
• She tries to find protection in her bridal clothes ( associate with purity and virginity) but Stanley breaks that image
• ‘soiled and crumpled’ is foreboding – almost metatheatrical but also signals that her reputation is destroyed