Streetcar named desire🎠- context Flashcards
(16 cards)
William’s own life
(4)
- Williams suffered from depression and resorted to drugs and alcohol
- Williams had a lifelong fear of death, especially death from cancer, this is reflected in Belle Reve
- 1931, Williams had a nervous breakdown and in 1937 his sister Rose was sent to a mental institution and like Blanche was lobotomised.
- Williams was a practicing homosexual at the time it was illegal
New Orleans
(4)
- a cultural melting pot
- a streetcar went to dearie and another to cemeteries, there is also an avenue called Elysian Fields were the resting souls of heroes went in Greek Mythology
- Jazz, bars, gambling
- city in Louisiana. whose legal system was influenced by the napoleonic code.
South
(3)
- DuBois family built on slavery - plantations like Belle Reve.
- Decline of the wealthy southern families has been romanticised in literature and cinema
- After the southern confederate states lost the civil war (1861-5) the south became poor and families declined
Literary and theatrical background
(3)
- Williams can be seen as part of the Southern Gothic movement, characterised by rich, grotesque imagination and an awareness of being part of a decaying culture
- Chekhov’s play - The Cherry Orchard, based on declining family’s like the DuBois
- Strindbergs, Miss Julie - may have influenced William’s in pairing class conflict and sexual tension between Blanche and Stanley
American Values
(3)
- USA prided itself on opening arms to immigrants, including Poland however Blanche still calls Stanley a Polack
- Stanley fells he is all America and that this is the greatest nation on the earth
- Stanley is an example of a go getting, competitive working class immigrant
Finish the quote:
Arthur Miller said, “Streetcar is a cry….
“Streetcar is a cry of pain; forgetting that is to forget the play.”
Finish the quote:
Arthur Miller said, Streetcar had potential for “illuminating….
“Illuminating society’s fate”
Finish the quote:
Arthur Miller said “Streetcar at the hour of its birth…
“Streetcar at the hour of its birth echoed the fate of the outsider in American society and raised the question of justice.”
Finish the quote:
Arthur Miller said “In streetcar however, the real and lyrical
“In streetcar, however, the real and lyrical were smoothly blended and emerged a unified voice
Who was Arthur Miller
a American playwright, essayist and screen writer.
What does Williams say in his interview with himself
“I don’t believe in…
I don’t believe in original sin. I don’t believe in guilt. I don’t believe in villains or heroes.
What does Williams say in his interview with himself
“Most writers are primarily motivated in their desperate vocation…
by a desire to find and to separate truth from the complex lies and evasions they live in.
Elia Kazan: A Notebook for a Streetcar Named Desire
general key notes (2)
- Directing finally consists of turning psychology into behaviour
- This is a poetic tragedy, not a realistic or a naturalistic one
Elia Kazan: Blanche (4)
- She is caught in a fatal inner contradiction
- She is a butterfly in a jungle looking for just a little momentary protection, doomed to a sudden, early violent death
- She is a heightened version an artistic intensification of all women, that is what makes the play universal
- She takes refuge in fantasy
Elia Kazan: Stella (3)
- she has an unconscious hostility toward Blanche
- she walks around as if narcotised as if sleepy, as if in a daze.
- she’s utterly blind to what’s wrong with Stanley
Elia Kazan: Stanley (4)
- Stanley rapes blanche because he has tried and tried to keep her down to his level. This way is the last…
- he is marvellously selfish
- to Stanley sex equals domination
- every bar in the nation is full of Stanleys ready to explode.
