The past

Question 1

What are the key points I want to make for this topic?

Answer 1

1. ) Belle Reve:
   - Death and loss
   - Sex

2.) Blanche’s desire for protection because of her past

3. ) Allan Grey
   - ‘trace the fleeting visionary of love’ through youth
   - guilt
4. ) Expressionism and plastic theatre
   - the use of sounds and musical interludes to evoke the past
   - the use of props and costume to attenuate the ‘atmosphere of decay’
5. ) Stanley’s desire to uncover the secrets of Blanche’s past
   - he represents the triumph of the present over the past.

Question 2

What are the key points for the introduction?

Answer 2

• Elysian fields= final resting place- a character whose past is an immense burden for her, has driven her to Elysian fields
• ‘incongruous’ ‘white’ ‘moth’, represents Southern Belle, a relic from the past it is as though she is already fading away
• carries a suitcase, is attempting to escape the past

Question 3

What is the topic sentence and key points for topic 1?

Answer 3

1.) Belle Reve

DEATH:

• ‘I took the blows to my face and to my body… you didn’t dream. But I saw!’
• Context: Williams’ personal exploration of guilt in the sibling relationship, he believed that when he left for university this catalysed his sister’s schizophrenia and lobotomy that could have been prevented

-‘Huh! legacies… and other things such as blood-stained pillow slips’
Context: association of Belle Reve with death represents the decay of the Southern Grandeur of the world to which Belle Reve adheres

SEX:

• ‘epic fornications… the opposite is desire’
• ’ slipped out to answer their calls’

Question 4

What is the topic sentence and key points for topic 2?

Answer 4

2. ) Blanche’s desire for protection because of her past:
   - ‘people like you abused her and forced her to change’
   - ‘ people don’t see you- men don’t even notice your existence unless they are making love to you’

• ’ shimmer and glow- put a- paper’
• ‘I’m fading now’
  Context: evokes feeling of the epigraph= fleeting visionary of love

Blanche’s desire to embellish her appearance and appear youthful represents her desperate attempts to cling onto the decaying world of her youth- Williams references a divergence of values in a post- Civil War South

• Romantic appeal- lyricism and poetry

Question 5

What is the topic sentence and key points for topic 3?

Answer 5

3. ) Allan Grey
   - ‘the boy- the boy died. I think I’m going to be sick (her head falls to her arms)
   - ‘ young man’ and ‘student’ overriding impression of youth= evokes the feeling of the epigraph: ‘trace the fleeting visionary of love’

• ‘I’d failed him in some mysterious way… all the lights had been turned off’
  context: Williams experienced mental turmoil and depression- lyricism in depiction of this
• personal exploration of the effects of guilt on the individual and the way in which they haunt the present: he felt responsible for Rose’s lobotomy

Question 6

What is the topic sentence and quotes for topic 4?

Answer 6

4.) Plastic theatre and the use of surrealism:

• ‘varsouviana’, ‘the polka music rises’
  distortion and lack of touch with reality- Blanche cannot escape the past and we are immersed in her reveries
• action is episodic: ‘shot’

-' gaudy tin flowers used by lower class Mexican funerals'
Context: putrefaction of Blanche's romantic ideals= something that used to be romantic now bares association with death.

• relic of the past: ‘soiled evening gown… scuffed satin slippers’
• decay of the ‘southern Belle’ archetype, loss of the past and the world to which Blanche and Belle Reve adhere

Question 7

What is the quotes and topic sentence for topic 5?

Answer 7

5. ) Stanley’s desire to uncover the secrets of Blanche’s past= he represents the present
   - Papers: ‘well let’s have a look then… begins roughly shoving open compartments)

• just prior to Stanley’s arrival: ‘locomotive glares as it thunder past’
  Context: triumph of jutting materialism and urbanisation of the New South over the decaying grandeur of Blanche’s world