A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire contains more withinit’s characters, situations, and story than appears on its surface. As inmany of Williams’s plays, there is much use of symbolism and interestingcharacters in order to draw in and involve the audience. The plot of AStreetcar Named Desire alone does not captivate the audience. It isWilliams’s brilliant and intriguing characters that make the reader trulyunderstand the play’s meaning. He also presents a continuous flow of raw,realistic moods and events in the pplay which keeps the reader fascinatedin the realistic fantasy Williams has created in A Streetcar Named Desire.The symbolism, characters, mood, and events of this play collectivelyform a captivating, thought-provoking piece of literature. A Streetcar Named Desire produces a very strong reaction. Even at thebeginning of the play, the reader is confronted with extremely obvioussymbolism in order to express the idea of the play. Blanche states thatshe was told „to take a streetcar named Desire, and then to transfer toone called CCemeteries“. One can not simply read over this statementwithout assuming Williams is trying to say more than is written. Later inthe play, the reader realizes that statement most likely refers toBlanche’s arriving at the place and situation she is now iin because of herservitude to her own desires and urges. What really makes A StreetcarNamed Desire such an exceptional literary work is the development ofinteresting, involving characters. As the play develops, the audiencesees that Blanche is less proper and refined than she might appear orclaim to be. Her sexual desire and tendency to drink away her problemsmake Blanche ashamed of her life and identity. Desire was the“rattle-trap streetcar“ that brought her to her pitiful state in life. Blanche is the most fascinating character in A Streetcar Named Desire. One reason for this is that she has an absolutely brilliant way of makingreality seem like fantasy, and making fantasy seem like reality. Thiselement of Blanche’s personality is what makes her character iinterest theaudience and contribute to the excellence of the work. Returning to thebeginning of the play, Blanche, shocked with the dirtiness and gloominessof Stella and Stanley’s home in New Orleans, looks out the window and says“Out there I suppose is the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir!“, to whichStella replies „No honey, those are the L and N tracks.“ Blanche wouldassume that something so common and simple as noisy, dark railroad tracksmight as well be „ghoul-haunted woodlands.“ Further evidence of Blanche’swarped view oof reality and fantasy is shown throughout the entire play. She seems to hint to Stella and Stanley, and therefore the audience, thatshe is actually much more than she seems. In scene seven, Blanche soaksin a tub, singing: „Say, it’s only a paper moon, sailing over a cardboard sea -But it wouldn’t be make-believe If you believed in me! It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, Just as phony as it can be -But it wouldn’t be make-believe If you believed in me!“As she sings this song, telling the story of her tendency to believe amore pleasant, warped view of reality over the actual reality, Stanley istelling Stella the horrifying truth about Blanche’s scandalous past. Thereader is as drawn into Blanche’s illusion as much as Stella is, and justas Stella refuses to believe Stanley’s harsh words, the audience also doesnot want to accept that the view they have had of Blanche for a good dealof the play is nothing more than a story made up to hide her unpleasanthistory. The clearest example of this is also one of the most intense andinvolving scenes of the entire play. In scene nine, Blanche is confrontedby Mitch, who has learned the truth about her ppast. Mitch tells Blanchethat he has never seen her in the light. He tears Blanche’s paper lanternoff of the plain, bright light bulb, and tries to see her as she reallyis, and not in a view warped by Blanche’s efforts to make herself seemmore innocent, young, and beautiful than she is. Blanche responds to thisby saying „I don’t want realism. I want magic!.I try to give that topeople. I misinterpret things to them. I don’t tell truth, I tell whatought to be truth.Don’t turn the light on!“ This intense, frighteningscene reveals to the audience the way Blanche views the world. TennesseeWilliams’s use of this kind of dual view of the world to develop Blanche’scharacter is a perfect example of the way A Streetcar Named Desire makesthe audience react to the characters in the play. It is this reactionbetween the audience and the brilliant characters in the play that makesthe play such a valuable literary work. The literary value of A Streetcar Named Desire is in Williams’s abilityto create a fantasy world which draws the reader into it as if it wastheir own reality. In some ways, the setting and conflict of the play isfamiliar to the reader, but in many wways the conflicting worlds of StanleyKowalski and Blanche DuBois are too different to share the same reality. Tennessee Williams’s world in A Streetcar Named Desire, and the characterswithin it, become so familiar and fascinating to the reader that everyevent that occurs in the play affects the reader’s reaction to the overalloutcome of the play and his opinions of the characters. The theme of the play does not occur to the reader until after the play’soverall experience is concluded, and he is left to reflect on just whatTennessee Williams was trying to say in the play. While the play is beingread, the audience is not interested in the overall meaning of the work,but simply in the intriguing action occurring at that moment in the play. However, A Streetcar Named Desire certainly contains many potentialthemes. One theme of the play could be that time is precious, and towaste it is to lose it. This theme of carpe diem, or „seize the day“ isstrong in the play. As time goes on in Blanche’s life and her socialbehavior changes, she wastes away her youth. The loss of her younghusband Allan has caused her loneliness, sexual desire, and even certainsigns of psychological instability. All of

these problems were increasedby her attempt to lose them through drinking. What Blanche does notrealize is that she can not change the past through the present. Blanche’s youth is gone, and she tries to give the appearance of being asyouthful and innocent as she once was, but her illusion can not last. Asan epigraph to the play, Williams quotes from the poem „The Broken Tower“,by Hart Crane: „And so it was that I entered the broken world To trace the vvisionary company of love, its voice An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled) But not for long to hold each desperate choice.“The use of this poem helps to express Williams’s choice of theme in AStreetcar Named Desire. Blanche has entered a „Broken world“ of fear,longing, and sorrow because of her simple desire to hear „the visionarycompany of love, it’s voice“, or tender, gentle words of love andappreciation from Stella and Mitch. However, these words are only“visionary“. Blanche hhopes that these words will bring to her what sheneeds to rebuild her life, but they do not last. Stanley feels he needsto prove that Blanche is not what she seems. To this end, he destroys herdreams of becoming what sshe wants to be, and not what she was. By tellingStella and Mitch about her activities in the past, Stanley ruins Blanche’sillusion. Blanche won their love by covering the past, and she could nolonger build a new person from herself. The breakdown of Blanche’scharacter climaxes when Stanley rapes her, trying to prove to her that healways knew she was less than she appeared. After this event, Blanche isforced to deal with the reality that she can never change who she is, andshe is doomed to live with her reputation. This final outcome for Blancheis a brutally realistic way of proving the idea that youth is precious andshould not be wasted on trivial desires. Thomas Lanier Williams, known as Tennessee Williams, wwas ...