'A Streetcar Named Desire' & 'The Duchess of Malfi' A* Essay: male vs female power and powerlessness
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Course
Pre-1900 and Post-1900 Drama
Institution
WJEC
The essay question answered in this document is “In the social world of the play, we are made to think more about the insecurity of males than the powerlessness of females.” To what extent would you apply this view to both ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’? This is a...
“In the social world of the play, we are made to think more about the insecurity of males than the
powerlessness of females.” To what extent would you apply this view to both ‘The Duchess of Malfi’
and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’?
Both Williams and Webster depict male characters made insecure by non-conformist female
characters who undermine and destabilise their fragile power. However, this is not the sole focus of
either ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ (Malfi) or ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (Streetcar) since the audience is
made to think more about the female characters: the unwavering, noble power of The Duchess in
contrast to Blanche’s powerlessness. Crystal clear!
In both plays, male characters are made insecure by subversive female characters
undermining their patriarchal authority over the family unit. In ‘Streetcar’, to Stanley, Blanche is an
unwelcome visitor who is a threat to his marriage and future family, likewise in ‘Malfi’, Ferdinand
and the Cardinal perceive the Duchess’ marriage and “bastard” children as a threat to the integrity
of their bloodline. Webster emphasises the Duchess’ harmful deception by the dramatic timing of
“I’ll never marry”, in front of her brothers, in contrast with “I winked and chose a husband” in
soliloquy. This certainly portrays Ferdinand and the Cardinal’s paternalistic control as insecure
because it is ineffective, even having threatened the Duchess with a “poignard”, she defies their
orders to “never marry”. Furthermore, though Ferdinand’s threat to “boil their bastard to a cullis”
may seem extreme, Whigan argues that it is justified as the Duchess’ duty is to protect their “royal
blood of Aragon and Castille”, which she has failed to do. In fact, she has jeopardised it through an
unlawful marriage to a man beneath her station, and in doing so, violated the Great Chain of Being
and Church Law. Similarly, in ‘Streetcar’ Blanche destabilises Stanley’s power over the family unit by
infringing on his sex life with Stella. Stanley is evidently frustrated by this, pleading to Stella to get
the “coloured lights going” again, since sexuality is the source of his power over Stella – she “cries
like a baby” when he is gone and, even after being beaten by him at the Poker Night, she cannot
resist him, as instructed in the stage directions, “they come together with low animal moans”.
Therefore, when Blanche prevents this with her uncomfortable proximity to their bedroom –
emphasised by the claustrophobic setting of the Kowalski apartment with so little space (a curtain
offers the only privacy) that Blanche fears it will not be “decent” – Stanley feels insecure in his
marriage. Furthermore, Kazan’s 1951 film, an interpretation approved by Williams, presents Stanley
as utterly insecure and disempowered as Stella says “don’t ever touch me again” in the
denouement, denying him any sexual control over her for the last time. However, this film is a
sanitised version of Williams’ scripted ending, in which Stanley’s “fingers find the opening of
[Stella’s] blouse”, an image of sexual conquest, since it had to be sanitised in accordance with the
1930 Production Code. Therefore, to an extent male characters in both plays are characterised as
insecure since their power is destabilised by the subversive female characters.
However, male insecurity is not the sole focus of either play, instead Webster and Williams
encourage the audience to focus on the powerlessness of their female characters, Blanche and the
Duchess, since they are victims to the male characters’ abuse of patriarchal power. Blanche loses
multiple ‘homes’ in ‘Streetcar’, not only due to her own inappropriate desires, but also the perverse
desires of men; most obviously she is driven out of her temporary ‘home’ in New Orleans by Stanley
who gives her a “Ticket! Back to Laurel!” but also, outside of the chronology of the play, she is driven
out of Belle Reve since her male relatives wasted their family fortune on “their epic fornications” and
Laurel where she had to “run for protection…from one leaky roof to another leaky roof” in a
desperate attempt to survive as an unemployed, unmarried woman in the 1940s. Similarly, the
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