Summary
Summary A Streetcar Named Desire: Structure
- Module
- Unit 1 - Drama (9ET001)
- Institution
- PEARSON (PEARSON)
A Streetcar Named Desire: Structure
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StructureExposition: Scene 1
Complication:
Crisis: Scene Eight when Stanley gives Blanche the bus ticket.
Climax: Scene 10 rape whilst Stella is giving birth
Dénouement: Scene 11
Epistasis: The rising action. Scenes 1-6
Contrapuntal Sounds- When 2 conversations are talking at the same time, mixing the
dialogue. In Scene 7, when Stanley and Stella are arguing when Blanche is singing in the
bath.
Bifurcated Stage Picture- You can see 2 characters or images, but they can’t see each other.
Scene 4, when we can see Stanley eavesdropping on Stella and Blanche, but they can’t.
Tableau Vivant - A frozen image. Blanche is Scene 1 and 9.
Plastic Theatre: When Williams uses costumes/props/theatre to reflect the inner realities of
the characters. For example, Blanche's struggles with madness are depicted by chaotic
lighting and sound effects, and her intermittent feelings of guilt are signalled by a musical
motif.
Costumes: Blanche’s clothes emphasise her vulnerability. On her arrival to Elysian Fields,
Blanche is described as ‘daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and
earrings of pearl.’ She is incongruous to the setting. Her descent into her illusory world in the
penultimate scene is established immediately with her costume - a ‘somewhat soiled and
crumpled white satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers…placing the
rhinestone tiara on her head’.
Stanley’s costume is also part of his characterization. He is of medium height, strongly built
and wearing blue denim work-clothes, the details here reflecting the character’s
straightforward, down-to-earth attitude and working-class status.
Props: Blanche drinks coke throughout the play and frequently asks Stella to run to the store
to fetch a bottle. This serves to dramatize Blanche’s delusions of grandeur as she makes
Stella wait on her. In the fourth scene the coke spills over, staining Blanche’s white skirt and
symbolising her tarnished character. Costume jewellery and the diamond tiara highlights
Blanche’s fakery.
Music and Sound Effects: The blues piano and dissonant modernist music helps to capture
the contemporary spirit of the quarter, the easy morality and vitality of the New Orleans
streets and its multiculturalism. At times it intrudes into Blanche’s interior world, pervading
her thoughts and growing louder at key moments of stress.
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