Explore the presentation of vulnerability in "A Streetcar Named Desire."
Reasons why characters are vulnerable:
● Gender
● Sexuality
● Isolation
● Desire
● Adaptability
● Inability to face reality
Ideas:
● Blanche - vulnerable due to transgressing gender norms + exhibiting desire, facade
● Mitch - vulnerable due to feminine gender portrayal
● Allan - vulnerable due to homosexuality (desire)
Thesis:
Tennessee Williams’ 1947 play “A Streetcar Named Desire” is a modern American tragedy
whereby characters are deemed vulnerable when they possess an inability to adapt to the
emergence of a meritocratic society, following America’s industrialisation post-WW2.
Point 1:
Williams positions Blanche as a scapegoat for ritual sacrifice in order to cleanse the New
American consciousness, rendering her demise inescapable and leaving her vulnerable to a
male-dominated / meritocratic society that she cannot conform to. Blanche’s transgressions
against societal values like submission and purity deem her deserving of punishment, serving to
reinforce patriarchal order.
Point 2:
Allan is vulnerable due to his repression of transgressive desires in an attempt to assert identity
and feel belonging within the play’s setting of WW2 New America. His inability to conform to
societal sexual expectations exacerbates how death preys on the most susceptible members of
society, epitomised by Allan’s tragic downfall and subsequent descent into madness by Blanche.
Point 3:
Blanche’s vulnerability stems from her incapacity to confront reality, relying instead on an
illusory facade as a survival mechanism, a tendency that intensifies as her psyche fractures.
She harbours an infatuation with replacing reality with embodiments of illusion in order to shelter
herself from the harsh realities of the changing world.
, Point 1:
Williams positions Blanche as a scapegoat for ritual sacrifice in order to cleanse the New
American consciousness, rendering her demise inescapable and leaving her vulnerable to a
male-dominated / meritocratic society that she cannot conform to. Blanche’s transgressions
against societal values like submission and purity deem her deserving of punishment, serving to
reinforce patriarchal order.
Evidence, Analysis and Link to Context:
1) “seven-card stud” - Williams aptly likens life to a “seven-card stud” poker game, depicting
it as a male-dominated arena, unsuitable for female intervention. By this point in the play,
life is deemed as a survival-of-the-fittest, foretelling the pre-destined downfall of the
weak in order to pave the way for a new era of American progress, characterised by
Blanche. The poker game analogy conveys the inherent competitiveness and
unpredictability of life, where individuals are forced to navigate the social norms to
secure their place within a society which often favours the dominant and resilient.
2) "We've had this date since the beginning” - introduces a sense of fate, implying that their
class differences predetermined their conflict. Her abuse acts as an indication of the
inevitable dismantling of the upper-class bourgeoisie order by the lower working class,
and Stanley employs this notion to absolve himself of criticism, attributing their inherent
struggle to destiny. This moment, marked by a tragic peripeteia, is conveyed through
ellipsis, creating a lacunae within the text that elevates the tragedy that lies in the
aftermath and mirrors the censorship prevalent in conservative 19th-century America.
Blanche, regrettably, assumes the role of a sacrificial victim for Stanley's aspirations of
ownership and progress, epitomising the American dream.
3) “buried at sea sewn up in a clean white sack and dropped overboard” - Blanche’s lyrical
expression at the height of her psychological fragmentation signifies her abandonment of
efforts to reconcile her fantasies with reality, fully surrendering to a world of delusion. As
she descends deeper into madness, she romanticises her own death, with the sea,
evoking purity, becoming a conceit for emotional cleansing. The connotations of purity
reflect her desire to wash away her past, paralleling Stanley’s and symbolically, New
America’s, endeavour to rid themselves of her presence and purify their
consciousnesses. Blanche, seen as a defunct relic of the Old South, becomes a
sacrificial offering for the American Dream to thrive. Friedrich Nietzsche believed that
every tragedy should conclude in nihilism, rejecting all religious and moral principles,
emphasising the perceived meaninglessness of Blanche’s life at the play’s end.
4) “like a moth” - light, the recurring motif observes how Blanche’s demeanour, resembling
that of a delicate moth, tragically propels her toward the light, and therefore, her reality.
Yet, she must evade it, as exposure could lead to her destruction. The inherent fragility
within Blanche’s character becomes evident in this likening, insinuating her imminent
downfall.
