Suitable for first year English A level students studying the play A Streetcar Named Desire. This essay achieved a low B grade marked by my teacher at the time. This was a draft made for the coursework aspect of the A level. It covers how vulnerabilty is presented throughout the play as a whole and...
Read from Scene 6 ‘I think you have a great capacity for devotion’ (66) to… ‘Sometimes
there’s God so quickly!’ (68)
Explore how vulnerability is presented in this sequence of A Streetcar Named Desire and in
the text as a whole.
In the extract, Williams presents the difference in the tone in both Blanche and Mitch to
show the audience how they have both encountered obstacles in their lives. Prior to
the extract, the tone is more comedic and the speech is more fragmented- displaying
their awkwardness yet joy they both have when speaking to one another. However, the
tone becomes solemn and heartfelt when Blanche claims that Mitch has a “great
capacity for devotion”. From this point onwards, because of Blanche’s use of intricate/
thoughtful words, she has opened up this deep topic for conversation- as if she had
been longing to tell him this. Blanche then goes on to say that “I made a discovery-
love”. Again, her word choices suggest that she has been waiting for an opportunity to
tell someone about, supposedly, one of her greatest losses. “Love” and “devotion''
create a lexical field of romance and shows the audience another side to Blanche that,
instead of villainising her, makes her seem like she is capable of not being
self-indulgent and manipulative. This part of the scene makes it clear of the reason why
Mitch and Blanche are arguably drawn to one another; they share mutual feelings of
loneliness and despair because of a loved one- Mitch his mother and Blanche her ex.
A modern audience may understand that Williams has used the contrasting tone to
create an atmosphere of seriousness perhaps so that both Blanche and Mitch can
heal- in the hope that they would grow and move on from it. An audience from the
1940’s, however, may be surprised at how easily Mitch gave in to this shift of topic and
overall mood switch in their exchange because it makes him seem susceptible to adopt
more feminine attitudes like expressing himself or being emotionally unstable. They
may assume that the relationship with his mother has emasculated him in a way that
he is far from a stereotypical macho man.
William uses Mitch’s mother as a trope which encourages Mitch to abandon the typical
lifestyle of a 20th century American man to help his mother’s welfare. It allows Mitch to
have a topic of conversation and allows him to declare his emotions despite him being
a male figure. “I told my mother how nice you were, and I liked you” from this quote we
know that the thoughts of his mother are very fond of him and it somewhat fuels his
passion. It also shows us that regardless of his age, he acts as an adolescent in the
way he speaks of her as if he still hasn’t quite yet touched adulthood. This links to
scene 3 where we found out just how well-mannered Mitch truly is; insinuating how
much he has taken after his mother as opposed to his father who probably would have
been typically He tells Stella “she appreciated your sending over that custard. – Excuse
me, please”. Mitch constantly uses pace and correct address to suggest his innocence;
the fact that he is specifically formal when speaking to women demonstrates his
adoption of womanly traits-likely taken from his mother. This juxtaposes with the fact
that Blanche doesn’t ever mention her own mother perhaps because she wasn’t as
kind as Mitch’s. Williams has purposefully planted Mitch’s mother as a topic of
conversation to highlight the impact that she has on his character and shows the
audience why he differs from the rest of the male characters around him. A thought is
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