A Streetcar Named Desire - revision sheet/essay ideas
Characteristics Themes and how it relates to Context Quotes Critical interpretations
Blanche ● CLASS CONFLICT- Blanche represents the female ● American critic Mary
aristocratic tradition of the old south. McCarthy
Belle Reve, her family home, is typical of the summarized Blanche with
plantations that were being sold off as the aristocracy considerably less sympathy,
bowed out to arguing that through the
the new urbanization. character of blanche
Blanche's ultimate fate can be interpreted as the william"caught a flickering
destruction of the Old South by the new, industrial glimpse of the faded
America, represented by an immigrant to the U.S., essence of the
Stanley Kowalski. sister-in-law: thin, vapid,
neurasthenic, romancing,
● SEX ROLES - Blanche is nonetheless constrained by genteel, pathetic ... a
the expectations of Southern society. refined pushover and
She knows that she needs men to lean on and to perennial and frigid
protect her. She has clearly known sexual freedom in spinster." McCarthy
the past but understands that sexual freedom does not criticized Williams' for
fit the pattern of chaste behavior to which a Southern crafting Blanche's character
woman would be with the trappings of
expected to conform. "inconceivable" tragedy
By rejecting Blanche and claiming that she is not the and melodrama,
ideal woman he naively thought she was, Mitch draws commenting that the
attention to the discrepancy between how women really playwright's work "reeks of
behaved and what type of behavior was publicly literary ambition
expected of them by society at large. as the apartment reeks of
● cheap perfume’’
She continues to depend on others throughout the She argues that we shouldn't
play, right up to her conversation with the doctor from feel sympathy towards the
the mental hospital, where she remarks, "Whoever you character of Blanche due to
are, I have always depended on the kindness of Williams portraying her as an
strangers." exaggerated character part
of exciting events displaying
her intense emotions.
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