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Explore the Presentation of Men and Masculinity in A Streetcar Named Desire
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‘The male characters are too brutish to be believable’Explore the presentation of men and masculinity in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Make a reference to context in your response.
In a Streetcar Named Desire, Williams presents masculinity as performative. Many of his
characters perform masculinity to represent a desire to assert identity above class, race and
gender. Williams takes advantage of the play’s setting in post-WWII New America to allow
competing hierarchies to exist. The conflict between these, prompt his characters to assume
the performance of masculinity in order to avail over each other.
Williams poses masculinity as competitive to expose its performative nature, which is
prominent in the interactions between Stanley and his friends in the Poker Scene. Even in a
group of men of the same class, there exists a clear hierarchy. Stanley is situated at the top,
evidenced in his use of imperatives when talking to his friends, commanding them to “deal”
and “Get off the table”, and his hostility as he “yells” at them. This commanding, authoritative
version of Stanley is contrasted by his child-like vulnerability after he hits Stella, and
emerges from the shower in “clinging wet polka dot drawers”. Mitch, who had shown
feminine characteristics earlier in his care for his “sick mother”, steps up and rallies the men
in Stanley’s time of vulnerability, commanding them to “Get him in here, men”. Williams here
shows a transference of power, which implies that masculinity is synonymous with
aggression and dominance and he who upholds these values dominates the group in a
symbiotic exchange. Further, the transferable nature of masculinity and power perhaps
reflects the changing landscape of America and the emerging powers the lower-class had in
this capitalist society, justifying Stanley’s insistence to assert his newly-gained power even in
his own house and among his peers. In this way, it could be seen that Stanley’s competitive
nature is unique to him and is underpinned by insecurities about his Polish immigrant
background, and is not a comment on masculinity as a whole in the 1950s. However,
Williams still upholds the idea of masculinity as a competition, and more importantly as a
performance underpinned by insecurity. Williams continues this competitive presentation of
masculinity through the lens of Stella and Blanche. It is introduced in the Poker Scene that
Stanley is superior to Mitch due to his “drive”, despite Mitch being more emotionally superior,
his “sensitive look” prompting Blanche to label him as “superior to the others”. Through these
two women, Williams represents an upper class gaze on the lower class, their discourse and
classification of the men wildly dehumanising, portraying them almost as a different species.
More to that point, their classification is grounded on how likely the men are to achieve social
mobility, reinforcing their disparagement of the lower class. Williams reinforces the
dehumanising lens of the upper class through the use of “drive” by Stella, as it connotes an
animalistic quality which hints at Stanley’s uncivilised nature, as suggested by Blanche when
she describes him as “primitive” and “simple”. It also contributes to the competitive nature of
masculinity as it alludes to the dog-eat-dog world of New America, which Stanley seems to
embrace and Mitch does not. Williams presents Mitch as having a more emotional
disposition as he laments he will be “left alone” when his mother dies. He represents an
alternative masculinity which is recognised and appreciated by Blanche, suggesting Mitch
aligns more with her experience of aristocratic men. Consequently, Williams implies that
Mitch represents the masculinity expected of the Old South and Stanley, destined to
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