This essay explores how Williams writes Blanche's downfall to fit with the conventions of Aristotelian Tragedy. It argues both why and why not the play conforms to the structure of Aristotelian Tragedy and uses a variety of contextual factors in the argument.
EXPLORE HOW WILLIAMS
PRESENTS TRAGEDY
Throughout his work, Williams highlighted his admiration for the unvetted score of
Greek Tragedy. This is particularly evident in his essay ‘The Timeless World of a Play’
in which he argues that Greek Tragedy provided the “almost liquid warmth of
unchecked human sympathies, relied of self consciousness”. This love of Greek
Tragedy in seen in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ as he alleges the okay to fit with the
convention of Aristotelian Tragedy. Aristotelian Tragedy is a Greek form of tragedy
which involves the down fall of a tragic hero caused by their peripeteia which is the in-
evitable result of their hamartia. Within the play, Williams uses Black as his tragic hero
and present her downfall throughout the Aristotelian Tragic convention.
Williams present tragedy through the ‘protagonist versus antagonist’ convention of
Aristotelian Tragedy with Blanche and Stanley. Within Aristotelian tragedy, antagonists
are often the cause of the protagonists main problem or lead a group of characters
against the protagonist. This is seen in ‘streetcar’, however Williams explore this no-
tion of tragedy in the highly nuanced way. Initially, in the exposition of the play,
Williams dramatises and exaggerated the differences between Blanche and Stanley
through his use of costume to demonstrate to the audience the tragic conflict that is
set to occur between these two character. Through stage direction, Williams described
how Blanche is “daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and ear-
rings of pearl, white gloves and a hat”. The pre-modifying adjective “white” is re-
peated by Williams to forcefully convey that a sense of purity will e associated with
the character of Blanche, and the use of polysyndeton with in the list of clothing arti-
cles is used to demonstrate to the audience an impression of wealth, however, the ex-
tensive length of the list creates and impression that she is trying to cover up, allow-
ing Williams to hint at her facade of wealth. In contrast, Williams presents Stanley
through the stage directions as wearing “coloured shirts, solid blues, a purple, a read
and white check, a light green”. Williams use of a semantic field f vibrant colours cre-
ated a visual juxtaposition between the two characters of Stanley and blanche through
the contrast with Blanche’s “white clothes”, forcefully demonstrating their protagonist
vs antagonist roles within the play. Williams furthers this idea through the way he in-
structs his characters to move; while Blanche is directed to “sit hunched and her
legged pressed close together as if she were quite cold” which demonstrated and ner-
vous and vulnerable disposition. Williams dramatically contrast Stanley as he directs
that “animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements” demonstrating an im-
pression of wild energy but also hints at a sense of threat, especially towards
Blanche’s troubled disposition. Structurally, Williams creates a visual contrast between
Blanches and Stanley at the onset of the play, in order to foreshadow their conflict
where the antagonist of Stanley with untimely prevail over the protagonist of Blanche,
conforming to the notions of Aristotelian tragedy. Arguably, Williams’ characterisation
of Blanche and Stanley may have been influenced by the history contention between
the Old and New South. During the American Civil War of 1861, the southern confeder-
ate states were defeated by the northmen union loosing the right to keep slaves, and
therefore falling into financial decline, while the north are more powerful. After the
civil warm many white southerners bought into a romanticised endearing nostalgic
mythic representation of the south in its “ante-bellum” as a haven of pease, prosperity
and chilvary, while on the other hand, the new south advocates focus on capitalistic
realism and wanted southern economic regeneration, section reconciliation, racial har-
mony, and believed in the gospel of hard work. In this aspect, Williams dramatises the
brutal clash between Stanley - the New Orleans industrial worker who represents the
new south’s American Dream - and Blanche his aristocratic rival who represents the
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