Streetcar Named Desire
What to do in the exam?
1)BUGG the question with the key words i.e conflicting desires, marital tensions, torn loyalties.
2)Write down critics' quotes for intro on plan.
3)15-20 minutes to plan each PEARL paragraph.
4)Ensure that plan answers the question.
5)5 minutes to write an introduction.
6)Introduce the play, the author, contextualise the extract, contextualise the characters, introduce my three points and write a critics quote.
7)1 hour to write 3 PEARLS
8)If time, go back through and proof-read.
Blanche adjective bank
unstable, flirtatious, deceitful, delusional, deranged, obsessive, over-analytic, layered, obscured, insecure, a dislocated individual, shunned, overly-conscious, alienated, deprived.
Stella adjective bank
grounded, tolerant, less sensitive, patient, weary, sentimental, powerless, silenced, obedient, compliant, acquiescent, tractable, amenable dutiful, worried, fearful, frightened, moved, malleable, subservient.
Mitch adjective bank
unimpeachable, irreproachable, loving, craving, yearning, endearing, comedic, unrefined, spontaneous, awkward, oblivious, socially unaware, malicious, uncontrollable, sadistic, dominant, stubborn, unmoved, changing.
Stanley adjective bank
Dominant, unforgiving, wicked, sinister, malicious, sadistic, sexist, merciless, vengeful, insecure, bruised, animalistic, dominance-driven, hotheaded, ape-like, sub-human, brute,
brutal, feral, bestial.
1940's American context
-Written 2 years after WW2 ended.
-Economic Boom - The economy overall grew by 37%.
-The Golden Age of American Capitalism. (1948-73) brought prosperity to most of America as wealth became something of deeper importance.
Massive numbers of women left the workforce—voluntarily and begrudgingly—within a few years. Marriage rates increased, as did birth rates.
The Script's context
SCRIPT=
-Written in 1947, a domestic tragedy script set in the French Quarter of New Orleans post-World War 2.
- Elysian Fields was named after the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, it is a mixed commercial and residential area for the working classes, contrasting the elegance of Paris. -Winner of 12 Academy Awards including Best Picture in 1952, is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway Play.
The New Yorker
Corruption/Decay- critics quote
"A play about the disintegration of a woman...or of a society"
Nancy Tischler
Old vs. new- critics quote
"...sees Streetcar not as a drama of natural selection but rather as "a reversal of Darwin's vision—back to the apes"
Context about Williams' life?
-Born in 1911 in Mississippi,
-Moved to Missouri as a child, removing his freedom and causing him to turn to writing instead.
-Moved to New Orleans after college, a complicated relationship with his salesman father
-The family situation, however, did fuel the playwright's art.
-The tragic mental collapse of his sister, Rose,
informs the exploration of mental illness and its questionable treatment in the play
The southern and nortehrn american 'clash'?
-The social changes taking place in the southern USA in the 1940s led to the movement towards larger, multi-cultural urban centres. Industrialization meant that larger, more varied
demographic groups were making up the working population.
-General clash of values between the old, rural South (with its colonial hierarchy) and the new urban South, with its more
the progressive and capitalist approach
Homosexuality context
-In 1947, the Park Police of the US Force issued a law, ‘Sex Perversion Elimination Program’, which targeted gay men for arrest and intimidation
-Through the 1940s to the 1960s, thousands of gay employees were fired or forced to resign from the federal workforce because of their sexuality.
-Tennesee Williams relationships with
1) Frank Merlo - longest, died of lung cancer
2) Pancho Rodríguez y González - most aggressive
3)Relationships with younger men
Terminology - diminutive?
The shortened version of a name ie Stanley to be 'Stan'
Tennesee critics quote?
'I write out of love for the South... I write about the South because i think the war between romanticism and the hostility to it is very sharp there'
Symbolism in Streetcar?
-Light, Dark and Shadows
-The Paper Lantern
-Bathing
-Colour
-Varsouviana Polka
-The Blue Piano
-The Streetcar
-Alcohol