critics

• "each character pursues his own creaturely self interest" ~John Lahr
• "playing roles detached from society"~ Felicia Londre
• "word (as) the decoration on the skirts of action"~ Elia Kazan
• Nietzsche~ "all tragic tales can be traced back to a basic struggle between illusion and reality".

  AKA 'kunsstriebe' in German
• ‘The apes shall inherit the earth’ - Williams
• The play can ‘thus be read as an allegorical representation of the author’s view of the world he lives in.’ - Randolph Goodman
• "The play is ‘almost unbearably tragic … [the audience] have been sitting all evening in the presence of truth."- Brooks Atkinson
• Williams creates ‘completely truthful characters … an exploration of jealousy and insecurity, loneliness, and the need to survive.’ - Susanna Gould.
• Williams "plays ‘deal consistently with … the persistence of memory that holds people in its grip" - Bernard Dekle.
• ‘no man has monopoly on right or virtue’ - Williams
• ‘I don’t believe in villains or heroes’ - Williams
• We are taught ‘to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in’ - Williams
• Williams uses Blanche to condemn ‘the society that destroys her’ - Anca Vlasopolos
• "Williams prohibits Blanche from the realm of tragic protagonist as a result of his own culturally ingrained misogyny, using her victimization as an intentional stab at womanhood" - Katherine Margaret Lant
• [In her rape] ‘She becomes no longer a tragic figure but merely a sordid victim of a nasty crime, no longer fully human but merely a metaphor for all the feminine evils the read men of the world must face and deal with.’ - Katherine Margaret Lant
• Contradicting the common opinion that Blanche seeks to deny reality, ‘we see that Blanche tells the truth consistently and that it is for this she is punished.’ - Katherine Margaret Lant
• ‘critics are fond of accusing Blanche of refusing to face facts and of lying, but it is Stella (and Eunice, too) who constantly refuse to look at things, to listen to the truth, or even to tell the truth’ - Katherine Margaret Lant
• 'Williams does consider Blanche guilty for not saving her husband from his homosexuality (although it is certainly not clear how she is to do this)’ - Katherine Margaret Lant
• It is not ‘convincing that the young husband’s death should have led her to seduce schoolchildren and take up with soldiers in a neighbouring camp.’ - John Gassner