context

• Tennessee Williams was born in Mississippi in 1911 and died in 1983.
• the civil war (1861-1865) changed the south from a slave-based economy to an industrial one

  ~600,000 soldiers lost their lives
• Blanche= the Southern Belle

  representation of the old south before a movement to the American dream aka antebellum south
• Stanley= new American man

  the archetype of this NAM
• the deep south consists of these five states:

  Louisiana

  Mississippi

  Alabama

  Georgia

  South Carolina
• New Orleans is in Louisiana which is where the play is set
• the play ran 855 performances on Broadway and was nominated for 11 Tony awards

  it was the first to be nominated and win all 3 major awards
• The 1951 film version (directed by Elia Kazan) won 4 Oscars and 13 other major prizes.
• New Orleans was a multicultural city with a large African American population.
• William's sister had a lobotomy