Streetcar context

• Context - 'old' and 'new' Southern values

  • Old values stem from plantations and are based on inheritance of power and class
  • New values stem from a 'survival of the fittest' mindset
• Context - the Southern Belle

  • Means a young and attractive woman from the Southern US
  • Came about in the mid-19th century among the southern plantation class
  • These women were daughters of wealthy landowners who lived in luxury due to the fact that their families owned slaves
• Context - american immigration

  • 1880s - increase in immigrants coming from Eastern and Southern European countries
  • 1910 - Eastern and Southern Europeans made up 70% of the immigrants entering America
  • Links to Stanley
• Context - gender roles in 1940s America

  • Divided between public and private space
  • Most women controlled and managed the private space
  • Most men easily navigated the public space
  • Seen with Stella and Stanley
• Context - working women

  • Women entered the production process in 1940s
  • By late 1941, 14 million women constituted 1/4 of the nation's workforce
  • WWII increased that to 18 million
  • Link to moving away from 'old' Southern values
• Context - William's real life

  • Dad was abusive alcoholic - links to Stanley
  • Sister was schizophrenic and had a lobotomy - links to Blanche
  • He was a closeted homosexual - links to Allan
• Context - William's homosexuality

  • Seen as a mental illness for most of his life
  • However, it was tolerated in New Orleans, which is why he moved there in 1938
  • Allan's absence shows societal disgust and rejection
• Context - William's mental health

  • Had loneliness, alcoholism and depression
  • He kept saying "I am Blanche Dubois"
• Context - literary

  • Some Broadway performances didn't include themes of sexuality
  • Audiences actively cheered during Blanche's rape
  • Some critics looked at Stanley as a victim of Blanche's madness and attack against his masculinity, class and heritage
  • 1950s audiences saw the rape as justified as it was initiated by her flirting and exhibitionism
• Context - Marxist lens

  • Sees Stanley as the reigning champion of the working classes
  • He defeats the old aristocratic ways by removing Blanche, the symbol of the bourgeois, from their lives
  • Sees his son as a symbol of the future
• Context - film production

  • Directed by Kazan in 1951
  • Rape scene censored and homosexuality references eliminated
  • Stanley is punished for the rape as Stella leaves him
  • Set made smaller to mirror Blanche's growing insanity
• Context - theatre production

  • Tension enhanced by lack of interval
  • Mixes expressionism with a portrayal of reality
• The Glass menagerie (Williams 1944)


  
  

  • Link Blanche and Amanda
  • Both live in a fantasy world in which a man sweeps them off their feet
  • Both live in the past
  • Shows how Williams' themes of mental health is constant throughout his work