Critical quotes

• "A genteel way of life obliterated by the brash energy of a lower social order on the rise"


  Anton Chekkov
• "Sanity is dependant on fitting in and adhering to the social roles expected of us"


  Mary Ann Corrigan
• "There are no clear cut lines of good vs evil"

  The characters are "torn by conflicting and contradictory desires and needs"


  Shirley Galloway
• “a demonic creature, the size of her feeling was too great for her to contain without madness.”


  Tennessee Williams
• “Williams had to belong to a minority culture and understood in his bones what a brutal menace the majority could be if aroused against him”


  Arthur Miller
• “destructive power of society on the sensitive, non-conformist individual”


  Tennessee Williams
• Passionate Manhood - Andrew Rotundo 'American Manhood' (1993


  Men returned to a prospering economy after World War 2, where the priority was no longer supporting a family and making something of themselves. Instead, men prioritised personal pleasure and pursuing their desires.
• “sexual violence serve as catalysts for the female madness”


  Maiman
• Blanche and younger men: “their innocence and purity are cleansing to her”


  Stuart
• “We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal”


  Tennessee Williams
• Subordinate/Hegemonic Masculinity - ‘Masculinities’, R. W Connell 


  Subordinate Masculinity is an effeminate, emotional type of masculinity, which many have equated to Allan Gray. This was the polar opposite of Hegemonic Masculinity, or a dominant, heterosexual man
• "She craves 'magic' because the truth about postwar America is too harsh to bear."


  Phillip Allan
• Stella - “the field of battle over which Stanley and Blanche fight”


  Kazan
• "Stanley has trained his wife to catch his meat, in every sense"


  Ruby Cohn
• "Stanley's authority derives from... physical violence, intimidation, and above all economic domination."


  Vlasopolos
• "Stella represents the young america, torn between its loyalty to antiquated idealism and the brutal realism of the present"


  Hayman
• "The sensual brute Stanley, Blanche's young husband Allan, and the naive Mitch together epitomise the conflicting masculine identities available in Williams' stage world."


  McDonough
• "Sexuality was potently at the core of the lives of its principal characters, a sexuality with the power to redeem or destroy"


  Bigsby
• "Stella ignores the needs of others and eventually adopts her own illusion."

  "a commitment to self-preservation rather than love..."


  J.M McGlinn
• "Just as the plantation served as a symbol of the past, Stanley and Stella's baby stands for the way the 'working class' ethos will be carried into the future."


  Adler
• "Blanche is an architect of her own destruction" 


  Gillian Anderson (2014 played in a National Live Theatre version of a Streetcar, later starred in a short film exploring her life in Belle Reve/The Flamingo)
• "Blanche has become a social outcast because she refuses to conform to conventional moral values."


  Onyett
• chief ape-man Stanley Kowalski


  Clurman