A Streetcar named Desire Flashcards
Who is the screenwriter?
Tennessee Williams
What are the main themes?
Manipulation, Deception, Truth/Illusion, Light/Dark, Classism, The Importance of wealth, Status and social status, The appearance of wealth
What is the importance of light?
The light represents the truth, Blanche hides from the light to avoid being exposed
What is the importance of moths?
They represent how Blanche doesn’t want to be seen in the light but is still drawn to it. She wants to be a butterfly but cannot be.
Who are the characters?
Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, Stanley Kowalski, Mitch, Eunice & Steve
What do the music/piano/the colour blue represent?
Are meant to set the tone of it being moody, dark, sad, and depressive. Ie the blues
Why is it actually called the streetcar named desire?
Blanche took the streetcar into New Orleans, and it took her away
Why is Blanche obsessed with hot baths?
The hot baths help her to feel clean, and in essence “wash away her lies”
Who is Blanche?
“just a girl trying to make it in the big city,” delusional, runs away from her problems, liar, hides her true identity, alcoholic, avoids confrontation, flirts away conflict, has an affair with a student, past trauma, pretends she’s younger than she is, manipulator
Who is Stella?
Blanche’s little sister, naive but stable (relatively), Aware of her husband’s true brute nature but disregards it due to her infatuation with him, she is weak to her desire for him
Who is Stanley?
Brute, rapist, sexist, manipulative, abusive
Who is Mitch?
Stanley’s friend, sick mother, falls for Blanche, kind, gentleman
Who are Eunice and Steve?
Husband & wife who live upstairs, save Stella from Stanley’s abuse (Stella still goes back), They are a mirrored version of Stella and Stanley.
What happened to Blanche’s husband?
He killed himself after Blanche discovered that he was a gay man
