A Streetcar Named Desire (Feminist Lens) - Blanche and Stanley

Question 1

What statement

Answer 1

Through the characterisation of Blanche and her toxic relationship with Stanley, Williams highlights the degradational impact of patriarchal double standards on women.

Question 2

Evidence 1

Answer 2

Described as bearing the ‘emblem of the gaudy seed-bearer’, the stage directions for Stanley’s entrance in scene one quickly establishes him as a dominant male figure whose sexuality forms a fundamental part of his identity. The adjective ‘gaudy’, with its connotations of extravagance yet tastelessness, is indicative of his unashamed and vulgar sexual desires.

While Stanley’s crude male sexuality and dominance is glorified and lauded as a status symbol, Blanche’s is used against her and is instead seen as shameful and unclean. In dialogue with Stella, she laments that ‘daylight never exposed so total a ruin.’

Question 3

Analysis 1

Answer 3

Here Williams harnesses the motif of light to expose the ‘ruin’ of Blanche’s apparently unwomanly activities and desires, which she believes will affect the way she is perceived by society.

Continuing with the motif of light, Blanche’s struggle to suppress her desires is reinforced when she notes that people like her must ‘put a paper lantern over the light’, a metaphor for the need to mask her true desires in order to be accepted within patriarchy as appropriately chaste. Blanche’s insecurity around her femininity dichotomised with Stanley’s confident masculinity results in a gender power imbalance with tragic consequences.

Question 4

Evidence 2

Answer 4

As the play progresses, Stanley overhears Blanche’s rebuke of his actions from the previous night, referring to him as ‘bestial’ and ‘ape-like’ and implores Stella not to ‘hang back with the brutes’

Question 5

Analysis 2

Answer 5

Blanche’s monologue, in which Williams draws on animalistic imagery, can be read as a direct challenge of the patriarchy as it measures Stanley’s chauvinistic and violent behavior against the ‘progress’ that has been made elsewhere.

This rebuke leads to a retaliation from Stanley as he challenges Blanche’s sexual virtue in the following scene. As he does so, the stage directions note that ‘there is a murmur of thunder,’ In this instance, the utilisation of pathetic fallacy foreshadows Blanche’s tragic demise, indicating Williams’ observation that resistance to the patriarchal order is futile as to challenge it will only lead to a person’s downfall

Question 6

Why Statement

Answer 6

Ultimately, Williams elucidates the gender inequality faced by both men and women under patriarchy as it inevitably leads to violence and self-doubt.