AO5 Critics - Streetcar

Question 1

Koprince

Answer 1

‘[Stella] is a wife who tolerates and excuses her husband’s behaviour’

Question 2

Langland

Answer 2

‘The Southern belle is both a sex object and a woman on a pedestal’

Question 3

Guilbert: Suicide

Answer 3

‘In the 1940s and the 1950s, many young Americans men committed suicide because they could not deal with their homosexuality in a hetrosexist environment’

Question 4

Tolan - wearing white, foreshadowing death

Answer 4

Blanche is like a ghost. First major speech is about death, she wears a lot of white, rides a streetcar names cemeteries to Elysian Fields and fears light.

Question 5

Tolan

Answer 5

Old America and Blanche seem perfect yet both have hidden secrets.

Eg. Blanche - old age, OA - slavery

Question 6

Thomas: Weather

Answer 6

play begins in Spring, ends in Autumn. = Blanche’s fall

Evidence: It is first dark of an evening early in May.

Question 7

Thomas: Light = truth

Answer 7

over 60 colour cues in the play

Stella = star, Blanche = must be hidden from the sun

Question 8

Deutsch

Answer 8

‘Women were masochists- provoke the abuse and enjoyed it’

Question 9

Corrigan

Answer 9

‘Williams uses costuming, props, and lighting to convey the emotional strength of his characters’

Question 10

Kolin

Answer 10

‘Mitch is both Blanche’s victims and oppressor’

Question 11

Lart

Answer 11

Play presents Blanche as a tragic figure and Stanley as an agent of her destruction