ASND: Critical Interpretations Flashcards
Nietzschean interpretation
- An Apollonian Blanche; reason,order,imagination + purity
- A Dionysian Stanely; pleasure + chasos
- They disintergrate when they operate at extremes; Blanche thrives on proprietary + so gets lost in illusions whilist Stanley is driven on instinct + becomes destructive
- Williams view was that passion defeats restraint but it could also be seen as how order moves inevitably towards chasos
Berkman on Blanche’s mental state
In his article ‘The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois’, he argued that Blanche’s mental state isn’t due to her trauma from Allen being a ‘degenerate’ but from her guilt for causing his suicide
Feminist view on the trunk
Representation of how trapped Blanche is by her past, in the movie the trunk follows her, (isn’t carried by her) showing how inescapable her past is on her current life
Freud’s theory of the Death Drive
- Eros = drive for pleasure + life
- Thanatos = drive for self-destruction + death after trauma
- Blanche’s recurrent self-destructive actions were a result of her succumbing to her Thanatos drive
Explain the Femininst view on Stella’s marriage
Literary Criticism: A05
* Feminist criticism would examine Stanley and Stella’s marriage with a particular focus on how Stella is treated
* Power imbalance in their relationship and Stanley’s lack of respect for Stella is a social commentary on the treatment of women
* In their marriage, sex and power are closely linked; it is Stanley’s desire and** Stella’s blind obedience that results in the metaphorical death of her freedom**, as “Stanley
doesn’t give [her] a regular allowance” (Scene 4)
* Feminist critics would therefore argue that both Stella + Blanche are victims of patriarchal oppression
Explain Brown + Levenison’s Politeness Theory in relation to Blanche and Stanley’s relation
Brown + Levnisons’s ‘Politeness Theory’:
Their framework constitutes of an outward expression, the face, which is defined as ‘your public
self-image’ to explain politeness.
- Positive face: the need for our actions to be desirable to other people as well as ourselves
-
Negative face: the desire for our actions to be unhindered and unimposed on by others
* If verbal or physical actions threaten someone’s face, they become face threatening acts (FTA)
* Blanche’s presence and her derogatory remarks against Stanley’s ethnicity (“Polack”) directly undermines his self-worth - she threatens his face
* Many argue that this is the fundamental reason why Stanley’s brutish physicality is overarchingly targeted towards her
* Blanche reminiscing about her ‘Southern Belle’ upbringing, she can be far more polite - mitigating her FTAs with greater sensitivity
Kazan’s direction of Blanche
- Blanche became a symbol of a dying tradition + thus made the audience welcome Stanley’s hostility
- The audience were left feeling that a madwomen had entered an alien world + after shaking that world had been successfully exorcised
- Kazan stated that Blanche is Williams representing his desire, alcoholism, love for fantasy and relentlessness
- Kazan’s vision of Stanley as the hero defending hisnhome and marriage against the threat represented by Blanche; relates to that of critics who see the play as depicting a clash between two cultural ‘species’, or in terms of Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’
- With Stanley being the survivor – the ‘gaudy seedbearer’ (p13) whose actual seed is embodied in his new son, entering the world
just as Blanche is forced out - “Blanche is dangerous. She is destructive. She would soon have him and Stella fighting. He’s got
things the way he wants them around there and he does not want them upset by a phony, corrupt,
sick, destructive woman. This makes Stanley right! Are we going into the era of Stanley? He may be
practical and right …. but what … does it leave us?’(Elia Kazan, private director’s notebook)
Adams on Blanche’s rape
Adams argues that the rape is how Blanche atones for her guilt caused by her actions to Allen
Haley’s views on alienated characters
Haley, in said that “It’s clear that Williams outcast characters don’t suffer because of the acts or situations that make them outcasts, it’s because they’re immoral and evil. They suffer at the hands of individuals who represent conventional morality because they’re a threat to social orthodoxy.”
Jesmin on how fantasy is Blanche’s defence mechanism
- Jesmin argues that Blanche has an infatuation with “replacing reality with fantastic embodiments or illusion” to defend herslef from the harsh realities of the New World.”
- “She has taken unacceptable impulses and turned them into acceptable forms by unconsciously blocking the impulses such as superego”
Onyett on Blanche’s crumbling social status
Onyett argues that “Blanche has become a social outcast because she refuses to conform to conventional moral values
Leibmam on Stella’s entrapment
- Leibman argues that Stella’s sexuality is approved because ‘she is not the lustful instigator but the passive respondant’ because she is onyl sexual in response to male sexuality
- The pinnacle of female entrapment as she’s only exhilarated by an alpha male and dependant on a man for survival, therefore she ignores the abuse she suffers in the name of sexual desire
Cohn’s view on Blanche’s rape
- Cohn argues that Stanley’s cruelet gesture is the tearing of the paper lantern and that we never actually see Stanley rape Blanche or hit Stella
- Cohn argues that the rape results from Blanche’ licentious provocation (promiscuity) and that Stanley’s cruelty defends his world
Clurman’s direction of Blanche
- The audience left feeling like they had watched a delicate women driven insane by a brutish environment
- Blanche was the victim of Stanley’s destructive society
Miller’s view on Blanche’s fear of abandonment
- Blanche is unable to establish a permanent object relationship, every relationship is a transient negotiation in her search for a unnattainable reunion with the preoedipal mother
Gazolla on Blanche and the Old South
Gazolla argues that Blanche’s fragmentation is a reflection of the crisis of values in the Old South
Berkman on Blanche’s real tragedy
- Berkman insists Blanche’s real tragedy comes from her acceptance of her situation by either not retracting her cry of rape or insisitng upon its validity
- Blanche’s long-term future is without intimacy and she fails to combat it
Harwood on loyalty in ASND
- Hardwood argues Self v Other and sees loyalty as being both upheld and betrayed
- Stella remains loyal to Stanley by the end
- Stanley remains loyal to Mitch by protecting him from Blanche
- Blanche betrays her loyalty to Allen by exposing his homosexuality
How do feminists critique the male-dominated nature of ASND?
- Stella is subjugated to Stanley; Blanche is fired from one of the few occupations open to an intelligent, educated woman, and is portrayed as hysterical and mentally disturbed.
- A feminist approach might also examine how the text portrays men’s moral double standards in relation to women, and women’s sympathy, or lack of it, for other women.
- It might investigate female oppression implied in the author’s technique.
- Blanche is introduced by stage directions describing her appearance; with Stanley the focus is on his masculine energy.
