Critical AO5

Question 1

View that Stella shouldn’t love Stanley but needs him for protection

Answer 1

“Stella is wrong in loving Stanley but right in living with him” - Nancy Tischner

Question 2

Shows the play is literally about Williams view of the world

Answer 2

The play can be read as “an allegorical representation of the author’s view of the world he lives in’ - Randolph Goodman

Question 3

How does the director describe the play

Answer 3

“Poetic tragedy” - Elia Kazan

Question 4

View that Blanche was designed for downfall before the play even began

Answer 4

“She is already at the end of her ‘journey’ by the time the play begins” - Fergus Parnaby

Question 5

How does Williams describe the rape scene in the letter

Answer 5

“The rape of Blanche by Stanley is a pivotal, integral truth in the play”

Question 6

Says Stanley fault for blanches downfall

Answer 6

“Blanche is a delicate and sensitive woman pushed into insanity by a brutish environment presided over by chief ape-man Stanley Kowalski” - Harold Clurman

Question 7

Says Stella doesn’t believe Staley about the rape not cause she loves him but cause she needs to survive

Answer 7

“Her refusal to accept Blanche’s story of the rape is a commitment to self-preservation rather than love” - J. M. McGlinn

Question 8

Blanche is a symbol of society and its corruption

Answer 8

“A play about the disintegration of a woman…or of a society” - The New Yorker