Critics Flashcards
FEMINIST CRITICISM
Feminist critics often focus on:
1) Strong or transgressive female characters
2) Examples of women’s place in patriarchal
societies
3) Re-examination of assumptions about the
roles women play
4) Examining and challenging the language used to describe femininity and female roles
5) Comparing the contextual expectations of
characters with those of the present day.
A feminist critic may offer an alternative reading of a text in which a female character has been misread, judged or stereotyped, in order to offer a richer or alternative view of that character and the society in which she lives.
What does Philip C. Kolin say of Eunice?
Eunice, I believe, has been stereotyped and thereby marginalised for two
reasons: her so-called comic minor role and her insistent femininity,
attributes that patriarchal readings of Streetcar have used to dismiss her importance. I maintain that Eunice’s […] is a central figure in directing our
attention to [the play’s] horror.
Gender Criticism
looks beyond feminist concerns to explore constructions of gender and sexuality. It considers how society, through its culture, politics and language, categorises and prioritises different individuals
and groups. It seeks to:
1) Challenge traditional representations of femininity
and masculinity
2) Expose coded messages about sexuality
3) Seek out transgressive sexual roles
4) Consider how the sexuality of the writer has
influenced the text
What have Gender critics said of Streetcar?
Suggested that Blanche DuBois represents Tennessee Williams himself and his own feelings as a gay man, an outsider, and misunderstood by the society of his time. John M. Clum suggests that:
‘Blanche can play the prim Southern belle, but her proudest moment is
ravishing the soldiers from the nearby base, leaving them spent on the
grass. She is a wild card in the seven card stud game that is the sex/
gender system.’
You have some more critical quotes on?
quizlet
STRUCTURALIST CRITICISM
Structuralism is a type of literary criticism that analyses the narrative structure of texts and seeks to uncover patterns. A key concept of structuralism is binary oppositions - the identification of dichotomies (the contrast between starkly different things or opposing forces) and conflicts between different groups. In Streetcar, some binary oppositions include: • Male/female • Working class/landed gentry • Cruelty/kindness • Birth/death • Real/imagined
Structuralist critic?
Critic Nancy Tischier suggests that:
‘for Tennessee Williams, the world was the
scene of epic battles - between the Flesh and
the Spirit [and] Good and Evil.’
POLITICAL/MARXIST CRITICISM
Marxist literary criticism takes its inspiration from the writings of socialist philosophers Marx and Engels and analyses texts by identifying class wars, power struggle and oppression. Marxist critics might consider the presentation of: • Capitalism versus socialism • The role of the proletariat and the ruling class • Shifts in power and dominance.
Marxist Criticism of Streetcar?
Robert Bray
The society that Blanche represents
‘“gives way to the
mechanistic grit and grind of the factory”, and her psychological death at the end of the play must be seen as a victory for the oppressors and the new order they represent. In this play, “the proletariat becomes the ruling
class.” […] The image of the proletarian Stanley pulling Stella ‘down off them columns’ signifies his furious contempt for the very powerful symbol of landed aristocracy.’
PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM
based on the work of
Sigmund Freud, might look at the characters as
expressions of Williams’s psyche, or at the psychology
of the characters.
This approach tends to see conflicts as being
within or between individuals, rather than as
social (as in a Marxist approach). Freud
investigated how the unconscious expresses
itself in dream symbolism, and in emotional
and sexual drives. Hence the play’s symbols and imagery would be examples of unconscious impulses at work.
What would a psychoanalytic approach highlight?
1) Freudian approach- the play’s preoccupation with sexual desire and fear of death.
2) Carl Jung- characters as representing archetypes, or as repressed aspects of the self. Hence Stanley and Blanche might be seen as polarised male and female forces, each drawn to, but failing to understand, the other.
3) examine Williams’s homosexuality and guilt,
4) How the play embodies the psychic drives of Eros (sex and love) and Thanatos (death), symbolised by the streetcars named ‘Desire’ and ‘Cemeteries’, and played out in Blanche taking refuge from her fear of death in promiscuity, and expressing her guilt in audio-hallucinations and frequent bathing.
5) A Jungian interpretation might see Blanche as representing an imagined threat to men, her ironicreference to‘The Tarantula Arms’expresses this.
Sean McEvoy on tragedy
The 20th-century protagonist is devoted to the fulfilment of his or her own personal ideal or the following of his or her own beliefs. The cost of that fulfillment upon themselves and society is often at the heart of the tragedy.
Simon Goldhill on tragedy
The emotional and intellectual power of tragedy stems from the very difficulty of its examples. The figures of tragedy are not black-and-white villains and heroes, but complex characters locked into double binds of doubt and compulsion, wilfulness and loss […] Tragedy leads to self-questioning through the pain of others.
Tennessee Williams on his play
It is a tragedy with the classic aim of producing a catharsis of pity and terror and in order to do that, Blanche must finally have the understanding and compassion of the audience.
This is without creating a black-dyed villain in Stanley.
It is a thing (Misunderstanding) not a person (Stanley) that destroys her in the end. In the end you should feel – ‘If only they had known about each other.’ […]
Blanche is not an angel without a flaw and Stanley’s not evil. I know you’re used to clearly stated themes, but this play should not be loaded one way or the other. Don’t try to simplify things […]
Don’t take sides or try to present a moral.
Elia Kazan on it as a tragedy
In the Aristotelian sense, [Blanche’s] flaw is the need to be superior/ special, or her need for protection and what it means to he. This creates an intense solitude. A loneliness so gnawing that only a complete breakdown, a refusal, as it were, to contemplate what she’s doing… can break through the walls. Inevitably, the tragic flaw creates the circumstances that destroy her.
