Critics Flashcards
Nicola Onyett - Social outcast
Blanche has become a social outcast because she refuses to conform to conventional moral values . In cruelly unveiling the truth about her scandalous past, Stanley strips her of her psychological, sexual and cultural identity.
Harold Clurman - Blanche
Blanche is a delicate and sensitive woman pushed into insanity by a brutish environment presided over by chief ape-man Stanley Kowalski
Kathleen Lart
On the other hand the play presents Blanche as a tragic figure and Stanley as an agent of her destruction
Williams - Savages
We are all savages at heart
Masculine ideology
Stanley is a victim of a masculine ideology that rewards and heroicises direct brutal honesty
Shifting social structures
Stella’s decision to stay with the father of her child and allow her sister to be committed to a mental hospital may symbolise the shifting social structures of the new USA
Stanley threatened
Enraged and threatened by the old fashioned Southern values Blanche embodies, Stanley determines - albeit unconsciously at first - to destroy the threat she poses to his brave new world
Feminist Critic
A Feminist critic would sympathise with the women in this play as they are all victims of powerful men. They would also feel disappointed by the fact that Blanche was challenging Stanley but her own desires and delusions caused her to lose the battle.
Marxist Critic
A Marxist critic would feel satisfied that Stanley is triumphant in the end over Blanche, that he won the power struggle. Symbolically he has represented the North defeating the South, which Blanche is symbolic of.
Letter to Elia Kazan (director)
Blanches demise should not be blamed on Stanley but on a misunderstanding. Blanche and Stanley should not be seen as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Dont take sides or try to present a moral
Sean McEvoy et al: Tragedy - A student Handbook
The real tragedy of the play is not the personal circumstances but the losses of the culture and society itself. In the final scene Eunice comforts Stella and tells her that ‘life has got to go on’ and the men return to their card game. Williams shows us that sometimes just carrying on its the hardest most tragic thing of all. His play is a modern, social kind of tragedy
Tennessee Williams 1950: Letter to censors
Scene 10 encapsulates the cruelty of the world and creates catharsis for the readers. Without the rape the climax which has been built up is not reached. Moral, internal issues are explored in physical form to express the urgency and severity of these conflicts in modern society
Stanley and Blanche are a relationship between societies rules and not a relationship between them
