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What is the significance of setting in streetcar (A05)
•setting takes vital importance as it performs a decisive role in reflecting key themes, shaping character dynamics, and reinforcing the tragedy’s central conflict; 1940s America, the new “egalitarian” promise, and the emergence of post-war urban pragmatism and its inevitable triumph over the old aristocratic hierarchy
•Williams transforms setting from a mere backdrop to an active, lively force that heightens tensions, comments on the socio-economic issues of 1940s America, and even goes as far as to provide valuable insight into the psychological states of the characters such as Blanche DuBois
What’s the significance of Belle Reve?
•Belle reve is the 20 acre estate in laurel mississippi
• Part of the Old South- now in a state of decay
•After the abolishment of slavery the south went into economic decline
•represents a lack of social mobility due to structural social and racial boundaries which contrasts new America\ the north
•Belle Reve means ‘beautiful dream’ in French - it’s a distant memory/ fantasy
What is the significance of New Orleans?
•The whole play is set in an apartment in the French Quarter of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana
•known as the “big easy”
•Describes as having “a raffish charm”
•It’s charm lies in being care free, fun loving and unconventional
•Defined by its ethnic diversity and tolerance of other races
•This setting reflects the bustling, egalitarian spirit of post-war America, where traditional class distinctions are blurred, and a meritocratic ethos prevails
•It’s a “cosmopolitan city where there is a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races”
•The characters like Stanley and Pablo are immigrants
•In the very beginning of scene 4 the stage describes - “confusion of street cries like a choral chant” which represents the people of New Orleans, the constant driving vitality of them New Orleans- there’s a sense of life
Kowalski apartment
•Most of the plays action happens within the Kowalski apartment made up of only two rooms and “not an inch of space”
•There is only a curtain partition which separates the kitchen and the bedroom
•The confined setting fosters psychological tension where Stanley’s dominance is reinforced by a lack of personal space for characters like Blanche
•Blanche ‘lives’ on a stretcher which suggests physical and psychological confinement which mirrors her state; she can’t physically go anywhere else with no money and she’s trapped in the memories of her past
