Streetcar - Context

Question 1

Tennesse Williams?

Answer 1

In 1931 Williams had a nervous breakdown, and in 1937 his sister Rose was sent to a mental institution – like Blanche – and was lobotomised.

• Like Blanche’s husband Allan (called ‘a degenerate’), Williams was a practising homosexual at a time when it was still illegal.
• Suffering from depression, he resorted to heavy drinking (like Blanche) and drugs.
• He had a lifelong fear of death, especially death from cancer – hinted at in the death of Margaret, one of the many at Belle Reve

Question 2

New Orleans?

Answer 2

• A city in Louisiana, a southern state in the USA, whose legal system was influenced by the Napoleonic code, cited by Stanley.
• Known as something of a cultural melting pot, where in some parts, including the French Quarter (district), black and white people lived alongside each other.
• A ‘streetcar’ (tram) went to an area called Desire, another to Cemeteries; there is also an avenue called Elysian Fields, referring to where the souls of heroes and the virtuous went in Greek mythology.
• Known as a free-and-easy sort of place, with a lot of music (as in this play), especially jazz, bars and gambling – including poker.

Question 3

The South?

Answer 3

• The DuBois family’s wealth would probably have been built on slavery, abolished in the South in 1865.
• After the Southern Confederate states lost the Civil War (1861–5), the South became poor and families like the DuBois declined.
• The decline of wealthy (but slave-owning) Southern families was romanticised in literature and the cinema, for example in Gone with the Wind.
• Blanche’s refined tastes, including her dislike of vulgarity, reflect the values of the old South.

Question 4

Literacy and theatrical context?

Answer 4

• Williams can be seen as part of the ‘Southern Gothic’ movement, characterised by a rich, even grotesque, imagination, and an awareness of being part of a decaying culture.
• Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard is based on a declining family, like the DuBois family, who have to sell their property.
• Strindberg’s Miss Julie may have influenced Williams’s pairing of class conflict and sexual tension in Stanley and Blanche.

Question 5

American values?

Answer 5

• The USA prided itself on opening its arms to immigrants from all over the world, including Poland, but Blanche still calls Stanley a ‘Polack’.
• Stanley feels he is all-American, and that America is ‘the greatest country on earth’.
• Stanley has a positive attitude towards conflict and fate, as shown by his belief that, despite poor odds, he would survive the war.
• Stanley is an example of a go-getting, thrusting, competitive working-class man, prepared to crush others (like Blanche) to get what he wants.