Streetcar – Context

Question 1

What is the play based on?

Answer 1

Tennessee Williams’ life

Question 2

What happened to Williams’ sister?

Answer 2

Rose became increasingly unstable and was given a lobotomy, living in a mental institution for the rest of her life

Question 3

What was Williams’ mother?

Answer 3

a southern belle

Question 4

What was Williams’ father?

Answer 4

an alcoholic

Question 5

What is Williams’ obsessed with?

Answer 5

death

Question 6

Give some context of New Orleans

Answer 6

2nd largest port in US
very diverse population 
created/ruled by French 
streetcar = a tram - connecting most of NO
racially acceptable 
celebrated for its cemeteries

Question 7

Who directed the film?

Answer 7

Elia Kazan

Question 8

How did the play succeed?

Answer 8

achieve literary and commercial success

Question 9

When is the play set?

Answer 9

1946

Question 10

Why was the 40s anxiety ridden?

Answer 10

threat of nuclear war
Great Depression
segregation 
WW2
Civil war

Question 11

What are the conflicts apparent in the play/40s?

Answer 11

capitalism vs communism

old south vs new south

Question 12

What is the purpose of the title?

Answer 12

ties the action to the place (French quarter of New Orleans)

uses it as a metaphor: desire will lead to death

Question 13

What is realism?

Answer 13

genre of theatre which encourages believable reproduction of life on stage

Question 14

What is expressionalism?

Answer 14

a genre which sought to express emotional experiences in a symbolic, distorted, stylised fashion

Question 15

How is expressionalism created?

Answer 15

costumes
set
props
lighting 
music

Question 16

What is plastic theatre?

Answer 16

“all the elements of staging must combine to reflect and enhance action, theme, characters and language”

Question 17

What is the main idea of Streetcar?

Answer 17

our desire will lead to death, leading to afterlife (“Elysian Fields”)

Question 18

Who was Stanley Kowalski inspired by?

Answer 18

borrowed from a factory worker

Amazon “Pancho” Rodriguez y Gonzalez = a mexican boxer who was once Williams’ lover

Question 19

Who inspired Blanche?

Answer 19

she may have been a stand in for Williams:
he was like Blanche, a gentle Southern soul, thirsty for live yet fascinated by gruff men
“I draw every character out of my very multiple split personality”
“my heroines always express the climate of my inner turmoil”

Question 20

Where was Williams born?

Answer 20

Mississippi:

Antebellum south

Question 21

What are the connotations of the South?

Answer 21

place of great beauty but is built on slavery = complex connotations

Question 22

What inspired many of Williams’ writing?

Answer 22

the South

Question 23

Who were the South former colonised by?

Answer 23

French colony

Spanish colony

Question 24

Describe the Nietzsche illusion vs reality theory

Answer 24

all tragic tales can be traced back to a struggle between illusion vs reality
Apollonian illusion vs Dionysian reality which ends only with the destruction of the Apollonian
illusion = Blanche vs reality = Stanley

Question 25

Describe the Nietzsche power battle

Answer 25

we exercise power over other people both by benefiting them and by hurting them
cruelty, because it is the inferior option, is a sign that one lacks power

Question 26

What is the significance of Blanche and Stanley both being earth signs?

Answer 26

associated with qualities of heaviness, matter - reality
it is arguable that Blanche has faced reality in her past
represent sensual aspects of life

Question 27

What is the Rosenkavalier

Answer 27

The Knight of the Rose:

a comic opera, incorporating weighty themes of infidelity, ageing, sexual predation and selfishness

Question 28

What are the Pleiades?

Answer 28

Hunter Orion tried to make them objects of his pursuit so Zeus, in an attempt to save them, changed them into a flock of doves

Question 29

How are the Pleiades relevant to Blanche?

Answer 29

Mitch will protect Blanche from Stanley’s clutches

Question 30

What is the relevance of La Dame Aux Camellias to Blanche?

Answer 30

When Blanche says this, she is attempting to tell Mitch about her promiscuous past but can’t bring herself to

Question 31

What antithesis’ are demonstrated in Scene 7?

Answer 31

New America vs Old America
reality vs fantasy
illusion vs reality
upper class vs working class

Question 32

What is Deus Ex Machina ?

Answer 32

“God out of a machine” - Latin

applied to any unanticipated intervener who resolves a difficult situation

Question 33

Who is Huey Long?

Answer 33

a working class man who gained power through intimidation
he applied to uplift the lower man - “every man a king”
opposed to excessive privileges for the rich

Question 34

What is the Howard Giles’ Communication Accommodation Theory?

Answer 34

the idea that people exaggerate their social class through their language

Question 35

How does Williams use magical realism? (scene 10)

Answer 35

“a generally realistic setting with some odd fantasy thrown in. in this case, the fantasy enters the picture when the audience gets to see and hear some of Blanche’s imagined horrors”

Question 36

How does Williams use Psychological realism? (scene 10)

Answer 36

it portrays reality as it exists in the mind; not as it exists objectively

Question 37

How does Williams use social realism? (scene 10)

Answer 37

because of the plays frank treatment of issues like immigration, class, gender roles and power plays between women and men

Question 38

How is the southern gothic genre depicted in scene 10?

Answer 38

all the creepy shadows also explain the plays categorisation as southern gothic

Question 39

Why does Williams break play boundaries? (scene 10)

Answer 39

he wants people to break free from the ideas of the past to create a new future

Question 40

What are the similarities between Blanche and Cleopatra? (scene 11)

Answer 40

Cleopatra was prepared for death by her two hand maidens
Eunice and Stella prepare Blanche to go, Stella can’t truly be happy anymore

Blanche was given a dignified ending