Streetcar Critis - Queertheory Flashcards
John Clum
Views Blanche as the quintessential gay character in American closet drama since she must resort to performativity as protection in a world that countenances (approves) only what it considers normal and non transgressive expressions of sexual desire.
She’s restricted and repressed in much the day way as gap men forced to hide her promiscuity and reinforce her purity
Dean shackelford
William not only ‘outs’ himself but also the widespread existence of homosexuality in American society that for too long has been denied and punished as unnatural.
B is made ‘other’ becoming a ‘proto-gay character’ and William’s ‘alter ego’
Dean shackelford
Stanley
He must reassert his masculine power and prove his own normativity by continued rape and abuse of his wife.
Rape parallèles destructive acts against gays
Susan bordo
Rape= private punishment
Exclusion to the asylum =public punishment
William =
A HUMANITARIAN
And therefore concerned by the effect a society going through such a large transition is having.
Streetcar highlights his opprobrious view of society allowing the injustice non-conformers receive to be highlighted as unsustainable
Paul Hurley
Williams castigates society for its lack of toleration and promotion of sameness.
Williams = musing over whether the Darwinian “necessity for continuing life’ = absolutely paramount even at the extent of loss
Larry blades
Pessimistic model of veterans coming home from WW1 - Stanley brings backs agressions and brutality of battlefield
- Darwinian tactics reveal a commitment to freedom and equality
- Ptsd (alcohol, comfort in Mitch, emotionally unstable)
STANLEY IS FRAGILE
William Kleb
Blanche’s sexuality & madness make her a threat to society, society must pricey itself by excluding her.
To survive she must reconstitute her otherness for sameness.
Mitch = her trying to transform her otherness to normal, conjugal love
Philip Kolin
Power in papers
Lantern— B falsify her image gaining her the power to challenge S’s power as king
Stanley’a commanding presence embodied by bloodstained meat wrapper
Jacqueline Occoner
For privacy B must retreat to offstage bathroom foreshadowing her room is the asylum.
Small confined space intended for cleansing
Susan Gubar
1950s after ww2
Desperate years undermined economic stability of men questioning their ability to provide for their families.
Women began to work threatening dependence on men
On sexual front men desired women to be obedient.
William reconstitutes the penis as a pistol which shoots women into submission
