Streetcar Named Desire - context

Question 1

american civil war basics

Answer 1

1861 - 1865
- the southern (confederate) states wanted to succeed the north and regain their wealth and status, the north was much more industrial and was moving more towards the abolition of slavery
- there was a war between the southern and northern states as the southern wanted independence
- they claimed their way of life was being threatened
- more commonly seen as a conflict over the issue of slavery with the south wanting to keep slavery

Question 2

the epigraph in Streetcar

Answer 2

‘And so it was I entered the broken world
To trace the visionary company of love, its voice
An instant in the wind [I know not whither hurled]
But not for long to hold each desperate choice.’ - Hart Crane, The Broken Tower

Question 3

‘And so it was’ - the epigraph

Answer 3

narration, resignation, fatalism

Question 4

‘the broken world’ - the epigraph

Answer 4

inequality, conflict - segregation

Question 5

‘To trace the…’

Answer 5

‘To trace the visionary company of love’ - the epigraph
- ‘broken world’ ‘company of love’ - relationships, pain
- ‘company of love’ - companionship vs absence in ‘visionary’ (ethereal, illusion)
- ‘trace’ - searching, fragility, tentative

Question 6

‘its voice…’

Answer 6

‘its voice an instant in the wind’ - the epigraph
- ‘instant’ ‘trace’ - something taken or whipped away, fleeting, intangible, not in control

Question 7

‘hold each…’

Answer 7

‘hold each desperate choice’ - the epigraph
- snap decisions, yearning

Question 8

themes in the epigraph

Answer 8

• love and yearning - abuse, desire, ‘desperate’
• inequality, segregation
• loneliness - Blanche
• ‘visionary company of love’ - put on a pedestal