theme of decay

Question 1

main argument for decay

Answer 1

Decay is a consistent event within the play

Question 2

1st point

Answer 2

Decay is presented in setting of Elysian Fields

Question 3

2nd point

Answer 3

Decay is displayed through the character of Blanche
- her mental and psychical decline
- despite her attempted grandeur decay is the underlying consistency

Question 4

3rd point

Answer 4

decay is consistently masked by aesthetic beauty/ decay is shown through plastic theatre?

Question 5

1st point quotes-decay is presented in the setting of Elysian Fields

Answer 5

“the houses are mostly white frame, weathered grey, with rickety outsides stairs’

Elysian Fields as the resting place of the Gods

“quaintly ornamented gables”

Question 6

“the houses are mostly white frame, weathered grey”

Answer 6

B sees this city as poor and decaying, the antithesis of the gentility and wealth she grew accustomed to in her southern aristocrat childhood.

the progression from white to weathered grey is symbolic of the gradual decay of the city and the people within it- hence Blanche when she arrives

unkept and lacking glamour - ironic that she fled to escape death but enters a decaying world, shes come to die

Question 7

Elysian Fields as the resting place of the Gods

Answer 7

foreshadows Blanche’s looming fate- the consistent lurk of decay

Greek myth- Elysian Fields area of Underworld reserved for dead heroes – Blanche as the tragic hero who is defeated by decay

decay is sown into the setting

Question 8

“quaintly ornemated gables”

Answer 8

connotes a risqué atmosphere, a run-down attractiveness

evokes fantasy and reality; the fact that the gables are “ornamented” reflects upon how Blanche also puts on a façade. The use of “quaintly” suggests the remains of the old world, almost suggesting that America can only move forward if people like Blanche are terminated