A Streetcar Named Desire

By Tennessee Williams

Major Themes in the Play The old south and the new south Cruelty The primitive and the primal Desire Loneliness Romance vs. Realism

Outline of This Session

Fantasy/ Illusion

Blanche / Illusion Fantasy / Liberating magic /

Fantasy is her primary means of self-defense

Blanche's dependence on illusion is contrasted with Stanley's steadfast realism

Fantasy/ Illusion

The old south

The new south

Stella and Blanche come from a world that is rapidly dying

Two sisters are the last living members of their family

Old South and General Sherman's army The old south can only live on in a

diluted, bastardized form

The old south and the new south

Blanche's comments Stanely as primitive.

Stanely is a representative of unrefined manhood

Stanely's unrefined nature also includes a terrifying amorality.

Blanche finds Stanley's primitivism so threating because it is something she sees and hides within her

The primitive and the primal

Desire

Desire is the central theme of the play Blanche seeks to deny it Desire, is her driving motivations. Her desire becomes the cause of her

driving out of town Desire is also Blanche’s undoing

Desire

Loneliness

The companion theme to desire is loneliness Blanche is lost among these two She seeks companionship and protection in

the arms of strangers Blanch never recovers from her tragic and

consuming love of her first husband She needs a defender.

Loneliness

Romance

Romance

Realism

The fundamental tension of the play is romance and realism

There is a parallel between lust and death Blanche, the romantic and Stanley the realist Blanche’s previous sexual encounters are

tangled up with death Blanche / Streetcars named desire and

cemeteries / symbolize run together to Blanche's final Destination

Romance VS Realism / Desire VS Cemeteries