A Streetcar Named Desire Conflict Analysis

Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire partially explores the deep conflict within the relationship of Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois. And in doing so, Williams has crafted a play that reflects upon the context of the time, using these two characters to express the clashing values of the traditional old world and the rough, aggressive new world. Set in New Orleans immediately following World War II, Tennessee Williams infuses Blanche and Stanley with the symbols of opposing class and differing attitudes towards sex and love.
From the beginning of the play, the audience is aware of a difference in social background between Stanley and Blanche. This difference in class creates a ridge between the two characters fuelling the fight for power in the relationship throughout the play. Williams introduces Blanche as “incongruous” to the setting of “Elysian Fields”. This fading Southern Belle is described as appearing in upper class clothing, “a white suit with a fluffy bodice…necklace, earrings,
Although these two characters are living in the same age, Blanche is older than Stanley and Williams uses her to represent an old and dying era: the plantocracy for which she suffers and fades, as does the era she represents. Stanley’s era thrives, and this is seen to be evident in the expectancy of a new Kowalski – a baby. The very first indication to this loss of the aristocratic world is made in the opening scene, where Blanche describes the loss of Belle Reve, which ironically means “beautiful dream” and “all of those deaths” of her family, using heightened metaphorical language. The birth of Stella and Stanley’s child is a symbolic contrast; the DuBois family members are dying, taking with them the old values whereas the Kowalski child will carry on the new aggressive values, a significant symbolism of the defeat of the old