Elements of drama essay, street car named desire

Gregory Pyatetsky 10/28/2013 A Street Car Named Desire

The play “A Street Car Named Desire” is seen as a modern tragedy. This play uses Aristotle’s six parts of what makes a perfect drama. It is a story of a seemingly upper-class woman named Blanche, who left her hometown and lavish lifestyle to live with her younger sister and her husband in New Orleans, which at the time was a lower class neighborhood, until she got her life back together, but what she doesn’t know is that moving in with her sister will undoubtedly be the worst decision of her life. Tennessee Williams combines the elements that make up a perfect drama beautifully. For the plot Tennessee Williams divides A Streetcar Named Desire into eleven scenes, with each scene leading dramatically into a climax. The play is composed over a period of time roughly of five months. The first six scenes stretch over the first few days of Blanche’s visit in May, but Scene 7 moves abruptly to mid-September when Scenes 7 to 10 take place within one day. The last scene follows a few weeks later. The first couple of scenes set the stage for the calamites that will occur in the second group of scenes, and there is the last group of scenes which represent the outcome of the events that occurred in previous scenes. It seems as the play has been split into three different acts, as each group of scenes have noticeably different moods. Tennessee William’s introduced only a very limited amount of characters to this play in which each and every one of them played a critical role. The main characters are Blanche who is the complicated protagonist of the play, Stella the sister of Blanche and wife of the plays main antagonist, Stan who is the antagonist but also the owner of the residence Blanche is staying at, and Mitch a good friend of Stan’s, and a key character in deciding Blanches future. Each character has their own unique personalities that contribute to the plot of the play. The theme of the play revolves around the main character, Blanches who appears in every single scene. At the end of every scene the final tableau of each scene more often than not centers on her, and she often speaks the final punch line. In the last scene of the play Blanche is this pathetic deluded woman who acquires the dignity she has been lacking. Her annoying mannerisms fall away, and she leaves on the doctor’s arm with the famous line ‘Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’. Williams uses amazing symbolism for us to foreshadow with. This includes the Chinese lantern, in which she uses to manipulate the lighting of a room, the implantation of music such as the music played when her past love shot himself, kept reoccurring during the play, the streetcar with its suggestions of the uncontrollable power of passion and the inescapable rush towards doom, the way Blanche bathed herself so often to get rid of the guilt she feels and the attempt to purify herself, and the Mexican flower lady in scene 9 who represents a sign of death.

“A Street Car Named Desire”, fulfills all of the necessary elements that create a perfect drama according to Aristotle. Tennessee Williams uses a vast majority of symbolism, imagery, music, and theme that put the finishing touches of this Drama. Each character has the perfect personality traits that contribute to make this a classic modern tragedy. Aristotle would be proud.