Streetcar Named Desire

Marie Gordon Studying a Modern Play

What does the play’s setting contribute to its dramatic effect?

A Streetcar Named Desire shows the extent to which the American South is less a geographical expression than an entire way of life. Even today, the South’s distinctive culture, food, literature and music have influenced the rest of the country immensely. Tennessee Williams explored the cultural and spiritual experience of the South, to which he belonged and in Streetcar he dramatizes a brutal culture clash between New Orleans industrial worker, Stan Kowalski, representing the new America and his aristocratic, intellectual rival, Blanche Dubois, representing the old.

The dramatic effects of Streetcar are obvious in the settings
of the play; The Kowalskis’ flat and its surroundings as well as in the wider American context.

William’s stage directions are extremely detailed, almost cinematic in scope. The French Quarter of New Orleans is poor and run down, yet he manages to invest it with considerable beauty and poetry, full of life in all its aspects. He takes in strong colours, mentioning the blue/turquoise sky of spring and early summer, the smell of coffee and bananas from the warehouses; and the atmospheric jazz piano, a strong leitmotif in the play. The river and the railroad tracks suggest transportation, an important idea and commerce, a world only briefly glimpsed in what is primarily a domestic play. Elysian Fields is an appropriate name for the street, Elysium being the resting place for the blessed in Greek mythology. It is an ironic heaven that Blanche will be denied when she comes to stay with the Kowalskis.
The visual aspect of the play was clearly very important to Tennessee Williams, the author, partly perhaps as a result of his interest in the cinema. His stage directions are detailed, using evocative imagery to convey how the dramatist envisaged the scene. The intention was to create an atmosphere that would heighten the impact of the action – so that you could almost say that the apartment in Elysian Fields is one of the actors in the play.

In Streetcar, the entire action taking place is in the Kowalskis’ flat or just outside it. The events in the play stretch over several months, starting in May and it is symbolic that we start in spring and end in “Fall”. The set is designed so that the audience can also see ‘outside’ and observe characters on the street. This is important as the audience can contrast the chaotic scenes of vice, drinking and prostitution with the even more chaotic scenes being played out inside the flat.

The small and cramped flat is in a poor, charming, diverse part of New Orleans. The French Quarter, with its diversity and tolerance is a long way from the racial segregation and intolerance of the upbringing of Blanche and Stella. We see this in the opening scene where Stella and a Negro lady sit outdoors on the steps of the apartment block, chatting and relaxed. In this, the scene is set for the play, the new world that Blanche is entering albeit a last resort. To Blanche, the setting of the play represents the ugliness of reality; the ‘crude’ people that live in Elysian Fields.

The Kowalski’s live downstairs with Eunice and Steve upstairs.
The flat is cramped, even for two people, with just curtains dividing the bedroom and living area, the only privacy being provided by the bathroom, in which Blanche takes refuge for long periods, taking long hot baths, symbolic of her attempts to wash away the sins of her life. It is also symbolic that she sleeps on a collapsible bed, a sign of the transient nature of her stay. It is impossible for Blanche to hold on to her fantasies of the past gentility and wealth of her family in a two roomed apartment with her sister and her brutish brother-in-law. Blanche tried to soften the interior of the flat, hanging paper lanterns by the bare light bulbs in an attempt to look younger, to shield herself from the stark reality of advancing age. She also hopes to create a sense of magic and charm in the apartment. Her loss of youth and looks and her steady decline into impoverishment and madness mirrors the decline and loss of her ancestors’ former plantation home, with herself and Stella the only remaining family. Stella has moved forward into the new reality of post war America but Blanche still clings pitifully to the past, which is only another illusion. The total lack of privacy, together with the conditions and the character of the players, provides an immediate feeling of conflict and
foreboding.

From another perspective, Streetcar can be seen as a thriving, exuberant atmosphere, one that nurtures an open-minded sense of community. The ease with which people of different races and backgrounds mix and communicate, share life’s highs and lows, demonstrating the casual acceptance of diversity. Williams, a homosexual, spent a lot of time in New Orleans, obviously drawn to and at ease in the ‘Live and Let Live’ atmosphere that it continues to exude to this day. Although Blanche tries to appear sympathetic, she often makes intolerant remarks about class, sexuality and ethnicity. In scene one, she comments to her sister, Stella about Polacks being “like the Irish, only not so high brow”. In spite of her letting it be known that she is a cultured woman, praising poetry and art, she never acknowledges the beauty of the jazz and blues that permeates the setting. This uniquely American art form provides a transition for many of the scenes within Streetcar. It could represent change and hope, but goes unnoticed to Blanche. Belle Reve’s style of aristocracy has died away and its customs are no longer relevant to Kowalski’s post-war America.

There is a continual reference to light in the play.
It is used in the form of bright sunlight, on the morning following Stella’s beating by Stanley, indicating they have settled their grievances. Candlelight is used for the amorous isolation of Mitch and Blanche in scene six but most importantly, it is used as a foil for Blanche. She has been aware of the bright searchlight of the world being extinguished from the time of her husband’s death and from that time, life for her has been nothing more than the flicker of a candle. She intends to keep it that way to protect herself from the harsh realities of life. Blanche covers every bare light bulb for fear that her life of illusion will be
discovered.

“I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action”.

This line clearly sets up the key theme of illusion versus reality. Blanche takes the naked truth – the stark bare light bulb, the rude remark – and dresses it up prettily to make everyone happier and everything easier. That she speaks of talk and action as analogous to the light bulb shows that she considers the remedy for uncouth behaviour and appearance to be a paper lantern, an external cover, rather than a change from within.

The setting of Streetcar betrays the post-war tensions between the sexes. Stanley wants to dominate his home, in the same way males had dominated American society before the war. Female characters like Blanche and Stella expect more than a life of servitude, just as thousands of women wanted to retain their new-found freedoms and sense of socioeconomic self-worth after the war. Women like Blanche, the fading “Southern Belle” had no place in the new order of things and the play shows her being taken to an uncertain future, at best, in a mental institution. Death of a personality and death of a way of life.

REFERENCE LIST

SAMBROOK, H. (2012) London York Notes Advanced, A Streetcar Named Desire

WILLIAMS, T. (2009) London A Streetcar Named Desire