A Streetcar Named Desire 2 Essay, Research Paper

A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams was once quoted as saying “Symbols are nothing

but the natural speech of drama…the purest language of plays” (Adler

30). This is clearly evident in A Streetcar Named Desire, one of

Williams’s many plays. I n analyzing the main character of the story,

Blanche DuBois, it is crucial to use both the literal text as well as

the symbols of the story to get a complete and thorough understanding

of her.

Before one can understand Blanche’s character one must understand

the reason why she moves to New Orleans and joins her sister, Stella,

and brother-in-law, Stanley. By analyzing the symbolism in the first

scene, one can understand what prompted Blanche to move. Her

appearance in the first scene “suggests a moth” (Williams 96). In

literature a moth represents the soul. So it is possible to see her

entire voyage as the journey of her soul (Quirino 63). Later in the

same scene she describes her voyage: “They told me to take a streetcar

named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six

blocks and get off at Elysian Fields” (Quirino 63). Taken literally

this does not seam to add much to the story. However, if one

investigate Blanche’s past one can truly understand what this

quotation symbolizes. Blanche left her home to join her sister,

because her life was a miserable wreck in her former place of

residence. She admits, at one point in the story, that “after the

death of Allan (her husband) intimacies with strangers was all I

seemed able to fill my empty heart with” (Williams, 178). She had

sexual relations with anyone who would agree to it. This is the first

step in her voyage-”Desire”. She said that she was forced into this

situation because death was immanent and “The opposite (of death) is

desire” (Williams, 179). She escaped death in her use of desire.

However, she could not escape “death” for long. She was a teacher at a

high school, and at one point she had intimacies with a seventeen year

old student. The superintendent, “Mr. Graves”, found out about this

and she was fired from her job. Her image was totally destroyed and

she could no longer stay there. “Mr. Graves” sent her on her next stop

of the symbolic journey-”Cemeteries”. Her final destination was

“Elysian Fields”. The inhabitants of this place are described in Book

six of the Aenied:

“”They are the souls,” answered his [Aeneas'] father Anchises,

“Whose destiny it is a second time

To live in the flesh and there by the waters of Lethe

They drink the draught that sets them free from care

And blots out their memory.”"

(Quirino 61)

This is the place of the living dead. Blanche came to Elysian

Fields to forget her horrible past, and to have a fresh start in life

(Quirino, 63). In fact Blanche admits in the fourth scene that she

wants to “make myself a new life” (Williams 135).

By understanding the circumstances that brought Blanche to

Elysian fields it is easy to understand the motives behind many of

Blanches actions. One such action is that during the play Blanche is

constantly bathing. This represents her need to purify herself from

her past (Corrigan 53). However, it is important to note that

Blanche’s description of her traveling came before she actually

settles into Elysian Fields. The description therefore represents the

new life Blanche hoped to find, not what she actually did find.

From the begging we see that Blanche does not fit in with the

people of her new community, nor her physical surroundings in her new

home. We can see that she did not fit in with the people of the

community by comparing the manner in which women in the story handle

their social life with men. In the third scene, Stella, who is

pregnant at the time, is beaten by her husband Stanley. She

immediately runs upstairs to her friend’s apartment, upstairs. But,

soon Stanley runs outside and screams “Stell-lahhhhh” (Williams 133).

She proceeds to come down, and they then spend the night together. The

next morning Stella and Blanche discuss the horrible incident. Blanche

asks “How could you come back in this place last night?” (Williams

134). Stella answers “You’re making much too much fuss about this” and

later says that this is something that “people do sometimes”

(Williams 134). One sees that this is actually a common occurrence by

the fact that the same exact thing happens to the neighbors a few

scenes later. Later in the story Mitch, Blanche’s boyfriend, yells at

her and tries raping her, but she does not let him. Afterwards, she

tells Stanley that she would never forgive him because “deliberate

cruelty is unforgivable” (Williams 184). Blanche also does not fit

into her surroundings. Tennessee Williams describes the place as

having a “raffish charm” (Corrigan 50). But, this eludes Blanches. She

describes it as a place that “Only Poe! Only Mr. Edgar Allen

Poe!-could do it justice!” (Corrigan 50).

The person whom Blanche is most directly contrasted with is

Stanley. Blanche loves living in an idealistic world, while Stanley

strictly relies on facts. In the story Blanche makes up a good portion

of her past for the majority of the play. When she was young she lived

an eloquent life in a mansion, but she eventually lost it due to

unpaid bills. She tells everyone this part of her history but neglects

to tell them what she had done during the interim period, before she

came to Elysian Fields. Ms. DuBois never told them about the

promiscuous life she lived before she came. Stanley, on the other

hand, persisted in trying to find out her true past throughout the

story. Considering that this is Stanley’s house, his domain, it is

easy to see that this spells doom for Blanche.

The difference between Blanche and Stanley would not be so bad if

it were not for one of Blanche’s flaws. This harmful trait is

Blanche’s inability to adapt to her surroundings. This is seen by

noting a play on words used by Williams. In the first scene Blanche is

described as “daintily dressed” and mentions that she is “incongruous

to her setting” (Williams 96). Blanche cannot adapt to her

surroundings, but instead tries to change them. Later in the story she

says “You saw it before I came. Well, look at it now! This room is

almost-dainty!” (Williams 176). By using the word dainty in both

places Williams shows us how Blanche tries to change her surrounding

to match her, instead of adapting to them. This will not work with

Stanley.

Blanche deceives everyone for a good portion of the play.

However, Stanley is continually trying to find her true history.

Blanche says “I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, Magic! I

try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t

tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth.” (Williams 177).

Stanley does not enjoy “magic”, he says that “Some men are took in by

this Hollywood glamour stuff and some men are not” (Williams 114).

Stanley never believes Stella’s act (i.e. her “Hollywood glamour”) he

only likes the truth. This difference of philosophy creates much

tension between the two. The climax of the tension between them is in

the seventh scene. While Stanley is revealing to Stella Blanche’s

promiscuous life, Blanche is singing the following song:

“Say it’s only a paper moon. Sailing over the cardboard sea-

But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me!

It’s a Barnum and Bailey world. Just as phony as it could be-But it

wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me!”

(Corrigan 53)

The louder Stanley gets on insisting on the undeniable facts

about Blanche, the louder Blanche sings (Corrigan 53). This is a

symbolic collision of their two philosophies. Stella, the link between

the two, must listen to the facts given to her by Stanley, and the

virtues of idealism given to her by Blanche.

Light plays a crucial part in the struggle between Blanche and

Stanley. From the beginning Blanche insists “I cannot stand a naked

light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark” (Corrigan 54). She then

puts an artificial lantern on the light bulb. Light represents truth,

and Blanche wants to cloak the truth by covering it up. Later in the

play Stanley “brings to light” the true facts of Blanche’s life

(Corrigan 54). When Mitch, Blanche’s boyfriend, is “enlightened” by

Stanley about her history he proceeds to rip off the paper lantern

from the light bulb, and demands to take a good look at her face

(Corrigan 54).

The scene when Stanley rapes Blanche is the beginning of the end

for Blanche. Sex is her most obvious weakness. That is the reason why

she ran to New Orleans in the first place. Since she had come to New

Orleans she had tried to avoid it. But, once again, Stanley is in

direct contrast to this. Williams describes him:

“Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with

women, . . . He sizes them up at a glance, with sexual

classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining

the way he smiles at them.”

(Corrigan 57)

It is only fitting that he destroys her with sex because sex “has

always been her Achilles heel. It has always been his sword and

shield” (Corrigan 57). After he has sex with her, she is taken to

another asylum, a psychiatric hospital (Quirino 63). The cycle is

started again. “Desire” has once again sent her off to “Cemeteries”.

Throughout the book it is possible to describe the confrontation

between Blanche and Stanley as a poker game. The importance of the

poker game in the play is proven by the fact that Tennessee Williams

was thinking of calling the play “The Poker Night”. In the first four

scenes of the play, Blanche plays a good bluff. She tricks everyone

into believing that she is a woman of country-girl manners and high

moral integrity (Quirino 62). Stanley asks her to “lay her cards on

the table”, but she continues her bluff (Adler 54). However, Stanley

then goes on a quest for the truth. He then discovers and reveals

Blanche’s true past. Once he knows her true “cards” he then has the

upper hand. Stanley caps his win by raping her. It is interesting to

note that in the last scene of the play, when Blanche is being taken

away, Stanley is winning every hand in a poker game he is playing with

friends. This symbolizes his victory over Blanche. The card game can

be viewed as fate, in which skillful players can manipulate his cards

to his advantage (Quirino 62).

The music in the background, plays a key part in the play, in

describing Blanche’s emotions. In fact at one point it says of

Blanche that “The music is in her mind” (Corrigan 52). The Blue Piano

represents Blanche’s need to find a home. She is always extremely

lonely and needs companionship. This music is apparent during scene

one when she is recounting the deaths of her family at Belle Reeve,

and when she kisses the newsboy in scene five. The music is the

loudest during the scene when Blanche is being taken away to the

asylum. The Varsouviana Polka represents death, and to Blanche

immanent disaster. This music is heard as she explains the suicide of

her husband in scene six. It is also in the background when Stanley

gives her a Greyhound ticket to go home (i.e. back to cemeteries) in

scene eight. It also fades in and out of the scene where Mitch

confronts Blanche about her true past (Corrigan 52).

In studying the main character of A Streetcar Named Desire,

Blanche DuBois, it is necessary to use both a literal translation of

the text as well as interspersed symbolism to have a complete

understanding of her. Tennessee Williams the author of the play wrote

it this way on purpose. In fact he once said that “Art is made out of

symbols the way the body is made out of vital tissue” (Quirino 61).

This is a wonderful quotation to show just how necessary it is to

incorporate symbolism in an interpretation of a story.