Ongoing Questions to Consider:
- To what extend does fantasy help or harm people trying to cope with reality?
- How far should someone go to show loyalty to a loved one? To friends? To family?
- What are the consequences of pursuing overwhelming desire?
- Is “deliberate cruelty” the only unforgivable crime?
- How do characters simultaneously represent and deconstruct the “American Dream”?
- How do humans’ primal instincts both strengthen and destroy them?
Tennessee Williams BIO
The A&E Biography of the great American playwright. Part 1 provides an overview of his life and merits while part 2 describes the creation and success of A Streetcar Named Desire (beginning @ 5:50).
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Themes: The Decay of the American Dream
In what ways do the following quotations display the struggle to attain the American Dream?
What is Tennessee Williams saying about the American Dream? Can it be achieved anymore?
STANLEY
Have you ever heard of the Napoleonic code? … In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic code according to which what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband and vice versa. For instance if I had a pieve of property, or you had a piece of property– (Sc. 2, p. 32). |
BLANCHE
There are thousands of papers, stretching back over hundreds of years, affecting Belle Reve as, piece by piece, our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications—to put it plainly! . . . The four-letter word deprived us of our plantation, till finally all that was left—and Stella can verify that!—was the house itself and about twenty acres of ground, including a graveyard, to which now all but Stella and I have retreated (Sc. 2, p. 45). |
STANLEY
That’s how I’ll clear the table! [He seizes her arm.] Don’t ever talk that way to me! "Pig – Polack – disgusting – vulgar – greasy!" – them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister’s too much around here! What do you think you two are? A pair of queens? Remember what Huey Long said – "Every Man is a King!" And I am the King around here, so don’t forget it! [He hurls a cup and saucer to the floor] My place is cleared! You want me to clear your places? (Sc. 8, p. 131) |
STANLEY
I am not a Polack. People from Poland are Poles, not Polacks. But what I am is a one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so don't ever call me a Polack. (Sc. 8, p. 134) |
STANLEY
When we first met, me and you, you thought I was common. How right you was, baby. I was common as dirt. You showed me the snapshot of the place with the columns. I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it, having them colored lights going! And wasn’t we happy together, wasn’t it all okay till she showed here? (Sc. 8, p. 137). |
Resources for Analysis
Click the resources below and use them as we work our way through the text. You will need to pay attention to small details such as characterization, progression of themes, symbolism, setting, and much more. These resources should help.
Character Development Chart
Shmoop - Streetcar Named Desire
Sparknotes - Streetcar Named Desire
Cliffnotes - Streetcar Named Desire