A Streetcar Named Desire 1159The play is set in New Orleans, Louisiana, just
after World War II, and Williams’s depiction of
the city is so vivid that the Crescent City becomes
a character itself. New Orleans’s vibrant, heteroge-
neous nature, with its “easy intermingling of races,”
jazz music that drifts from the bars and into people’s
homes, street barkers, and vendors, is certainly
isolated from mainstream America, which is about
to settle into its most prosperous period, a period
wherein domestic life will become celebrated as a
virtually holy existence, and television will become
the greatest adventure for many. Although the
diversity of the city is celebrated to an extent, it also
provides a breeding ground for undesirables who
move about freely.
Blanche DuBois enters the city unaware of the
dangers it poses for her. Blanche is a fading southern
belle, a woman who clings to the ideals of the Old
South. However, her arrival is the result of her own
inability to measure up to the principles of grace,
charm, and fidelity she decries others for lacking.
Blanche has isolated herself from Laurel, Missis-
sippi, the town she left in disgrace after the locals
discovered she was having an affair with one of her
own students. This was the last in a series of affairs
that steadily ruined her reputation. Upon arriving in
New Orleans, however, Blanche finds herself further
removed from her comfort zone. Having grown up
in Belle Rêve, a fabulous plantation home erected
by her forebears, she is ill-equipped for the modern
world in general, much less the rough life of New
Orleans. Throughout the play, she retreats to the
shadows to hide her fragility.
Once she settles into the home of her sister,
Stella, and Stella’s husband, Stanley, Blanche further
isolates herself. She cannot hide her disgust at the
condition of the home, a dingy, two-room flat that
affords little privacy and is situated in the midst of
the French Quarter, making the lively action of that
celebrated neighborhood a constant presence within
the home. Blanche is further troubled by her sister’s
husband, whom she regards as a Neanderthal and
certainly unsuitable for her sister. Of course, Stella
has isolated herself from the world Blanche seeks
to find again, and she resents Blanche for criticizing
her involvement with Stanley. By choosing Stanley,
Stella has rejected the southern mannerisms her
family deemed important. Although there is genu-
ine affection between the two, their relationship is
mostly predicated on their passionate lovemaking.
Just as Stella finds Blanche’s attitude offensive,
so does Stanley. In fact, Stanley learns the truth
about Blanche’s life in Laurel, which leaves him
further enraged at this woman who insults him for
his lack of manners and unashamed attitude about
sex. Almost for the sheer pleasure of watching her
suffer, Stanley tells his friend Mitch, who is courting
Blanche and may wish to marry her, about Blanche’s
past, ruining whatever chance of happiness the two
may find together. In a sense, Stanley’s machinations
hurt his friend as much as they do Blanche, as the
gentle Mitch could find in her a way out of his own
isolation, illustrated through his devotion to his sick
mother, which keeps him from living a fuller life
than he could.
Ultimately, Stanley, whom the playwright Arthur
Miller called a “sexual terrorist,” forces Blanche from
her shadows by raping her. Whatever fragile hold
on sanity Blanche has is destroyed, as the mental
demons she desperately tries to keep at bay consume
her. The various illusions Blanche develops to mask
the reality of her life are exposed as well, and the
realization that she cannot find succor in isolation,
with Mitch or anyone else, causes a nervous break-
down from which she will not recover. Ironically,
once she realizes she cannot escape the world, she
is sent to an asylum where she will finally remain
completely isolated.
Chris BellreGret in A Streetcar Named Desire
With Blanche DuBois, the central figure in A
Streetcar Named Desire, the playwright Tennessee
Williams crafted a sympathetic portrait of a woman
desperately clinging to her sanity but unable to do so
because of her inability to forgive herself for various
indiscretions.
Set immediately after World War II, the play
begins with Blanche’s desperate arrival in the
French Quarter of New Orleans to live with her
sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.
Immediately, one senses that Blanche is too fragile
for the vitality of the Quarter, with her old-fash-
ioned ideals of southern womanhood—ideals that