A Streetcar Named Desire: Discuss scene one as the opening scene
Uploaded by Kithana on Nov 05, 2003
Any play that is written is to be performed as a drama and so when reading a play it’s vital to visualise the scene and focus on what the characters say, their actions, their body language and the atmosphere created. With the above in mind the exposition of any play should introduce the audience to the basic themes of the drama, set the scene and atmosphere through music and lighting, introduce the characters and build on the initial theme. The focus of this play is on a thirty-something southern belle named Blanche DuBois and how her tragic downfall came about.
A Streetcar Named Desire is set shortly after ‘The Great Depression’ of the 1930’s and World War II in the time period that America was trying to rebuild itself from its financial losses. Prior to the depression the lifestyle of most Americans was one of prosperity with promise of success, The American Dream as the propagandists called it, where generally the poor of America were better off than most the rest of the world. However after the crash people’s view of the previous lifestyle started to dissolve, it was every man for himself as America tried to build itself once again. World War II also had its influence on the views of the American society at large, people generally became more reclusive and the previous lifestyle and divide of social classes almost forgotten. The central characters Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski represent and symbolise both communities of the old America and the new America respectively and this theme is carried on throughout the play.
Blanche’s loss is of Belle Reve her inherited property from her father, which is a symbol of the previous culture and of the money lost as a result of gross sexual scandals and prostitution by her male relatives that have all died out. Whereas Stanley, Blanche’s brother-in-law is the representative of the new America who is more dominant, aggressive, arrogant and sees himself as the breadwinner of the family: “You’re simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side I should think”, as Blanche describes him in a later conversation. Stanley Kowalski is actually based on a real life character whom Tennessee Williams befriended whilst working for The National Shoe Company in the 1930’s. The character Blanche is portrayed as unstable, the one who carries a burden and...