Larisa Teodorescu

Group no. 5, III B

Dramatic conflict in A Streetcar Named Desire

The paper wants to deal with the different points of view regardind the elements that
trigger the dramatic conflict in A Streetcar Named Desire, social, psychological or even
evolutionist matters.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams was written in 1947 and a year
later, in 1948, the playwright won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for it. It was seen by critics as
having the characteristics of three types of Realism, namely, Magical Realism, because of
Blanches imagined horrors, Psychlogical Realism, because the reality is portraited as it is in
the character mind, not in an objective way, and Social Realism because it treats social issues
as immigration or social class.
In his most famous play, Tennesse Williams tries to capture the moment when
America was recovering after WWII. There are many tracks in the plot which recall the
armed conflict: Stanley and Mitch served in the army, Blanche had affairs with soldiers.
Stanley and Stella Kowalsky live a happy family life in Elysian Fields until the
moment when Stellas sister, Blanche, come to live with them bringing the imbalance with
her. According to Norman Berlin, Blanche is entering a paradise where she will be
considered an intruder and from which she will be expelled. (Berlin, 70) Blanches arrival
at Elysian Fields triggers the dramatic conflict in Williamss play, because, from that moment
on, between her and Stanleys strong character will be many conflicts. It can be said that the
dramatic conflict in this plot is built around the disagreements between the two characters.
Starting from Nietzsches Birth of Tragedy, Joseph Riddel writes But even in Streetcar
one must begin with a contradiction between his intellectual design and the militant
primitivism of the theme; or to usea philosophical gloss, one must begin with Nietzsches
Apollonian-Dionysian conflict, in an almost literal sense. (Riddel, 421)
This identity conflict between Stanley and Blanche is ilustrated in body language,
tone, dialogue or stage directions. Firstly, Stanley is dominant and he wants everything to be
under his control: I dont care if she hears me! (Scene 2). Blanche is more delicate given be
the fact that she is a lady, or, at least, she pretends to be one. Secondly, throw stage directions
we have a physical descriptions of the two: Her appearance is incongruous to this setting
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(Scene 1), Blanche stands out because of her appearance which differs a lot from all around
her, another proof that she is an intruder and does not belong to New Orleans. She comes to
visit her sister looking as if she were arriving to a summer tea or cocktail party. (Scene 1).
On the other hand, Stanley is roughly dressed in blue denim work clothes (Scene 1). His
second appearance is when he enters very unexpected and aggressively: Stanley throws the
screen door open... (Scene 1). Yet his animal side is almost immediately noticed by the
spectator because of his aggressiveness, he is described as being a very attractive man:
...medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built (Scene 1).
Thirdly, the language used by Stanley and Blanche contrasts as well. She is
euphemistic, he is very direct in what he says. Stanley uses monosyllabic words as Catch!
or Bowling!, unlike Blanche who uses expressive language: I, I, I took the blows in my
face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother!
Margaret, that dreadful way! So big with it, couldnt be put in a coffin! But had to be burned
like rubbish! (Scene 1). Also, she uses imperatives, considering herself superior to other
people even when she had lost everything: run to the drugstore and get me a lemon coke
(Scene 2).
Fourthly, through his vocabulary, Blanche proves that she is a well educated woman.
Even though Stanley tries to pretend he is an intellectual, he talks about the Napoleonic code,
the audience assume Stanley had not much education because of his vulgar expressions
which disturb Blanche. The man pretends to be intelliget because he does not want to be
inferior to other people.
Fifthly, it can be made the distinction between Old America, embodied by Blanche,
and New America, emodied by Stanley Kowalsky. She says I guess it is just that I have-old-fashioned ideals! (Scene 6). In contrast, Stanley represents the immigrant New
American, he is "proud as hell" of being "one hundred per cent American" (Scene 8). Their
names also differentiate them, Blanche DuBois is a French (colonial) name which translates
to white woods. Blanches family has been in America for generations since they have a
house in Belle Reve, she has obviously been brought up very well and used to a wealthy
life. In contrast to Stanley Kowalski, his name is a polish immigrants name, the reader knows
from the plot that he has recently migrated to America and has not had a privileged living.
There are critics who claim that Williams wrote the play based on Darwinian natural
selection: Blanche and Stanley are two opposing animals of the same species striving for the
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survival with Stella as the prize (Bak, 6). Deborah Burks: The conflict is less [] a struggle
between Good and Evil and more a Social Darwinist struggle for survival between two
species of human beings (Burks, 37). John T. von Szeliski also comments on the
Darwinian selection. The characters strive for but are unable to
make successful adjustments to this kind of life-problem without
becoming animals themselves. Failing this, they are destroyed. Finding
most men savage, Williamss sympathy is on the side of the delicately
built person whose soul is revolted by crass life. A Streetcar Named
Desire is his allegorical demonstration of this pitiful situation.
(Miller, 66)
Maybe the most important distinction between Stanley Kowalsky and Blanche
DuBois is made by Nancy Tischler who discusses on the two character as anti-thetical ideals.
She argues that Williams pictures himself as Blanche, the romantic in an unromantic world,
the outsider:
Blanche, like Williams, lives briefly in New Orleans, her accent and her manners
contrast grotesquely with those about her, her love of romance seems ludicrous to the
world she can never quite bring herself to enter. In the feminine personality, Williams
has found his satisfying parallel to the Romantic poet; in our culture, love of beauty is
seen as a weakness in a man, excessive sensitivity as a fault. (Tischler, 125)
while Stanley is the figure of his father with whom Williams never had a very good
relationship: The antithesis is Stanley Kowalskiall that society worships in the male. He is
virile, loud, smart, aggressive, ambitious, and independent. He is in fact the sum total of those
characteristics Williams resented in his father (Tischler, 125) Given be the fact that
Williams put a lot of symbols and meanings when he designed his characters, in my opinion,
Nancy Tischlers observations regarding the play are the most accurate. Summing up,
Tischler points out the opposition between the Romantic character (Blanche) and the Realist
(Stanley). The rape is a also a symbol, a symbol for what society does to artist: Williams
here points out that this is, what life and time do to all of us, but to the most sensitive first.
Rape is an effective term for what the Romantic believes the world does to him and his art. It
robs the artist of his dreams and then uses him for its own diversion. (Tischler, 126) At the
beginning, the audience may think that Stanley is the positive character (if it can be spoke
about a positive and a negative character in a realist work) trying to protect her wife from a
sister who is thought having a bad influence against her and comes with a questionable past
behind.
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The madness which is triggered after the rape is another characteristic for the outcast,
the same Nancy Tischler writes: the world must look on the poets retreat from its vision of
reality as madness (Tischler, 126). More and more Blanche is to be identified as a romantic
ideal. At the beginning she tries to bring with her a new order in Kowalskys home, but
Stanley has a very strong personality, stronger than her, and Blanche ends up with all her
ideals destroyed and once with the ideals and dreams she is also destroyed, because that was
her world, not the same as Stella and Stanley, the real world.
In conclusion, there are many opinions regarding the dramatic conflict in Tennessee
Williamss play, but all of them agree that is due to the desire of domination which both
Stanley Kowalsky and Blanche Dubois have against the other one the most important element
which triggers the events which will come to an unhappy end for the female character in
which the author has shown a part of his nature an his fears.
Bibliography:
Bak, John. S. . Criticism on A Streetcar Named Desire. A Bibliographic Survey,
1947-2003. Web. 10 May 2014.
Berlin, Normand. On Desire and the Character Dialectic in Blooms Guide, A
Streetcar Named Desire, Chelsea House Publisher, 2005. Electronic.
Burks, Deborah G. Treatment Is Everything: The Creation and Casting of
Blanche and Stanley in Tennessee Williamss Streetcar, Library Chronicle of the
University of Texas at Austin, 41 (1987), 16-39. Electronic.
Riddel, Joseph N. A Streetcar Named Desire-Nietzsche Descending,
Modern Drama, 5 (1963), 421-430. Electronic.
Tischler, Nancy. On Stanley and Blanche as anti-thetical ideals in Blooms Guide, A
Streetcar Named Desire, Chelsea House Publisher, 2005. Electronic.
Von Szileski, John T. Tennessee Williams and the Tragedy of Sensitivity, in
MILLER, Twentieth Century Interpretations, 65-72. Electronic.
Williams, Tennesee. A Streetcar Named Desire. Penguin Modern Classics, 2009. Print.