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Tennessee Williams is known for being gay, and he includes that part of himself in several of his plays (see A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). Blanche's first husband was gay, and she discovered this by seeing him with another man. Blanche didn't tell her husband what she knew until later, after which he killed himself. This begins Blanche's descent into madness. She continues to hear echos of that night- the music, the gunshot- and fears the noise. This call from the past is the symbol of Blanche's mental destabilization.

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In A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams condemns sex and sexual desire. Keats has a slightly different view, in that he believes the build up to sex to be where beauty and truth are. In the third stanza, Keats shows the lovers as "For ever panting" (27), but subsequently describes passion negatively. Keats implies that while sexual desire is beautiful, sex itself leads to pain, similarly to how in A Streetcar Named Desire Williams uses sex as the downfall of all characters.

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Stanley and Blanche are often at odds during this play, and part of that is due to Stanley's Polish origins. Blanche is a Southern belle, born and raised in the ideal of a Southern gentleman and old money. Stanley represents the new America, a melting pot of ethnicities and ideas, where a man is judged by his own merits and not those of his forefathers. This clash in ideologies creates friction between the two, and leads to many of Blanche's conversations with Stella regarding Stanley.

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A Streetcar Named Desire is set up to contrast two different points of view on sex and sexual relationships. Stanley and Blanche both relate to the world they live in through sex. However, Stanley uses his sexual prowess as a method of control and objectification, while Blanche attempts to use it as a personal connection. In the end, Blanche and Stanley both ruin their relationships because of sex, and Williams's derision towards sex is made clear.

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Since there is no true narrator, we don't see every one of the character's thoughts. However, character motivations become more clear the more we see them alone, and the character we most see alone is Blanche DuBois. Her actions reveal her character- her drinking, her mania, her lies- and her character sets the stage for other character's actions.

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While most of the story takes place on stage, the audience isn't always able to necessarily see it. Some of the action takes place before the story starts, and is told through Stanley's research and a conversation with Mitch, as well as Blanche's later confession. This is necessary for the timeliness of the story as well as the flow of action. Information must be presented so characters can act on their knowledge.

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In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses the supernatural (King Hamlet's ghost) to prompt Hamlet's internal debate and subsequent action. Williams also uses the echos of the dead in order to create conflict. Throughout the play, polka music plays. Specifically,  "Varsouviana". This is the tune, the audience learns, that was playing when Blanche's husband shot himself. During Blanche's breakdown, we see more of supernatural in the shadows and

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"STELLA [coldly]:
Go on and say it all, Blanche. BLANCHE:
He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's even something--sub-human--something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something--ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in--anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is--Stanley Kowalski-- survivor of the stone age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you--you here--waiting for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and the other apes gather! There in the front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night!--you call it--this party of apes! Somebody growls--some creature snatches at something--the fight is on! God! Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but Stella--my sister--there has been some progress since then! Such things as art--as poetry and music--such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march toward whatever it is we're approaching.... Don't--don't hang back with the brutes!" (Williams 74).

This scene may be the exact moment  where Blanche seals her fate. She alienates her sister, and describes Stanley as a sort of sub-human being, not fit to be a part of civilized society. Stella, however, loves Stanley dearly. This may be part of the reason she does not believe Blanche's words at the end of the play. This is the turning point for Blanche and Stella's relationship. Stella has been trying to keep the peace between Blanche and Stanley, but Blanche's vivid depiction of Stanley as something lesser makes her very angry at her sister.

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Stanley is an angry person. He likes to be in charge, and when he feels threatened, he responds with violence. This excites Stella (which is part of why their marriage works so well), but it frightens Blanche, who is a bit more Southern belle. It is when Stanley's anger first turns towards Stella that Blanche definitively sets herself against him, rather than the passive aggression.

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The turning point for this play takes place off stage, with the rape of Blanche DuBois at the end of act 10. Stanley says they've "had this date with each other from the beginning!" (Williams 141), referring to both of their sexual overtures towards each other. Stanley sees women only in terms of sex, and sex is the only way Blanche can connect to men. The lead up to this moment keeps the audience intrigued, and continuing on after.

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In "Daddy", Sylvia Plath talks  about her relationship with her father and also discusses how this lead to her abusive marriage. Blanche's father is not discussed in detail, but the death of her family members leads her into poverty and her many sexual relationships with strangers. Plath's description of the violence she tried to find in a husband also brings up the idea of Stella, and how Stanley's anger and violence excited her.

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Stella is caught in the conflict between her sister and her husband. Stanley's violence excites her, and she is having a baby with him. Blanche, though, she has known since birth, and she admires and wishes to please her sister who fears Stanley. Stella tries to maintain the peace throughout the novel, but sides with Stanley in the end, as it is "the only thing [she] could do" (Williams 152).

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Blanche first enters and is described to have something about her "that suggests a moth" (Williams 3sd). She is pale and delicate, and that is how she presents herself. But Blanche is not just the innocent, pure creature she tries to appear as. She is an alcoholic, liar, and elitist. She can only relate to men through sex. And she loses her grip on reality. Blanche is a pitiable character- definitely a victim of the bigotry she is surrounded with. Blanche continues the cycle with her husband, and so causes his death and the first break in her mind.

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In a sense, Williams himself is the narrator, with his beautifully written stage directions that go above and beyond what is possible to display in a theater. He displays these broken people for us to do with what we will, and narrates the setting and the character's appearance, going further than just a simple physical description. In his stage directions, we get a sense for who each character is, even without seeing them or hearing them speak.

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A Streetcar Named Desire is a play without a narrator- the audience views everything as it happens with no additional comments from characters other than their interactions. However, simply viewing the play gives the audience a chance to view the raw emotions of the characters and see authentic actions by each. The characters aren't romanticized, and often their actions are condemnable, but the audience is able to sympathize with them because they see the human experience reflected back at them.

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Stanley Kowalski is The Man. He's big, brash, and a sex machine. He is definitely the leader of the house- until Blanche DuBois shows up. Blanche challenges Stanley's control both over his wife and his household. Essentially, she emasculates him. Stanley, as typical of men during this time period, doesn't express his emotions in a healthy way, and acts out in anger (similar to Williams own father). However, Stanley's animal magnetism keeps drawing Stella back in. In addition to all of this, Stanley is an immigrant. His Polish origins clash with Blanche's idea of Americans and the "lower class" immigrants.

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Tennessee Williams doesn't give the reader time to be bored while reading A Streetcar Named Desire. Every scene has meaning, and every scene contributes both to the overall ambiance and meaning of the play. Scenes often take place after some time has passed off stage, so the audience doesn't have to sit through pedestrian scenes with no relevance to the overall plot.

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A Streetcar Named Desire is a relatively short piece. For reference, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, is 25,845 words. That means that the play is a quick read. The play is only one act, with eleven scenes in it. Each scene is designed to move the action along, and contribute to the overall theme. There is no room for fluff.

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"It is first dark of an evening early in May. The sky that shows around the dim white building is a peculiarly tender blue, almost a turquoise, which invests the scene with a kind of lyricism and gracefully attenuates the atmosphere of decay. You can almost feel the warm breath of the brown river beyond the river warehouses with their faint redolences of bananas and coffee. A corresponding air is evoked by the music of Negro entertainers at a barroom around the corner. In this part of New Orleans you are practically always just around the corner, or a few doors down the street, from a tinny piano being played with the infatuated fluency of brown fingers. This "Blue Piano" expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here" (Williams 1sd).

Williams is known for his stage directions. While some may not be entirely feasible on a stage, they do create a vivid image in the minds of those who read them. He captures the idea of New Orleans in the heat, the music, the sounds of city, and the entire atmosphere in just a few short lines. This sets up the play, and prepares us to see just how much Blanche DuBois does not fit in with the rest of the stage.

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Streetcar was first performed in 1947. Truman's president, the Red Scare is beginning, the first Tony Awards are happening, Billie Holiday is arrested, sugar rationing ends, Jackie Robinson is Rookie of the year, India and Pakistan become independent, the Spruce Goose flies, Steinbeck publishes The Pearl, and racism and bigotry ran wild. Williams lived in changing and uncertain times, but his plays are almost timeless because they address the topics that still matter today.

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“Historical Events in 1947.” OnThisDay.com, On This Day, www.onthisday.com/events/date/1947.

Shmoop Editorial Team. "A Streetcar Named Desire." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 8 Mar. 2018.

“Tennessee Williams Biography.” Biography.com, A&E Television Networks, 2 Dec. 2015, www.biography.com/people/tennessee-williams-9532952.

“Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of The American Stage.” PBS.org, Public Broadcasting Service, 8 Feb. 1999, www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/tennessee-williams-about-tennessee-williams/737/.

“Tennessee Williams.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2018, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tennessee-williams.

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It is impossible to talk about American playwrights without discussing Tennessee Williams. Born Thomas Lanier Williams, he spent a happy childhood in Mississippi, before moving to Missouri, where everything changed. His parents' marriage became more strained. His sister, Rose, retreated into her own mind, and eventually received a prefrontal lobotomy. Some of her nature can be seen in Williams' characters, such as Blanche DuBois. Williams was also looked down on by his father for his homosexuality, a taboo topic at the time discussed in several of Williams' plays. Williams attended college at three different universities, before moving down to New Orleans, a location which inspired works such as A Streetcar Named Desire. Williams had a problem with drugs and alcohol. His brother hospitalized him, but his issues would eventually lead him to his death at age 71.