Intimacy in A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

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Intimacy

Tennessee Williams used his life experiences to write many successful plays. One of his most successful plays is A Streetcar Named Desire. In this play Williams relates the characters closely to his father, mother, and sister. William’s father was a gambler, a drunk, and very aggressive. Williams’s mother was a Southern Bell and looked down upon people that were not like her, and his sister was suffering from psychological disorders. Stanley is like William’s father, Blanche is like William’s mother and sister, and Allan, Blanche’s dead husband, is like Tennessee Williams. Suchitra Choudhury says that “Tennessee Williams’ plays are acknowledged to be substantially constituted of violence and victimization. . . . Williams’s plays very often end in what seems to be victimization.” The play A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic example of violence and victimization. Stanley is very violent and Blanche is the victim, her past haunting her in the present. Throughout the play we see how Blanche evolves into what seems to be a psychotic breakdown at the end. We see how the need for intimacy ultimately causes her to become psychotic. Blanche struggles with the death of her husband Allan, and as a result she is constantly trying to create a reality of what she believes life should be like. How does the past affect Blanche in the present?

Blanche strives to deny the past and build a new life for herself, one that she perceives to be what she deserves. Blanche’s promiscuity in Laurel is the result of her constant search for intimacy, not just sex. Blanche struggles with guilt that it is her fault her husband Allan commits suicide. Even though Stella and Stanley and even Eunice and Steve have what she thinks are horrible relatio...

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...n, Leonard. The Tragic Downfall of Blanche Dubois, Modern

Drama, Vol. 10, No. 2, December, 1967, pp. 24957.

http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.maconstate.edu/servlet/LitRC?locID=maco12153&ADVST2=NA&srchtp=adv&c=6&stab=512&ASB2=AND&DT=Criticism_select&ADVSF2=tennessee+williams&docNum=H1100001574&ADVSF1=a+streetcar+named+desire&ADVST1=TW&bConts=514&vrsn=3&ASB1=AND&ste=74&tbst=asrch&tab=2&ADVST3=NA

Choudhury, Suchitra. A Streetcar Named Desire. Great Neck Publishing

http://proxygsu-mac1.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=25997558&site=ehost-live">Literary Contexts in Plays: Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire".

Williams, Tennessee. A streetcar Named Desire. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 9th Edition. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, Kelly J. Mays Ed. NewYork. W. W. Norton, 2005 (1539-1602)

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