"THE GLASS MENAGERIE & A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

4. REALITY VS ILLUSION

In symbolic terms, the conflict between Stanley and Blanche pits reality against illusion. What is reality? To Stanley reality is what you can touch and see. Stanley feels right at home in reality--that is, among real people, the kind who act natural and who say what they think and feel. Since a human is an animal, according to Stanley he ought to act like one. To put on airs, to deny one's instincts, to hide one's feelings--those are dishonest acts.

No wonder Blanche rejects reality in favor of illusion. Reality has treated her unkindly. Too much truthfulness destroyed her marriage. Taking refuge in dreams and illusions, therefore, she plays a perpetual game of let's pretend. She says what ought to be true, not what is true.

Stanley can't tolerate idealists like Blanche. What she calls "magic" Stanley calls "lies." Losing her way altogether at the end of the play, Blanche can no longer distinguish illusion from reality. So she goes to an asylum, the only place where that distinction doesn't make any difference.

5. SEXUAL VIOLENCE

The proverbial conflict between males and females has often been termed the "battle of the sexes." Sexual hostilities rage throughout the play. On one side you have Blanche, who is a veteran of considerable sexual give and take. She lures the newspaper boy into her arms, but thinks the better of it, and frees him after only one kiss. She wins Mitch's affection but claims "high ideals" to keep him at a distance. When Mitch discovers that he's been hoodwinked, he attempts to rape her. Blanche wards off the attack like a seasoned warrior.

Only Stanley is unconquerable. He sees right through Blanche's sexual pretenses. At the end of his war with Blanche, he rapes her, proving that in sexual combat, he is the winner and still champion.

^^^^^^^^^^A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: STYLE

This play about people trapped in frightful conditions brims with poetry. A poem doesn't always need elegant words. In fact, the inelegant residents of Elysian Fields speak in the blunt, straight-forward idiom of common people. Only Blanche's manner of speaking soars above the ordinary. Figurative language gushes naturally from her lips. For example, she tells Mitch how life's joys have been extinguished: "And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this--kitchen--candle...." Why did Williams give Blanche the gift of poetic speech? Yes, she's an English teacher, but perhaps he had other purposes. How does her eloquence affect her relationship with Stanley, for instance?

You also find poetic language, rich with imagery, in Williams' stage directions: "The houses [of New Orleans] are mostly white frame, weathered grey, with rickety outside stairs and galleries and quaintly ornamented gables." To help create the mood of the play, Williams prescribes the sound of a "tinny piano being played with the infatuated fluency of brown fingers." To give you a sense of the character, he calls Stanley a "gaudy seed bearer" and a "richly feathered male bird among hens." Blanche's uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, suggest "a moth."

Apes, hens, a moth--Williams' images make up a menagerie. Why does the playwright repeatedly compare his characters to animals? Does Williams keep you mindful of the constant tension between man's civilized impulses and his beast-like instincts?

The playwright may also be highlighting the symbolic clash between Stanley and Blanche. To be sure, Stanley stands for primitivism. Blanche speaks up for civilization. May she also represent the romantic traditions of the past? Don't be satisfied with only those interpretations of Stanley and Blanche. Try to extract additional symbolic meanings in the conflict between the play's antagonists. For example, what can you make of the fact that one is a dreamer and pretender, the other a realist?

You're always sure to find carefully-chosen symbols in a Williams play. Even the names of people and places carry symbolic weight. The streetcars, "Desire" and "Cemetery," evoke among other things, Blanche's need for love and her fear of death. Other names reveal Williams' irony and humor: he assigns the name "Elysian Fields," a paradise in ancient mythology, to a cheerless street in modern New Orleans. "Blanche" means white, the color signifying purity. "Stella," the earthy sister, means star. And "Belle Reve," of course, means "beautiful dream."

^^^^^^^^^^A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: POINT OF VIEW

Unlike The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire has no narrator to tell you the story. No one comes between you and the characters on the stage. The story is presented as it is in most plays--by characters simply playing their parts. What the characters represent, how they interact, how they resolve conflicts all help to establish the playwright's point of view.

In the script of the play Williams includes plenty of material that describes the set, the appearance of the characters, the sound and light needed to create moods and so forth. But he doesn't tell you how to view the characters: Is Blanche sane or insane? Does Stanley have redeeming qualities? Is it right for Stella to commit Blanche to an asylum? Although these are questions that Williams probably wants you to answer for yourself, he gives you his own bias by focusing the play on Blanche.

Blanche stands apart as the central figure. Streetcar is her story, and you have a ringside seat to her private agony and disintegration. You never see anyone except Blanche on stage alone. Minor characters like the newsboy and the flower peddler are interesting only insofar as they touch Blanche. By the time the play ends you know Blanche better than any other character. You probably understand why she acts as she does and appreciate what has happened to her. That doesn't mean you cherish her. But you might feel compassion for her, as you might for anyone who has lost her way.

How you feel about Blanche and how you interpret her actions will ultimately determine your views not only about the other characters, but about the themes and ideas conveyed by the play as a whole.

^^^^^^^^^^A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE: FORM AND STRUCTURE

Most plays have acts. Streetcar doesn't. Rather it is divided into eleven scenes occurring in chronological order and taking place between May and September.

In most productions of a play, you'll find intermissions at natural breaks in the action. In many productions of Streetcar, intermissions come after Stanley has won his first major victory over Blanche, at the end of Scene Four. A second break sometimes occurs when Scene Six concludes, after Blanche has won Mitch's love. Thus, the first third of the play ends with a defeat for Blanche, the second with a triumph.

The last scenes follow Blanche's decline into permanent defeat--her insanity. You might observe a kind of rhythm in the action of the play, a pulsing series of episodes, which may explain why Williams chose to build the play using several short scenes instead of a few longer acts. There's a rhythm of conflict and reconciliation: Stanley and Stella have a row, then make up. Eunice and Steve fight, then make up. Blanche, as usual, is out of step with the others. She establishes a liaison with Mitch, which then breaks up. Perhaps the regularity of the pattern is meant to suggest vaguely the rhythm of passion, which reaches a climax in the rape scene. The suggestion becomes more plausible if you think of the play as a sexual battle between Stanley and Blanche.

A Streetcar Named Desire is episodic. A drawing of the play's structure traces the conflict between Blanche and Stanley and also parallels the state of Blanche's emotional and mental health.

Scene 1: Blanche arrives in New Orleans, meets Stanley; each takes the other's measure. Blanche generally optimistic.

Scene 2: Conflict over loss of Belle Reve. Blanche submits papers to Stanley.