Revision Cards - A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level, Context

Revise the key points

In 1931 Williams had a nervous breakdown, and in 1937 his sister Rose was sent to a mental institution – like Blanche – and was lobotomised.
Like Blanche’s husband Allan (called ‘a degenerate’), Williams was a practising homosexual at a time when it was still illegal.
Suffering from depression, he resorted to heavy drinking (like Blanche) and drugs.
He had a lifelong fear of death, especially death from cancer – hinted at in the death of Margaret, one of the many at Belle Reve.

Context

A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level

A city in Louisiana, a southern state in the USA, whose legal system was influenced by the Napoleonic code, cited by Stanley.
Known as something of a cultural melting pot, where in some parts, including the French Quarter (district), black and white lived alongside each other.
A ‘streetcar’ (tram) went to an area called Desire, another to Cemeteries; there is also an avenue called Elysian Fields, referring to where the souls of heroes and the virtuous went in Greek mythology.
Known as a free-and-easy sort of place, with a lot of music (as in this play), especially jazz, bars and gambling – including poker.

Context

A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level

The DuBois family’s wealth would probably have been built on slavery, abolished in the South in 1865.
After the Southern Confederate states lost the Civil War (1861–5), the South became poor and families like the DuBois declined.
The decline of wealthy (but slave-owning) Southern families was romanticised in literature and the cinema, for example in Gone with the Wind.
Blanche’s refined tastes, including her dislike of vulgarity, reflect the values of the old South.

Context

A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level

Williams can be seen as part of the ‘Southern Gothic’ movement, characterised by a rich, even grotesque, imagination, and an awareness of being part of a decaying culture.
Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard is based on a declining family, like the DuBois family, who have to sell their property.
Strindberg’s Miss Julie may have influenced Williams’s pairing of class conflict and sexual tension in Stanley and Blanche.
Blanche’s refined tastes, including her dislike of vulgarity, reflect the values of the old South.

Context

A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level

The USA prided itself on opening its arms to immigrants from all over the world, including Poland, but Blanche still calls Stanley a ‘Polack’.
Stanley feels he is all-American, and that America is ‘the greatest country on earth’.
Stanley has a positive attitude towards conflict and fate, as shown by his belief that, despite poor odds, he would survive the war.
Stanley is an example of a go-getting, thrusting, competitive working-class man, prepared to crush others (like Blanche) to get what he wants.