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

Revise the key points

Desire has brought Blanche to the point where she has to move in with her sister, and she literally arrives on a streetcar ‘named Desire’.
Sexual passion keeps Stella with Stanley, so that she says ‘I’m not in anything I want to get out of’ (Scene Four, p. 42).
Despite being newly married to Blanche, Allan allowed himself to succumb to his illicit desire for another man.
Desire and fate combine when Blanche stops resisting Stanley; he says: ‘We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!’ (Scene Ten, p. 97).

Themes

A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level

Blanche has been traumatised by her husband’s suicide, so that she now ‘hears’ the music that was playing at the time, then the gunshot.
Blanche tells Stella, then Mitch, about the family deaths she endured at Belle Reve, saying that ‘funerals are pretty compared to deaths’ (Scene One, p. 12).
Mitch carries a cigarette case given to him by a dying girl, inscribed with lines by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, about love after death.
A blind Mexican woman sells ‘ Flores para los muertos ’ (flowers for the dead) (Scene Nine, p. 88).

Themes

A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level

Blanche recognises her own mental instability and says that because of it she cannot be left on her own (Scene One, p. 10).
Blanche suffers repeated hallucinations relating to her husband’s suicide.
Blanche’s preference for fantasy over reality is, arguably, always on the edge of madness.
Blanche is eventually driven over the edge into madness when she is raped by Stanley, and is led away to a mental institution.

Themes

A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level

Blanche and Stella are from a once wealthy plantation-owing family, though Stella has happily accepted a lower social status with Stanley.
Blanche calls Stanley an ‘ape’, but she may have a valid point in speaking out for tender feelings and the arts, which she feels are beyond him.
Stanley seems to need to feel that even if he does not know about something – such as jewellery – he knows someone who does.
Stella thinks that Blanche is too snobbish, and says ‘don’t you think your superior attitude is a bit out of place?’ (Scene Four, p. 46).

Themes

A Streetcar Named Desire: A Level

Blanche expects men to treat her with old-fashioned courtesy, despite her shady past.
Stanley rejects the idea that women should be treated with any special respect, and would never get up because a woman had entered the room.
Stanley annoys Stella by treating her in a sexist way in front of other men – for example, slapping her thigh.
Mitch is prepared to treat Blanche with the courtesy she demands, until he learns about her past. Then he thinks she no longer deserves it.