English Literature
Structural Analysis of A Streetcar Named Desire
Streetcar Episodic Structure
The play consists of 11 consecutive scenes, unlike
traditional plays divided into acts. This structure:
• Heightens dramatic tension
• Gradually reveals Blanche's disreputable past,
• episodic intensifying drama
• Tension • Climaxes with Blanche's physical and mental
• Climax defeat, establishing the play as a modern tragedy
• morality
• melodramatic Morality Play vs. Melodrama
• mental decline A Streetcar Named Desire is considered a:
• Third-person
morality play, where the ending serves to emphasize
• Fragmented
a moral message: whoever boards the streetcar of
desire is helpless once they ride in it.
• Greek mythology
This subverts the typical melodramatic play, where
good triumphs over evil.
Comparison to Handmaid's Tale
.
Both plays use:
·
mmm
Episodic structure to emphasize the protagonist's
mental decline
First-person narrative accounts in Handmaid's Tale,
third-person narrative in Streetcar
Atwood's use of fragmented narrative and
reconstructive nature of Offred's account shows the
psychological impact of oppression, while Williams
uses plastic theatre in Streetcar to convey Blanche's
mental instability.
Elysian Fields
In Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields are the final
resting place of the heroic and virtuous.
What is important about
the structure?
, English literature
Character Analysis
Streetcar
Blanche DuBois
• Attempts to retain the appearance of decency
and propriety by impressing others with her
Southern aristocratic upbringing
• Masks her loss of wealth and beauty with
soft lighting and showy, trashy finery
• decency
• Propriety • Avoids reality and is unable to adapt to the
• Wealth harshness of the modern world, leading to her
• Beauty downfall
• Lighting Stanley Kowalski
• Reality
• Downfall • Represented as Masculine, brutish, and
dominant within the semantic field of animalistic
• masculine imagery
• Brutish • Intelligent and shrewd in his understanding of
• Dominant others, refusing to fall for Blanche's manipulations
• Holds contempt for class snobbery and doesn't
• wife
fall for Blanche's polished exterior
• Home
• Power dynamic Stella Kowalski
• Dominance
• Fits into the archetypal role of a devout wife
• Submissive
waiting at home
·.
• colour • Power dynamic established with Stanley,
mmm
• Symbolism where she submits to his dominance
• White
• Blue
Symbolism and Imagery
• plastic theatre Color Symbolism
• Madness
• Past
Plastic Theatre
What is important to know
about the characters? Used in the Varsouviana polka to symbolize
Blanche's descent into madness
What it’s important about Music serves as a constant reminder of a terrible
colour in streetcar? event in Blanche's past, where her previous
husband shot himself
What is plastic theatre?
Structural Analysis of A Streetcar Named Desire
Streetcar Episodic Structure
The play consists of 11 consecutive scenes, unlike
traditional plays divided into acts. This structure:
• Heightens dramatic tension
• Gradually reveals Blanche's disreputable past,
• episodic intensifying drama
• Tension • Climaxes with Blanche's physical and mental
• Climax defeat, establishing the play as a modern tragedy
• morality
• melodramatic Morality Play vs. Melodrama
• mental decline A Streetcar Named Desire is considered a:
• Third-person
morality play, where the ending serves to emphasize
• Fragmented
a moral message: whoever boards the streetcar of
desire is helpless once they ride in it.
• Greek mythology
This subverts the typical melodramatic play, where
good triumphs over evil.
Comparison to Handmaid's Tale
.
Both plays use:
·
mmm
Episodic structure to emphasize the protagonist's
mental decline
First-person narrative accounts in Handmaid's Tale,
third-person narrative in Streetcar
Atwood's use of fragmented narrative and
reconstructive nature of Offred's account shows the
psychological impact of oppression, while Williams
uses plastic theatre in Streetcar to convey Blanche's
mental instability.
Elysian Fields
In Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields are the final
resting place of the heroic and virtuous.
What is important about
the structure?
, English literature
Character Analysis
Streetcar
Blanche DuBois
• Attempts to retain the appearance of decency
and propriety by impressing others with her
Southern aristocratic upbringing
• Masks her loss of wealth and beauty with
soft lighting and showy, trashy finery
• decency
• Propriety • Avoids reality and is unable to adapt to the
• Wealth harshness of the modern world, leading to her
• Beauty downfall
• Lighting Stanley Kowalski
• Reality
• Downfall • Represented as Masculine, brutish, and
dominant within the semantic field of animalistic
• masculine imagery
• Brutish • Intelligent and shrewd in his understanding of
• Dominant others, refusing to fall for Blanche's manipulations
• Holds contempt for class snobbery and doesn't
• wife
fall for Blanche's polished exterior
• Home
• Power dynamic Stella Kowalski
• Dominance
• Fits into the archetypal role of a devout wife
• Submissive
waiting at home
·.
• colour • Power dynamic established with Stanley,
mmm
• Symbolism where she submits to his dominance
• White
• Blue
Symbolism and Imagery
• plastic theatre Color Symbolism
• Madness
• Past
Plastic Theatre
What is important to know
about the characters? Used in the Varsouviana polka to symbolize
Blanche's descent into madness
What it’s important about Music serves as a constant reminder of a terrible
colour in streetcar? event in Blanche's past, where her previous
husband shot himself
What is plastic theatre?
