wunder beta🚋 A Streetcar Named Desire: summary and themes
A woman with nowhere left to go arrives at her sister's two rooms in New Orleans carrying a trunk of furs and no money. The plot, the paper lantern, the polka only she can hear — and the streetcar line that really ran, until the city scrapped it six months after the play opened.
What you’ll learn
- The Woman Who Gets Off at Elysian FieldsFollow the plot from Blanche's arrival to the birthday bus ticket, and say what each of the four characters is defending.A woman with no money and nowhere else to go moves into her sister's two rooms in New Orleans. Her brother-in-law wants his house back and starts checking her story. By the end of this chapter he has the facts, and he has used them.
- Light, and What It CostsRead the play's three central images — the lantern, the polka and the tin box of deeds — as arguments rather than decoration.Blanche's fear of light, the tune only she can hear, and Stanley's demand to see the paperwork are the same conflict in three forms. Williams's own letter to his director rules out reading either of them as simply a villain.
- How the Thing Is BuiltDescribe how the play's scene structure, set, sound and title were made, and what each choice does to an audience.Eleven scenes with no acts, a set of gauze that dissolves under back-light, a jazz score that carries the drama instead of decorating it — and a title supplied by the playwright's agent.
- December 1947, and AfterAccount for what happened to the play after opening night, including what the film's censors removed and why.855 performances, a Pulitzer, and a film that reached cinemas only after the Production Code and the Legion of Decency had taken pieces out of it — including a piece of the music. Most of it went back in 1993.
Questions this course answers
Why does Blanche stay at her sister's flat rather than take a room of her own?
Blanche arrives with a trunk of clothes and nothing else. The estate went to creditors over several generations, and she is no longer teaching in Laurel — which is why a two-room flat with no spare bed is her only option.
After the poker night, what most disturbs Blanche about the Kowalskis' marriage?
Stanley hits Stella, is put under a cold shower by his friends, stands in the street calling her name, and she goes back down to him. By morning the flat is tidy and nobody is discussing it. Blanche is the only person still treating it as an emergency.
What does the paper lantern over the light bulb stand for?
Blanche buys it herself and fits it over the naked bulb. It belongs with her refusal to be seen in daylight and with her account of Allan Grey's suicide — after which, she tells Mitch, the light went off the world. When Stanley tears the lantern away, she reacts as though he had taken hold of her.
In his letter of 19 April 1947, what did Williams tell Kazan the play required?
Williams wrote that there are no good or bad people in it, that everyone is driven more by misunderstanding than malice, and that Blanche must finally have the audience's understanding and compassion — 'This without creating a black-dyed villain in Stanley.'
How is the play divided, and how does its sense of time change?
The published text runs eleven scenes from May to September with no act divisions. Scenes 1 to 6 cover the first days of Blanche's visit; scene 7 jumps to mid-September, scenes 7 to 10 happen within one day, and the last scene comes weeks later.
What did the Catholic Legion of Decency object to in the 1951 film's staircase scene?
The Legion threatened a condemned rating over the scene in which Stella comes down to Stanley, naming the 'lustful and carnal scoring'. Alex North had to replace the cue. Kazan told the New York Times the censored version 'omits a wonderful piece of music'; the original was restored in 1993.
Grounded in trusted sources
- Mark Cave, 'Ten Historic Objects That Tell the Story behind A Streetcar Named Desire', The Historic New Orleans Collection, 21 August 2020 — the source for the typescript titled The Poker Night, Audrey Wood's renaming, Brando's twenty dollars to Provincetown, and both quoted passages of Williams's 19 April 1947 letter to Kazan — https://hnoc.org/publishing/first-draft/these-10-historic-pieces-tell-story-behind-streetcar-named-desire
- 'Tennessee Williams's Streetcar Typewriter', The Historic New Orleans Collection — the Remington portable, the addresses at 722 Toulouse, 710 Orleans and 632½ St Peter Street, and the Desire line audible from the apartment — https://hnoc.org/research-collections/collection-highlights/tennessee-williamss-streetcar-typewriter
- Internet Broadway Database, A Streetcar Named Desire, original Broadway production — opening 3 December 1947, closing 17 December 1949, 855 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, produced by Irene M. Selznick, sets and lighting by Jo Mielziner, costumes by Lucinda Ballard, with the opening-night cast — https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/a-streetcar-named-desire-1804
- The Pulitzer Prizes, 1948 winner in Drama — the citation and the five-hundred-dollar prize — https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/tennessee-williams
- Jonathan Rhodes Lee, 'Original Soundtrack from A Streetcar Named Desire', National Recording Registry essay, Library of Congress (added 2015) — Alex North's jazz score, the Legion of Decency's complaint about 'lustful and carnal scoring', and Kazan's 1951 New York Times account of the cut cue — https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/Streetcar-Named-Desire-Soundtrack_Lee.pdf
- AFI Catalog of Feature Films, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) — the Production Code Administration's April 1950 objections, Kazan's count of twelve cuts totalling 'three or four minutes', and the Academy Award wins and nominations — https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/53428
- James Steffen and Jeff Stafford, 'A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)', Turner Classic Movies / AFI Top 100 — the changed ending, the casting of Vivien Leigh over Jessica Tandy, and the five minutes restored in 1993 — https://www.tcm.com/articles/afi-top-100/60073/a-streetcar-named-desire-1951
- 'The Desire Line: Streetcar Loss & Rebirth in New Orleans', New Orleans Historical (University of New Orleans) — the line's 1920 opening, its route by way of Bourbon, Dauphine, Desire and Royal, and its replacement by buses on 30 May 1948 — https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/542
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