A Street Car Named Desire (Theory & Critic quotes)

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  • Created by: agnija
  • Created on: 11-01-22 03:05
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  • A Street Car Named Desire
    • Speech theories
      • Accommodation theory (Howard Giles)
        • Convergence: Speech moves closer to that of other person and decreases social distance (upwards/downwards convergence)
        • Divergence: People's speech styles move further apart, emphasises differences between people
        • Mutual Convergence: Both participants converge towards each other.
        • This is seen in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' with Blanche and Stanley.An example is their argument in scene 2 about the loss of Belle Reve.  When with Mitch he upward converges while Blanche downward converge so they can have a conversation.
      • Grace's Maxims
        • Quality: Should tell the truth, do not lie
        • Quantity: Should be as informative as required, information given should not be too much or too little, not too much waffling or one word answers
        • Relevance: Relate clearly to purpose of exchange
        • Manner: Be clear, orderly and brief, avoid obscurity and ambiguity
      • Politeness principle
        • Brown and Levinson: positive politeness (showing someone they are well-liked) and negative politeness (avoid intruding on other' lives; indirect, apologetic and respectful)
        • Leech: minimise the cost and maximise the benefit to the other
        • Goffman: 'face' e.g forms of address, formality, turn taking etc
        • Lakoff: don't impose, give options, make your receiver feel good
      • Keith and Shuttleworth- Men and Women Talk
        • Men: swear more, don't talk about emotions, talk about sport more, talk about women and machines in same way, insult each other frequently, competitive in conversation, dominate conversation, speak with more authority, give more commands, interrupt more
        • Women: talk more, talk too much, more polite, indecisive/hesitant, complain and nag, ask more questions, support each other, more co-operative
      • Robin Lakoff- Women's language
        • Hedges, use super polite forms, tag questions, speak 'in italics'
        • Empty adjectives, hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation, direct quotations
        • Special lexicon, question intonation in declarative statements, imperatives
        • Speak less frequently, overuse qualifiers, apologise more, modal constructions
    • Critic quotes
      • Judith Thompson
        • Blanche's "fall" follows a common pattern which begins with mythically elevated expectations, followed inevitable disillusionment and the physical corruption of the soul's transcendent dreams
      • Shirley Galloway "Last Stop: "Blanche's Breakdown
        • Tennessee Williams infuses Blanche and Stanley with the symbols of opposing class and differing attitudes towards sex and love.
      • Samuel Tapp "Gendered Language and Cultural Identity In A Streetcar Named Desire"
        • "Blanche and Stanley both manipulate language and are both manipulated by language" "Blanche DuBois is a victim of the mythology of the "southern belle" Stanley is as much a victim of masculine ideology (like the Napoleonic Code) that rewards and esteems
      • Nicola Onyett
        •  Blanche has become a social outcast because she refuses to conform to conventional moral values. In cruelly unveiling the truth about her scandalous past, Stanley strips of her psychological sexual and cultural identity
      • Harold Clurman
        • Blanche is a delicate and sensitive women pushed into insanity by a brutish environment presided by chief ape man Stanley Kowalski
      • Tennessee Williams
        • one major theme for my work for my work is the destructive power of society on the sensitive non-conformist individual We are all savages at heart
      • Miscallaneous Critical Views
        • Stella's decision to stay with the father of her child and allow her sister to be commited to a mental hospital may symbolise the shifting social structures of the new USA. Enraged and threatened by the old fashioned southern values Blanche embodies 
    • Essay Plan
      • Intro: Hook, transition, thesis statement, rationale.
        • P1- focus on the extract and the questions. FOCUS: Discourse, face theory and context. Link to how conflict shaped the question
          • P2- Elsewhere in play- Plastic theatre, Maxims, feminism and context.
            • P3- Elsewhere in the play- Discourse, reality, double journey, and context.
    • Blanche: Delusional, futile, envy, broken, manipulative, conservative, unstable, opinionated, fantasist, false, seductive, trust-less.
      • Stella: Caring, trapped, calm, peaceful, ignorant, progressive, quiet, reserved, secretive,
        • Stanley: Primitive, dominant, controlling, abusive, violent, manipulative, ungrammatical, uneducated, masculine.
          • Mitch: Caring, sensitive, gentlemen, kind, clumsy, awkward, soft-hearted, romantic, empathetic

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