ASND as a tragedy
- Created by: kclark_23
- Created on: 02-07-20 14:32
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- ASND as a tragedy
- takes place over 5 months
- 5 acts in classical Shakespearean tragedy
- ASND as a one - act play
- cathartic ending (?)
- Blanche's metaphorical/figurative death and psychological decline permits audience to purge with emotions
- Mexican woman 'carrying bunches of gaudy tin flowers that lower class Mexicans display at funerals'
- 'flores para los muertos'
- Stella 'sobs with inhuman abandon...now that her sister is gone'
- to what extent is blanche's demise self - inflicted?
- fate versus free will
- kissing the 'young man' characterises her as a sexual predator who needs to 'be good and keep [her] hands off children'
- according to Aristotle there is no such thing as an innocent victim in tragedy
- vacillation between Blanche as victim and Blanche as a predator
- fate versus free will
- Mexican woman 'carrying bunches of gaudy tin flowers that lower class Mexicans display at funerals'
- arguably not a tragedy as the protagonist does not die thus audience withhold catharsis
- symbolism of flowers
- dead but not in a casket
- Williams' instil the subversion of the classical
- Greek tragedies typically treat social issues more personally and closer to one protagonist
- symbolism of flowers
- the audience are removed from the opportunity to purge with their emotions
- instead we witness Blanches's physical decline/demise which does not evoke the same emotions
- Blanche's metaphorical/figurative death and psychological decline permits audience to purge with emotions
- fall from grace
- Blanche's, perhaps inevitable, psychological decline personifies the Southern decadence
- tragic hero
- succumbs to image of a fasting southern Belle
- Stanley also a tragic hero (and victim)
- audience cheered during **** scene in Elia Kazan's adaption of the play
- harmatia
- hubris
- woman in a male - dominated society
- deceit
- illusion
- tragic hero
- Blanche has fallen into poverty and alcoholism - aftermath of a shattered characterisation
- fall from high to low - Belle Reve to Elysian Fields
- Blanche's, perhaps inevitable, psychological decline personifies the Southern decadence
- elements of comedy/dark humour scattered throughout
- Modern American Tragedy
- play as descending into melodrama
- the focus tends to lie on a single family unit as a microcosm of social behaviour
- clash of Stanley and Blanche is representative of a much larger division between old and new America
- domestic tragedy
- refines genre - ordinary protagonist, realistic timelines and setting and multiple plots
- Greek tragedies preserve the unities e.g. one timespan, one setting
- madness as key tragic trope
- alienation, entrapment and struggle between fantasy and reality
- Vivienne Dickson highlights that ASND transforms from a romance to a tragedy and is 'mistakingly' categorised as a realist play
- Callahan argues in 'Tennessee Williams' Two Worlds'ASND is a morality play
- social or psychological drama?
- Darwinian struggle between Blanche and Stanley
- survival of the fittest
- Darwinian struggle between Blanche and Stanley
- peripeteia - a sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances, especially in reference to fictional narrative
- anagnorisis
- through her endless 'hot' baths Blanche hopes to purge with her sins and emerge through a purgatory
- takes place over 5 months
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