Streetcar Named Desire Stagecraft

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  • Created by: c.therine
  • Created on: 01-12-20 17:17

Stagecraft

  • Williams created 'plastic theatre', a blend of expressionism and realism that he used to express the inner psychology of his characters e.g. the 'jungle noises' before Blanche's **** shows both Stanley's animalstic actions and primal instincts and Blanche's perception of the moment/her mental stability.
  • He wanted to portray a psychological verismilitude which was desired by the audience after they had lived through the psychological traumas of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Second World War. 
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Symbolic Costumes

  • The repeated motif of the colour white is first established through Blanche's entrance in a white suit and gloves. This aligns her with the appearance of a chaste, elegant and affluent Southern belle. However the 'soiled and crumpled white' evening gown she wears in Scene 10 is symbolic of the destruction of Blanche's perceived facade and the revelation of her promiscuity and her as a 'fallen woman, with her violent rejection of her sordid reality culminating in her smashing the 'mirror'. 
  • Another good example of symbolic costumes are the colourful shirts that the men wear during the poker night. Williams sets the colourful scene with both the setting and the shirts to represent the busy and energetic lifestyle that they have within the cultural melting pot of New Orleans. It could also link to the 'coloured lights' that Stanley references, perhaps foreshadowing his abuse of Stella later in the scene. 
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Props

  • The 'paper lantern' symbolises Blanche's need for protection and her fears of exposure. It shows her fear of the truth being revealed by covering light which symbolises honesty. Mitch and Stanley tearing down the lantern show Blanche's struggle agains the domination of men and also their desire to reveal her promiscuous past. 
  • The broom Stella uses to sweep up the mess from the poker night shows how she has regressed into a stereotypical 1940's housewife despite the domestic abuse she suffers. The way that Blanche lets her do it shows that Stella is more of an ideal American, she is hardworking and knows how to get work done. 
  • The 'rhinestone' tiara is symbolic of the gap between Blanche's Southern belle facade of elegance and affluence and her reality. 
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Lighting

  • The motif of light is used to express Blanche's fear of exposure and represents truth and honesty - two things which she doesn't want. 
  • The 'headlight of the locomotive' which shines through when Blanche is revealing the truth in her role surrounding Allan Grey's death is symbolic of her pain in revealing the reality of the trauma she has experienced. 
  • The 'shadows' that appear during Stanley's attack are symbolic of Blanche's fears of sexual violence which have been building from being in a confined space with men. 
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Structural Juxtaposition

  • The immediate juxtaposition in Blanche's behaviour between the paper boy leaving and Mitch entering: Blanche's seduction of the paper boy is representative of both her past promiscuity and her continuous attempts to recapture her youth (evident in the repetition of the adjective 'young') which she immediately attempts to disguise with her allusion of him being a 'young prince out of the Arabian Nights'. She immediately and shockingly re-adopts her facade of Southern Belle chastity when Mitch enters, addressing him as her 'Rosenkavalier', suggesting she desires an old-fashioned courtship with a chivalrous saviour figure. 
  • The contrapuntal tension between Blanche singing the 'paper moon' song and Stanley revealing her promiscuous past: Blanche has an optimistic tone in the song 'it's only a paper moon' of her hopes of a relationship with Mitch - 'it wouldn't be make believe if you believed in me' - but Stanley simultaneously uses derogatory colloquialisms to describe her sordid past association between female promiscuity and mental instablility. 
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Musical Motifs

  • The Varsouviana Polka is used as a symbol of Blanche's repressed guilt surrounding her role in Allan Grey's death and it is an expressionistic device which functions as a memento mori. In Scene 9, it is said to be 'in her head' and only stops when 'a shot is hear' in the street, symbolising how she is constantly reliving her past trauma and is unable to move on. It also symbolises how the boundary between past and present has become blurred. 
  • The Blues piano music is used to create pathos and is also symbolic of the mutlicultaralism in New Orleans. 
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Transparent Walls

  • The walls go transparent in Scene 10 before the attack scene symbolising how there is no longer a protective boundary between Blanche and what she perceives to be the chaotic, immoral primitive 'jungle' of New Orleans streetlife. 
  • The three figures of the prostitute, the drunkard and the thief are representative of Blanche's reality of promiscuity, alcoholism and deceptiveness. 
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Key Stage Directions

  • '[a richly feathered male bird among hens]' - zoomorphism and plural 'hens' foreshadows Stanley's promsicuity and sexual exploitation of women. 
  • '[moth]' - zoomorphism symbolises the physical and psychological fragility of Blanche, and suggests she is driven by primitive instincts and desires. It also establishes association between death and Blanche. 
  • '[he hurls a plate to the floor]' - violent verb, demonstrates how Stanley asserts his patriarchal dominance through phsycial violence
  • '[biting his tongue which protudes between his lips]', '[springs]' - zoomorphism, highlights Stanley's predatory behaviour as a patriarchal opressor, an indication of Williams' fears of the rise of a new, primitive, barbari social order and a decline in Old Southern values, traditions and moral principles. 
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Key Allusions

  • Elysian Fields - name of the block of flats where Stella and Stanley live, an allusion to Greek mythology, and the heaven/paradise that virtuous people were sent to after death such as Hercules, ironic for the immoral people living in this are of New Orleans. 
  • La Dame aux Camelias - Blanche references it on her date with Mitch, allusion to a French novel about a courtesan (linking to Blanche's promiscuity) whose relationship with a man is disrupted (like Stanley disrupts hers) and she ends up abandoned (by Stella and Mitch) and fully of regret, as Blanche is. It suggests that Blanche desperately wants to tell Mitch of her past but can't quite bring herself to do so and so tells him in a way that he won't understand. 
  • Der Rosenkavalier - Again Blanche references it on her date with Mitch, allusion to an opera by Richard Strauss, suggesting that Blanche wants to maintain her facade of Southern Belle respectability and wants him to fulfil the stereotypical role of the southern gentleman and save her, admiring the old style of courtship. 
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Key Images

  • Blanche: 'it was [the grim reaper's] headquarters... it was as if [he] had set up his tent on our doorstep', personification of death, demonstrates Blanche's fears and obsession with her mortality and how she felt victimised and pursued by death, drawing imagery from the Southern Gothic. 
  • Stanley: 'hoity toity describing me as an ape', antithesis, zoomorphism and colloquialisms demonstrates Stanley's dislike and resentment of social class privilege and inherited wealth. 
  • Stanley: 'I pulled you down off them columns', description of Belle Reve as columns demonstrates his resentment of social class privilege and inherited wealth.
  • Stanley: 'rat race', zoomorphism, highlights Stanley's New Southern values of ruthless competition, pragmatism, being practical and realistic, and materialism and his belief in the American Dream - that all Americans could achieve success and prosperity based on their own merit and not inherited wealth or social privilege. 
  • Stanley: 'Napoleonic code', lexical field of business, demonstrating Stanley's obsession with money and materialism
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