The staging involves the smallness of the place, which may lead to sexual or animalistic aspects and also to fighting, since there is a lot of hate between characters. Transparency, that is, no concrete separation between inside and outside the house or between different places, suggests the lack of privacy in that society, no secrets may be kept. So if Blanche wants to hide her past, this suggests she won’t be able to, or makes the audience ask whether she will be able or not. At last about staging, lighting is important since most of the time where Blanche there is a dim light. Williams refers to Blanche as a “moth” in the sense that she “bothers” in being at Stella’s house, since she is an obstacle for Stanley and Stella’s privacy. This is also a reference to the truth: the light represents the truth and the moth, because as well as the light kills the moth, the truth kills Blanche. “…There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.” (page 4)
The last element from setting is the time, and this is in the 1940s, a time where social classes were very marked and status was very important. This fact is clearly reflected in Blanche’s character, who’s dream is to be a high class young woman which is impossible, she still wants to be a Southern beauty. The names of ‘Belle Reve’, which means beautiful dream, and Blanche’s beautiful dream is destroyed; ‘Elysian Fields’, which represents Heaven and ‘Cemeteries’, which represents Hell, or death. Finally, the name of the streetcar, ‘Desire’, which is directly one of the most important themes of the play.
Imagery and symbolism affect the characters since the name of the character, their clothes and actions, which are related with certain colours, are important in the development of these characters.
Starting with their names, both Stella and Blanche DuBois suggest symbols since Stella means star, giving her the quality of delicacy and softness, a softness which may be later negative for her. Blanche means white, suggesting purity, ironically, since Blanche is not pure, not in a sexual way, since she has been married and because of her desire towards men; nor in a mental one, since she lies too much.
About clothes, Blanche’s white dress again suggests purity, but also suggests her social class, which is supposed to be higher than Stella’s and Stanley’s who are more humble. Stanley uses denim jeans and bowling jacket which clearly represents working class.
The actions involved in the development of imagery and symbolism in the characters are, for example, Blanche’s sitting, her whisky drinking, her jumping, etc, actions which show her nervous personality of a stressed woman. “Blanche sits in a chair very stiffly with her shoulders slightly hunched and her legs pressed together…as if she were quite cold…” (page 6). Then her falling or slumping may show, apart from her stress, her insecurity and unpredictability. Then Stanley’s throwing of the meat to Stella shows the male dominance of those times, the little respect towards women. Playing poker gives reference to gambling and therefore risk, maybe the risk of Stanley losing Stella due to his treatment towards her, the risk of Blanche being discovered about her lies, or the risk of Blanche ending up having sex with Mitch or Stanley. When Stanley undresses in front of Blanche, Williams suggests sexual intentions and the same happens when Blanche asks Stanley to help her dressing up. And all these actions are related in some way to the importance of colours in the play.
The first colour perceived by the audience is white, from Blanche’s dressing, and its significance was already mentioned, as purity and social class. But it is also relevant for another quality, which is the opposition to Stanley’s colour of clothes, which is red. Red may be symbolizing sexual aspects, since red is the colour for passion. And this opposition symbolizes her opposite personalities and their confrontations. The colours blue and black from the sky are also relevant since they represent life and death respectively. This may be Blanche’s husband’s physical death or society’s death, due to all its problems.
As to the themes, the ones important to mention are firstly, desire, which is reflected mostly in Blanche’s character, not only in the sexual aspect of her flirting and desire towards men, but also in her desire of being something she cannot be, She wants to distort reality and make it her own way, she lives her own reality. There is a quotation which says: “They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at – Elysian Fields!” (page 4). This suggests two possible interpretations: the first one, that desire would lead you to Hell, symbolized by taking the word Cemeteries and the number of blocks, but then to Heaven, symbolized by the word ‘Elysian Fields’. And the second one is that you may think desire will take you to Heaven, since Blanche thought she was going to find her sister as a solution, but it really takes you to Hell, because she really found problems at the Elysian Fields.
Another important theme is the role of women in society. Women were seen as inferior objects, with very less rights or freedom to do what they wanted, men were always giving orders or shouting at them all the time and they didn’t have the chance to work. This is clearly shown in Stella and Stanley’s relationship and living situation. An example of this is when Stella and Blanche were trying to have a nice time by hearing music and laughing, fact which later ended up in Stanley hitting his wife (third scene).
And as a last theme is the one of appearance and realities, and Blanche Is the best example for this. She lives her life according to her physical appearance and not only in the physical sense, but also in the sense of fantasies. She lives her whole life as a fantasy, without wanting to accept her reality.
It is important to state then, that Tennessee Williams succeeds very well in playing with certain symbols in order to create symbolism and imagery in his play A Streetcar Named Desire. These may sometimes be complex and at other times simple symbols, making the play more entertaining, making the audience more interested and think about society, people in it and problems affecting its right way of functioning.
Javiera Uribe III°B
1375 words
