The American Romanticism of self-reliance lead to the introduction of new technological advances such as cars, telephone and electricity. The president of America during the 1920s said: “The business of America is business.” This stressed out the significance of the industrialisation that was taking place during the time, which lead to the introduction of new technological apparatus that made living easier. The United States was on a joy ride. Fuelled by the war, the economy was booming. The value of stock steadily rose, as the spending of people was at a high level. The people flocked to the city from the country to purchase the new technological apparatus (cars and phones). This introduced the Jazz Age, were members of society were only pleasure seeking and self-centeredness. They danced to Jazz music, drank bootleg liquor, went to watch movies at the cinemas and dressed in new fashions that shocked the more conservative citizens. The women wore short skirts, cut their hair and frequently dared to take on a post outside the home. Radios kept everyone abreast of what was going on in this age of excess. This period was known in America as the Roaring Twenties. This is the period when “The Great Gatsby” was set.
“A Streetcar Named Desire” was set in the post-war America. This indicates that the influences on the play were the World Wars, the Atomic Bomb and the United States of America becoming the superpower and victorious country and economically a giant. It had an economic and military superpower. But also, America was in a state of paranoia due to the atomic bomb, the House Committee for Un-American Activities and the Cold War. This asserted America to be in a political and intellectual confidence however also in a state of paranoia and fear.
Although Tennessee Williams lived amidst troubling historical events, his plays do not directly portray the times. The setting for The Glass Menagerie is the post-Depression Thirties, and A Street Car Named Desire is set in the war-torn years of the forties; both times were periods of radical and turbulent events, but they are not developed in the plays.
People are products of their past as revealed by Blanche being destroyed by the events in her life. Her youthful husband has an affair with an older gentleman. Because of her aristocratic history, Blanche tells her husband that she is absolutely disgusted with his behaviour. When she does so, he commits suicide. He leaves her with lonely with feelings of guilt. To ease the pain of the past, she slips from one sexual affair to another and begins to drink heavily. Her actions cause her to lose her occupation as an English teacher, her place in Laurel society, and her self-respect. With no other place to turn, she seeks sanctuary with her sister Stella and her husband Stanley. When they discover out the truth of her past, they reject her too, and she slips into insanity.
Blanche fights to save her Old Southern roots and the family mansion, but loses them both. She struggles to regain her self-respect and for a future with Mitch but Stanley destroys her chances. She fights to hold on to her wisdom amidst increasing disasters, but loses the battle. At the end of the play, hers is not a literal death; but as she is taken off to the mental institution, the true Blanche is dead.
On a symbolic level, Blanche symbolises the Old South and Stanley represents the new industrialised age. Tennessee Williams states through this symbolic use of characters, that the genteel ways of the Old South have been forever destroyed by the coarseness and brutality of the modern age.
Stanley represents the Industrialised America through his powerful masculine identity. Tennessee celebrates the American Way when Stanley (who symbolises the new industrialised age) is presented in an authoritative way. He is conscious of all his rights that he is entitled for due to the Napoleonic Code. However he is aggressive and violent which is shown when he hits Stella, throws the radio out of the window and smashes the light bulb.
Jay Gatsby in the Great Gatsby represents the meritocracy in the American Way shown by the way he worked to gain his wealth and his position. However, to achieve this, he had to carry out illegal trading, which implies that he condemned the American Way of being honest, as he had to be deceitful in order to gain his wealth.
Stanley is presented as the breadwinner in a nuclear family. However he has no respect for Blanche’s private property as he shows his contempt over the letters she has kept from her departed husband. This represents the conflict between the New World and the Old World, which is also presented in The Great Gatsby, where Gatsby represents the Old World, and Tom and Daisy represent the New World.
Stanley and Gatsby represent the American Way through his brutal self-interest in achieving what they desire in any possible means. The American Way tolerates the meritocracy system were people achieve at their own merit. This means, however, that people will disregard others that will be obstructing them from achieving what they want. This is shown in A Street Car, when Stanley propels Blanche out of his way by sending her to an asylum in order to re-gain control over his family and friends.
The difference between the two worlds that Stanley, Tom and Daisy and Blanche and Gatsby represent, is that the Old World perceives richness in the spirit of the human, whereas the New World identifies richness through money and property owned.
In The Great Gatsby, victory is measured through commercial and Idealistic success, which is based on wealth and presented by Tom and Daisy, however shown to be a failure between Martyl and her husband despite their hard working. Whereas Jay Gatsby relies on self-improvement, which relates back to the quote: “ Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy and wise.” As he wakes up at 6am, saves his money and practices public speaking. He also studies electricity, which are needed inventions and claims that cheap Cow Boy magazines are “an extraordinary gift for hope”.
Both Tennessee Williams and F Scott Fitzgerald condemn the new world and celebrate the old. But they both show us that the New World always is a success over the old.
