Tennessee Williams once said that Streetcar was ‘a plea for the understanding of delicate people’. Consider this statement in the light of your own interpretation of the presentation of the central characters and relationships in the play.
Tennessee Williams once said that Streetcar was 'a plea for the understanding of delicate people'. Consider this statement in the light of your own interpretation of the presentation of the central characters and relationships in the play.
Williams's statement suggests that in 'Streetcar' he is urgently, perhaps desperately asking the audience to appreciate and sympathise with problems and situations that delicate people are confronted with. By using the word 'delicate' Williams means those who are weak minded, physically weak, sensitive or frowned upon by society. It is important to pinpoint the characters in 'Streetcar' that could be considered as delicate, for example the central character of the play, Blanche Dubois, who this undoubtedly applies to most. However the relationships between Stanley and Stella, Stanley and Blanche plus Mitch and Blanche also need to be addressed, as they all play key roles in Williams's attempt to evoke sympathy for the 'delicate people'.
It is important first of all to understand why Williams may have made 'Streetcar' a plea for the understanding of the delicate people. To find this out the delicate characters in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' need to be compared to people in his own life.
The character Williams would particularly have liked people to understand when he first wrote the play is Allan Grey because he relates to Williams himself. Like Williams at the time, Allan is young and homosexual in a very prejudiced society. Williams had to keep his sexual preferences a secret just as Allan did from his young wife Blanche and he too had to undergo a great deal of hostility when the truth was revealed. Perhaps Williams hoped for audiences to sympathise with Allan Grey so that they would try and understand the strain society placed on him. The way Williams relates his characters to his own life and the strain he was under from the prejudiced society are points picked up on by the 'Mississippi Writers Page'.
'Tennessee Williams drew heavily on his family experiences in his writings......Most biographers attribute his inner conflicts in part to the social strain placed on Williams as a known homosexual during a hostile period in American history.'
Although not so closely related as Williams and Allan Grey I feel that Williams' sister, Rose, inspires some of Blanches characteristics. Rose developed symptoms of insanity as a teenager and although her mother made her lead an ordinary life it grew worse over the years until she was finally placed in an asylum. Although not as extreme, Blanche also gets worse and worse, from losing Belle Reve to eventually being taken to the asylum at the end of 'Streetcar'. Williams felt responsible for his sister's mental deterioration as he failed to protect her from his mother, just as Stella feels guilty towards Blanche at the end of 'Streetcar' for failing to protect her from Stanley. This is perhaps as much a plea for people to understand himself and his sister as to understand Stella and Blanche.
The connection between these situations is point that Phil Gibby also picks up on when relaying his views on 'Streetcar'.
2 'Stella's guilt at her failure to protect her younger sister from Stanley's clutches reminds us of Tennessee's abortive real-life attempts to save his sister Rose from an unnecessary lobotomy, inflicted by a misguided and overbearing mother.'
Next it is necessary to pinpoint the characters in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' that could be considered as delicate. The central character of the play, Blanche Dubois, is undoubtedly the most delicate. This is made obvious throughout the play by the significant flaws presented in her personality.
It is clear from the start of the play that Blanche is one the delicate people as she is described as being so in the stage directions when she first arrives at Elysian Fields. Williams compares her to a moth, as she looks out of place in her white clothing.
'There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggest a moth.'
The conclusion that Blanche is one of the delicate people, from her being compared to a moth is backed up by Williams's poem 'Lament For The Moths' in which they are described as delicate and out of place.
'A plague has stricken the moths, the moths are dying,
3 their bodies are flakes of bronze on the carpet lying.
Enemies of the delicate everywhere
have breathed a pestilent mist into the air.'
Like Blanche ...
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'There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggest a moth.'
The conclusion that Blanche is one of the delicate people, from her being compared to a moth is backed up by Williams's poem 'Lament For The Moths' in which they are described as delicate and out of place.
'A plague has stricken the moths, the moths are dying,
3 their bodies are flakes of bronze on the carpet lying.
Enemies of the delicate everywhere
have breathed a pestilent mist into the air.'
Like Blanche looks out of place in her white clothes at he beginning of 'Streetcar', the moths look out of place with their bronze wings on the bland carpet. The nature of the image Williams conveys in this quotation is also that the moth looks beautiful against the blandness of the carpet and that this is how he intends Blanche to be viewed on her arrival at Elysian Fields. The contrast created when Blanche arrives is commented on by Joseph .N. Riddel.
4 'The scene then pans down on Blanche in her demure and fragile dress, garishly overrefined, overwhelmed by life, out of place in Elysium.'
Blanches first weakness is made apparent in the first scene, after Eunice lets her into the flat. She is startled by cat and then when she notices a bottle of whiskey, she doesn't think twice about helping herself.
'A cat screeches. She catches her breath with a startled gesture. Suddenly she notices something in a half opened closet. She springs up and crosses to it, and removes a whiskey bottle.'
As well as pointing out her drinking problem and therefore her lack of willpower, Williams shows that she is a very nervous and unstable person by her reaction to the cat.
In scene nine another of Blanches weaknesses is revealed when she tells Mitch that she needs men, to make her feel secure. She explains that after her young husband, Allan Grey, had died, she needed the protection of men to such an extent that she flaunted herself to strangers at hotels.
'After the death of Allan the intimacies with strangers was all I seemed to fill my empty head with...I think it was panic, just panic, that drove me from one to another, hunting for some protection.'
The need for men, which Blanche reveals here, confirms that she is unstable and weak minded as she is admitting that she can't look after herself and that she dependent on others.
The most significant factor showing Blanche to be a weak character is that the succession of unfortunate events in her life eventually drives her to insanity. The first incident was losing Belle Reve due to the abolition of slavery. The audience discovers this in scene nine when Blanche breaks down and looks back on her days at Belle Reve, reminiscing what she went through when they could no longer get a coloured girl to do the dirty work for them.
'And other things such as blood-stained pillow slips - "Her linen needs changing" - "Yes Mother. But couldn't we get a coloured girl to do it?" No we couldn't of course. Everything gone but the...'
Phil Gibby supports this view when describing the effect the abolition of slavery had in the South.
3 'It was the slowness and reluctance with which the South responded to these circumstances that changed the profile of the region and even the nature of the people.'
The second incident was the death of her late husband, Allan Grey. In scene six she reveals to Mitch that it was her fault he died because she walked in on him, with another person and later on, unable to contain it any longer shouted:
'I know! I know! You disgust me.'
He ran away and shot himself in the head.
We get the impression later on that the person he was with is actually a man, when Stella describes him as a 'degenerate', which helps to explain why Allan's response was so drastic.
Going by her past it is apparent that Blanche is already suffering some mental stress when she arrives at Elysian Fields. The progression to her insanity reaches its climax though, following being rejected by Mitch and finally raped by Stanley. When the nurse arrives in the final scene to take Blanche away, it is clear that she has convinced herself that Shep Huntley is coming to save her, even though Stanley has already brought it into the open that Shep Huntley was a lie from the start.
'You are not the gentleman I was expecting. That man isn't Shep Huntley.'
Because of the many liaisons with men Blanche partook in before arriving at Elysian Fields she was frowned upon by society and her progression to insanity proves her to be weak minded. For these reasons it is certain that Blanche is intended to be one of the 'delicate people'.
The second character in 'Streetcar' who could be considered to be delicate is Mitch. During the poker night in scene three, we see for the first time all of the men together and the contrast between Mitch and the other s is soon made clear. He still lives with his mother and is worries about leaving her alone at home. He makes the mistake of telling the other men about his anxiety as they make it clear they don't particularly care, therefore showing Mitch to be the weaker character amongst them.
'I gotta sick mother. She don't go to sleep until I come in at night.'
'Then why don't you stay home with her?'
'She says to go out, so I go out, but I don't enjoy it. All the while I keep wondering how she is.'
'Aw, for God's sake, go home then!'
Later on in the same scene, we learn that Mitch is also an insecure character by the way he acts very shyly around Blanche, as they are introduced to each other for the first time.
'glancing back at Blanche and coughing shyly. He realizes he still has the towel in his hands and with an embarrassed laugh hands it to Stella.'
Mitch's insecurities around Blanche and vulnerability to Stanley's criticisms show him to be weak minded and his anxieties about his mothers well being prove that he is very sensitive. It is for these reasons that Mitch could be considered as one of the delicate people. Diane Sauder also describes Mitch as a delicate character.
5 'His tragedy is that he is at once sensitive and mediocre.
Hailing from the same poor working class as Stanley, he is not of
the same coarseness and vulgarity. In fact, he is laughed at as being
namby-pamby by his poker playing friends because he is very
concerned about his ailing mother; they call him a 'mama's boy'.'
The final character, whom I consider as delicate, is Allan Grey. Although he is not a central character in the play, he undeniably is a significant presence. We are told very little about Allan Grey during the coarse of the play, but what we do know is he killed himself as an act of regret for committing adultery. This is enough to ensure that he is a delicate character as suicide is undoubtedly the ultimate act of weakness. He is too weak of mind to face being frowned on by Blanche and the rest of the prejudiced society, so he takes the cowardly way out by ending his own life.
Having outlined who the delicate people are and how Williams has portrayed them to be so, it is necessary to look at how he presents the central relationships to gain the audience's sympathy or understanding.
One of the central relationships in 'Streetcar' is that between Stanley and Stella, which although is made up of two strong-minded characters, is dominated by Stanley. Stella is by no means a weak person, but within her relationship with Stanley she is clearly the weaker party. Evidence of this is towards the end of the poker night in scene three. In a fury Stanley storms in on Blanche and Stella and throws their radio out of the window. In retaliation Stella shouts at him and orders the men to leave, so Stanley charges after Stella and hits her. Blanche takes her up to Steve and Eunice's flat, where perhaps a stronger minded person would stay, but after just a few minutes of Stanley calling out for her she gives in and resides downstairs to spend the night with him.
'Stella slips down the rickety stairs in her robe. Her eyes are glistening with tears and her hair loose about her throat and shoulders. They stare at each other. Then they come together with low, animal moans.'
To some extent this quote typifies their relationship when it describes them as reuniting with low animal moans as it appears to be Stanley's animal magnetism that most attracts Stella to him. Felicia Hardison Londre describes this attraction in a similar way.
6 'his essential trait is the powerful physical attraction he exerts on Stella.'
In the final scene before the doctor arrives to take Blanche away, Stella is talking to Eunice about the accusations made about Stanley raping Blanche. She is evidently not convinced that the stories are untrue but thinks that she has no choice other than to believe Stanley. She thinks that she cannot go on living without Stanley there to support her; therefore she must betray her sister whether she wants to or not.
'I don't know if I did the right thing.'
'What else could you do?'
'I couldn't believe her story and go on living with Stanley.'
'Don't ever believe it. Life has got to go on. No matter what happens, you've got to keep on going.'
At the end of the play, after Blanche is taken away, Stella is crying uncontrollably and Stanley is uncomfortable with it as he tries talking to her.
'(A bit uncertainly) Stella?'
'She sobs with inhuman abandon. There is something luxurious in her complete surrender to crying now that her sister has gone.'
The audience realises that Stella will be haunted by this day for the rest of her life. She will have to live with the fact that she has betrayed her sister and that her husband and father to her child could quite possibly be a rapist. With this in mind, Williams' statement might be accurate since his presentation of this final scene makes the audience really sympathise with Stella and begin to understand what life must be like for the delicate people like herself.
The other central relationship in 'Streetcar' is between Blanche and Stanley, as from their first encounter in scene one they engage in a territorial battle over the apartment and Stella wherein they are both out to prove who is the strongest of mind. Although this begins with just minor bickering between the two characters, they know for sure that they are at war by the end of scene four when Blanche fails to convince Stella to leave Stanley and Stanley overhears her trying to do so. He simply enters the apartment and hugs Stella, whilst grinning over her shoulder at Blanche, letting her know that he has won.
'He laughs and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.'
Londre makes several points whereby he comments on the territorial battle between Stanley and Blanche and he, also mentions the significance of this particular scene.
6 'He now knows beyond a doubt that he is engaged in a war with Blanche for Stella's heart and mind, and that he has won this round.'
The next significant event in their conflict with each over comes at the end of scene ten. Whilst Stella is at the hospital having her baby, Stanley takes advantage of having the apartment to himself so that he can confront Blanche. She lies to him about receiving an invitation to go on a cruise with Shep Huntley and then about Mitch seeking her forgiveness. This final lie is too much for Stanley as he quickly turns on Blanche and accuses her of making the whole lot up, then reveals:
'I've been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull the wool over this boys eyes!
He continues to accuse and humiliate her until she is close to breaking down, proving to her that he is too clever to fall for her tricks and then finally proves his physical strength over Blanche by raping her.
By this final chain of events which results in Blanche being escorted to an asylum it is clear that Stanley has won the war over Stella's heart and mind, though in Londre's opinion there are some ways in which Stanley has still lost.
6 'And yet, Scene 11 hints that the nominal winner, Stanley, has also lost, in that the relationships he values most - those with his wife Stella and his best friend Mitch - will never again be quite the same.'
The other relationship in 'Streetcar' is between Blanche and Mitch. Unlike Stanley and Stella they are both intended as delicate characters, but in this case it is Blanche who needs to be 'understood'. Having researched into her past Stanley finds out about how Blanche had many intimacies with men in hotels and finally a seventeen-year-old boy, which resulted in her being fired from her teaching position. In scene nine Mitch arrives drunk, having been told about her past by Stanley and a couple of others and confronts her about it.
'Who told you I wasn't "straight"? My loving brother in law. And you believed him.'
'I called him a liar at first. And than I checked on the story. First I asked our supply man who travels through Laurel. And then I talked directly long-distance to this merchant.'
She eventually admits defeat and confesses to her exploits. She pleads with Mitch and tries to excuse what she has done by telling him about how much she had suffered whilst losing Belle Reve and all of her family with it.
'Death - I used to sit here and she used to sit over there and death was as close as you are...'
She finally tries to get Mitch to marry her but is very harshly turned down.
'Then marry me, Mitch!'
'I don't think I want to marry you any more.'
'No?'
'(Dropping his hands from her waist) You're not clean enough to bring in the house with my Mother.'
This cold, cutting, almost spiteful statement by Mitch ends his relationship with Blanche, who breaks into hysterics and following Mitch's departure, eventually collapses. As with Stanley and Blanche at the end of the play, the shocking end to this scene justifies the statement made by Williams. As the scene progresses the audience begins to understand that Blanche could not help sleeping with all those men and that she was merely seeking comfort and security. In this case it is Mitch who needs to understand the delicate people by appreciating Blanches situation. This is a point elaborated on by Diane Sauder.
5 'But Mitch is not educated or intellectual and cannot
understand Blanches' behaviour, past or present. Since he sees things
only as truth or lies, black or white, he deserts Blanche.
Williams uses Mitch and Stanley in the latter two relationships as an example of how we should not treat the delicate people. His aim is for us to understand and sympathise with Blanche and for us to resent the cruel way in which Stanley treats her and Mitch rejects her. By referring back to the earlier passage quoted from 'Lament For The Moths' it is apparent that Stanley and Mitch can be seen as the 'Enemies of the delicate'
Having analysed the way in which Williams has presented the central characters and relationships in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and looking in particular at the way he has portrayed the delicate people, I believe his statement suggesting the play was 'a plea for the understanding of the delicate people' to be entirely accurate. Furthermore, I feel that through his use of characters inspired by those in his own life and a gripping story, he has succeeded in making people understand.
Bibliography
- Unknown 'Tennessee Williams'
2 - Gibby, Phil 'Tennessee Williams' September 2000
3 - Williams, Tennessee 'Lament For The Moths'
4 - Joseph. N. Riddel 'On the Apollonian-Dionysian Motif ' February 1963
6 - Sauder, Diane 'pinkmonkey.com'
5 - Londre, Felicia Hardison 'A streetcar running fifty years'
ADAM WRIGHT MARCH 2001
