The play "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams presents two distinct settings, Old South and New South. The two settings are both metaphors for the main character Blanche Dubois. Blanche is from Laurel, Mississippi where she lived at her family's estate Belle Reve. Blanche's Old South life comes to an end when she ultimately loses her family's fortune and ownership of Belle Reve. She wants to make herself a new life so she travels to New Orleans, Louisiana where her sister lives. New Orleans or New South is the polar opposite of Belle Reve for it houses a mixture of cultures and is a symbol for life. On the way to New Orleans, Blanche takes a "street car named Desire," which represents her desires for a new and improved life. Then, Blanche transfers to a different car, named "Cemeteries" which symbolizes death and her past in Belle Reve. In "A Streetcar Named Desire", the transition from Old South to New South represents Blanche's transition from her past to her hope for a new life.
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Throughout the play, Blanche is haunted by death of her beloved Belle Reve and her past in the Old south. In scene 1, she tells Stella about what happened to Belle Reve, "I, I, I, took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard!...Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go! I let the place go? Where were you? In bed with your - Polack!" (Page 27). The Old South represents death. In scene 4, Blanche tells Stella that desire is no basis for ...

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