The Role of the Past in a Streetcar Named Desire
Luciana Machado 23.09.04 IB English – yr 2 The Role of the Past in a Streetcar Named Desire French writer André Maurois once said: “A man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body.” This quote exemplifies one of the central themes in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. The past is something that characters are locked within chaining them to secret misdeeds and shameful actions ultimately leading them to the question of reality versus illusion, revealing their weaknessess and leading some of them towards their downfall. Williams presents to the audience the first issues of dealing with the past by one of the protagonists, Blanche. Born and raised in the Southern aristocracy, she cannot free herself from her rich past. She first arrives at the Kowalsky’s aparment “daintily dressed in white in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklaces and ear-rings of pearl, white gloves and hat” (pg 117) conveying the idea of a summer classic, completely contrasting with the jungle-like atmosphere of decay prevalent in the French Quarter. The author focuses on Blanche’s introduction as a dramatic technique in order to emphasize the idea of someone who is drawn to the past, by simply describing her wardrobe. Her white clothing portray her similar to a moth, drawn by the light, instead of repelled by it as the audience will soon notice. Her pearls symbolize the sadness she suffers from loss of love and failure. Despite all this, she maintains her “rich-girl’’ posture to remain linked to her past in Belle Reve. The plantation in which she and Stella grew up in was lost as their fathers, uncles, and brothers spent all their money drinking, gambling and womanizing. She is haunted by the deaths of her ancestors, which she attributes to their “epic fornications.” The sins of the fathers are visited upon their children is a good example of Blanches “ hysterical outburst” in page 126, where she says, in an emotionally loaded phrase, “I fought and bled”. Tennessee Williams makes it clear that one cannot
escape genetic inheritance because at the end, it all comes back. Another aspect of Blanche is also introduced to the audience in Scene 1, adding to her characterization: alcoholism. Blanche suffers from delirium tremens as she is drinking from Stanley’s whisky bottle in page 120. She effortless tries to convince herself that “one’s her limit” but instead just goes on drinking. Alcohol offers her a temporary amnesia, and a feeling of reassurance but instead, her actions become quite convulsive as she is talking to Stella and “shaking all over and panting for breath as she tries to laugh.” A state ...
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escape genetic inheritance because at the end, it all comes back. Another aspect of Blanche is also introduced to the audience in Scene 1, adding to her characterization: alcoholism. Blanche suffers from delirium tremens as she is drinking from Stanley’s whisky bottle in page 120. She effortless tries to convince herself that “one’s her limit” but instead just goes on drinking. Alcohol offers her a temporary amnesia, and a feeling of reassurance but instead, her actions become quite convulsive as she is talking to Stella and “shaking all over and panting for breath as she tries to laugh.” A state of drunken stupor enables her to take a flight of imagination, such as concocting a getaway with Shep Huntleigh. Her actions, however, do not go unnoticed by Stella’s husband, Stanley, as he remarks “liquor goes fast in this hot weather” (pg 129). Equally, bathing has the same effect on Blanche, as the action is a motif for cleansing, as in baptism, where one is introduced to a new path, a new light. In light of her efforts to forget and shed her illicit past in the new community of New Orleans, these baths represent her efforts to cleanse herself of her odious history. Stanley also turns to water to undo a misdeed when he showers after beating Stella. The shower serves to soothe his violent temper; afterward, he leaves the bathroom feeling remorseful and calls out longingly for his wife (pg 153). Blanche’s long baths can be seen in almost all Scenes followed by her comments of being “freshly bathed and scented, and feeling like a brand-new human being!” (Pg 135). However, as Blanche finds herself in constant struggle against her past, Stella has no trouble forgetting it and marrying Stanley. Although she does feel sympathy for the loss of Belle Reve and weeps as Blanche accuses her of indifference (pg 127), she has thoroughly moved on and found confort in Stanley’s arms and has chosen to be a part of his life, even adapting to his likes, such as that of reading “a book of coloured comics.” She no longer has a desire to live the aristocratic life as the plantation is an illusion of the past. By contrast, this scenery has been destroyed, giving space to a urbanized, modernized New Orleans setting. Stella can be seen as a catalyst to Stanley and Blanche as she is driven towards comercialism and has ignored to role of a “fallen woman”. She has married to Stanley Kowalsky, who has an intense, brutish masculinity, and takes pride in his sexual appetite. Stanley, in a way, denies his roots by responding to Blanche as she calls him a “Polack”, “But what I am is a one hundred per cent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polack.” (Pg 197) Following Stanley, Mitch is introduced. He acts as a foil to Stanley, as he is clumsy, slow thinking, shy, and insecure. The jokes present at the beginning of scene 33 (pg 144) are a parallel to Mitch, implying that he has spent so much time taking care of his ill mother that he has completely lost his sexual appetite. He has lived with his mother for his entire life, and cannot get away from the comfort zone. The only way to get away is by getting married to Blanche, which at first seems like a good idea for she does everything to look as feminine as possible, trying to conceal her past. For herself, Blanche sees marriage to Mitch as her means of escaping destitution. Men’s exploitation of Blanche’s sexuality has left her with a poor reputation. This reputation makes Blanche an unattractive marriage prospect, but, because she is destitute, marriage is her only possibility for survival. Her will to impress Mitch is addressed by Williams through the interaction between them, where he speaks ungrammatically short and contemptuous lines, while Blanche evidently speaks with an enormous and overused vocabulary, which is artificially calculated and constructed by her in order for her achieve her aims. This is especially true in this scene, since Blanche resorts once more to the educated speech of a schoolteacher in order to take control of an aggressive situation (pg 150-51). The question of which characters represents light and dark is debatable, but it seems that both have an aspect of softness and harshness, whichever the audience decides to sympathize with. Even though Mitch and Blanche’s characters are complete opposites, there is one correlation between them. Blanche’s love letters from her husband as well as Mitch’s cigarette case with love inscriptions – with Blanche’s “favorite sonnet by Mrs Browning” (pg 149) – show both of them holding onto their past. The silver metal case symbolizes Mitch’s closed nature, inflexibility, as well as how he is not open for new ideas. Blanche’s love letters, on the other hand, symbolizes her young husband, who committed suicide as a result from her disapproval of his homosexuality. The love letters are taken as sacred objects, having a more than a sentimental value. In Scene 2, when Stanley is looking for Belle Reve’s papers, Blanche cannot contain herself from making a scandal after he touches the love letters instead, “Your [Stanley] hands insult them, I’ll burn them now!” (Pg 139) The antagonistic relationship between Blanche and Stanley is a struggle between appearances and reality propelling the play’s plot and creating an overarching tension. The author also conveys the idea of hiding from the past with the motif of light. Blanche tries to maintain the illusion of youth because she is afraid that she will become less attractive as she ages. She hides from all light, and when Mitch finally realises this ("I don't think I ever seen you in the light" pg 203), he shines a light on her, representing the death of her illusions, the possibility of getting married again. In general, light also symbolizes the reality of Blanche’s past. In Scene 6, she says the young boy “turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow”. Bright light, therefore, represents Blanche’s youthful sexual innocence, while poor light represents her sexual maturity and disillusionment. She is haunted by the ghosts of what she has lost—her first love, her purpose in life, her dignity, and the genteel society of her ancestors. Blanche covers the exposed lightbulb in the Kowalski apartment with a Chinese paper lantern, and she refuses to go on dates with Mitch during the daytime or to well-lit locations. He points out her avoidance of light in Scene Nine, when he confronts her with the stories Stanley has told him of her past. Mitch then forces Blanche to stand under the direct light as she responds by saying that she doesn’t “want realism”. “I want Magic! Yes, yes, magic! I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth!” This passage in page 204, clearly describes her inability to accept her present status both socially and relationship wise. Blanche’s inability to tolerate light means that her grasp on reality is also nearing its end. Other dramatic devices used to portray the interference of the past in the characters’ lives are the sound effects. The Varsouviana, a song originally from Poland’s Warsaw, is used to dramatise the influence of the past on the present. It plays whenever Blanche remembers her past in Belle Reve and especially her husband Alan, who she always refers to as a "boy", emphasising her feeling that they were too young to be married. When the music first appears, in scene one, it is because Stanley asks Blanche if she was married. This immediately shows the audience that the Varsouviana is related to Blanche's past and will be a recurring motif throught the text. The polka and the moment it evokes represent Blanche’s loss of innocence. The suicide of the young husband Blanche loved dearly was the event that triggered her mental decline. Since then, Blanche hears the Varsouviana followed by a revolver shot whenever she panics and loses her grip on reality. The music plays in Blanche’s brain continuously as a recording that only the audience is likely to hear. In conclusion, the past is therefore recurring as all the characters have something hid, incapacibilitating them from performing some actions. It is unveilled as the play progresses proving once more, than one cannot free itself from it, but instead have to confront it, eventually leading some of them (Blanche) to their human desingtegration. Tennesse Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire conveys the idea of the importance of ancestry and adds to the question of ‘does your background affect what kind of actions you will persue in the future’?
