Key Points from Scene 7

Some notes on the key points from Scene 7. Remember, they are only notes and resultantly you must combine them with things we have discussed in class, your own analysis, wider reading etc etc etc. Being able to comment on DRAMATIC METHODS and the EFFECTS these produce is what is crucial now that you are at AS Level so you must be considering this at all times if you want the top marks this year.

• Scene full of dramatic contrasts.

• THE TWO BLANCHES ARE COUNTERPOISED: facts vs. her illusions.

• Cheerful mood of pleasant anticipation as Blanche’s birthday is organised juxtaposed with Stanley’s destructive account of Blanche’s past misdemeanours.

• Denouement: the point in the play at which things become clear.

• Blanche’s ruin is sealed by the end of Scene 7.

• STAGE  DIRECTION: “Blanche is singing in the bathroom a saccharine popular ballad which is used contrapunctually with Stanley’s speech.”  Discuss the effects of Williams constructing the scene in this way and the impact it has on the tragic nature of what is happening.

•  Bathroom is a functional symbol in Scene 7 as it is used to reveal the dual world of Blanche’s existence with the tension between her and Stanley.

• “Sister Blanche is no lily!” – destruction of Blanche’s image of purity and innocence.

• What do you think Stanley’s motives are for telling Stella? How does Stella react?

• Significance of Blanche’s song:

“It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, Just as phony as it can be –

But it wouldn’t be make-believe If you believed in me!”

• Blanche’s future rest in Mitch believing in her act or believing in her strongly enough to make the act reality.

• STELLA: “It’s pure invention!”

•  Blanche’s song – asserts the capacity of the imagination to transform mere facts.

• CONSIDER: How does the fanciful way that Blanche perceives the world heighten the tragic impact of the play?

•   “And as time went by she became a town character. Regarded as not just different but downright loco-nuts.” cf. Elements of the Southern Gothic.

• STELLA: But when she was young, very young, she had an experience that – killed her illusions!

• STELLA: This beautiful and talented young man was a degenerate.

(Southern Gothic Literature and the tendency of writers to detail the plight of the ostracised.  Link with modern domestic tragedy and the ordinariness of its characters. Antithetical to epic/classical tragedy and people of nobility). 

• SD: The distant piano goes into a hectic breakdown. Effects of dramatic methods?

Scene 6 Jazz

‘Humankind cannot bear very much reality.’

-T S Eliot

 

·         Importance of Blanche’s story suggested by its placement in the very middle of the play.

·         Blanche and Mitch return home after their date has been a failure. 

·         Blanche is evidently less animated than usual; she is clearly preoccupied with what Stanley may have learnt about her.

·         Mitch’s sick mother is never far from his mind and so the conversation turns to death and loneliness. (Domestic tragedy being ‘issue-led’ here). 

Glossary of terms:

·         Neurasthenic personality: suffering from a nervous disposition.

·         Joie de vivre! The joy of the living; a phrase used to express enjoyment of life.

·         Bohemian: non-traditional.

·         Je suis la Dame aux Camellias: reference to a well known romance in which a courtesan (euphemism for prostitute) is saved by love.

Notes from Scene 5

• A threatening undertone permeates this scene which is induced by Steve and Eunice’s row and Stanley’s probing interchange with Blanche about her past.

• A disturbance is heard upstairs.’ – note the ironic placement of this SD.

•  Stella ever the pragmatist:

STELLA: Has she got the police?

STANLEY: Naw. She’s gettin’ a drink.

STELLA: That’s much more practical

• Note the position of alcohol in the tragedy (escapism/blocking out reality) and its links with Williams’ own experiences of his alcoholic father.

• Irony inherent in Blanche’s comment of “Virgo is the Virgin.”

• Stanley hints that he has been hearing from “somebody named Shaw,” about Blanche’s reputation in Laurel.

QUESTION: Do you think that Stanley is partly to blame for Blanche’s tragic downfall?

•  Pathetic Fallacy in Scene 5: “Steve’s arm is around Eunice’s shoulder and she is sobbing luxuriously and he is cooing love-words. There is a murmur of thunder as they go slowly upstairs in a tight embrace.”

DIVISIONS OF THE PLAY

11 Scenes: Roxana Stuart (played Blanche in two productions of Streetcar)

• Scenes 1 – 4 take place on two consecutive days in early May; comedy

• Scenes 5 – 6 take place on a hot August evening; elegy, mood, romance;

• Scenes 7 – 10 on the afternoon and night of Blanche’s birthday, 15^th September; tragedy.

• Scene 11 – “some weeks later,” probably October; tragedy.

Domestic Tragedy in Scene 5

 

Slow revelation of information to the audience – we see this by Scene 5 as we are slowly starting to learn about Blanche’s tainted past and how that affects her in the present.

Issue-led – sense of Blanche’s alienation as a character is potent.

Issues in Streetcar force us to question the established systems/principles that underpinned 20^th Century America. (Marriage, position of women, ‘old/new’ American values) 

Family life is central, however it is presented as somehow corrupt and diseased;

Emphasis on psychological elements.

The ghosts of the past haunt the present.

Quotations to consider: (Try to engage with these to illuminate/support points you are making in your mini essays/coursework).

·         “While it was certainly a product of its time , A Streetcar Named Desire shocked audiences in that ‘outside of O’Neill’s work, this was the first American play in which sexuality was patently at the core of the lives of all its principle characters, a sexuality with the power to redeem or destroy.”

- C. W. E Bigsby, Modern American Drama, 1945 – 1990 (Cambridge University Press, 1992) 51.

·         “Streetcar for me will always be a poetic, brutal, thrilling lesson in how a single, brave playwright let his demons and angels dance with every ounce of truth he could know.”

-Paul Zindel in The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams Ed Matthew C. Roudane (1997)

Der Rosenkavalier (Remember Blanche calls Mitch her Rosenkavalier at the end of Scene 5).

Der Rosenkavalier  (The Knight of the Rose) is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss.

• Blanche romanticises Mitch by casting him as  her hero reminiscent of the hero of Strauss’s waltz opera.

Mini Essay for Friday

Essay title:

Do you pity or despise Blanche up to this point in the play? Use evidence from Scenes 1 to 5 to illuminate your answer.

You should:

• Focus on Scenes 1 - 5 only;
• Comment and provide analysis on content of play, form (SD, sound, lighting, setting, costume etc) and cathartic impact;
• Have an introduction, main body and conclusion in your essay.
  

Homework for Monday

Finish off the work from Friday that you were working on in my absence. The final lines of Scene 4 should be annotated to the best of your ability and you should have your character profiles on Stanley and Stella completed based on what we have learnt about them in the play thus far. Keep adding to them as we progress through Streetcar.

Hope you're all having a lovely Sunday, see you tomorrow,

CLM.