We’re in a time where more and more books are being published, whether that be fiction or non-fiction, but there are always books and plays that remain a classic and a page-turner, and one of these is Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
I have just studied this play as part of my A Level, and I have to say that it wasn’t what I expected. From the title alone, I wasn’t sure what to anticipate with regards to the plot, but for one I didn’t think it would be the story of a woman, in search of an escape leading her to a cataclysmic battle between fantasy and reality.
Blanche DuBois, portrayed by Vivien Leigh in the film, was a southern belle living a life of luxury and grandeur, but after a traumatic past, she takes a ride on the streetcar named Desire to Elysian Fields to stay with her sister Stella, and her brutish husband Stanley Kowalski. Blanche’s downfall is a consequence of her unpleasant and lonely past brought about her desire for companionship and security, which Stanley exploits without any regard to her fragile state of mind. The confrontation between Stanley’s lewdness and Blanche’s delicacy becomes the climax of the play.
This play is beautifully crafted by Williams, with complex characters and an engaging plot that surprises you. One can never really determine the true protagonist of the play, or a clear antagonist, highlighting how the play isn’t a typical tragedy as one would expect; Williams has created realism within a tragedy as all characters, including sensitive Mitch, are both good and bad. There is a pull between good and bad, and reality and fantasy for the characters, creating the true calamitous plot.
As the New Republic Magazine says the play’s fable is: “Beauty is shipwrecked on the rock of the world’s vulgarity”, and this adequately defines the play as one of beauty and poetry yet disaster and realism, and so Williams has created a work of art that demonstrates a realistic tragedy with a twist.
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