Setting + characters = themes

Tennessee Williams, author of the play "A Streetcar Named Desire", wrote detailed setting descriptions and actors' movements. Reading just the words in italics describing what was to be performed by the actors brought to light and strengthened certain themes in the play. Here are the themes that I saw when looking only at setting, character description, and their actions.


Blanche's separation:

• Setting and character description:
• Blanche shakes a lot, whispers, and blabbers a lot which reveals how awkward she feels in Stella's apartment. And from the very beginning, Williams contrasts her to the setting and the people. "She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earring of pearl, white gloves and ha, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district" (5). Her white appearance, along with her white name (literally), creates the separation between her and the world. 
• What I'm not that sure about, however, it that the setting is actually quite similar to Blanche. The setting is a bit run down: "The sky that shows around the dim white building is a peculiarly tender blue, almost a turquoise, which invests the scene with a kind of lyricism and gracefully attenuates the atmosphere of decay" (3). Perhaps the fact that the setting, like Blanche, is old and fading away, compares the two. The modern, "New South" (Stanley), has made his home in the homes. So maybe it's foreshadowing that Stanley will displace Blanche. I don't really know, though...
• Setting and actions:
• Blanche doesn't really belong- after Stella goes to Stanley after their fight, Blanche is frightened, and "looks right and left as if for a sanctuary" (67). She is lost and alone.
• Her first time alone in the apartment, how uncomfortable and out of place she feels is apparent:
• "Blanche sits in a chair very stiffly with her shoulders slightly hunched and her legs pressed close together and her hands tightly clutching her purse as if she were quite cold. After a while the blind look goes out of her eyes and she begins to look slowly around. 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. She pours a half tumbler of whiskey and tosses it down. She carefully replaces the bottle and washes out the tumbler at the sink. Then she resumes her seat in front of the table" (10).
• Her actions are stiff and "hunched", as if she's afraid to move. Then, when she absorb what's going on around her, she's still on edge. The cat freaks her out. What's interesting here is that while at first she doesn't move at all, she suddenly springs up for alcohol. Her actions then are quite sure- tossing some whiskey down. This certainty and need for alcohol contrasts with her actions in the rest of the setting, foretelling her addiction to alcohol and creating the motif of alcohol as a means of escape for her loss of control.
• Character personality:
• From the very beginning, she is tired, nervous, and paranoid, jumping at little noises and avoiding lights.
• Contrast of Blanche and Stanley
• Everything Blanche does, Stanley undos:
• When Blanche turns the radio on, it becomes clear that Stanley views her as a threat: "[Stanley jumps up and, crossing to the radio, turns it off. He stops short at the sight of Blanche in the chair. She returns his look without flinching. Then he sits again at the poker table]" (55).
• Blanche serves as a distraction to Stanley's friends and undermines his control (to mainly Stella and Mitch. Wen "[Mitch rises as Stanley returns to his seat.]" (56), Stanley yells at Mitch to sit down.

Stanley's position as alpha male:

• Stage directions: Stanley's actions
• It's kind of weird how Stanley can never do anything calmly or with patience. Seriously, he "jerks" (88), "slams", "throws", "snatches" (42), "rips", and "stalks" (131). I wonder if he ever gets tired of doing all that.
• At any rate, it shows his animalistic nature, a lot, and how prevalent it is all the time. Stanley really represents the present, as he lives in the moment.
• Contrast of Blanche and Stanley
• I mentioned this a bit earlier, but I just wanted to say it again- Stanley needs his control in order to function. As soon as Blanche comes in, she undermines his existence.
• Setting:
• Poker night:
• The poker scene is very masculine-
• "The poker players [...] wear colored shirts, solid blues, a purple, a red-and-white check, a light green, and they are men at the peak of their physical manhood, as coarse and direct and powerful as the primary colors. There are vivid slices of watermelon on the table, whiskey bottles and glasses. The bedroom is relatively dim with only the light that spills between the portieres and through the wide window on the street" (46).
• The focus is on poker- the bedroom, the women, are out of sight and out of mind. What's intriguing is that whenever Williams describes a scene, he more often uses the description to describe a mood and an atmosphere. The shirts the men are wearing reflect their masculinity, the air of poker. What I especially like is how he manages to make watermelons seem threatening- "vivid slices of watermelon on the table". I don't know about you, but those watermelons seem quite dangerous.
• All this adds to Stanley's alpha male position, as he deals and controls what goes on during poker night.
• Apartment setting:
• After Stanley and Stella get back together after Stanley hits Stella, when Blanche comes to the apartment the day after, Blanche's outsider position becomes clear. Stella "is serene in the early morning sunlight" (70), with a "narcotized tranquility". (actually, the "narcotized tranquility is interesting since it usually goes along with insanity- and yet Stella is the one who has this.)
• Anyways, the setting seems to be happy, with "a sky of summer brilliance", and a messy apartment. Both of these contrast with Blanche's personality, whose appearance Williams clearly states as contrasting with Stella's. She is nervous and tired.

Role of music/sounds:

• Although I don't always know what's going on in the scene, the music gives the mood.
• For instance, the scene where Stanley grins at Blanche when Stella hugs him after Blanche tells her sister that Stanley is dangerous. As the scene fades, "the music of the "blue piano" and trumpet and drums is heard" (84). It really adds an ominous feel to the whole thing.
• When Stanley is calling Eunice to talk to Stella, he first sobs and then gets angry- "He hurls the phone to floor. Dissonant brass and piano sounds as the rooms dim out to darkness[...]" (65-66). The sounds add tension to the scene and help to characterize Stanley as brash and animalistic.

Blanche's anxiety around Stanley increases as the play progresses:

• In the beginning, he unnerves her, with his weird stares, but she thinks he's normal. However, in the middle, "Blanche registers his entrance with nervous gestures" (87). And at the end, well, she attacks him with a broken bottle. While she may have never really trusted him, their relationship increases in tension.