Comparisons between plays

I hope to add to this later on, please feel free to suggest concepts to add. You may have to zoom in on the picture.

 <--- This is the older version, below is the newer one.

	A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams- 1947	The Heidi Chronicles Wendy Wasserstein- 1988	Hedda Gabler Henrik Ibsen- 1890	Oleanna David Mamet-1992
Characters	Characters ·       Stanley Kowalski ·       Stella Kowalski ·       Blanche DuBois ·       Negro woman ·       Eunice Hubbell ·       Steve Hubbell ·       Harold Mitchell(Mitch) ·       Mexican Woman ·       Pablo Gonzales ·       A Young Collector ·       Nurse ·       Doctor ·       Prostitute and drunkard Ghost characters: ·       Mike’s mother ·       Allan Grey ·       Shep Huntleigh ·       Shaw	Characters: ·       Heidi Holland ·       Scoop Rosenbaum ·       Susan Johnston ·       Chris Boxer ·       Mark ·       Ray o   Young doctor working with Peter ·       TV attendant ·       Peter Patrone ·       Debbie, Lisa, Denise, Clara ·       Fran, Jill, Molly, Betsy ·       April ·       Waiter Ghost Characters: ·       Woman with fishnets	Characters ·       Hedda Gabler ·       Jorgen Tesman ·       Thea Elvsted ·       Brack ·       Aunt Julle ·       Ejlert Lovborg ·       Berte Ghost characters ·       Mademoiselle Diana ·       Mrs. Elvsted’s husband ·       General Gabler ·       Aunt Rita	Characters ·       John ·       Carol Ghost characters ·       Group (inferred to be feminist) ·       Tenure committee ·       Son ·       Jerry ·       Grace ·       Real estate agent
Topics	Old South vs. New South Society’s condemnation of Blanche Changing times People struggle to adapt to changes in society, and cannot function in one they are not accustomed to. Romantic vs. Realistic Compensating/masking insecurity People may project the ideal version of themselves in order to cover their past/changes.	Humans struggle to create their own identities. Identity is paradoxical. Feminist movement. Humanist	Freedom, free spirit Aristocratic vs. Bourgeoisie Female/male dynamic People strive for freedom by breaking societal expectations Power, beauty Class differences- aristocratic vs. bourgeoisie Traditional woman vs. independent modern woman.	Communication ·       Miscommunication ·       Insinuation ·       Misinterpretation Female/male relationship ·       Inferred feminist group ·       Wife – “baby” ·       Diction ·       Action ·       Setting Student/teacher ·       Notebook ·       John’s book ·       Setting ·       Higher education ·       Diction o   Vague, complicated words §  Transformation Political Correctness ·       “according to the law” ·       Feminism Interruptions ·       Proves he has a life, she doesn’t ·       Impeding on communication ·       Doesn’t like education, but using it to get his job.
Settings	Confined, one set ·       Bathroom ·       Kitchen ·       Poker table ·       Bedroom ·       Balcony ·       Alcohol cabinet Confined ·       Causes tensions between characters Blanche’s changes to the set: ·       Addition of lamp shades ·       adding decorations Inside vs. Outside Belle Reve ·       Change of setting from rural to urban, contrast to Old South ·       an escape of Blanche’s problems Laurel Bowling alley Elysian Fields, New Orleans Flamingo, tarantula Asylum ·       Blanche is put there as an esacpe to problems	Setting changes time and place: transitory- progression of Heidi attempting to define herself. 1965- 1989 Heidi’s art lectures Wedding Lisa’s house. Hedda’s house.	Confined ·       Confined by her role as a traditional woman but never leaves the house Mademoiselle Diana’s Boudoir The inner room ·       past ·       portrait of general gabbler ·       pistols ·       dark, enclosed by curtains ·       piano The living room ·       piano ·       writing desk ·       couch ·       fireplace Brack’s place Back garden Hedda’s change of the set: ·       Closes curtains ·       Gradually gets darker ·       Expulsion of flowers.	Power dynamics ·       His classroom ·       Behind his desk His office
Important language and phrases and why?	“I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.” “Poker should not be played In a house with women”. “moth” “Pollack” “I don’t want realism. I want magic!”	“I’m a humanist”.	“what do you think of that?” “I’m thinking” “feather in her hat”	“educational hazing” “I don’t understand” “Do you see?”
Important Stage Directions, and why?	Extensive stage directions ·       Appearance ·       Movement ·       Setting	Little use of stage directions, focus on art and music.	Appearances ·       Hair color/appearance o   light §  Tesman, Thea, Aunt Julle o   dark §  Hedda, §  Lovborg, Hedda always separating herself from others, distancing.	Little/no stage directions: ·       Focus on communication ·       Use of words
Symbolism and Motifs	Poker ·       masculinity Paper lantern Blanche’s dresses ·       false clothing- Blanche’s illusions, escape Alcohol Mitch’s lighter ·       “I shall but love thee better after death”. ·       Elizabeth Browning Color ·       Blanche: white ·       Allan: grey	Burning lingerie ·       feminist movement Judy ·       Heidi’s hope for the future	Pistols ·       past and masculinity ·       destructive and playful o   treat her as a child Fire ·       desire, emotion, passion o   contrast to Hedda’s usual demeanor o   burns the manuscript Vine leaves in the hair ·       Dionysus- wine and fertility o   Lovborg’s alcoholism o   wants him to be drunk, under her control Child ·       family vs. success Light vs. dark (curtains) Family	Notebook John’s book Phone House
Other devices (sound, etc.)	Music ·       Blue piano o   past ·       Varsouviana Poka o   Remembers Allan grey o   ends with gunshot ·       Paper doll (slow and blue, by negro entertainers) o   Stanley misses Stella ·       Animal music ·       Wien, Wien, nur du allien (radio) Blanche’s singing ·       Cleansing her sins ·       contrast between her ans Stanley ·       It’s only a paper moon Train sounds Neighbor noises	Music Art: forgotten feminist artists	Wild piano tune ·       contrast with somber mood	Phone ringing

Blog Portfolio

Coverage:


Jan. 12, 2012: Words, words, words
Jan. 16, 2012: Old love vs. new?
Jan. 18, 2012: Sounds in "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Adrienne and Rohit
Jan. 22, 2012: Setting + Characters = Theme
Jan. 29, 2012: The Set for "A Streetcar Named Desire"
Feb. 6, 2012:  Movie vs. Script, general thoughts
Feb. 19, 2012: Music in "The Heidi Chronicles"
Feb. 23, 2012: Music: Wasserstein and Williams
Mar. 13, 2012: Hedda fights to the end?

Depth:

Hedda fights to the end?

• I started out looking at two articles, then furthering their ideas with my thoughts (or disagreeing with them), and then looking at other articles on Hedda and the ending of Hedda Gabler. I think I looked in depth at the concept of why Hedda kills herself.

Interaction:

Music: Wasserstein and Williams

• In this blog I had what Tim and I collected on music from The Heidi Chronicles, and then I looked at Saumya's blog (by her, Tim, and Georgia) about music in A Streetcar Named Desire, and used both to compare ideas and styles.

Discussion:

Music in "The Heidi Chronicles"

• Elizabeth started out by commenting on the blog, adding ideas and looking at what Tim and I said, and I replied and we analyzed some stuff.

Xenoblogging:

I shall but love thee better after death

• This is Elizabeth's blog- she did an interactive blog using my blog, so I answered some questions that she had about mine and asked some of my own. I think this got into an interesting discussion.

Wildcard:

Magic pills

• This is a blog I wrote thinking about the idea about the existence of pills that made you smarter. It's something I find interesting, and something I hope others find interesting too.

Magic pills

What if there were pills that made us smarter? Would you take them? What if pills that allowed you to learn faster, remember better, and just all around be better at school, existed?

It would make it a lot easier, wouldn't it?

But I'm not sure I would take them. I'm not sure anyone should. I was talking about this to a friend of mine, and I've been thinking about it since. There are both individual and societal ramifications.

As in individual, would taking a pill that changed my ability to learn change who I am? My level of intelligence (with both its positives and negatives) has made me who I am today. It's a lot of "I am", but it's quite important. It would change my personality completely... I'd be lazy, I think. Because I would show up to class, learn it all, never study for tests... The whole education system would have to change- or we wouldn't even go to school. We'd just read and read and read. What would I do? There's a whole economic side of things, where if everyone had this pill then no one would want to do the menial labor work, which could prove problematic, but that's another issue. What I'm talking about are relationships and personalities. Now that I think about it, we wouldn't learn humility because we'd rarely be wrong. There are lessons to be learned from mistakes, growth to be had from falling down- none of that would happen. If we were super-intelligent geniuses, our morality might go out the window.

As my mom says, "drugs, is drugs". Yes, she says "is", not "are". There are always side effects. If you aren't born with something, then you have to give something up in order to get something else. But if everyone had these pills- what would happen?

We'd depend on it too much. We would never work hard, or even think: we'd just take a pill and work. I think we might lose track of having fun and working. And then, if everyone could do anything, then we'd lose our individuality. No one would be different, or unique.

What I love about us humans is that we're weird. We're all quite different, and yet there is something that links together. I don't understand everyone, but I still love them just the same. Everyone has their own quirks that makes them, them. For instance, senior superlatives- what would we write for everyone if we all took little magic pills that allowed us to do pretty much anything? We wouldn't be different- I guess it would solve the inequality problem, but that's about it. And I don't think it will even solve that problem, because although everyone is given the same opportunities, it's okay to have different levels of intelligence. It allows people to think differently, and independently. If you have ever read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, there's one point in the novel where Ender and his team of fellow classmates are battling the Queen alien, and Rackman (his mentor) tells him that his advantage is that he has independent and spontaneous soldiers while the Queen is the only one who thinks. The Queen is alone, and can only think (although really, really quickly) of one thing at a time, whereas Ender can be ordering army to do one thing, and then individual groups can then work together and act at the same time. What I'm trying to get at is that humanity is about a whole bunch of individuals who still manage to get along despite of (maybe even because of?) their differences.

Actually, now that I think about it, Ender's Game may be the perfect example, because he lives in a school with a bunch of kids with higher-intelligence than the norm. It's a good book, if you haven't read it.

Hedda fights to the end?

Both Archer in Hedda's Modern Woman and Nazimova with her Ibsen's Women have their own interpretation of Hedda Gabler, the play and the character (the two are entwined, of course). Archer describes the scene and characters that surround Hedda by saying how they create Hedda's character: "the environment and the subsidiary personages are all thoroughly national, but Hedda herself is an 'international' type, a product of civilization by no means peculiar to Norway." From the beginning of the play Hedda is shown to be something more than everyone else- as we talked about in class, everyone tries to please her and talk about her having a higher class. When she walks in, she is automatically distant from the other characters- she knows it, and they know it. She doesn't care about Tesman's work, or money. Her whole life, in fact, is a bit of a lie, as she doesn't love her husband and she doesn't even like the house he thought she wanted. It is clear she has distaste for the life she leads, the one society says that she should have.

I think this is where the "vine leaves in his hair" comes in, a "symbol of the beautiful, the ideal, aspect of bacchic elation and jewelry", of "antique art" from Rome. This is what she imagines Lovborg to have. He is the person who is her opportunity to get away from her boring life where she doesn't fit in.

The play, as Archer puts it, is a "character study": "the poet does not even pass judgment on his heroine: he simply paints her full-length portrait with scientific impassivity" The reader is not told whether she is good or bad- perhaps she is not either, she is merely human. Nazimova brings up a good point in respect to this: "Ibsen has no heroines", because unlike Shakespeare each character is easily accessible. Hedda contains so many elements that everyone has- she is "the modern woman:", who knows of more and wants more than traditional women- "complex instead of primitive". "[The women] are difficult to understand, it is true, not because they are artfully mysterious, but because they are real and therefore like all real people not to be classified by a simple formula". She is bored with a life where everyone is quite bland compared to her: "she had nothing to take her out of herself- not a single intellectual interest or moral enthusiasm". And when someone has what she does not, "another woman [Thea, who] has had the courage to love and venture all, where she, in her cowardice, only hankered and refrained", she acts in revenge.

Unlike all the other characters, Tesman, Ms. Tesman, Berte, even Mrs. Elvsted, who all try and fit in and follow society's general patterns (Tesman- getting his job, to be known in society. Ms. Tesman- needs to care for others. Berte- serves as a maid and worries about making people happy. Mrs. Elvsted- marries just because, always cares for others because she is expected to.), Hedda Gabler wants more. Even Lovborg, when he writes his book that says nothing so no one criticizes it, submits to society at this point. His book, however, his "child", is I think what Hedda envies- Lovborg creates something entirely his (and Thea's), something that he is passionate about (unlike Tesman's "academic" research on other people's lives), that is not what society expected. Perhaps there is some parallelism, that when Hedda burns his book, she later also kills her own child.

This leads me to the ending of the play, Hedda's suicide. I have to say that I disagree with Archer's interpretation of the ending. When he states that "life has no charm for her that she cares to purchase it at the cost of squalid humiliation and self-contempt", I'm not sure I follow. I think Hedda went out with what she thought was grace: she had courage. If she had stayed alive, not doing anything to create a "scandal", submissive under society's whims (Tesman working with Thea, ignoring her, and her under Brack's control), I think that was her act of courage. In respect to her unborn child, Lovborg says something about how it is horrible to know that someone else may have his child, to change the child and have it under someone else's control- I think Hedda may fear this too, in that she doesn't want to be under someone else's control. It could be that Hedda didn't want the child to live in her false and boring life as she had or that the child was a symbol of society's plan (where traditional women grew up, got married, had a baby, then cared for the household) and if she had the child then that too was an act of submission, something that she wouldn't hold for. When Lovborg sees her, he tells her once that she is a coward- I think she married Tesman because she was tired of fighting, and this portrays her cowardice more than anything else. So the Hedda who "struggles on till she is too weary to struggle anymore" is not the one I thought of- I thought her suicide was her final act of independence and an act of war.

In a critic review of one of the play's of Hedda Gabler, Jess Righthand states "What it's saying about someone being caught in a world where they can't fit in, being choked off, slowly strangulated as it were, is very powerful." I think this touches a central theme of the play: from the very beginning Hedda doesn't belong. She also says something of how Hedda goes from a military-like home with a General for a father, to a home where Tesman is very much mothered. His aunt is most likely the exact opposite of the General (I say most likely because we never actually meet him, but he is characterized as being strict and general-like).


In Norseng's Suicide and Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, she mentions Egan's production and the question "What if we saw what Hedda saw when she killed herself?".


Here is a summary of what happened in the play:


"At its base lay a woman dressed in black, outstretched center stage to right on the sofa, her whole body like an elegant, long black feather blown beautifully backward by the wind. A young tree in fall stood at the lower end of the sofa, at Hedda's feet, stripped of all its leaves but a few, that hung like dark jewels from its bare branches. The audience fell into momentary shock. All was silent. Front stage, Brack sat staring out at us and, Thea, never looking back, slowly spread her hands over the writing desk, taking full possession of it like an engulfing, beige amoeba."

I think this helps us understand why Hedda killed herself. Of course, this is all speculation (what was going on in the backroom), but the characterization of Thea, who was taking "full possession" is what I think Hedda felt.

Music- Wasserstein and Williams

There are a myriad of similarities between the music and its role in The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. See my previous blog for an extended version of an explanation of the music in The Heidi Chronicles and Saumya's blog for A Streetcar Named Desire.

• Purpose
• To further improve understanding of the play through cultural connections to relationships and the setting
• In The Heidi Chronicles and A Streetcar Named Desire, the music is very different but the purpose is the same- to carry across and reinforce messages that relate to the setting and the characters in order to portray a theme (For example, broadly speaking, love)
• Especially the same in both of the plays is the fact that the music parallels the relationships that go on in the scene, to display the emotions and the thoughts that are going on at the time.
• Setting: music provides cultural context and social movements
• Heidi Chronicles
• Artists are symbolic in cultural relevance
• "Respect", by Aretha Franklin
• Aretha Franklin was known for, like her song, demanding respect and equality. A popular singer during the time.
• Relates to theme of the play because it parallels the women's movement that Heidi, Susan, Fran, and many others take part of.
• "Imagine", by John Lennon
• Lennon was an idealistic guy, and know for being so, advocating for peace. And then he was shot.
• Relates to theme of the play since it parallels the turn life has had- from idealistic and hopeful (and a bit illusional) to the somewhat harsh reality of life where people cheat on their wives.
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• I took this from Saumya's blog, about the "blue piano" music
• The victory of the New South is emphasized when the play closes with “under the swelling music of the “blue piano” and the muted trumpet.” (179) The music does not only help grasp the play further and mirror many of the characters feelings, but is an ongoing conflict between the New and Old South, eventually won by the New.
• The music, although it is not clearly from a specific time period, contains an element of the setting as the "blue piano" is something that fits in with the cultural context of the play. The authors of the music in this play are not what is important here, but what the music represents. As Saumya says, the music is "an ongoing conflict between the New and the Old South"- it portrays the interactions of the culture, not symbolically but metaphorically.
• Music also parallels the relationships between the characters
• Heidi Chronicles
• "Shoop Shoop" by Betty Everett
• Plays for Heidi and Peter, they start dancing, and much later they sing this song to each other to reconnect, searching for true love (but not in the romantic sense).
• "Take a Piece of My Heart" by Janis Joplin
• This characterizes Scoop's and Heidi's relationship with each other, where Heidi is caught in something that she doesn't really want to be but she can't help herself. This song helps to foreshadow their relationship.
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• Music with the clarinet when Stanley and Stella have their little animalistic romantic scene after their fight
• The relationship between Stanley and Stella is emphasized, with their physical attraction and Stanley's animalistic nature.
• Polka music
• This music always plays when Blanche thinks of the past, mostly of her ex-husband. This is much like when the same music plays again many years later in The Heidi Chronicles, with Peter and Scoop and it helps the characters connect to each other again and talk.
• Music when Stanley gets a bit physical with Blanche
• It's all animalistic with a hint of danger and climactic sounds. This characterizes Blanche and Stanley's relationship, one that is full of tension and danger.

Music in "The Heidi Chronicles"

Music in the Heidi Chronicles have various significance to the time period, the characters, and the plot of the play, by Tim Flannery and me.

The Shoop Shoop song by Betty Everett- “It’s in His Kiss”

• “Does he love me? I wanna know. How can I tell if he loves me so” (162)
• lyrics

• Context:
• pg. 162-164
• This is the first scene, where Susan and Heidi are at a high school dance, and Chris comes and goes. Heidi and Susan talk about men twisting and dancing, and Susan says “Men don’t dance with desperate woman” (162). Then Chris comes in but then leaves because Heidi refuses to leave Susan, Susan is upset. He says “Keep the Faith” (164) and Susan says what is supposed to happen at a dance- “You know, girl meets boy. they hold hands walking in the sand. Then they go to the chapel of Love. Get it?”

• pg. 166-167
• After “Play with Fire”, with Peter and Heidi as they dance, in the beginning Scene 1 Act 1. They jokingly talk about marriage, and make fun of how important love is. “Baroque but fragile” (166) Peter says. Heidi jokes that she’ll keep Peter’s “punch cup, as a memento, beside my pillow” (166).
• pg. 239
• Heidi and Peter sing it to each other, after their little fight of not knowing each other well enough. This is the last time Peter is in the play. They seem to get closer together here, reliving the past- Heidi says, “Baroque but fragile” (239), and hopes that they’ll be great friends, just as Peter said earlier. Peter says, “I will keep this goblet as a memento beside my pillow” (239). The atmosphere, however, is a lot more sincere and serious.
• Significance:
• Perhaps the “Shoop Shoop” song is about how love isn’t always about romance... because every time the song plays, there are references to what occured later on. Chris says, “keep the faith” (164), which Heidi says later to Susan. And Peter and Heidi relive their high school dance later in their life. It seems that the song could represent the connection Heidi has with her friends, and its strength.
• In the first two occurences of the song, the idea of the classic “girl meets boy” is made fun of: Heidi turns down an offer to dance from Chris, instead staying with her friend, and Peter and Heidi joke about marriage and love, yet Peter says “if we can’t marry, let’s be great friends”. So perhaps this song is about breaking the classic romance idea and speaking of friendship. Forget about romance, love is more than that...
• Lyrics speaking, there are two things I can see:
• One, the song is a bit like that generic love song, how “If you wanna know” “it’s in his kiss”.
• “Does he love me, I wanna know... How can I tell if he loves me so?”
• But also, the lyrics sort of talk about how one is searching for true love, in that it’s not in his eyes, his actions, his face-
• “Is it in his eyes, oh no you’ll be deceived”
• “In his warm embrace, oh no it’s just his arm”
• “How ‘bout the way he acts, oh no that’s not the way”
• So they lyrics could be going along with what I was saying before about how love is not always ‘true’ “oh no you’ll be deceived”, but also how everyone is searching for love...

Satisfaction- The Rolling Stones

• "I can't get no satisfaction!"

• Lyrics
• Context:  
• This song plays in the first scene, at the high school dance. The two main characters present are Heidi and Susan, who are standing together observing dancers and boys around the room.
• Heidi has just ruined Susan’s chance to dance with Chris, and Susan is angry: “I can’t believe you did that. Heidi, we’re at a dance!” (Wasserstein 164).
• At this point, Susan is rolling up her skirt in an attempt to attract boys, while Heidi is being cynical about the whole idea of meeting boys.
• Important Lyrics
• “I can’t get no satisfaction!”
• The whole song seems to depict a struggle to get any attention or satisfaction from women, no matter how hard he tries. A possible reason for this is because of girls like Heidi, who seems to be careless about relationships with men and are in no hurry at all to start a relationship.
• “I’m trying to make some girl, who tells me baby better come back later next week.”
• This quote is important because it shows Heidi’s process in her relationship with men. She seems to be perfectly fine waiting for a relationship rather than rushing it. Heidi herself that she was “planning to start [her] family at sixty” (Wasserstein 223). Heidi delays any relationship we has, and is not aggressive in starting something with either Scoop or Peter.
• Significance
• This song provides a background to the contrast between Susan, who is willing and aggressive to try to meet with boys, and Heidi, who is much more conservative and seems to not be interested in meeting anyone. The lyrics of this song seem to provide some foreshadowing in the play, as later we will see both Scoop and Peter struggle with Heidi, and no matter how much they try, they will never see Heidi completely open up to them. Hence, they “can’t get no satisfaction.”

Play with Fire- The Rolling Stones

• "Don't play with me 'cause you're playing with fire."

• Lyrics
• Context

• This song begins when Heidi first starts talking to Peter.
• Susan has just gone off to find a boy to the sound of “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.
• As “Play With Fire” begins, Peter approaches Heidi and begins to have a conversation with her. They seem to be attracted to each other, as Peter finds “men who smoke and twist at the same time so dreary” (Wasserstein 165). They both seem to be more reserved, quieter people, and they both find this aspect in each other.
• Important Lyrics
• “Don’t play with me ‘cause you’re playing with fire.”
• This seems to provide a sense that Peter is dangerous for Heidi, and that he may only cause problems for her later on in the play.
• The song is about a girl who shows herself to the world with a “chauffeur” and “diamonds” and “pretty clothes.” However, the singer of the song is not fooled by these. “Playing with fire” has the connotation that fooling around will lead to serious consequences.
• Significance
• Because this song is in the beginning of the play, it provides foreshadowing for some of Heidi’s experiences later in the play.
• Peter is in fact a very serious person, and Heidi’s somewhat lackadaisical attitude toward their relationship leads him with no option but to abandon the possibility of them marrying.
• The song may also be interpreted in a way that shows Heidi as the fire, and that Peter is getting himself into something that he shouldn’t be when he is talking to her. Heidi’s feminism will later confine Peter to simply a friend, and lead Peter to a state of confusion in his life.

Take a Piece of my Heart- by Janis Joplin

• “Didn’t I give you nearly everything I had that a woman possibly can?”
• lyrics

• Context
• 168- 174
• First time Scoop and Heidi meet- Scoop grades the music: “A- singer. C + band. Far less innovative than the Kinks. You know, you really have one hell of an inferiority complex” (168)
• Scoop is “intense but charismatic” (168). He is upfront with Heidi, and a bit rude. He is confident, talks a lot, and questions Heidi. Heidi, on the other hand, is not confident at all. I think Scoop helps her realize that she does not stand up for herself, as he tells her point blank that she isn’t doing so, and when she tries, he shoots her down anyways. And she asks Scoop, “why the fuck are you so confident?” (171), and why boys are always much more confident than girls are.
• Significance:
• “Take a Piece of my Heart” goes along with Heidi’s realization.
• “Didn’t I make you feel like you were the only man- yeah!
• Didn’t I give you nearly everything I had that a woman possibly can?
• Honey, you know I did!
• And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I’ve had enough,
• But I’m going to show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.
• Heidi realizes that she doesn’t stand up for herself, and lets Scoop talk rudely to her, and she gets a bit fed up- she says things like “And you are really irritating” (171) and “Well, I don’t know if I like you” (171) to Scoop. So she’s “had enough” and wants to know how to be “tough”.
• The song also foreshadows Scoop and Heidi’s relationship
• You're out on the streets looking good,
• And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain't right,
• Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry at night,
• Babe, I cry all the time!
• And each time I tell myself that I, well I can't stand the pain,
• But when you hold me in your arms, I'll sing it once again.
• Later in the play, Scoop says, “Self-fulfillment. Self-determination. Self-exaggeration. [Heidi]: That’s exactly what you want. [Scoop] Right. Then you’d be competing with me” (201).
• Scoop is going to be “out on the streets looking good”: he starts a business, he shoots for a high score, and he makes fun of Heidi, even though he knows that “it ain’t right”- he apologizes and asks her why she won’t stand up for herself. And although Heidi realizes that she and Scoop don’t work, she maybe wishes that it could work. Which is why she goes off and on again with Scoop.
• Heidi says, “The problem is me. I could make a better choice. [...] But I keep allowing this guy to account for so much of what I think of myself. I allow him to make me feel valuable. And the bottom line is, I know that’s wrong. I would tell any friend of mine that’s wrong. You either shave your legs or you don’t” (182).

White Rabbit- Jefferson Airplane

• "You know you're going to fall."

• Lyrics
• So the song “White Rabbit” makes subtle references to drugs and Alice in Wonderland. The singer Grace Slick begins with: “One pill makes you larger/ and one pill makes you small”, right away talking about drugs. Then she adds “And the ones that mother gives you/ Don’t do anything at all”.
• Context
• pg. 174
• After Heidi and Scoop’s first talk, Scoop “kisses her passionately as ‘White Rabbit’ begins playing. Scoop then looks at his watch and gathers his coat. He begins to leave the room and turns back to Heidi. She looks at her watch and follows him. He clenches his fist in success” (174).
• Significance
• I think the song addresses a double-edged sword- pills that make you both large and small, “And you know you’re going to fall”. This song may foreshadow Heidi’s relationship with Scoop, who makes her feel good and bad at the same time.
• “White Rabbit” also talks about how “logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead”. This suggests that the song is about the mood of the time, where both women and men are trying new things- “the white knight is talking backwards/ and the red queen’s off with her head”. This, combined with the drug idea introduced in the beginning of the song, implies a bit of the craziness that is going on, and how neither Heidi nor Scoop really know who they are or what’s going to happen. Scoop may seem confident at first, but by the end of the play, his character seems to have changed. Perhaps the “And if you go chasing rabbits”, white rabbits, implied by the title of the song, which may symbolize something innocent and perfect, “you know you’re going to fall”: the perfect relationship or life doesn’t exist.

Respect

• "R-E-S-P-E-C-T"

• Lyrics
• Music 
• Context
• This song plays at the first “feminist” meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the beginning of Scene 3. The characters present are Jill, Fran, Becky, Heidi, and Susan. This is Becky’s first time at the meeting, as well as Heidi’s. Susan is a returning member. The song plays just as Becky enters. The song is “blaring in the background” before any of the dialogue begins, and sets the stage for the following scene.
• Important Lyrics
• I ain't gonna do you wrong while you're gone
• Ain't gonna do you wrong (Ooh) 'cause I don't want to (Ooh)
• All I'm askin' (Ooh)
• Is for a little respect when you come home (Just a little bit)
• This song was originally written and composed by singer Otis Redding. Aretha Franklin did her version, which won her two Grammys. Along with the fame came a position as a central figure in the feminist movement, and Aretha Franklin was seen as a star during this time period. The fact that this song plays during the stage directions at the very beginning of the scene, before the dialogue even begins, shows the importance and relevance of the movement within the play.
• The song demands respect from men, and trust that women are not going to “do [them] wrong,” which was one of the core values of the whole movement.
• Significance
• Heidi’s visit to this particular meeting is a critical point in the book, and solidifies Heidi’s position within the feminist movement. Heidi seems to be simply “visiting for the week” (176) as Susan says, but later we will see that this meeting draws Heidi into the feminist movement which will lead to serious changes in her lifestyle.
• The song returns at the end of the scene, when Fran exclaims “Fuck this shit!” and “Puts Aretha back on” (183). This seems to show the determination of these women to obtain “a little respect” (184), and as they all sing it together in the end, shows Heidi being drawn closer and closer to this group of women.
• The scene ends with all of the women with their arms up in a “power salute,” which was a very symbolic pose during the Women’s Rights movement in the 60’s and 70’s, and again enforces the idea that Heidi has found a group of people in which she feels comfortable and will spend most of her time with.

Camp Song

• Lyrics:
• “Friends, friends, friends,

We will always be...” (183)

“Whether in hail or in dark stormy weather Camp Truckahoe will keep us together.”

Then Fran “breaks out of the circle: Fuck this shit! Puts Aretha back on” (183).

• Context:
• At the support group of Fran, Jill, Susan, Betty, and Heidi. They are all embracing and high-fiving, being all excited. Jill says, “why don’t we sing a favorite camp song of mine and my children. Okay? Okay. We all get into a circle and join hands. And it goes like this...” (183).
• Significance
• The lyrics and the song are returning to a child time, as Jill says her children like it. It is all bubbly and happy, until Fran breaks the circle and puts Respect on. That song is stronger, demanding “a little respect” (184). So perhaps the two songs, put so closely together, reflect the changing times from the docile woman to the feminist. They go from singing the camp song and “awkwardly [...] sway[ing]” (183) to “making a power solute” (184) singing Respect.

You Send Me

• “Darling, you send me. Honest you do. Honest you do”
• Lyrics
• Context:
• 203-204
• Scoop and Heidi
• This is another scene where Heidi revisits the past at a highschool dance. As the music starts playing, Scoop asks, as he did once before, “Are you guarding the chips?” (203). They dance, and Scoop adds, “I love you, Heidi. I’ll always love you” (203). They continue to dance as Scoop sings her some of the lyrics.
• 248-249
• Heidi and Judy
• After Scoop’s visit for the last time during the play, which makes it seem like he’s changed a bit, Heidi “takes Judy out of the carriage and lifts her up: A heroine for the twenty-first!” (248). Then she sings the lyrics to her daughter, as she “sits in the rocker and begins to sing softly, adding her own spirited high and low harmonies” (248).
• Significance:
• First the song is associated with Scoop and Heidi’s relationship- how Scoop loves her yet doesn’t want to live with her, and how Heidi loves him too. Then when Heidi sings to Judy, the song’s meaning could change a bit. When Scoop and Heidi relive the past for a moment, as Scoop asks about the chips, it takes the reader back to the beginning of the relationship when Scoop was asking Heidi why she doesn’t stand up for herself and all that. And Heidi asks in these approximate words, “What is it that mothers don’t teach their daughters about being confident?”. So that this song is first played with Scoop and her and then with her adopted child, it could play into Heidi finding out what she wants. As she sings the song instead of Scoop singing it to her, she adds “her own spirited high and low harmonies”, which I interpret to mean that she’s found something to be confident in and Judy being the person she’ll put all of her heart into...

Beatles Songs

Imagine pg. 206

• "The world will be as one"

• Lyrics
• Context
• This song plays at the beginning of Scene 1 in Act Two. A very important cultural event has just occurred, which was the assassination of John Lennon from the Beatles. He was killed in 1980, and his death was a huge shock and loss for the baby boom generation. He, like Aretha Franklin, was representative of the Baby Boom generation. The song is playing in Scoop and Lisa’s apartment just after the news has been released, and there is a service at Central Park for Lennon. Lisa is having a baby shower as the song is playing.
• Important Lyrics
• “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you will join us, and the world will be as one.”
• This song is a classic example of a “hippie” song, almost stereotypical in it’s nature. The song concerns peace, a unified world, and lack of greed and violence. The hippie movement was a large part of the Baby Boom generation, and the loss of John Lennon was devastating. The Beatles were at the forefront of the hippie movement, and the breakup of the band followed by the loss of John Lennon caused a massive cultural quake.
• Significance
• This song was one of Lennon’s most important, symbolic songs. As stated earlier, it represented the social movements of a large portion of the Baby Boom generation. The “mass weeping with Yoko in Central Park” (207) shows the huge level of loss and mourning that this generation went through. Perhaps John Lennon’s death was used in the play to show a level of confusion in the social life of the characters, as they have lost one of their main idols and figureheads of their generation. Susan displays this when she says, “I don’t think I can listen to much more of this or I’ll start crying” (207). The fact that they played “Imagine” is a little ironic and somewhat more crushing in that it represents all of what their generation stood for: peace and understanding. Because it was John Lennon’s song as a solo artist, their generation has symbolically lost their ideals and goals.

The Beatles

• They sing the songs
• It's been a Hard Day's Night
• Lyrics
• Rocky Raccoon
• Lyrics

• Here Comes the Sun
• Lyrics
• Context
• 207
• When Lisa, Denise, Susan, and Betsy are listening to “Imagine” when Lisa says, “Denise, let’s put on a different song Something snappy from when they were all together. Like ‘Rocky Raccoon’” (207). Susan inputs, “‘It’s Been a Hard Day’s Night’ was on the stereo the first time I slept with my high-school/first-year-of-college boyfriend. His signature was twisting and smoking simultaneously” (207). Lisa also adds that “‘Here Comes the Sun’” (207) was the song that played the first time she slept with Scoop.
• Lisa is married, but sad because she knows Scoop is having affairs. Everyone else is sad because they know too, and that Lisa knows. Lots of others are sad, like Susan, because she feels like she should be married and having kids. Heidi is sad, because (and this is slightly my interpretation) she feels that women should be sticking together and leaning on each other, maybe even talking to each other instead of being defined by others (Lisa, by Scoop. Susan, by all the other married women). Which may be why she adopts a child, someone she can try and help be her own self.
• Significance:
• I think the change from “Imagine” to “something snappy from when they were all together” suggests that the current times feel more alone, and the past seemed much happier. Susan and Lisa talk about those happy times in the past about love- Lisa’s first time with Scoop and Susan’s high-school memory. This could play into the story of how Scoop once said that girls who shoot for a 10 but only get a six are going to be highly disappointed women. However, the fact that Lisa is married (to Scoop) implies that it is not just single women, but love in general that is overrated. As time passes, people grow apart (the older songs to Imagine), or in another manner people grow less disillusioned about how romance works- Susan brings up the fact that her boyfriend’s “signature was twisting and smoking simultaneously”, quite a pointless fact, but perhaps one that she was happy to remember because that’s what she considered cool in those days, opposed to now
• The women are reminiscing on the memories they had while listening to the Beatles songs, again reinforcing the importance of this band to the Baby Boom generation.

Movie vs. Script, general thoughts.

So in the director's cut of A Streetcar Named Desire, there were quite a few changes that highlighted certain aspects of the play or changed them altogether. I'll just go through a bunch of the things I noticed (in bullet points) and talk about how they affected the theme and the play.

• Blanche goes to the bowling alley, instead of going into the house alone
• Personally, I would have preferred her in the apartment alone, because I believe that in this version they missed Blanche's awkwardness in the house, and failed to introduce her as very different from society and separation from her home city and people in general.
• However, I realize that making a movie is actually quite difficult (surprising, I know), and by allowing Blanche to go to Stella in the bowling alley, they emphasized other things, such as:
• Stanley
• They introduced him differently, with him making a ruckus in the bowling alley and clearly defining him as alpha male and quite primal, which would have been hard to do with him merely coming home.The way the director did it, there was more of a focus on the relationship between Stanley and Blanche than Blanche and the rest of society.
• Blanche was clearly less stable than I had previously thought just reading the script
• Blanche's obsession with being in the dark was clear, and (maybe it was because the movie was in black and white) the shadows on her face were always obscuring what she looked like, and often contrasted her with everyone else. That was pretty well done.
• The sounds and the music added a lot to her insanity, especially because she reacted to the music while everyone else didn't. It also created the mood, for instance sadness, or the tension between Stanley and Blanche, where certain patterns would come up to highlight a certain mood. Also, the sounds were prevalent, like the train sounds- a more obvious interruption to the mood and converastion.
• Stella doesn't seem so in love
• This foreshadows the ending, but in general she is less patient and in love with Stanley. I guess this ties in with the ending, where she leaves Stanley in the end.
• I'm not sure I agreed with this ending, because in Tenessee's interview with himself he was talking about how people can choose illusions or something, and I think Stella leaving destroyed this theme. People often don't choose to change their lives, and I think Stella staying in a family where she ignored Stanley's actions with Blanche was important to the theme, of how to move forward it isn't necessarily the best, and how society was becoming more and more violent and doesn't really make much sense.
• That being said, I much preferred it because it makes more sense to me- maybe it was the time difference and how the director didn't want to leave it on a very negative note, but leave the viewers a bit happy inside, since he needed to make some money too. I mean, I don't think the director wanted to influence people to stay with their abusive spouse.
• This is a question I had when reading and watching the play: what are the tamales for?
• Random fact: There was a lot of smoking, part of the time period, but I guess what's interesting is that it's mostly Stanley and Blanche who do most of the smoking, and then a little bit from Mitch when he talks about his lighter and then during the poker table. I don't really see any other women smoking, although we don't really see Eunice much and Stella shouldn't really smoke when she has a baby.
• Eunice is more fiery, and really supports Stella in the end. I just thought it was nice, because I didn't really see her much as a character in the script.
• There were a lot of moments where it was clearly Stella having to choose between Stanley and Blanche, and Stella did have less patience for Blanche than I had thought just reading the script. And of course, in the end, Stella does not choose either one- Blanche goes to an asylum and Stanley is left alone.
• In the Stella! scene, where Stanley and Stella have their fight, it's really well done to emphasize the weird animal love the two have, with not only their actions unhuman but trance-like movements, but their clothes (especially Stanely's shirt) being all torn up. Stanley's shirt was torn and weirdly put on, I'm not really sure what was going on there but it definitley made it primitive.
• Flores para los muertos: This really blurred lines between reality and nightmare for Blanche, as the first time it seemed real but she was scared and then the second time the guy was surrounded by smoke and mysteriousness, the director really played on this scene (although the police people banging on her door was different, it helped to show me the relevance of the "flores para los muertos" bit), and it was a reminder too of her old age, and perhaps her fear of death and having it all end with her alone. She's had a bad experience with death (her husband and her parents/relatives), and along with her guilt, she's probably fearful of what lies on the other end.
• Stanley's rudeness was quite prevalent here. His voice too, accentuated his primitive-ness. Also, he was very unpatient of Blanche and pretty much ruined all of Blanche's acting roles.
• Blanche was crazy, but it was Stella's character who lives in an illusion (although not in the movie, ay?)
• Blanche's clothes, where she dresses up, seem out of place, but helped me to understand that she was putting on roles to avoid her own self- for instance before the rape scene and after Mitch dumps her, she is feeling really down and so she dresses up like a princess and pretends to be someone else.

And that's it, in a nutshell.