"I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really."–Tennessee Williams
We all accept
the fact that there is a separation between what is real and what is unreal.
Fact or fiction? Truth or lies? These dichotomies, like most, are worn to the
point, but they still direct a reader to important questions—particularly the
question of where the line between the two sides is blurred. For instance, one character in a work of fiction could be
a compulsive liar, and another could be honest. The liar would be a “bad guy”
and the honest a “good guy.” The story becomes more complicated and exciting,
however, when the text encourages the reader to sympathize with the liar, and
to scorn the honest man. In literary fiction, the untruths often point to
otherwise hidden truths about the world outside the text. Fiction asks us to think about reality in a new
light; literary theorists, then, examine fictional texts with this expectation.
In this way—in literature at least—that simple little line between fiction and
reality is blurred.
Dramatic
literature, in particular, upsets the balance between what we understand as
truth, and what truly is true. A play
brings a plot to life as a physical manifestation of reality by placing actual
people on a stage to enact a fictional story. With drama, a writer can directly
express a character’s drives, goals and ambitions, without ever explaining in
the text what those drives, goals, and ambitions are. In Tennessee Williams’
1947 play, A Streetcar Named Desire,
the psychology of Williams’ characters affects the world that they create, thus
blurring a reader’s understanding of reality. Elia Kazan, the director of the
premiere production of Williams’ most famous play, suggests in his “Notebook
for A Streetcar Named Desire” that
“directing finally consists of turning Psychology into Behavior” (21).
The play
itself revolves around a complicated understanding of reality and fiction. By
the final act of Williams’ play, Stella—one of the main characters—is the one
who must make a choice: will she stand by her sister, Blanche—the woman she was
raised with, with whom she shares blood and genetic coding, even though this
woman has been lying to her—or will she stand by her husband, Stanley—the man
she chose to marry, whose child she bears, even though this man raped her
sister? By understanding how these characters live in constructed fictional
realities, we can understand why Stella finally chooses her husband over her
sister in the end. Williams’ play takes the proverb “blood is thicker than
water” and turns it on its head, arguing that—though the decision itself may be
a hard one to make—the value of a constructed relationship is more valuable to Stella
than those relationships over which she has no control—particularly the
relationship to her sister, Blanche.
When looking at how Stella makes her decision,
the reader must understand how the characters in Streetcar construct their realities. If we take a step back from
fiction, and look at human nature, we can recognize how strong the draw of
fiction is. We love creating stories, going to plays, watching movies; we
create fantasies and dreams. Sometimes we create fiction as a way of coping
with reality: hardships, stress, even boredom are all issues that are resolved
by creating fiction. Many of these creations—like some lies—are minor and are
not harmful to anyone. For some individuals, however—in both fiction and in real
life—those fictions become more complex, and eventually govern the person’s
life.
Most people will recognize these complex lies
as delusions. When someone is designated as “deluded,” that individual is often
viewed as pitiable and flawed; the term “delusion” carries negative
connotations. According to Jaime Leeser (Department of Philosophy, Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey) and William O’Donohue (Department of Psychology,
University of Nevada, Reno), the generally accepted definition of “delusion” in
psychology was developed by K. Jaspers in 1968. Jaspers identified a delusion
as a “false belief…that is held with extraordinary conviction or subjective
certainty and is impervious to other experiences and compelling counterargument”
(Leeser 687). This definition is applicable to people in real life, but literary
analysis deals with fictional characters, so a literary term and definition should
be developed for characters who experience false beliefs. When referring to the
delusions or false beliefs of fictional characters, then, I will use the term
“fictive realities.” I use the term “reality” because a character who suffers
from delusions probably does not recognize
that he or she does; for the sufferer, the delusions are real, and for this
reason we must treat those delusions as though they are realities. A therapist treating a patient in this manner would
probably seem immoral, but with literary analysis, since the character cannot
be affected by a reader, this treatment seems to work. To the reader, however,
the character appears deluded, and therefore that character’s reality is
imagined, or fictive. All in all, the
audience can recognize that the fictive reality for a character is different
from the “actual reality” experienced by the non-deluded characters in the work.
Fictional
characters forge fictive realities, like real individuals create delusions as
coping mechanisms. When dealing with stressful or uncomfortable situations,
people often pretend that everything is okay so they can keep smiling and move
on. According to Dr. Bertram P. Karon, “the psychological life of all
individuals consists of a set of fantasies, conscious and unconscious, which
are formed on the basis of actual experience, as given meaning by the preexisting
conscious and unconscious fantasies” (171). Karon’s description can be applied
to each of the characters in A Streetcar
Named Desire; each character has a subconscious fantasy through which he or
she sees the world: Stanley believes in his notion of “truth;” Stella is
attached to her relationship with her husband; and Blanche has developed a
fantastic vision of her past and current circumstances. These fantasies,
however, should not be classified as “delusions.” Though delusions and fictive
realities both are basically excessive lies, delusions and fictive realities
are not completely the same. Blanche forges a fictive reality in Streetcar, but she is not “deluded.” Leeser
explains that there are four criteria that go into the creation of a “delusion”:
“(a) delusions are false, (b) they are based on incorrect inference, (c) They
are believed in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and (d) they
are not believed by others in the relevant subculture” (687). In Blanche’s
fantasies, criterion (a) is fulfilled, but the others do not apply to her
situation. If we accept that criterion (b) is true, then it would imply that Blanche
would be applying a certain amount of logic—albeit, fallacious—in the way that Blanche
lies; we see, instead, that the things that Blanche says all relate to what she
refers to as her “dream” and do not follow a logical pattern—they exist only as
an element in her “ideal reality.” If there is no logic in what Blanche
creates, then there is no inference present that can be correct or incorrect. Blanche doesn’t actually believe that many of
her lies are fact, but says herself, that she “don’t want realism. I
want—magic” (Streetcar 84). If
Blanche herself doesn’t believe her own lies, then criterion (c) does not apply
here either. Finally, criterion (d) is not applicable because the people around
her (primarily the other faded Southern Belle, Stella) believe her lies.
The term “delusion”
does not fit Blanche in an aesthetic sense, either. Streetcar concludes with Blanche having been raped and carted away
to a mental institution, Stella has a breakdown, Mitch blames Stanley for
everything, and Stanley—the rapist, himself—is in a powerful position, cradling
his weeping wife as the play closes. This ending, holds Blanche up as a tragic
heroine, whereas Stanley seems to be a villain. Stella’s decision to stand by
the villain, then, concerns the audience. The play portrays Blanche as pitiable,
and the audience leaves, feeling sympathetic toward the poor broken woman, but
if we say that Blanche is “deluded,” the compassion the audience might feel for
her would be undermined. Then, if the audience does not sympathize with Blanche
and her plight, the reader would either be left without any character to
support—which would effectively make the play useless—or the reader would be
forced to side with Stanley. If the audience sides with Stanley, then Streetcar becomes a morally bankrupt
drama about how Blanche “was asking for it.” We can see then that, not only is
Blanche designed by the playwright to be sympathetic, she must be sympathetic,
and if she is called “delusional,” we lose that sympathy for her.
Sympathy for Blanche is paramount because in Streetcar, it is not only the development
of relationships that is important, but it is also important to understand each
of the characters individually. Blanche is a very central character, and
sympathy for her is as important as an understanding of her constructed ideas
of gender. Blanche constructs her identity to fit the model of the “Southern
Belle,” whereas Stanley exhibits aspects of a sexually dominating construct of
immigrant masculinity. Blanche’s quest to “play the part” of the Southern Belle
compels her to worry about image: a Southern Belle must appear to be proper,
organized, well-off, and most importantly, physically attractive. Stanley’s
drive to “keep things his way,” as Elia Kazan puts it, comes from a
subconscious urge to prove that he is American, not a Polish male (26). His
macho personality and his position as a “Master Sergeant in the Engineer’s
Corps” (Streetcar 14) are both
products of his defensive desire to protect his position as an American male citizen.
Gender as a construct should simply be an extension of who a person is; labels
such as “masculine” and “feminine” can be attributed to aspects of a
character’s personality simply based on how they act. The characters in A Streetcar Named Desire, however, take
the opposite approach and allow their lives and identities to be constructed by
their notions of gender; in this way, gender plays a crucial part in the
character’s construction of fictive realities. Blanche’s gimmicks and lies show
that the performance of her femininity ultimately derives from her insecurity
about herself. Gender, as it is understood by many critics, is a constructed
ideal of what makes a person “masculine” or “feminine.” There are multiple
versions of femininity, as are there many different forms of masculinity. These
can be derived from different social strata, different nations, ethnicities, or
levels of education. These multiple versions of gender identity are just as
constructed as Blanche’s fictive reality, however. Blanche subscribes to that image
of femininity—the Southern Belle. Blanche’s Southern Belle identity becomes a
part of her experience of “reality” throughout the play, and throughout the
life of the character.
“Fictive Reality” describes the complicated
variety of issues that Blanche experiences; the term provides the reader with a
rich understanding of her complex fantasy—an understanding that we can begin to
use to understand how character decisions are made. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Stella’s choice and the way that it is
affected by her sister’s fictive reality reveals that—although Stella must make
a hard choice (she may even, indeed, make the wrong choice)—the power of a constructed relationship like marriage
is considerably stronger than that of a familial bond, one over which a person
has no control.
Blanche—An Attempt at
Re-Creating the Beautiful Dream
Blanche
DuBois is the eldest daughter of a wealthy French aristocratic family. She has
lived a troubled life only to end up at her sister’s apartment, where the story
in Williams’ play is set. Williams has ironically named this character Blanche,
a name derived from the feminine form of the French word meaning “white,” but
Blanche is far from the pure and chaste Southern Belle that her name suggests. Her
character is complex, though, because from the moment she steps onto the stage,
we see her personal understanding of the world being questioned. Throughout the
rest of the play, she develops a series of lies, deceptions, and gimmicks that
fool her sister and brother-in-law, a man named Mitch that she seeks a
relationship with, and finally these deceits trick Blanche herself out of the
beautiful dream for which she so desperately searches.
Elia Kazan,
in his “Notebook,” identifies Blanche’s “Spine”—or drive—as “find[ing]
Protection: the tradition of the old South says that it [protection for a
woman] must be through another person” (Kazan 22, my brackets). We see this
drive evident throughout the play. Blanche’s history is hard to pin down, given
that she lies most of the time, but the audience can eventually recreate a believable
portrait of her history. She has lost her family’s plantation, Belle Reve, a
fact which Blanche admits to in Act I, scene 1. This upset—the loss of the one
home she had—has driven her to seek protection in the form of multiple male sex
partners in Laurel—the town near Belle Reve. When the men in Laurel will no
longer provide her “protection,” she moves to the French Quarter of New Orleans
and finds her sister Stella—her last living relative—so that Blanche can find
the support that she desires. But before the opening scene of the play, and
even before the loss of her family estate, Blanche was married.
Blanche tells
Mitch at the end of Act II that when she was sixteen, she had married a younger
boy named Allen Grey. Blanche Grey, formerly DuBois, walked in on her new
husband having intimate relations with an older man. When Blanche and her
husband were dancing later that night, Blanche told her husband that he
disgusted her, and he left, only to kill himself in shame. Blanche’s disgust at
the discovery of her husband’s homosexual affair with his older male partner set
off her moral and mental descent to the end. Up until her marriage, she had ridden
her “streetcar named desire,” but when her husband died, she switched “to one
called Cemetery,” (where dreams are dead, and Belle Reve is lost) and finally,
Blanche ended her journey at “Elysian Fields,” the place where classical
warriors spent their afterlives (Streetcar
Act I, scene 1). After the loss of her husband, Blanche starts relying both on
her connections to other people and on her own constructed realities to cope
with the loss of her Belle Reve—her “beautiful dream.” The music of the
Varsouviana—the dance that Allen and Blanche shared before his
suicide—continues to haunt Blanche throughout the play, and becomes a device
that signals to the audience the points at which Blanche is recollecting her
past in an honest fashion.
Even though
Blanche recognizes name changes as a result of marriage—she initially refers to
her sister as “DuBois”, but then corrects with “Mrs. Stanley Kowalski” (Streetcar Act I, scene 1)—she does not
keep the name “Grey.” Her decision to re-adopt her “white” identity in
opposition to what she sees as the tainted “grey” one represents her first step
into a fictive reality: Blanche constantly acts as though none of the wrongs of
her past—her husband’s suicide, her promiscuity, and losing the plantation—ever
happened. Blanche feverishly tries to keep her fictive reality alive; she uses the
world that she has created to protect herself, and if the pursuit of protection
is her primary drive, then the reader can see that she does everything she can defend
that reality (fictive or not). She drinks profusely throughout the play; when
she first arrives in New Orleans, she immediately breaks into Stanley’s whisky
(9), and then drinks more when her sister arrives (10). In fact, the amount of
alcohol consumed by Blanche in the play is probably comparable only to the
amount drunk by Stanley.
The alcohol
may help Blanche hold onto her fantasies, but, as Elia Kazan suggeste, her
Southern Belle upbringing impels Blanche to seek protection from others (22).
She is naturally drawn to her sister, Stella, through her bonds of sisterhood,
and so she turns to Stella as one who can provide that protection. Stella
represents not only the last of Blanche’s family, but also the last remnants of
the world that existed before her “beautiful dream” was lost. Unfortunately for
Blanche, the connection between her and her sister was already mostly severed
when Stella left Belle Reve after their father’s death.
The nature of the connection between Blanche
and Stella may be best explained by Phyllis Rose, author of Parallel Lives, a book which examines
Victorian marriages. In the “Prologue”
to her book, Rose discusses the concept of “constructing narratives,” or
“parallel lives” (6) as a way that people form relationships. She notes that
her “own assumption is that certain imaginative patterns—call them mythologies
or ideologies—determine the shape of a writer’s life as well as his or her
work” (6). I respect Rose’s idea, and would like to draw attention between the
way her conception of constructed relationships parallels the idea of a
narrative constructed jointly by Blanche and her sister. Throughout their childhood,
the two sisters share a single narrative—call it the “Book of the DuBois Sisters”—but
this narrative concludes when Stella leaves home. When Stella leaves, the
narrative reaches a sort of “divorce,” which Rose suggests “makes marriage
meaningless” (18). Rose explains that “when divorce is possible, people no
longer need to conform themselves to the discipline of the…relationship” (18). Although Rose is referring specifically to
Victorian marriage, and Stella and Blanche are not married, Rose’s argument still applies—if we look at the
sisterhood as a type of “marriage” (A relationship between two people), then
when Stella leaves (a “divorce”), the relationship is effectively voided. Stella
feels that she is “divorced” from her sister from the moment she leaves their
shared narrative, so when Blanche returns with the impression that the
narrative can be continued as though it had never ended, Stella is forced back
into her sisterly role. Stella wants to do well by her sister, but Stella’s
narrative is now a story of marriage to her husband, and not a story of
sisterhood.
Subconsciously,
Blanche seems to realize that she and her sister are no longer close. As a
result she goes to extremes to weave a fiction that unites her with Stella; if
she can make Stella believe her fiction, then the connection between the
sisters will be reestablished, and Stella will then defend her against those
people—such as Stanley—who threaten her because they can see through the fabric
of her deceit. To achieve her fiction, Blanche tells lies on a range of
different topics. Blanche lies about her age and occasionally pretends that she
is younger (38) than Stella (Blanche is actually five years older). She insists
on being seen in low-lit places to prevent people from seeing the signs of age
on her face (83). Williams not only draws the reader’s attention to Blanche’s
duplicity, but he also reveals the way Blanche’s lies encourage Stella to play
along with the fantasy. For instance, Blanche enters the Kowalski home in such
a mess that Stella, without any prompting, asks her husband to “admire her
dress, and tell her she’s looking wonderful” (21).
Blanche has
faded even in the mask that allows her to depict the Southern belle. She is an older
woman, now, one who drinks and has a promiscuous past. Despite those apparent conflicts
with the feminine role she imagines she plays, she still believes that she
fulfills that role. Ultimately, Blanche’s rigid understanding of class
structure, hierarchy, and gender roles is what leads her to have stereotypical
notions of the people around her. She still expects Stella to be her “star.”
She constantly calls Stanley a “Polack,” an insult that drives her
brother-in-law to retort “I am not a Polack. People from Poland are Poles, not
Polacks. But what I am in 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” (Streetcar 78). Her position
with regard to Stanley emphasizes Blanche’s uncompromising adherence to her own
fictive reality; even if people are not the sorts of individuals that Blanche sees
them to be (a star, a Polack), her “reality” makes her believe that they are
whatever she thinks that they are.
Blanche
doesn’t just live or demonstrate fantasy in her actions, though; she also
weaves verbal lies into the tapestry of her reality. Since Blanche operates as
an unreliable narrator, it is difficult to tell which parts of Blanche’s story are
actually true. We know, for example, that Blanche claims that she does not have
a drinking problem. She makes claims such as, “Your sister hasn’t turned into a
drunkard” (10); “No—I—rarely touch [whiskey]” (18); “I’m not accustomed to having
more than one drink” (37), yet she continues to drink throughout the entire
play. She tells the Kowalskis that the reason she left the school where she
taught was that the superintendent suggested that she take a leave of absence
(12), but we learn later from Stanley that “she was kicked out before the
Spring term ended” because of her sexual relations with a seventeen-year-old
student (72). In an attempt to make herself appealing to Mitch in Act I, scene
3, Blanche tells him that “Stella is my precious little sister. I call her
little in spite of the fact that she’s somewhat older than I. […] Just a
little. Less than a year” (38), but we know from her initial entrance that “she
is about five years older” than her sister (7). When she is later asked by
Mitch about her age, she avoids the question by presenting the story of her
marriage to Allen. These lies all serve the purpose of making Blanche look more
appealing to others. By her own definition, Blanche is a victim “on the verge
of—lunacy, almost!” (12), and she claims to have the sensibilities of a
Southern Belle to refrain from drinking in large quantities—it simply does not do for a lady of the south to partake in
alcohol. This description, though it is a false depiction of Blanche, succeeds
in deceiving Stella and Mitch, and also transforms Blanche into a sympathetic
character to the audience.
It is when
Blanche has her audience captivated that she begins to create bigger lies—lies
that change aspects of her actual past to create a fictive past. In act I,
scene 4, Blanche reminisces about Shep Huntleigh, a man that she “went out with
[…] at college and wore his pin for a while” (46). Blanche pretends that she
“ran into him [Shep] last winter” (46, my brackets). In this first description
of Shep, Blanche describes him as a married oil tycoon with a block-long
Cadillac convertible (47). At the beginning of Act II, while she is writing a
letter to Shep, Blanche admits that she is “such a liar,” referring to her own description
of her summer “on the wing” (52). Finally,
when Blanche and Stanley are alone while Stella is giving birth (Act II, scene
4), Blanche actually calls for Shep.
She is unable to contact Shep, however, because in truth, she has no
information about him except for his name; at this point, the audience begins
to suspect that Blanche has not been in touch with him after all. If Blanche
were keeping contact with Shep, she would certainly have a way to contact him.
If Mr. Shep Huntleigh were truly “so well-known he doesn’t require any address”
(93), then a telephone operator would have been able to put this desperate
woman in contact with him. Shep Huntleigh seems to be no more than a fantastic
character that exists solely in Blanche’s fictive reality. After Blanche
initially introduces “Shep” into the story, Blanche asks if Stella remembers
him; Stella must admit that she does not, even though Blanche insists that her
sister really does (46). During her post-traumatic reveries in the final scene,
after Stanley has raped her, Blanche finds it strange that she didn’t get a
call from Shep (97). It is in this state of post-trauma that Blanche is most
deeply entrenched in her fantasy. When all else has been lost—when she no
longer has hope for protection in the home of her sister—she seeks her last
chance for protection in the fictional character, Shep Huntleigh.
What purpose
does Shep Huntleigh serve for Blanche, though, if her primary drive is
protection? For Blanche, Shep is the ideal model of the man that she desires.
He is rich and can provide for her. He invites her on Caribbean cruises (89).
In an attempt to emulate her sister, Blanche has, in effect, created a
character that serves her in the same way that Stanley serves Stella. Mitch,
too, serves a similar role to Blanche. In fact, Blanche’s drive to seek
protection seems to push her toward men: she turns to Mitch for courtship, she
invents Shep as a back-up plan, and earlier, she sought out unnamed men with
whom she had sexual relations. Perhaps her quest for protectors led Blanche to
marry her late husband, Allen Grey.
Blanche’s tendency to seek out male figures whom
she hopes will provide a form of protection comes from her constructed identity
as a Southern Belle. As a Southern
Belle, she must attach to a man that will protect her, while she serves him to
the best of her ability. In a perverse way, Blanche’s promiscuity can be
explained by this fact: what better way can she serve these sexual men, than to
engage in intercourse with them? As a faded Belle, however, Blanche has lost
definition in her portrayal of her Southern heritage; instead of seeking the
masculine protection someone like Stanley provides for Stella, Blanche has
moved to seek protection in another woman—her sister. We know from Blanche’s
disgust at Allen Grey’s homosexuality—“’You disgust me!’” (68), and from her
contempt for homosocial engagements—such as her response to Stanley’s poker
night in Act I scene 3—that Blanche has a strongly heteronormative view of
society: she believes that men should be with women because that is the natural
order of things. By seeking protection from Stella—another female—Blanche
breaks the code of the Southern Belle. By the end of the poker night, however,
when she meets Mitch, Blanche returns to her grounding in her previous
understanding of gender identity.
In the end,
the audience sees that Blanche develops a fantasy world—a fictive reality—to
replace the reality of Belle Reve. The loss of her family plantation is a
symbol of the actual “beautiful dream” that was lost. In her fictions, the
audience sees an attempt to re-create her lost past. She tries to retain her
youthful image by keeping lights low and by lying about her actual age. Blanche
also drinks to keep the world in a semi-drunk, semi-sober flux. She brings her
sister back into her life. Every lie Blanche tells—every action Blanche takes—results
from her desperate effort to keep her fantasy world alive. Blanche says,
herself, “I don’t want realism. I want—magic!... I don’t tell the truth, I tell
what ought to be truth” (84). If
Blanche were capable of sticking to her idea that “a woman’s charm is fifty per
cent illusion” (28), she might have been able to continue to convince her
sister of her innocence, and she might have even been able to make her
fantastic reality and true reality. If
Blanche’s charm is half illusion, though, then the other half needs to be
something that is not illusion. Unfortunately
for her, though, Blanche pushes her fiction too far with Stanley in act III
scene 4. Stanley was already not buying into Blanche’s story, so when she makes
the last push and starts to insult her brother-in-law, her dream begins to
crash down around her. It is in act III, scene 4 that the scale unbalances and
the audiences sees what happens when a woman’s charm becomes consumed by more
than “fifty per cent illusion” (28).
Stanley—The Rape of
Belle Reve
If Blanche
were able to maintain her dream through the end of the play, then Stella would
have no choice to make. The choice Stella is forced to make derives from
Stanley’s action—the rape—and the collapse of Blanche’s mental state that
results from that rape. The audience recognizes the rape as the climax of the play,
but in order to understand the basis for and significance of Stella’s choice, we
must examine why and how Blanche deteriorates. “Belle Reve” acts as the symbol
for the “beautiful dream”. By saying that Belle Reve was “lost,” (15) Blanche
gives a different impression than she would if she said that the plantation was
“taken.” I have titled this section “The Rape
of Belle Reve,” however, because Blanche is raped, and because the process that
tears down Blanche’s fictional “Belle Reve” is as violent and severe as the act
of rape.
While Stanley
was “a Master Sergeant in the Engineers’ Corps” (14), he would have done a fair
amount of construction, but through his actions in A Streetcar Named Desire, the audience considers Stanley as a man
who destroys, rather than creates. Elia Kazan defines Stanley’s motivation as
“keep[ing] things his way” (26, my brackets). Kazan suggests that “Blanche would wreck his home. Blanche is
dangerous. She is destructive…” (26, author’s italics). Stanley, though he may
be seen as a villain by the close of the show, is much more complicated than Kazan’s
notes indicate, initially. Kazan goes on to explain that Stanley’s love for
Stella is “rough, embarrassed […] but it is there” (26). He is a hedonist,
“supremely indifferent to everything except his own pleasure and comfort” (27).
Given these qualities, though, he “is most interesting in his ‘contradictions,’
his ‘soft’ moments, his sudden pathetic little-tough-boy tenderness toward
Stella” (27).
Stanley’s full
range of qualities—his hedonism, his selfishness, even his embarrassed love for
his wife—are not immediately apparent. These qualities are aspects of Stanley’s
actual reality in the same way that
elements of Blanche’s fantasies developed her fictive reality. Stanley can understand only what is “real,” and
throughout the play he seeks “truth” as a way to undermine the ironically
theatrical behavior of his sister-in-law. Stanley is not without his own
theatrical qualities, however. He changes costume, so to say, from his work clothes
to his pajamas in a rather exhibitionist way and he even makes a show out of
walking around half-naked in his house—These shows are intended to assert his
dominance as the “man” and ruler of the house that can do as he wishes.
Stanley is
also theatrical in his representation of masculinity. Stanley is keenly aware
that he comes from Polish immigrant heritage. In The Masculine Self, Christopher T. Kilmartin details several aspects
of a Polish-American identity: “Polish-American men have generally been willing
to work for others, at low-paying and low-status jobs, to ‘bide their time’ for
a better future. These values derived from the peasant identity of their
forebearers […] who developed an intricate system for coping with domination
and oppression by foreign powers.” (122). This complacent attitude may in fact
have been a part of a Polish-American identity, but Stanley is a different kind
of Polish-American individual. He is, however, fierce in his defense of his
immigrant roots. Given his drive for control and the urge to “keep things his
way Stanley erupts in fury at Blanche when she refers to him as a “Polack” (Streetcar 78).
Stanley
rejects the role of the Polish American male (78), and attempts, instead, to
form a new masculine model that better fits his selfish nature. Stanley cannot
completely reject his cultural heritage, however. In his discussion of the
Polish-American masculine persona, Kilmartin notes that “there is also a common
disdain for being ‘stuck up’” (122), a disdain which Stanley exhibits quite
frequently with reference to Blanche’s frivolity. Though Stanley wishes to be
considered a “one-hundred-per-cent American, born and raised” (Streetcar 78), his “deemphasis on
‘fitting in’ with the larger culture” (Kilmartin 123)—which is exemplified
according to Kilmartin by a majority of Polish-American immigrants—prevents
people from seeing him as anything except
Polish-American. Stanley cannot get over his contempt for the “U.S. ‘gentry’
class” (Kilmartin 123) and ultimately fails to construct a non-Polish-American
masculinity for himself.
What happens
as a result of his failure to become a “non-Polish male” is interesting,
though. In a mix of his disappointment for failing to shuck the Polish-American
stereotype into which he falls and his determination to maintain his selfish
drive to “keep things his way,” Stanley begins to exhibit childish behavior: at
one point he cries like a baby in Stella’s arms (Streetcar 42); at another point, he digs through Blanche’s
belongings and tosses them around the room (23); and in act I, scene 3,
Stanley’s men-only poker night is reminiscent of a boyish “No Girls Allowed”
clubhouse. One of the most noteworthy aspects of Stanley’s childish masculinity,
though, is his inability to compromise or understand positions or beliefs that
are not his own. Thomas P. Adler, professor of English at Purdue University,
Indiana, suggests in his book, A
Streetcar Named Desire: The Moth and the Lantern, that “Stanley does not
bother to think in moral terms” (52). Adler also suggests that Stanley is “a
literalist or anti-illusionist” and that Blanche’s stories are “all lies and
deceits” (53). Stanley is “unable to see any aesthetic or potentially
redemptive value in the ‘magic’ [Blanche] creates” (53). As Adler suggests,
Stanley cannot—will not—accommodate or accede to Blanche’s “lies and deceits.”
Blanche’s
fantasies are dangerous, and since Stanley must—in his childish way—“win” all
of the battles in which he fights, he becomes aggressive. Stanley is a
childish, adult male who desperately needs
to keep all aspects of his life under his own personal control. Stanley realizes
that he must stop Blanche from
coercing her Stella with fiction; Stanley realizes the need to do battle with Blanche,
and recognizes that Blanche’s fictive reality is her most effective option for
stealing Stella away from Stanley, thus, from Stanley’s perspective, this
weapon—Blanche’s fictive reality—must be eliminated at any cost.
The “war”
begins for Stanley when he learns of the fate of Belle Reve—the plantation. As
Stanley recalls, “in the state of Louisiana we have what is known as the
Napoleonic Code according to which what belongs to the wife belongs to the
husband also and vice versa” (Streetcar
22). Since Blanche has lost the plantation, she has lost something that
belonged to Stanley through his marriage to Stella. In this way, Blanche has
made the first decisive strike in the fight between husband and sister-in-law.
Stanley cannot accept the loss of Belle Reve as an accident (because he cannot compromise
with Blanche’s position), and so he begins to work on uncovering the truth. At
the end of the second scene, however, Stanley learns that Blanche was actually
being honest; Blanche offers the fully documented account of Belle Reve’s
previous ownership: “Thousands of papers stretching back over hundreds of years
affecting Belle Reve, as piece by piece our improvident grandfathers and father
and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications—to put
it plainly” (29).
Defeated by
Blanche’s evidence, Stanley accepts defeat. The next time Stanley and Blanche
interact is during the poker game. In this scene, Stanley acts like a sore
loser (true to his childlike mentality). Stanley’s bad luck in the poker game
(31) and his disappointment at being wrong about Blanche’s loss of Belle Reve
both contribute to his bad attitude throughout Act I scene 3; it is in this
same scene that the audience sees Stanley jump away from the poker table to
childishly throw the radio out of the window (39-40), the same scene that
Stanley attacks Stella in drunken aggression (40), and the same scene in which
Stanley’s cries of “STELL-AHHHH! STELL—”
summon his wife back to his side (42). The aggression seen here in Stanley foreshadows
the violent methods that Stanley later uses to “keep things his way.” Stanley’s
tears in this scene are also important; as an infant quickly learns that crying
for its mother will result in her appearance, Stanley learns, too, in this scene
that childish methods will draw his wife to his side, so he will use those
methods again later with the expectation that they will succeed.
During that
same scene, as Stanley finds different ways to act out his aggression, Blanche
meets Mitch and finds in Mitch a new man who may provide the “protection” she
so desperately craves. Mitch is Stanley’s friend, though. Stanley considers
Mitch as part of his belongings, so when Blanche attempts to enthrall Mitch and
pull him into her fictive world, the war is rekindled. At this point in the
play, Stanley learns that a man named Shaw (presumably one of Stanley’s
coworkers) once met Blanche at a hotel called The Flamingo, which Blanche knows
as a seedy, disreputable establishment (54). When Blanche claims not to have
met the man, Stanley reacts to her words as if they were an assault against his
beliefs. Again, Stanley takes the time to reassert his dominance by finding
proof of Blanche’s lies. In his quest to determine the validity of Blanche’s
story, Stanley learns that she has told Mitch that “she had never been more
than kissed by a fellow” (70). By lying to Mitch, Blanche is attempting to
deceive someone who—in Stanley’s view—“belongs” to Stanley, and therefore
Blanche is—in Stanley’s eyes—lying to Stanley himself. Stanley reveals to his
wife what he has learned of Blanche: Blanche used the Flamingo frequently
enough that the management “requested her to turn in her room-key—for
permanently […] a couple of weeks before she showed” up at Elysian Fields, that
“she was practically told by the Mayor to get out of town,” and that Blanche’s
place “was one of the places called ‘Out-of-Bounds’” by the army-camp near
Laurel (71). Additionally, Stanley has learned about her relationship with the
seventeen-year-old student that lost her the teaching job she previously held
(72).
Stanley’s
revelation of Blanche’s misdeeds was merely an example of his braggadocio,
though. Stanley knows after the poker night incident that he can keep his wife
now, so Stanley is simply adding insult to injury by disillusioning Stella
about her sister. Stanley’s real
attack against Blanche is manifest in the fact that he revealed Blanche’s past
to Mitch on Blanche’s Birthday. This attack is made still more tragic when
Stella reveals that Blanche “thought Mitch was going to—going to marry her” (74).
Stanley is still not satisfied, though: he wants his victory to be more
complete. Thus, he buys Blanche a bus ticket back to Laurel and presents it to
her as a birthday present (79), fully aware that she has nothing left for her
there. After he does so, Williams’ stage directions run as follows: “BLANCHE
tries to smile. Then tries to laugh. Gives up both, turns accusingly to STELLA
at R. Suddenly she runs above STANLEY into bedroom, commencing to sob sharply.
Pauses in C. of bedroom, no knowing which way to run, finally, with shaking
sobs, darts into bathroom, slamming door shut” (79). The attempt to smile and
laugh reveals Blanche’s initial impression that this is all a joke. When she
“turns accusingly to Stella,” however, Blanche reveals to the audience that her
attempt to seek protection through her sister has failed: Stella could not
protect Blanche from her husband, and so she flees to the bathroom so she may
find solace in a room with a lock on the door.
Stella, Blanche’s
pregnant sister, who believes that Stanley “needn’t have been so cruel to
someone alone as she is” (79), cannot calm Blanche down, though, because Stella
begins to go into labor. The next scene (Act III, scene 3) opens with Blanche
“drinking to escape the sense of disaster closing in on her (81). Mitch arrives
to try to understand what Stanley has told him, but finds only Blanche, who
drunkenly dodges his questions. Mitch demands to see Blanche in proper light
because he has “never had a real good look” at her (84). When Mitch tears down
the paper lantern that covers the bulb in the room, Blanche falls to the ground
with a cry, and explains that she does not “want realism. I want—magic!” (84).
The paper lantern serves a practical function (dimly lighting the room so that
Blanche’s age is not so evident) and a symbolic one (it acts as a filter for
Blanche’s illusion—when it is torn down, so is part of Blanche’s fictive
reality). When Mitch removes the lantern, though, and turns on the light, he
finally sees the truth in Stanley’s story about Blanche. Most critics fail to
realize the importance of what happens next: Mitch, fully aware of Blanche’s
deceit, declares that he wants “what I been missing all summer” (sex) and
begins “fumbling to embrace her” (87). When Blanche says he must marry her, he
says “No! You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother” (87).
Blanche chases Mitch off, saying she’ll start screaming “fire” (87).
Traditionally, when afraid of rape, a victim will scream “fire” instead of
“rape” because screams about fire will attract the attention of more people. The
fact that Blanche is aware of this defense mechanism indicates that she may
have been in this situation before. This scene depicting Mitch’s attempted rape
of Blanche foreshadows the impending and very real rape in the next scene.
Additionally, it helps to reveal the reason why the actions in the play’s
climax actually take place.
Stanley
returns to the apartment at night after he learns that “the baby won’t come
before morning” (88). Blanche has been drinking steadily, and “a mood of
hysterical exhilaration has possessed her, and she fancies she hears applause
and favorable compliments of her old friends at a party at Belle Reve” (88).
The room is covered with the contents of Blanche’s truck: Blanche has
immaturely littered the apartment (88). In his own euphoria over the imminent birth
of his child, Stanley offers a beer to Blanche as a truce (90). Blanche,
however, cannot accept a truce with a man who would hold “up [the beer bottle],
letting beer cascade over his arms and person” (90). Blanche laments to Stanley
about losing Mitch earlier in the night and suggests that she has “been
foolish—casting my pearls before [swine]” (91, my brackets). She says that both
Stanley and Mitch are swine, and then begins to tell another story about how
Mitch returned asking for her forgiveness, but Blanche wouldn’t accept it (91).
To make up for her loss of Mitch, though, Blanche tells Stanley that she has
“received a telegram from [Shep Huntleigh]” (89, my brackets). Stanley, annoyed
at her “swine” comment begins to poke holes in Blanche’s story about Shep. Their
fight grows, while Stanley and Blanche both defend their positions—truth versus
fiction—until Blanche breaks a bottle to defend herself against what have
become Stanley’s sexually aggressive movements (94).
For Stanley,
there cannot be any other outcome for this battle than his raping Blanche. He believes
that he has to win against Blanche. He has tried to suppress her—to keep her
under—by revealing her duplicity, and again by offering peace, but the only way
he is able to keep her beneath him once and for all is to literally put her beneath him. Thomas P. Adler suggests that “for having
threatened Stanley’s little domain, Blanche becomes another object to be used
and discarded; Stanley reasserts his vengeful supremacy through brute strength”
(53). Stanley recognizes that there was no other choice, for him, when he says
that “we’ve had this date with each other from the beginning” (Streetcar 94). Adler makes the claim
that Stanley “is to Blanche as she was to Allan, but with a central
distinction: whereas Blanche’s cruelty was unthinking and, therefore,
forgivable, Stanley’s is malevolent, and therefore not” (53). Stanley’s
malevolence in raping Blanche vilifies him, and even though Blanche’s earlier
problems were self-inflicted, Stanley’s sexual assault makes the audience feel
sympathetic to her problems.
When doctors
arrive at the end of the play to take Blanche away, presumably to a psychiatric
ward, Blanche’s fictive reality has been completely shattered. This does not
mean, however, that she re-enters the world of fact and reality, however.
Instead, the audience sees that Blanche falsely believes that she is leaving on
a cruise with Shep Huntleigh; that she believes that this event will take place
because she incorrectly believes that she spoke with Huntleigh about it; that
she has blocked the rape from her memory along with all evidence that proves
her wrong; and finally, that the audience sees that no one—not Stella, nor
Eunice, nor Stanley, nor the doctors that come the remove Blanche—believes
Blanche’s story about her “vacation” (Streetcar
Act III, scene 5). Blanche’s state at the end of the play reflects all of the
criteria in Leeser’s list that outlines a true delusion. Blanche’s
post-traumatic delusional state, though caused by Stanley’s rape, plays a
significant role in Stella’s choice.
Stella—DuBois or
Kowalski?
When Stella
returns from the hospital with her newborn son, she is faced with a decision:
it is evident in the closing scene that either Stanley, or more likely Blanche
has revealed that Stanley raped Blanche. Stanley and Blanche cannot live in the
same place together anymore, and therefore Stella is forced to make a decision:
reject her husband in favor of her sister, or disbelieve her sister’s story,
and abandon her flesh and blood sister in order to stay with the man she
married. In Act III, scene 5, Stella makes the only choice that she feasibly
can: she decides to stay with Stanley.
Stanley is
the father of Stella’s new born son. Despite Stanley’s brashness and the
negative opinion that Blanche has formed of her brother-in-law, Stella loves
her husband and the “drive he has” (Streetcar
34). The reader might hope that Stella will turn away from her husband in the
end and give all her love to her new son (which is what happens in Elia Kazan’s
film version of the play), but Stella’s “complete surrender” (103) to Stanley
in the closing moments of the play suggests otherwise. Nevertheless, the
audience is left with the impression that Stella has not made the correct choice. Stella screams out for her sister—“Oh,
God, what have I done to my sister!” (102)—and “sobs with inhuman abandon”
(103) as Blanche is literally carried off the stage by the doctors. Eunice (who
lives above the Kowalskis) declares “you done the right thing, the only thing
you could do” (102), but this statement holds no sway over the audience,
especially since the audience has seen Eunice reentering an abusive
relationship earlier in the play (53, 58).
Stella’s
choice is strongly impacted by Blanche’s fictive reality. As Blanche’s reality
breaks down, Stella feels the wounds of being lied to for months. This pain, though, is not what causes Stella
to give up on her sister; instead, Stella gives up on her sister because she truly
has no other choice. The truth is that the only choice Stella has is the wrong
one. Elia Kazan identifies Stella’s “spine” as “hold[ing] onto Stanley” (24, my
brackets). This perspective on Stella initially seems odd. Kazan elaborates, though,
as follows:
One reason [that] Stella submits to Stanley’s solution at
the end, [and] is perfectly ready to, is that she has an unconscious hostility
toward Blanche. Blanche is so patronizing, demanding and superior toward her…[Blanche]
makes her so useless, old-fashioned and helpless…everything that Stanley got
her out of. Stanley has made a woman out of her [Stella]. Blanche immediately
returns her to the subjugation of childhood, younger-sister-ness. […] Stella would have been Blanche except for
Stanley. She now knows what, [and] how much Stanley means to her health.
So…no matter what Stanley does…she must cling to him, as she does to life
itself. To return to Blanche would be to return to the subjugation of the
tradition… (24-25, my brackets).
Kazan’s interpretation of Stella is accurate after all. The
audience knows that Stella abandoned Belle Reve and her sister many years ago.
Stella now does not fit the stereotype of the Southern Belle and she does not
try to, either.
At Belle Reve, Stella was subjected to
cultural standards that pressured her to become a Southern Belle. She was expected
to be a daughter, a sister, a typical Southern Gentlewoman. Her decision to
leave the plantation and the “epic fornications” (Streetcar 29) of the men in her family marked her departure from
the patriarchal system of her southern heritage. Like Blanche, Stella must have
taken a Streetcar named Desire—Stella desired to make a life for herself. Stella
must have switched to a streetcar named “Cemeteries” where she would have seen
the death of her past self—Stella DuBois. Finally, she would have gotten off at
Elysian Fields as a victorious new woman: Stella Kowalski. By usurping the
patriarchal power of her heritage, Stella is able to create a new narrative, or
in Phyllis Rose’s words, a parallel narrative with Stanley.
The chief motivating factor for all three of
the main characters in this play is the effort to control their own lives.
Blanche seeks control by defining her own reality; Stanley seeks control by
keeping things his way with aggression; at the end of the play Stella takes
control of her life. Despite the fact that Stella’s only choice is not a good
choice at all, her ability to make that decision defines her ability to control
the situation. Control is paramount in A
Streetcar Named Desire, and the lack of control drives a character to
tears. What does Stella’s choice mean, though, if she picks Stanley only
because staying married to him is the only option available? The only other
choice Stella could have made was to divorce her husband, a choice which, as
Phyllis Rose notes “makes marriage meaningless” (Rose 18). If Stella’s marriage
is made meaningless, then her decision, her choice, her power of control is undermined.
Ultimately, Stella chooses to retain
“control,” but she also make the peculiar choice of “family” over “family.” The
cultural context in which Williams was working helps to explain this situation.
The play takes place in the 1940s, when American culture was solidifying the concept
of what we now call a “traditional” or “nuclear” family. In The Way We Never Were: American Families and
the Nostalgia Trap, Stephanie Coontz describes the ways in which the idea
of the “traditional American family” has changed over time. She writes that “by
1947, six million American families were sharing housing, and postwar family
counselors warned of a widespread marital crisis caused by conflicts between
the generations” (Coontz 26). The generational conflict the Stella has lived
through—especially that the point where she breaks out of the Belle Reve
patriarchy—has a clear effect on the potential marital crisis that she nearly
faces, but never reaches. The conflict between Stella’s generation and that of
her parents, and the way she resolved that conflict by running away, helps keep
Stella in her marriage to Stanley. In her chapter on marriage, sex, and
reproduction (Coontz 180-206), Coontz notes that during the 40s and 50s—the
period in which Streetcar takes
place—there was a surge in sexual engagement that was not linked to
reproduction. Many scenes in Streetcar
are heavily sexualized, from the line of innuendo at the opening of the play
when Stanley asks Stella to “catch” his meat (Streetcar 6), to the flirtatious way in which Steve seeks Eunice
after the resolution of their fight (58), to Mitch’s attempted rape (87) and
Stanley’s successful rape of Blanche (94).
There is also a drive in this period of
American history for a family to stay together “for the kids.” Even if Stella did
decide to abandon her husband, and side with her sister, she would still have
to face the fact that leaving Stanley would create a broken family in which her
son would have to be raised. Stella’s family with Stanley—re-made with a child
and love—is the family she chooses, and has chosen, even before the play begins.
Stella’s family with Blanche is a family that Stella decided to cut herself off
from when she left Belle Reve. Williams’ play reveals that Blanche’s
constructed reality, and Stanley’s usurpation of that world both affect
Stella’s decision as much as does Stella’s own struggle to find a version of
“reality” that works. A Streetcar Named
Desire places the value of marriage over the value of a blood-based family,
but it also suggests, since Stella’s decision is not the right choice, that, perhaps, the institution of marriage may
require revision.
A
Streetcar Named Desire is particularly effective as a play in distorting
the lines between what is real and what is fiction. Stella herself requires a
sort of fictive reality in the end when she rejects the possibility that
Stanley did, in fact, rape Blanche. Blanche has required a fictional reality
throughout the entire play, and when it is finally destroyed, she collapses
into a mentally deteriorated state. Stanley has treasured “truth” throughout,
but it is his character and “reality” that is vilified. While Streetcar blurs the lines of reality by
presenting a fiction on stage, it also makes the audience question what is more
real; Stanley’s truth is vilified, so maybe Streetcar
reveals that the need for fiction that Stella and Blanche exhibit is actually
more real than reality.
Works
Consulted/Cited
Adler, Thomas P. A Streetcar Named Desire: The Moth and the Lantern. Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1990. Print.
Colin, Philip C. “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Tennessee
Williams: A Guide to Research and Performance, ed. Philip C. Kolin.
Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print. 51-79.
Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap.
New York: Basic Books, 1992. Print.
Freeman, Daniel;
Garety, Philippa A.; Fowler, David; Kuipers, Elizabeth; Bebbington, Paul E.;
Dunn. “Why Do People With Delusions Fail to Choose More Realistic Explanations
for Their Experiences? An Empirical Investigation.” Graham Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 72(4),
Aug 2004, 671-680. Print.
Griffin, Alice. Understanding Tennessee Williams. Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1995. 45-80. Print.
Karon, Bertram P.
“On the Formation of Delusions.” Psychoanalytic
Psychology, Vol 6(2), 1989, 169-185. Print.
Kazan, Elia.
“Notebook for A Streetcar Named Desire.”
Twentieth Century Interpretations of A
Streetcar Named Desire: A Collection of
Critical Essays. Ed. Jordan Miller. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1971. Print. 21-27.
Kilmartin,
Christopher T. The Masculine Self.
New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1994. Print.
Leeser, Jaimie;
O'Donohue, William. “What is a delusion? Epistemological dimensions.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol
108(4), Nov 1999, 687-694. Print.
Miller, Jordan Y., Ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Streetcar Named Desire: A Collection of Critical Essays.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971. Print.
Rose, Phyllis. Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages. New York: Vintage Books,
1984. 5-19. Print.
Voss, Ralph F., Ed. Magical Muse: Millenial Essays on Tennessee Williams. Tuscaloosa,
Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 2002. Print.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire: A Play in Three Acts. New York:
Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1981. Print.
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