Streetcar+Themes+-+Male+and+Female+Relationships


 * a. **** ISOLATION / RELATIONSHIPS **
 * “Viewers and readers of the play … sense that __A Streetcar Named Desire__ dramatises … what all of life is in constant danger of becoming – a willing ritual sacrifice of humanity at its gentlest to the fierce demands of carnality.” **
 * (from Donald Spoto’s biography of Williams, __The Comfort of Strangers__) **
 * A main theme of much of Williams’ work is the failure of people to understand, comfort and communicate with each other. He once wrote that his main theme was, “The thing that needed to be said over and over – that human relationships are terrifyingly ambiguous.” Put crudely, this means that people never really understand each other. **
 * The most obvious example in this play is the absence of understanding or compassion between Stanley and Blanche. Blanche doesn’t realise that Stanley will misinterpret her flirtatious behaviour (scene II, p. 137) as a sexual challenge or even a threat to which he will respond sexually and violently. Stanley, likewise, fails to appreciate that Blanche’s flirting is a normal part of social intercourse for someone from her background – a ‘Southern Belle’. **
 * None of the characters really understand the motivation of the others; Blanche doesn’t see why Stella stays in New Orleans, although she may suspect that sexual desire for Stanley is keeping her there. Mitch doesn’t understand Blanche at all, and Blanche in turn fails to see how he will respond to her deceit. Perhaps the most open relationship is between Stanley and Stella; it is based on sex, and they both seem to acknowledge this. **
 * Is it really possible for people to truly know each other? Williams seemed to think not ; everyone appears to be isolated. There is a whole philosophy based on the idea that everyone is fundamentally alone, and Williams may have been affected by it. It is called existentialism, and its mistrust in the worth of human relationships was most famously summed up by the French writer Jean Paul Sartre who wrote that, “Hell is other people.” **
 * There are other examples in the play of how people fail to understand each other. The characters are divided up into what Blanche (p.169) calls “soft people” and “hard ones”: **
 * “…soft people have got to court the favour of hard ones… People don’t see you – __men__ don’t – don’t even admit your existence unless they are making love to you. And you’ve got to have your existence admitted by someone…” **
 * Blanche, then, uses sex as a way of connecting with people, of getting others to think of her and “admit her existence”, if only for a while. Sexual desire is her only means of creating a meaningful life for herself, the only tool she has to get “hard ones” to pay attention to her. At several points throughout the play, we hear of “soft people” being destroyed by the less sentimental, more brutal “hard ones”. Blanche destroyed her husband, Allan, by exposing his homosexuality and driving him to suicide; Stanley, of course, goes on to destroy Blanche. **

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