Elysian Fields Is a World Filled with Violence, in Which Blanche Cannot Survive

‘Elysian Fields is a world filled with violence, in which Blanche cannot survive.’

In the light of this comment, explore Williams’ dramatic presentation of violence in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Throughout ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, Blanche DuBois is portrayed in a light of purity and fragility, and she herself regards this gentle behaviour as somewhat more respectable than that of the other characters. Upon being introduced, Blanche is ‘daintily dressed in a white suit’, adding to the image of delicacy that is even encompassed in the meaning of her own name. This innocence that Blanche creates for herself is a dangerous mask too delicate for the brutality of Elysian Fields and those she meets within it. From the moment she is introduced, it is obvious that this world is far too dangerous for her survival and the course of the play serves her slow deterioration from a high class, composed woman, to the struggling girl that has lost the respect of even her sister.

In the opening introductions of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, we see the initial meeting of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, and the immediate friction that surfaces between the two. Polar opposites in behaviour and in background, their antagonistic feelings towards one another create much of the foundation that the harsh and violent ways of Elysian Fields continue to build on throughout the play. Upon his entrance, Williams’ stage directions provide a thorough evaluation of Kowalski and the brutal nature of this man foreshadowed in the ‘animal joy in his being’ that is ‘implicit in all his movements and attitudes’. Blanche merely hesitates before letting her sister know of her feelings towards this ‘common’ man with his ‘animal habits!’. There should be no expectation that he and Blanche, in all her ‘delicate beauty’ and ‘moth’ like manner, would ever hope to get along. Since the two should have to spend time together across the length of the play, it is immediately clear that Blanche is going to be thrown in to a world of unfamiliar violence and that no good could ever come of her and Stanley living in such close quarters.

Stanley’s attitude towards Blanche is insensitive and vile, and he straightaway takes his brutal nature into exposing her. As a woman of deception and secrets, Blanche has worked to build a life for herself that covers up her past, yet this mask is all but fragile. Her ‘delicate beauty must avoid a strong light’, as this would reveal her true age of which she has purposefully avoided giving to Mitch. She hides behind her white dress, the nickname ‘Daisy’ given to her by Stella, and lies she continues to tell of not being ‘accustomed to having more than one drink’. Her purity is a glass wall protecting her from the cruelties she must face, and it could shatter at any moment. Elysian Fields is not a place of safety when it bears home to the likes of Stanley Kowalski, an extremely dangerous man around Blanche’s glass wall. He builds a terrible temper in from of Stella, set on revealing the secrets he suspects Blanche is keeping and, in anger, ‘hurls’, ‘jerks’, ‘pulls’, and shouts his accusations that could break Blanche. Continuously, Stanley creates unease and a threat for his sister-in-law, ‘roughly’ snatching up intimate notes belonging to Blanche, the whole ordeal making her ‘faint with exhaustion’. The effort of Stanley’s tempers creates danger and harm for anybody who falls in his wrath, specifically Stella. The ‘sound of a blow’ suggests he has hit her ‘fiercely’, and, later on, he ‘hurls a plate to the floor’ when clearing the table. Set in 1940s New Orleans, this behaviour can be expected of Stanley. The southern American norms of the day would perhaps not have questioned the dominance of a man over his wife and women in general quite like we would now since female oppression was still very much a part of life.  He is often yelling, as is shown by the use of exclamation points in his speeches that represent the anger of his character and the dangerous power of his male status. From this, it’s clear that Stanley Kowalski’s actions are no more than a brutal mirroring of his surroundings and the way he has been raised. It is he that threatens the stability of Blanche and every action of his is spiteful and unkind, never with good intentions towards this girl.

Because of the expectations and belief of masculine control, Blanche, as a woman, suffers. She is closed off in a world surrounded by men who do not see her on equal terms and therefore without the respect she wants. Noticeably representative of this is the double standards in respect to sexuality; where a female must suppress any desires when a man is readily encouraged to seek his own. Whereas Stanley’s promiscuity is accepted as an aspect of masculinity, Blanche’s sexual escapades lead to her quick and unmistakable isolation. The idea of male authority is continually passed on, specifically in the final moments where Stella chooses to stay with her husband, despite her sister’s claims of rape at his hands. Through all this, Stanley comes to represent masculine culture in all of its animalistic glory, the same oppressive dominance that leads to Blanche’s instability.