A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams, one of the most provocative and widely respected playwrights in the modern theater, was born on Columbus, Mississippi, but moved at an early age to St. Louis, where he began writing during his school days. He moved to Memphis, then went to the University of Iowa, from which he graduated in 1938. The Glass Menagerie brought Tennessee Williams the N.Y. Drama Critics’ Circle Prize and the Sidney Howard Memorial from the Playwrights Company. Subsequent successes include A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, Camino Real, Orpheus Descending, Night of the Iguana, and more. Fifteen of his plays have been made into films. Mr. Williams died in 1983.

~ Publication Date: 1951

~ Setting:

A Streetcar Named Desire is set in the residence of the Kowalskis located in a poor, yet charming neighborhood of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana.

~ Main Characters:

Blanche Dubois - She overly sensitive and, proud of her aristocratic background. She is a stranger to New Orleans and lives in an illusory world in order to shield her promiscuity. She seeks refuge with her sister Stella and her husband Stanley after losing her teaching position.

Stanley Kowalski - Stella’s domineering and possessive husband and Blanche’s brother-in-law. Of Polish origin, he represents all that is masculine, and common in life. Vengeful in nature, he becomes Blanche’s enemy, spoils her chance of a possibly happy marriage with his best friend, Harold Mitchell, and rapes her himself.

Stella Kowalski - Blanche’s younger sister and Stanley’s wife. She is a figure of silent suffering and tremendous compromise. Despite