'A Streetcar Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams, Scene Nine - An Analysis

An Analysis

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, Ruhr-University of Bochum, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction For this term paper I analyse scene nine of Tennessee William's play A Streetcar Named Desire. The episodic drama was written in 1947 and is set in New Orleans. It is divided into eleven different scenes. The main characters of the play are Blanche DuBois, her sister Stella and her husband Stanley Kowalski. In a supporting part appears Mitch. Blanche is a thirty year old woman from Mississippi. At the beginning of the play she comes to visit her younger sister Stella in New Orleans, because she does not know where else to go. All of her family are dead except Stella. Blanche is helpless and seeks protection, because she has lost her home 'Belle Reve', her inheritance and her employment. Stella and Stan are living in a small apartment in the French Quarter of New Orleans called 'Elysian Fields'. Blanche has to take the streetcars called 'Desire' and 'Cemeteries'. Here the strong symbolism of Williams' writing can already be seen clearly. The names of the streetcars foreshadow the course of the play and its outcome and in general show Blanche's journey in the play, from longing and desire to destruction.