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Streetcar Named Desire Music

1188 Words5 Pages

Music is a universal language among humans in that it is used to communicate or evoke various sentiments. Depending on the context, music creates meaning and provides a more in-depth view of a situation. Nowadays, music is crucial in moviemaking as producers use it as a way to manipulate the viewer’s emotions and add complexity to the settings. Similarly, Tennessee Williams employs different kinds of music- that of the “blue piano”, Varsouviana polka, and “Paper Moon”- in A Streetcar Named Desire to expose the character’s innermost thoughts and emotions and to describe how the deception and decay that pervades through the play affects the characters’ perspectives of the outside world and the actions that they take. A Streetcar Named Desire …show more content…

The sinister Varsouviana restricts Blanche from escaping her traumatic past and she becomes progressively fragile and vulnerable. Lacking a lover and her former beauty, she cannot find security in reality and completely loses her sanity. The polka “cues demonstrate more clearly the disintegration of Blanche’s mental state” and those around her decide to put her in an insane asylum. The final stage direction returns to the use of the blue piano and ultimately shows Stanley’s triumph over Blanche: “The luxurious sobbing, the sensual murmur fade away under the swelling music of the blue piano and the muted trumpet” (Williams 179). The use of the blue piano reinforces the conflict between the working class and aristocracy, truth and reality, and Stanley and Stella. Furthermore, the blue piano connects the ending to the beginning as the play opens and closes with the jazzy tune. The return to the play’s opening “[asserts] that Blanche’s visit changed little for the Kowalski’s” in that their relationship stayed the same despite Stanley’s raping of Blanche (Davison 412). Blanche, in this final stage direction, is portrayed as the muted trumpet as her voice and presence are dwindling out of society and there is little to no hope for her to return to reality. Blanche’s desires- for a sexual relationship, high social standing, and strong bond with her sister- got ahead of her, causing her to lose control and end in

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Streetcar Named Desire Costumes

959 Words | 4 Pages

The play A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the most notable plays of the late 1940s to early 1950s and is still prevalent in the theater community today. It originally opened on Broadway in a 1947 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, today more commonly known as the Barrymore Theatre, preforming for a little over a thousand patrons. The original Stanley was played by Marlon Brando, who would reprise this role in the movie adaptation. At the Barrymore Theatre, the set was quite complex with a full stairway and banister, a pallor with a 4-chair dinning set and all the dressings of a then modern, but lower-class apartment.

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Loss Of Control In A Streetcar Named Desire

1457 Words | 6 Pages

Stanley blames Blanche for his life's derailing and plans her demise, swearing retribution. He makes in-depth inquiries into Blanche’s past, and when he discovers she has led a depraved, immoral life—her first husband, who was homosexual, and his suicide; her affair with one of her students; and her alleged lust and lasciviousness—he is confident in his ability to destroy her. He buys her a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel as a birthday gift. He tells Mitch, his best friend and Blanche’s romantic interest, about Blanche’s past and believes he has saved him from marrying a tramp. In actuality, he has dashed Blanche’s future optimism.

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A Streetcar Named Desire Annotated Bibliography

554 Words | 3 Pages

History - Article - A Streetcar Named Desire." Infobase Learning, 2005, online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/20288?q=a%20streetcar%20named%20desire. Accessed 24 Apr. 2018. The authors in this context describe the original author of the book as a poet who understands the human heart. Besides the author describes the original author William as the Laureate of the Outcast.

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Pathos In A Street Car Named Desire

1946 Words | 8 Pages

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE Tennessee Williams most famous play set on a street in New Orleans, which is named Elysian Fields. New Orleans is a cosmopolitan city. The city is the music of the piano can be heard anytime in this street. In this play, ‘a woman’s pathetic fantasies of primness and respectability are stripped down and violently exposed in New Orleans’. Williams like the poet is concerned with the reality of the broken world.

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Literary Analysis Of Blanche Dubois

1166 Words | 5 Pages

Tennessee Williams is one of the most recognized playwrights that lived during the mid-twentieth-century (“Tennessee Williams”). After finishing college, Williams decides to move to New Orleans, where he writes A Streetcar Named Desire. His career starts to take off as he begins to write more plays (“Tennessee Williams”). A Streetcar Named Desire talks about the life of a woman, Blanche DuBois, who is very secretive about her past and does not expose her true intentions of coming to live with her younger sister Stella. As the play goes on Stanley, Stella’s husband, starts to dig into the dark past that terrorizes Blanche when they begin to have a conflict with each other.

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A Streetcar Named Desire Controversy

413 Words | 2 Pages

After having been performed at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in 1946, A Streetcar Named Desire brought about much controversy. At first it seemed that much of the controversy stemmed from the unpleasantness with which the subject was presented, such as the vulgar, unprecedented topics acted out on stage. George Jean Nathan, an original critic of the play, touched upon the vulgar manner of the drama, calling it “The Glands Menagerie.” (Bak, “Criticism on a Streetcar Named Desire”) Perhaps the more pressing reason as to why this play was received controversially, however, is a result of its cynical nature.

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A Streetcar Named Desire Past And Present Analysis

1547 Words | 7 Pages

Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Williams, 1947) It is based in New Orleans a new cosmopolitan city which is poor but has raffish charm. The past is representing old south in America 1900’s and present is representing new America post world war 2 in 1940’s. Past and present are intertwined throughout the play in the characters Stanley, Blanche, Stella and mitch. Gender roles show that males are the dominant and rule the house which Stanley is prime example as he brings home food and we learn of one time when he got cross and he smashed the light bulbs.

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Violence And Power In A Streetcar Named Desire

652 Words | 3 Pages

The themes of violence and power in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ hold an important role in the criticism of 1940s American society. Conflicts perpetuated by violence and power, such as abusive relationships and violent oppression are projected through the characters within the play.  Williams uses these conflicts to highlight his criticisms of faltering values and social norms, from the perspective of an individual constrained by the expectations of a strict, Southern society. To begin with, there is an indefinite violence between men and women within ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. Stanley Kowalski, a focal character, is the epitome of male dominance and primitive aggression.

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Blanche's Destruction In A Streetcar Named Desire

778 Words | 4 Pages

In Scene 10, she deviously claims that she has just received a telegram from the millionaire, Steph Huntleigh, to explain why she is dressed up. At first, Stanley plays along, but once Blanche musters up the audacity to say that Mitch returned to their apartment seeking repentance, Stanley draws the line. He calls her out for her fictitious tales of her past, and states, “We’ve had this date from the start,” just before he maliciously rapes Blanche. Their natures root in primal, animalistic instincts, Stanley like a dirty hog, open and free concerning his sexuality, Blanche like a fox, sly and deceitful. Despite her incessant attempts to destroy her past, Blanche is unable to stop their sexual connection as she has had so many other men.

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A Streetcar Named Desire Past And Present Essay

967 Words | 4 Pages

Before the war, society was one which valued aristocracy and high morals, however, the war brought much reform. Now, these values and morals were not as important as they once were. Williams was against the conservative way of life because he did not agree with its beliefs and practices, and instead wanted to live an alternative lifestyle. Because of this, he wrote, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” to show how the old society was dead and a new one was emerging which brought new views towards once disgraceful ways of life. He does this through the use of characters, places, and music embedded in stage directions.

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A Streetcar Named Desire Literary Analysis

1697 Words | 7 Pages

Stanley continues to impose his reality onto Blanche, which causes her more anxiety relying more and more on herself to create more of an illusion by creating an admirer for herself, saying that she ended it with Mitch because she does not deserve “deliberate cruelty”, and crating this alter ego for herself as being pure. While Stella is in the hospital, he and Blanche are left alone for the night as she continues bragging about her admiration coming from Sheep Hunt Leigh and how she just got a wire from him. Stanley catches her in her life, finally tearing apart Blanche's illusions. Although Stanley has been a threat to her through his suspicion and empowering masculinity over her, the last scene is where he finally takes final control over her, or symbolically where reality has a final triumph over her illusions. While catching her in the midst of her lies she reveals to Blanche that “[he’s] been on to [Blanche] from the start!”

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Sound Used In A Streetcar Named Desire

1160 Words | 5 Pages

The Piano appears the most frequently and drastically in scenes seven and ten due to both scenes featuring climatic points of the play. At the conclusion of scene seven, “the distant piano goes into a hectic breakdown” (128), indicating the sound to be non-diegetic and therefore signifying Blanche’s complete vacancy from reality. However, in scene ten, a transition in sound is palpable due to the sounds that Stanley is characterized with become progressively integrated into the sound of the Blue Piano. The sound of the Blue Piano “…turns into the roar of an approaching locomotive,” (160) referencing to Stanley’s supremacy over the expression of life and what that subsequently means for Blanche and ultimately, humanity. After the transition in sound, “inhuman” (161) sounds are now utilized as a replacement of the Blue Piano due to inhumanity being the conclusive representation of the new World’s expression of life.

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Theme Of Dominance In A Streetcar Named Desire

698 Words | 3 Pages

As soon as Blanche steps into the Kowalski household and meets Stanley, it is evident that her appearance is a threat to his superiority. Both characters attempt to establish dominance through their control over Stella, a minor character who exists mainly to deepen the contrast between Blanche and Stanley. In scene four, Blanche advises Stella to leave her abusive husband and attempts to influence her by saying “I have a plan for us both, to get us both—out!” (69).

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Society In A Streetcar Named Desire

847 Words | 4 Pages

“A Streetcar Named Desire” is a very elegant film in which the Southern gothic culture is demonstrated profoundly. Tennessee Williams uses the characters in the play to bring about a sense of how corrupt society truly was in the 1940’s in the South. The 1940’s was marked by an immense amount of violence, alcoholism, and poverty. Women at the time were treated as objects rather than people. Throughout the play Tennessee Williams relates the aspects of Southern society to the characters in the play.

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A Streetcar Named Desire Symbolism Essay

545 Words | 3 Pages

Tennessee Williams’ symbolism of Blanche’s name and the use of light in A Streetcar Named Desire are considered to be some of the greatest symbols in the play. The play's title refers to a real streetcar in New Orleans. It connects the controlling force of desire behind the characters’ actions, which leads to the true meaning of Blanche and the ironies that come along with

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