Questions before and after reading/watching "A Streetcar Named Desire"

Questions/Activities for students who haven’t read the play

1.    Research – the timeline of the play; i.e. the temporal setting of the play – post World War II 1945-1949

2.    Research:

Look at films with similar themes and settings to Streetcar such as 

The Rose Tattoo

The Fugitive Kind

Butterfield 8

The Long, Hot Summer (1958) 

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – “What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?--I wish I

knew. . . . Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can.” MAGGIE

Suddenly, Last Summer 

Sweet Bird of Youth 

 

Also look at The Reaping (starring Hilary Swank) and O Brother Where Art Thou (directed by Coen Brothers) with their Southern settings. 

 

Or for the ultimate postmodern view: view scenes from The Simpsons – season 4, episode 2: 

A Streetcar Named Marge as an inroad into William’s play through parody.   

Songs from the episode can be found on youtube - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50IWwFn73ls 

More info on the episode can be found on wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Streetcar_Named_Marge  

 

3. Brainstorm what you already know about New Orleans, starting with Hurricane Katrina , then read the following quotes from Williams about New Orleans as he sees it.

 

To familiarise yourself with the milieu of New Orleans (Williams’ physical and psychological surroundings), take the lead from Blanche: When she first arrives at the Kowalskis' apartment in New Orleans, she explains: They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields!. "Desire" is the name of the streetcar [tram] route that takes Blanche to her sister's apartment. Elysian Fields is the name of the street on which the Kowalskis live, but it is also the name for the land of the dead in Greek mythology. Knowing that, the allegory becomes fairly obvious. Blanche's desire has gotten her on a route (the streetcar) that will lead to her death (Elysian Fields).  

 

Williams tells us in his stage directions that Elysian Fields is poor but unlike corresponding sections in other American cities, it has a raffish charm.” 

 

Williams told us in his introductory stage directions in 1949, “New Orleans is a cosmopolitan city where there is a relatively warm and easy intermingling of races in the old part of town.” 

Williams also informs us in his Memoirs, “I know of no city where it is better to have a skylight than New Orleans. You know, New Orleans is slightly below sea level and maybe that’s why the clouds and the sky seem so close. In New Orleans the clouds always seem just overhead. I suppose they are just vapour off the Mississippi more than genuine clouds.  (London: W.H. Allen, 1972).

4. Research the paintings of American artist Edward Hopper who is a visual reference for the setting of this production. His paintings usually isolate an individual in a monumental setting with a solo figure seen through a curtained window.    

 Questions/Activities for students who have read the play 

1.    Identify and discuss some of the techniques that Tennessee Williams uses to shape meaning in his play: e.g. emotive and poetic language, allusions, juxtaposition of themes and scenes, such as pretence versus authenticity.   Also look at the effect of William’s employment of metaphors and animal imagery.

2.    Some critics believe that A Streetcar Named Desire is the quintessential American play. How does it live up to and/or let down this tag? Even the setting of Elysian Fields Blanche feels, “only Poe! Only Mr. Edgar Allan Poe! Could do it justice! Out there I suppose is the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir!” 

3.    Blanche says jokingly that she’s “compiling a notebook of quaint little words and phrases I’ve picked up here.” Make a list of such quaint words, reproachments and expressions that Blanche either uses or has picked up in the play, such as the following from Scene V: “Don’t you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour – but a little bit of Eternity dropped in your hands – and who knows what to do with it?

4.    Research the paintings of American artist Edward Hopper who is a visual reference for the setting of this production. His paintings usually isolate an individual in a monumental setting with a solo figure seen through a curtained window.   (Use Appendix A for inspiration)