Blog post 3, Topic 4

“A Streetcar named Desire” was written by Tennessee Williams in 1947. The play is easy to follow at first read and by understanding the dramatic elements that combine with the story, another layer of comprehension and meaning is added to the events of the story. The play altogether is a tragedy, a form of drama, and exhibits distinct elements of the genre. This blog post will go over three elements of canonical dramatic tragedy: Structure of the play (scene order and dialogue), character portrayal, and form, in order to understand why this genre is particularly suited for this story.

Like all plays, the story is divided into different scenes. In a drama, the scene order is intentionally organized in a way to create tension, suspense and climax to keep the audience captivated (Luca 1997). Streetcar’s form is no difference from this established form. When Blanche arrives at Stella’s home in the beginning of the play she is in disbelief that she has arrived to the right place, appalled by the condition of the neighborhood, and concerned about the description of Stella’s unbecoming husband. The tension she experiences in the beginning only heightens when Blanche finally meets Stella’s husband, Stanley. In the first scene they appear together the readers/audience can almost cut the tension with a knife. For example, during their first impromptu conversation, Blanche’s sentences are sprinkled with “uhs” and other delayed speech patterns. She is incredibly on edge by his presence and when a cat cries somewhere offstage, she jumps out of fear, an emotion Stanley recognizes in her demeanor and begins to take advantage of. He brings up the topic of love and according to the script, he grins at her in their silence. Readers and the audience are immediately aware of this improper relationship between them and foreshadow a disruption of this tension in the following scenes

It is characteristic of pieces of drama, and more specifically tragedy, for the tragic hero/heroine to be “of noble character” or at least, “above” ordinary people (Luca 1997).This is most definitely the case with Blanche, displayed as prim and proper from a world much different from where she has found herself. This burden of being so different causes her to suffer more than others and alienates her needs and troubles from what others can understand. Because of this feature of tragic heroines, she goes mad by the end of the play. By recognizing this character commonality of a tragic plays, Blanche's seemingly ridiculous behavior becomes tolerable.

Apart from the scene order, the format of the story itself - as a play - revolves around character dialogue rather than narration. This feature is impactful because it brings the characters to life; readers and audience come to know the characters for their personality, mannerisms, and, thanks to the stage directions, even their physical movements. The intention of a tragedy is to allow the audience to experience strong emotions such as horror, fear and pity without the overwhelming pain that would be associated with them in real life (Luca 1997). A story like this could easily be dismissed as “just another domestic violence and mental health” narrative but Williams creatively used drama to allow viewers to create a poignant attachment to this pervasive (and unfortunately therefore blasé) issue.

Citation:

Luca, Barbara De. Literature and beyond: film, music and art. Torino: Loescher, 1997. Print.