Streetcar Named Desire
The loss of identity is an oft-discussed subject in literature. A character's tie or affiliation to a defined identity in a piece has the tendency to illustrate how the archetype of the character functions in society as a whole. In A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, the symbolic death of the aristocratic Southern lifestyle of grandeur serves as a notion that illuminates on the meaning of the piece. Comparing and contrasting characters such as Blanche DuBois, a typical Southern belle who is struggling to hold onto the dreams and mannerisms of the Old south and refusing to face of the reality of it all being over, and Stanley Kowalski, a working class brute who is representative of the emerging blue collar demographic in the newly industrious South, Williams uses the figurative death of America’s Old South to exemplify how the South is experiencing a demographic and cultural shift and how the notion of the Old South will soon be rendered meaningless. In displaying the figurative death of the “Old South”, Williams effectively shows how the notion of an old, traditional lifestyle can quickly become useless in America’s ever-changing cultural landscape. Delusion and ignorance are common themes of denial. Often when faced with adversity, clutching to the past serves as a defense mechanism to ease the pain of reality, no matter how blatant the gravity of the problem or the denial itself is. Blanche displays this in her constant verbal battering of New Orleans to her sister and (initial) denial of anything being wrong back home, saying, “Why, that you had to live in these conditions!” (Williams 20). Additionally, Blanche maintains a consistent proper and elevated manner of speaking, greatly different from the colloquial slang surrounding her. Though she comes from a world rapidly dying, she continually maintains outdated notions of social class and people she considers “beneath” her by constantly clutching onto and employing blatantly stereotypical