A Streetcar Named Desire: The Feminist Approach

On November 30, 1947, four days before A Streetcar Named Desire premiered on the New York stage, The New York Times published an essay by Tennessee Williams entitled On a Streetcar Named Success.  In it, Williams admits that “[i]t is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction.”  Perhaps he pursued this fulfillment to escape the societal malice often inflicted upon him due to his sexual orientation.  Williams’s homosexuality led him “to possess a deep understanding of feminine psychology and a special sympathy for his heroines,” who constantly encounter hardship and brutality in his works (Adler 77).  In A Streetcar Named Desire especially, Williams imposes adversity upon the female characters by means of male oppression, a theme prevalent throughout his own life.  Criticizing stereotypical gender roles and expectations, Williams condemns society’s stigmatization of women not only through the flawed females in A Streetcar Named Desire, but also via their male counterparts.

Seeking refuge from a dismal past, Blanche arrives in Elysian Fields and immediately concocts an intricate web of lies to conceal her true identity from potential defamation.  Garbed head-to-toe in white “cocktail” attire, Blanche’s external appearance symbolizes purity and traditionalism; yet, her actions indicate otherwise (15).  As she settles into the dingy, crowded, one-bedroom apartment, Blanche uncovers the couple’s liquor stash and proceeds to “pour a half tumbler of whiskey [that] she tosses down,” (19).  When Stella returns from her outing, Blanche assures her that “[her] sister hasn’t turned into a drunkard” and asks for a drink, feigning ignorance to the liquor’s whereabouts (19).  Blanche and Stella engage in awkward small talk as the former blatantly criticizes her sister’s home, noting “never in [her] worst dreams could [she] picture…these conditions” despite her own crumbling financial situation (18).  Concealing the loss of her job with a voluntary “leave of absence,” Blanche withholds the details of her illicit sexual affair with a student that ultimately ruined her career and her reputation (21).  Blanche’s insecurities drive her to “cling to romantic illusions to sustain her self-image,” which she interprets as the key to male affection and, consequently, happiness (Avinger).  This idea causes Blanche “to moderate her life so that her individuality is compatible with the individuality of others, [which] stands in testament to a…mid-twentieth century view of heroism” (Berkman). Unable to conform to her predetermined role as a female, Blanche resorts to grandiose fabrications to mask her true self from a society that will surely reject her.  

Due to Stella’s lack of assertiveness and her willingness to submit to an abusive husband, society views her as virtuous and thus rewards her, rather than Blanche, with its approval.  As Blanche’s foil character, Stella “is more realistic…accepting Stanley and his working-class conditions rather than trying to recreate the life of privilege that has long since vanished for the DuBois family” (Avinger).  Fearing her sister’s reaction to her brutish, working-class husband, Stella describes him as “[a] different species” and cautions that “there were things to adjust [herself] to” as their relationship progressed (24).  When Stanley beats Stella following a drunken binge, Blanche springs into action and hurries Stella out of the house.  However, Stella’s sexual attraction to her husband surpasses her fear of him, and she eagerly returns to their home that same night.  Outraged by her sister’s behavior and Stanley’s mistreatment of her, Blanche condemns the marriage as “lunacy, absolute lunacy,” yet the couple’s friends instruct her “[not to] take it serious[ly]” (61).  Blinded by sexual attraction and reluctant to jeopardize the “economic and emotional security she has achieved as [Stanley’s] woman” (Lant), Stella “willingly consents to being a womb to be impregnated” and tolerates the abuse (Adler 78).  As a result, “society idealizes and sanctifies [her], the virginal woman for man’s use in marriage” (Adler 78).  By condoning the couple’s dysfunctional relationship, Stella and Stanley’s contemporaries symbolize society’s support of male dominance as well as “wifely submissiveness” (Adler 78).  Stella’s lack of power in her marriage ultimately contributes to Blanche’s final breakdown, for “Stanley…is not checked in any way by the family structure that should provide some protection and support for Blanche” (Woolway).

Threatened by Blanche’s presence in his home, Stanley antagonizes his sister-in-law to such an extent that he too eventually serves as a catalyst to her downfall.  Once Blanche witnesses the magnitude of Stanley’s violence directed toward her sister, she urges Stella to flee the town with her, labeling her brother-in-law with offensive words including “ape,” “brute,” and a “survivor of the stone age” (72).  After Stanley overhears her tirade, he seeks to uncover the secrets of her past to avenge her critique, and even purchases a one-way ticket for her to her hometown.  Highlighting Blanche’s “imaginative energy” (Lant), Williams “made [Stanley her] complete opposite—angry, animalistic, and reliant on his basest instincts” (Galens 286).  Blanche’s refined disposition contrasts sharply to Stanley’s bellicose tendencies, and as a result, he victimizes her; since “a male is to confirm the biological superiority that is stereotypically attributed to him, he needs a weaker inferior whom he can dominate and manipulate” (Adler 78).  According to the feminist approach, this explains Stanley’s abuse of Stella and his eventual rape of Blanche in Act II, as “male power requires assertion through physical means” (Adler 78).  To Stanley, Blanche’s visit disturbs the routine of his daily life and endangers his alpha-male status in the home.  This leads him to “grasp at whatever power he can find in order to assert his place in the family and society around him” once again (Galens 286).  Conforming to his gender’s stereotypical norm, Stanley “view[s] women by and large to be used for [his] own gratification and self-affirmation” (Adler 78).

A similar stereotype accounts for Mitch’s eventual rejection of Blanche, symbolizing society’s faulty perception of the ideal woman.  When Blanche first encounters Mitch, she immediately notices an attraction between them, considering him “superior to the others” and “sensitive” (49).  Seeking intimacy, which, according to Williams, “humankind finds most glorious and must always pursue,” Blanche naturally gravitates toward Mitch because she considers him suitable for marriage (Berkman).  This pursuit of a husband depends “specifically [on] the intermingling of sex with compassion; for sex without compassion she cannot accept” (Berkman).  To Blanche, marrying Mitch “can restore her to grace” and counteract the prejudices asserted by society against her promiscuous nature (Berkman).  Fearful of Mitch and humanity’s response to her indecency, Blanche secretes her sexual history by asserting her virginity, yearning to “give [magic] to people…[by] tell[ing] what ought to be the truth” rather than the actual truth (117).  However, once Mitch becomes privy to the secrets of her past, including her history of prostitution, he “condemns her” and “does not embrace her tenderly again; he calls her dirty and demands his sexual due” (Berkman).  Mitch’s attempted rape of Blanche and his reaction to her former lifestyle “draw attention to the discrepancy between how women really behaved and what type of behavior was publicly expected of them by society” (Galens 288).  His violent reaction further illuminates “how male views of female behavior were so idealized that that if a man discovered any deviation from accepted norms…his reaction would be extreme” (Galens 287).  No longer viewed by Mitch as “clean enough to bring home to [his] mother” (121), Blanche painfully acknowledges that her lifelong “struggle for intimacy has come to its end” (Berkman).  Society’s expectations of feminine chastity and purity justify Mitch’s discarding of Blanche, for she “must exist in a male world on male terms” and fails to “pleasure and placate those in whose hands her destiny rests” (Lant).  Mitch’s rejection of Blanche represents “the narrow roles open to females during this period,” as well as both male and female’s struggle to adhere to “the expectations of Southern society” (Galens 288).

Similarly, Stanley’s rape of Blanche not only underscores humanity’s tolerance of sexual abuse and domestic violence toward women, but also further denounces the patriarchal society.  As Blanche prepares to flee the town with a man of her own imaginings, Stanley appears and reacts by “unmasking her pretensions and her lies, by physically unclothing and raping her” (Lant).  Driven mad by her life’s disappointments, culminating with her failure to woo and marry Mitch, Blanche “is…[forced] beyond her ability to cope with the wholly male world” and then, subsequently, penalized for her wrongdoings (Lant).  However, Blanche’s rape “does not only come about because of her actions, but because of the flaws of society itself” (Galens 286), which sanctifies her exploitation “as the punishment for fallen women” (Woolway).  Since each female character in A Streetcar Named Desire encounters sexual or domestic abuse, critics often contend that the play “paints a grim picture” of the stereotypical woman, who “accept[s] and perhaps even welcome[s] sexual violence as part of life” (Galens 294).  Yet, Williams simply sought to “record, rationalize, and criticize the use of the penis as a weapon,” as well as “the misogyny which colors the play” (Lant).  Sympathetic to the limited “route of superiority open to [a woman that is] largely denied to her…by most men,” Williams critiques the unjust society that precipitates Blanche’s tragedy (Adler 79).   

A Streetcar Named Desire reflects Williams’s condemnation of the patriarchal society for its unjust denigration of females and, arguably, homosexuals such as himself.  Exemplified most notably through his portrayal of Blanche, a character “wholly female [and] driven beyond her ability to cope with the wholly male world,” Williams’s censure reproaches “the chauvinism that thrived in the 1940’s” that ultimately led to Blanche’s downward plummet into madness (Lant).  Williams, who “admitted to finding much of himself in Blanche and, conversely, much of Blanche in him,” sought to illustrate the adversities of feminism in a work of literature “more amendable than virtually any other classic American drama to such an approach” (Adler 77).   

Works Cited

Adler, Thomas P. A Streetcar Named Desire: The Moth and the Lantern. Boston: Twayne, 1990.                                          

           Print.  

Avinger, Charles.  “A Streetcar Named Desire.”  Cylclopedia of Literary Characters, Revised Third Edition(1998): 1.  Literary Reference Center Plus.  Web.  20 Mar 2013. 

Berkman, Leonard. "The Tragic Downfall of Blanche duBois." Modern Drama 10.2 (Dec. 1967): 249-257. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine and Daniel G. Marowski. Vol. 30. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Galens, David. Drama for Students. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Print.

Lant, Kathleen Margaret. "A Streetcar Named Misogyny." Violence in Drama. Ed. James Redmond. Cambridge University Press, 1991. 225-238. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.     

Woolway, Joanne. "An overview of A Streetcar named Desire." Drama for Students. Detroit: Gale. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.