Barnið
Í gylltum sólargeisla sigurofnum
stoltir foreldrar í sælu fagna ögn.
Gleðiloga í brennandi trúarglóð
kveikir gulleldur ástarbáls ævióð.
Í roðagylltu skauti lífslindar ljúft
lifir vissa um eilífðargöngu sálar.
Ef mamma tárast eða kímir glatt
undrakrílið í samhyggð tekur þátt.
Um tíma ósýnileg sál í elskuhreiðri
unaðar í kyrrð og yl vex og dafnar.
Með von og vísi að ævisögu í anda
veraldar einbúans af hug og hjarta.
Nú er lítil stjarna í örmum foreldra
umvafin ljómandi kærleiksneistum.
Í okkar veröld með undrun og spurn
opnar lífstakt ævintýraþels framtíðar.
Höf. Jóna Rúna Kvaran Ort 11-9-2004
A Literary Analysis of Tennessee Williams’ Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire
Nína Rúna Kvaran 6th April 2004
Introduction
The theme of man against woman and vice versa, whether it be in a sexual, social, or genderized form, is as old as human kind and has perhaps never been as prominent as nowadays, in the modern world of education, female liberation and sexuality. It is amazing to brief through the literary history of the Western world and see how the concept and literary treatment of woman has developed from being almost absent, to being there but limited to certain “feminine” spheres, to being almost as visible as man in all aspects literary, social, and sexual. The theatrical world has in the recent years been bomb shelled with plays concerning the relations between men and women, sexuality and scrutinizing of the traditional roles of gender. Although feminist theory did not really start to become clearly visible until in the sixties, exploration of femininity and feminine sexuality had long since started with the likes of Sigmund Freud. But when it came to the literary world, although being abundant with female characters, authors were not commonly diving into the deep end and exploring subjects and topic matters such as sexuality, different sexual orientations and the purpose of gender based roles. One exception from this was of course American playwright, Tennessee Williams. Being one of the most influential playwrights from the period of the middle of the twentieth century, Williams went into territories that most authors of his time had not dared venture. As editor Matthew C. Roudané says in his introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams on Williams’ creative world:Within such a paradoxical world Williams succeeded in expanding the boundaries of theatricality itself, combining a lyricism and experimentalism that has revolutionized American drama after World War II (i).Whether it is due to Williams’ own homosexuality, the fact that his beloved sister was severely mentally ill, or simply out of his immense intellect and creativity, it is clear that in his works are to be found many of the most memorable female characters the theatrical stage has seen. One of these is of course Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire. In this essay the intention is to examine and analyse briefly the above-mentioned character from the viewpoint of feminist, Freudian and gay theories in the context of whether Blanche can be considered a woman’s parody of a woman. Feminist Theory According to Elizabeth Gross in her article “What is Feminist Theory?” as feminist theory came to be, it was clear that the purpose was to elevate women from the status of either being ignored by patriarchal discourses or being treated with a hostile or aggressive attitude by them. It is certainly obvious that Tennessee Williams did not ignore women in his works but rather focused immensely on them. Blanche Dubois is the main character of A Streetcar Named Desire but whether she is really a protagonist of the play is hard to say. She does seem to cause more trouble than anything else and due to her entrance into the lives of Stella and Stanley, everything becomes dishevelled and out of order. In Elia Kazan’s eponymous movie from 1951, Stanley (Marlon Brando) was made out to be the protagonist of the story rather than Blanche who then could be seen as the root of all his troubles. This could also be interpreted as clear chauvinism on the part of the filmmakers, since this is not such a clear-cut case in the original text itself and a portrayal of Blanche as an almost parasitic nuisance is a good example of the hostile and aggressive attitude mentioned above. When looking at Blanche through the eye of feminist theory, her character does work as a two-edged sword. In some ways she challenges the patriarchal view and masculine power, but in other ways she encourages it. It seems that in most of Tennessee Williams’ plays, there is the presence of a dominant, male character. Usually this is a middle-aged man, forceful and in need to dominate the world. Albeit not exactly middle-aged, the character of Stanley falls into this category and from the moment Blanche arrives on the scene, she is in battle with him. She sees Stanley as an animal-like brute and openly expresses this view:He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There’s even something – sub-human – something not quite to the stages of humanity yet! Yes, something – ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I’ve seen in – anthropological studies! (Williams 510)It is clear that Blanche considers Stanley to be the ultimate, masculine brute and power figure and she is determined to fight against his tyranny and for her sister Stella’s affection. This in itself can be viewed as a feminine protest against patriarchal authority but the methodology that Blanche uses prevents one from seeing her as a feminist heroine. She firstly tries to flirt with Stanley and this turns out to be catastrophic. She not only fails to manipulate him as she perhaps expected to be able to do, she also is later raped by him, although whether that is a definite result of her coquettish behaviour, is hard to say. By flirting, Blanche is essentially doing two things. She is trying to appeal to Stanley’s sexuality as a man, and is therefore, obviously putting on a show. She is pretending to be a woman that he might desire sexually; a clear case of a woman’s parody of a certain type woman. She is also creating a kind of prelude to the almost inevitable rape scene. As is revealed, Blanche is not unaccustomed to men and she feels as if she can analyse their type rather easily. If this is so, she should have known that a “brute” such as Stanley would not be manipulated by her flirting but rather led into the idea of having sexual relations with her, as he later so forcefully does. Could she have prevented the rape or is it fair to say that she played her own part in creating a foundation for it to take place on? Perhaps she never stood a chance against Stanley because she exactly miscalculated his intelligence by almost immediately looking down on him. The second fact that prevents one from seeing Blanche as a feminist character is that when she realizes the extent of Stanley’s crudeness and physical power over Stella and herself, she immediately seeks help from another male source. Felicia Hardison Londré has duly noted this in her article “A streetcar running fifty years”: [ . . . ] although Blanche regards Stella’s husband as a brutal predator, her first impulse is to turn to another man as saviour. There is a subtle irony in her reflexive reversion to the Southern Belle’s habits of thought – that is, emotional dependence on a patriarchal system of male protection for the helpless female (56). Even Blanche herself in her famous last line: “Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” (Williams 563), admits her own inability to stand on her own as an independent woman. But perhaps this is just another parade of lies because her past, both as a caretaker of the dying at Belle Reve and a guest at the notorious Hotel Flamingo, suggests otherwise. The Freudian View As most know, Freud is the father of modern day psychoanalysis and his, at the time, outrageously provocative theories, have seeped into almost every genre imaginable in the modern world. Literature is not excluded from that. His categorizing of women as being practically tormented by the lack of something only belonging to men (the symbolic or literal lack of a penis or phallic envy) has been torn to pieces by later day feminists who find the notion to be thoroughly insulting since women do have their own “equipment” that is perfectly equivalent in quality to that of men’s. Perhaps it stands more to reason to try to see Freud’s theory as purely symbolic, so that the meaning becomes that women desire not literally a male penis, but the power and status associated with those that do possess that organ. Freud was especially interested in analysing the so-called “hysteria” of women and he had a special interest in women that were of an intellectual kind, or perhaps of what he considered to be a more masculine cast. These were women he claimed to have no erotic attraction for, but that surrounded him at various times in his life. One of these was Joan Riviere, a highly intellectual woman and a psychoanalyst herself. Her article “Womanliness as a Masquerade” which was published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1929 is an analytic writing on female sexuality. The article itself is very straightforward and focuses mostly on women that wish for masculinity but as a result put on a mask of womanliness, for fear of retribution from men and anxiety. Riviere develops her theory from a case regarding a highly successful and intellectual woman who, after public engagements, seeks reassurance from men in the form of sexual attention:To speak broadly, analysis of her behaviour after her performances showed that she was attempting to obtain sexual advances from the particular type of men by means of flirting and coquetting with them in a more or less veiled manner (Riviere 36).Blanche Dubois seems to be exactly that kind of masquerading woman. She puts on a show at all times, and especially around men. As mentioned before, she flirts with Stanley and tries to convince him that she possesses a kind of innocent nature of a true lady. Obviously, she fails miserably in this, as Stanley, despite his brutish behaviour, sees right through her act from the beginning. He immediately suspects her of losing Belle Reve and squandering the family fortune. He soon discovers the truth about her stay at the Hotel Flamingo, where she presumably prostituted herself to survive and she does not fool him at all. But he nevertheless feels threatened by Blanche. She invades the privacy of his home, steals the attention of his wife and prevents him from enjoying private moments with her. In the case of Stanley, Blanche does intimidate him, but she cannot fool him and therefore her parody of an idealistic woman, fails her.As Riviere explains, in a masquerade, a woman mimics an authentic – genuine – womanliness and Blanche seems at first to be doing a much better job of this in her relationship with Mitch rather than Stanley. Mitch is fascinated by her understanding of his intimate connection to his sick mother and seems quite enthralled by her lady-like composure. But as Blanche openly admits to her own sister, she is putting on an act once again: “What I mean is – he thinks I’m sort of prim and proper, you know! (She laughs out sharply) I want to deceive him enough to make him – want me. . .” (Williams 517). But to show Blanche a bit of fairness it is necessary to mention that Riviere does question the actual authenticity of the so-called “authentic womanliness”. In fact, to Riviere, it is almost as much of a deception and mimicry as the woman’s masquerade because to be a woman is to dissimulate a fundamental masculinity and femininity is that dissimilation. So how much of Blanche’s behaviour is deliberate deception and how much is simply a pure necessity derived from being female? Nietzsche makes this abundantly clear in The Gay Science:Finally, women. Reflect on the whole history of women: do they not have to be first of all and above all else actresses? Listen to physicians who have hypnotized women; finally, love them – let yourself be ‘hypnotized by them’! What is always the end result? That they put on something even when they take off everything. Woman is so artistic (317). The Gay Perspective Though many critics do not agree with analysing works based upon the actual lives of the authors, it can sometimes be useful to realize certain facts about the author’s life. Nobody can write a creative work of fiction if its subject matter is completely unknown to the author. The result would without a doubt be very unconvincing. Tennessee Williams was an extremely autobiographical writer and the theme of his sister Laura and his relationship with her is obvious in some of his plays as for example Glass Menagerie. It is a well-known fact that Tennessee Williams was gay and it is obvious that although limited by the boundaries of the time period he lived in, Williams did subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) refer to homosexuality in a number of his plays. A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those plays. Some have claimed that characters such as Stanley, represented the kind of masculinity Williams himself was attracted to. Whether this is true or false will not be debated here but it certainly is very clear that Stanley is a rather exaggerated male character. He is extremely narcissistic, dominating, and aggressive but above all this, he has no respect for women at all. His rude remarks and violent behaviour towards the women that were a consequence of him not being immediately obeyed at the poker game, shows clearly that he feels women are inferior. Could it be that Williams deliberately made Stanley so extremely chauvinist in order to let him represent a sort of extreme homosexual view of female hatred? Whether the creation of Stanley is in any way connected to Williams’ own homosexuality, is a matter of opinion since the evidence is rather vague. But there are definitely other aspects in the play that are obviously connected to gayness.Blanche’s very young husband committed suicide and it is rather freely indicated that she was responsible for this tragedy. She discovered him in bed with an older man or as she describes it herself: “By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty – which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it . . . the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years” (Williams 527). Blanche evidently pretended that nothing had happened but later told the boy that she had seen it and that he disgusted her. He ran away and committed suicide. What is the significance of this chain of events? Some critics say that Blanche Dubois is really too much of a woman to be believable. Her movements, speech and wardrobe seem so extravagantly feminine that it has even been indicated that she is almost a drag queen, a vulgar imitation of a woman but not really a woman. She does not seem to be really sexual but rather asexual. In her article “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” lesbian feminist Judith Butler claims that “[ . . . ] drag is not an imitation or a copy of some prior or true gender simply because there is no “proper” gender or a gender proper to one sex rather than another”. Blanche might therefore be interpreted as kind of disturbance in the otherwise clear-cut world of categorized genders and sexual orientations. She is somehow de-gendered. Blanche can be seen as representing both the homosexual element and the homophobic at the same time. Perhaps this is why some have claimed that Blanche represents Williams himself and his own guilt-ridden homophobia. The homosexual male aspect is then expressed by her over-the-top femininity (meant to cover the homosexual maleness but not succeeding) and the homophobic aspect by her disgust at witnessing the homosexual sex of the two men. When Blanche’s gay boy-husband then kills himself as a result of her homophobia, Williams has in fact become an accomplice in his own symbolic destruction as a homosexual and the boy’s suicide reflects a self-destructive force derived perhaps from the frustration with being homosexual. Furthermore it is obvious that even though Blanche has aged, her taste for the young male has not been altered. She was fired from her teaching post because of an indecent relationship with a student and she blatantly flirts with and kisses a young man that knocks on the door. After kissing him she exclaims: “Now run along, now, quickly! It would be nice to keep you, but I’ve got to be good – and keep my hands off children” (Williams 520). This could (obviously) be interpreted as Williams’ own guilt-ridden attraction to younger men. If this is the case, the conclusion is that Blanche is not simply a woman’s parody of a woman, but a man’s parody of a woman’s parody of a woman! Whether the gay-lesbian element has been interpreted into ridiculous depths here will not be debated any further at this point but the whole idea of homosexuality in Williams’ plays is without a doubt a very interesting subject. Conclusion Tennessee Williams was a master playwright. This came about not only because of his immense interest in the atmosphere, lighting and techniques of the theatre, but also because of the ingredients in his plays and how he worked his way through them. Despite everything else that might have been mentioned above, perhaps the most important theme in his plays is that of entrapment or confinement of some sort. The characters in his plays are very often marked by this paralysing fear of entrapment. This feeling is overwhelming in A Streetcar Named Desire where almost all the characters are stuck in an impossible situation that they cannot get out of. The way in which he presents to the audience/reader, these little moments of importance, these flashes of truth in human nature, is truly awe-inspiring. As Matthew C. Roudané says: Ultimately Williams would become less secret about his life and art, and his exultations less clear of purpose, but he worked assiduously in creating poetic stage moments, moments in which social fact, psychological collapse, and eroticized encounter form a still point in which the imagination, itself, becomes the last refuge for his fated characters (Roudané I).Blanche Dubois is without a doubt one of Williams’ most memorable characters for a variety of reasons. She is one woman and at the same time many women. She is a classic Southern belle, a loving sister, is a schoolteacher, a flirt, a widow, a whore, a nuisance, all in one package. She is also one of these sadly fated characters that Roudané speaks of. She has passed her prime and her concern is more with mortality than actual sexuality although she exploits the latter to manipulate those around her. The audience somehow knows from the start that she is doomed for destruction but how the audience can sense that lies perhaps in the genius with which Williams created her. She is like a moth attracted to a flame and (since Williams had such a flare for the symbolic) when she covers up the lantern with a paper shade that might be seen as a symbolic effort to avoid the inevitable. But is she really a woman’s parody of a woman? Does not that sentence in itself indicate a preconceived view of what a woman is or should be? One would think it necessary to have a clear definition of what a woman is in order to make such an assumption. Maybe Blanche is after all a true woman; unlike any other women perhaps, but still a woman.
Bibliography
Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination”. Kyn, bókmenntir og heimspeki. Comp. Geir Svansson. Reykjavík: Háskóli Íslands, 1999.Gross, Elizabeth. “What is Feminist Theory?” Knowing Women. Ed. Helen Crowley and Susan Himmelweit. Milton Keynes: Polity Press in association with The Open University, 1992.Heath, Stephen. “Joan Riviere and the Masquerade”. Bókmenntir og kynjafræði 05.42.47 – 030. Ed. Dagný Kristjánsdóttir. Reykjavík: Prentgarður, Háskólafjölritun, 2003.Londré, Felicia Hardison. “A streetcar running fifty years”. The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams. Ed. Matthew C. Roudané. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1997.Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. [1881]. New York: Vintage Books, 1974, 317.Roudané, Matthew C., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1997.Williams, Tennessee. Plays 1937-1955: A Streetcar Named Desire. U.S.A., The Library of America, 2000. Film Referred To: A Streetcar Named Desire. Director: Elia Kazan. Starring: Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh and others. Warner Studios, 1951.
Í gylltum sólargeisla sigurofnum
stoltir foreldrar í sælu fagna ögn.
Gleðiloga í brennandi trúarglóð
kveikir gulleldur ástarbáls ævióð.
Í roðagylltu skauti lífslindar ljúft
lifir vissa um eilífðargöngu sálar.
Ef mamma tárast eða kímir glatt
undrakrílið í samhyggð tekur þátt.
Um tíma ósýnileg sál í elskuhreiðri
unaðar í kyrrð og yl vex og dafnar.
Með von og vísi að ævisögu í anda
veraldar einbúans af hug og hjarta.
Nú er lítil stjarna í örmum foreldra
umvafin ljómandi kærleiksneistum.
Í okkar veröld með undrun og spurn
opnar lífstakt ævintýraþels framtíðar.
Höf. Jóna Rúna Kvaran Ort 11-9-2004
A Literary Analysis of Tennessee Williams’ Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire
Nína Rúna Kvaran 6th April 2004
Introduction
The theme of man against woman and vice versa, whether it be in a sexual, social, or genderized form, is as old as human kind and has perhaps never been as prominent as nowadays, in the modern world of education, female liberation and sexuality. It is amazing to brief through the literary history of the Western world and see how the concept and literary treatment of woman has developed from being almost absent, to being there but limited to certain “feminine” spheres, to being almost as visible as man in all aspects literary, social, and sexual. The theatrical world has in the recent years been bomb shelled with plays concerning the relations between men and women, sexuality and scrutinizing of the traditional roles of gender. Although feminist theory did not really start to become clearly visible until in the sixties, exploration of femininity and feminine sexuality had long since started with the likes of Sigmund Freud. But when it came to the literary world, although being abundant with female characters, authors were not commonly diving into the deep end and exploring subjects and topic matters such as sexuality, different sexual orientations and the purpose of gender based roles. One exception from this was of course American playwright, Tennessee Williams. Being one of the most influential playwrights from the period of the middle of the twentieth century, Williams went into territories that most authors of his time had not dared venture. As editor Matthew C. Roudané says in his introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams on Williams’ creative world:Within such a paradoxical world Williams succeeded in expanding the boundaries of theatricality itself, combining a lyricism and experimentalism that has revolutionized American drama after World War II (i).Whether it is due to Williams’ own homosexuality, the fact that his beloved sister was severely mentally ill, or simply out of his immense intellect and creativity, it is clear that in his works are to be found many of the most memorable female characters the theatrical stage has seen. One of these is of course Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire. In this essay the intention is to examine and analyse briefly the above-mentioned character from the viewpoint of feminist, Freudian and gay theories in the context of whether Blanche can be considered a woman’s parody of a woman. Feminist Theory According to Elizabeth Gross in her article “What is Feminist Theory?” as feminist theory came to be, it was clear that the purpose was to elevate women from the status of either being ignored by patriarchal discourses or being treated with a hostile or aggressive attitude by them. It is certainly obvious that Tennessee Williams did not ignore women in his works but rather focused immensely on them. Blanche Dubois is the main character of A Streetcar Named Desire but whether she is really a protagonist of the play is hard to say. She does seem to cause more trouble than anything else and due to her entrance into the lives of Stella and Stanley, everything becomes dishevelled and out of order. In Elia Kazan’s eponymous movie from 1951, Stanley (Marlon Brando) was made out to be the protagonist of the story rather than Blanche who then could be seen as the root of all his troubles. This could also be interpreted as clear chauvinism on the part of the filmmakers, since this is not such a clear-cut case in the original text itself and a portrayal of Blanche as an almost parasitic nuisance is a good example of the hostile and aggressive attitude mentioned above. When looking at Blanche through the eye of feminist theory, her character does work as a two-edged sword. In some ways she challenges the patriarchal view and masculine power, but in other ways she encourages it. It seems that in most of Tennessee Williams’ plays, there is the presence of a dominant, male character. Usually this is a middle-aged man, forceful and in need to dominate the world. Albeit not exactly middle-aged, the character of Stanley falls into this category and from the moment Blanche arrives on the scene, she is in battle with him. She sees Stanley as an animal-like brute and openly expresses this view:He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There’s even something – sub-human – something not quite to the stages of humanity yet! Yes, something – ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I’ve seen in – anthropological studies! (Williams 510)It is clear that Blanche considers Stanley to be the ultimate, masculine brute and power figure and she is determined to fight against his tyranny and for her sister Stella’s affection. This in itself can be viewed as a feminine protest against patriarchal authority but the methodology that Blanche uses prevents one from seeing her as a feminist heroine. She firstly tries to flirt with Stanley and this turns out to be catastrophic. She not only fails to manipulate him as she perhaps expected to be able to do, she also is later raped by him, although whether that is a definite result of her coquettish behaviour, is hard to say. By flirting, Blanche is essentially doing two things. She is trying to appeal to Stanley’s sexuality as a man, and is therefore, obviously putting on a show. She is pretending to be a woman that he might desire sexually; a clear case of a woman’s parody of a certain type woman. She is also creating a kind of prelude to the almost inevitable rape scene. As is revealed, Blanche is not unaccustomed to men and she feels as if she can analyse their type rather easily. If this is so, she should have known that a “brute” such as Stanley would not be manipulated by her flirting but rather led into the idea of having sexual relations with her, as he later so forcefully does. Could she have prevented the rape or is it fair to say that she played her own part in creating a foundation for it to take place on? Perhaps she never stood a chance against Stanley because she exactly miscalculated his intelligence by almost immediately looking down on him. The second fact that prevents one from seeing Blanche as a feminist character is that when she realizes the extent of Stanley’s crudeness and physical power over Stella and herself, she immediately seeks help from another male source. Felicia Hardison Londré has duly noted this in her article “A streetcar running fifty years”: [ . . . ] although Blanche regards Stella’s husband as a brutal predator, her first impulse is to turn to another man as saviour. There is a subtle irony in her reflexive reversion to the Southern Belle’s habits of thought – that is, emotional dependence on a patriarchal system of male protection for the helpless female (56). Even Blanche herself in her famous last line: “Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” (Williams 563), admits her own inability to stand on her own as an independent woman. But perhaps this is just another parade of lies because her past, both as a caretaker of the dying at Belle Reve and a guest at the notorious Hotel Flamingo, suggests otherwise. The Freudian View As most know, Freud is the father of modern day psychoanalysis and his, at the time, outrageously provocative theories, have seeped into almost every genre imaginable in the modern world. Literature is not excluded from that. His categorizing of women as being practically tormented by the lack of something only belonging to men (the symbolic or literal lack of a penis or phallic envy) has been torn to pieces by later day feminists who find the notion to be thoroughly insulting since women do have their own “equipment” that is perfectly equivalent in quality to that of men’s. Perhaps it stands more to reason to try to see Freud’s theory as purely symbolic, so that the meaning becomes that women desire not literally a male penis, but the power and status associated with those that do possess that organ. Freud was especially interested in analysing the so-called “hysteria” of women and he had a special interest in women that were of an intellectual kind, or perhaps of what he considered to be a more masculine cast. These were women he claimed to have no erotic attraction for, but that surrounded him at various times in his life. One of these was Joan Riviere, a highly intellectual woman and a psychoanalyst herself. Her article “Womanliness as a Masquerade” which was published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1929 is an analytic writing on female sexuality. The article itself is very straightforward and focuses mostly on women that wish for masculinity but as a result put on a mask of womanliness, for fear of retribution from men and anxiety. Riviere develops her theory from a case regarding a highly successful and intellectual woman who, after public engagements, seeks reassurance from men in the form of sexual attention:To speak broadly, analysis of her behaviour after her performances showed that she was attempting to obtain sexual advances from the particular type of men by means of flirting and coquetting with them in a more or less veiled manner (Riviere 36).Blanche Dubois seems to be exactly that kind of masquerading woman. She puts on a show at all times, and especially around men. As mentioned before, she flirts with Stanley and tries to convince him that she possesses a kind of innocent nature of a true lady. Obviously, she fails miserably in this, as Stanley, despite his brutish behaviour, sees right through her act from the beginning. He immediately suspects her of losing Belle Reve and squandering the family fortune. He soon discovers the truth about her stay at the Hotel Flamingo, where she presumably prostituted herself to survive and she does not fool him at all. But he nevertheless feels threatened by Blanche. She invades the privacy of his home, steals the attention of his wife and prevents him from enjoying private moments with her. In the case of Stanley, Blanche does intimidate him, but she cannot fool him and therefore her parody of an idealistic woman, fails her.As Riviere explains, in a masquerade, a woman mimics an authentic – genuine – womanliness and Blanche seems at first to be doing a much better job of this in her relationship with Mitch rather than Stanley. Mitch is fascinated by her understanding of his intimate connection to his sick mother and seems quite enthralled by her lady-like composure. But as Blanche openly admits to her own sister, she is putting on an act once again: “What I mean is – he thinks I’m sort of prim and proper, you know! (She laughs out sharply) I want to deceive him enough to make him – want me. . .” (Williams 517). But to show Blanche a bit of fairness it is necessary to mention that Riviere does question the actual authenticity of the so-called “authentic womanliness”. In fact, to Riviere, it is almost as much of a deception and mimicry as the woman’s masquerade because to be a woman is to dissimulate a fundamental masculinity and femininity is that dissimilation. So how much of Blanche’s behaviour is deliberate deception and how much is simply a pure necessity derived from being female? Nietzsche makes this abundantly clear in The Gay Science:Finally, women. Reflect on the whole history of women: do they not have to be first of all and above all else actresses? Listen to physicians who have hypnotized women; finally, love them – let yourself be ‘hypnotized by them’! What is always the end result? That they put on something even when they take off everything. Woman is so artistic (317). The Gay Perspective Though many critics do not agree with analysing works based upon the actual lives of the authors, it can sometimes be useful to realize certain facts about the author’s life. Nobody can write a creative work of fiction if its subject matter is completely unknown to the author. The result would without a doubt be very unconvincing. Tennessee Williams was an extremely autobiographical writer and the theme of his sister Laura and his relationship with her is obvious in some of his plays as for example Glass Menagerie. It is a well-known fact that Tennessee Williams was gay and it is obvious that although limited by the boundaries of the time period he lived in, Williams did subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) refer to homosexuality in a number of his plays. A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those plays. Some have claimed that characters such as Stanley, represented the kind of masculinity Williams himself was attracted to. Whether this is true or false will not be debated here but it certainly is very clear that Stanley is a rather exaggerated male character. He is extremely narcissistic, dominating, and aggressive but above all this, he has no respect for women at all. His rude remarks and violent behaviour towards the women that were a consequence of him not being immediately obeyed at the poker game, shows clearly that he feels women are inferior. Could it be that Williams deliberately made Stanley so extremely chauvinist in order to let him represent a sort of extreme homosexual view of female hatred? Whether the creation of Stanley is in any way connected to Williams’ own homosexuality, is a matter of opinion since the evidence is rather vague. But there are definitely other aspects in the play that are obviously connected to gayness.Blanche’s very young husband committed suicide and it is rather freely indicated that she was responsible for this tragedy. She discovered him in bed with an older man or as she describes it herself: “By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty – which wasn’t empty, but had two people in it . . . the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years” (Williams 527). Blanche evidently pretended that nothing had happened but later told the boy that she had seen it and that he disgusted her. He ran away and committed suicide. What is the significance of this chain of events? Some critics say that Blanche Dubois is really too much of a woman to be believable. Her movements, speech and wardrobe seem so extravagantly feminine that it has even been indicated that she is almost a drag queen, a vulgar imitation of a woman but not really a woman. She does not seem to be really sexual but rather asexual. In her article “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” lesbian feminist Judith Butler claims that “[ . . . ] drag is not an imitation or a copy of some prior or true gender simply because there is no “proper” gender or a gender proper to one sex rather than another”. Blanche might therefore be interpreted as kind of disturbance in the otherwise clear-cut world of categorized genders and sexual orientations. She is somehow de-gendered. Blanche can be seen as representing both the homosexual element and the homophobic at the same time. Perhaps this is why some have claimed that Blanche represents Williams himself and his own guilt-ridden homophobia. The homosexual male aspect is then expressed by her over-the-top femininity (meant to cover the homosexual maleness but not succeeding) and the homophobic aspect by her disgust at witnessing the homosexual sex of the two men. When Blanche’s gay boy-husband then kills himself as a result of her homophobia, Williams has in fact become an accomplice in his own symbolic destruction as a homosexual and the boy’s suicide reflects a self-destructive force derived perhaps from the frustration with being homosexual. Furthermore it is obvious that even though Blanche has aged, her taste for the young male has not been altered. She was fired from her teaching post because of an indecent relationship with a student and she blatantly flirts with and kisses a young man that knocks on the door. After kissing him she exclaims: “Now run along, now, quickly! It would be nice to keep you, but I’ve got to be good – and keep my hands off children” (Williams 520). This could (obviously) be interpreted as Williams’ own guilt-ridden attraction to younger men. If this is the case, the conclusion is that Blanche is not simply a woman’s parody of a woman, but a man’s parody of a woman’s parody of a woman! Whether the gay-lesbian element has been interpreted into ridiculous depths here will not be debated any further at this point but the whole idea of homosexuality in Williams’ plays is without a doubt a very interesting subject. Conclusion Tennessee Williams was a master playwright. This came about not only because of his immense interest in the atmosphere, lighting and techniques of the theatre, but also because of the ingredients in his plays and how he worked his way through them. Despite everything else that might have been mentioned above, perhaps the most important theme in his plays is that of entrapment or confinement of some sort. The characters in his plays are very often marked by this paralysing fear of entrapment. This feeling is overwhelming in A Streetcar Named Desire where almost all the characters are stuck in an impossible situation that they cannot get out of. The way in which he presents to the audience/reader, these little moments of importance, these flashes of truth in human nature, is truly awe-inspiring. As Matthew C. Roudané says: Ultimately Williams would become less secret about his life and art, and his exultations less clear of purpose, but he worked assiduously in creating poetic stage moments, moments in which social fact, psychological collapse, and eroticized encounter form a still point in which the imagination, itself, becomes the last refuge for his fated characters (Roudané I).Blanche Dubois is without a doubt one of Williams’ most memorable characters for a variety of reasons. She is one woman and at the same time many women. She is a classic Southern belle, a loving sister, is a schoolteacher, a flirt, a widow, a whore, a nuisance, all in one package. She is also one of these sadly fated characters that Roudané speaks of. She has passed her prime and her concern is more with mortality than actual sexuality although she exploits the latter to manipulate those around her. The audience somehow knows from the start that she is doomed for destruction but how the audience can sense that lies perhaps in the genius with which Williams created her. She is like a moth attracted to a flame and (since Williams had such a flare for the symbolic) when she covers up the lantern with a paper shade that might be seen as a symbolic effort to avoid the inevitable. But is she really a woman’s parody of a woman? Does not that sentence in itself indicate a preconceived view of what a woman is or should be? One would think it necessary to have a clear definition of what a woman is in order to make such an assumption. Maybe Blanche is after all a true woman; unlike any other women perhaps, but still a woman.
Bibliography
Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination”. Kyn, bókmenntir og heimspeki. Comp. Geir Svansson. Reykjavík: Háskóli Íslands, 1999.Gross, Elizabeth. “What is Feminist Theory?” Knowing Women. Ed. Helen Crowley and Susan Himmelweit. Milton Keynes: Polity Press in association with The Open University, 1992.Heath, Stephen. “Joan Riviere and the Masquerade”. Bókmenntir og kynjafræði 05.42.47 – 030. Ed. Dagný Kristjánsdóttir. Reykjavík: Prentgarður, Háskólafjölritun, 2003.Londré, Felicia Hardison. “A streetcar running fifty years”. The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams. Ed. Matthew C. Roudané. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1997.Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. [1881]. New York: Vintage Books, 1974, 317.Roudané, Matthew C., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 1997.Williams, Tennessee. Plays 1937-1955: A Streetcar Named Desire. U.S.A., The Library of America, 2000. Film Referred To: A Streetcar Named Desire. Director: Elia Kazan. Starring: Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh and others. Warner Studios, 1951.
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