Modern: Tennessee Williams - A Street Car Named Desire

• Born in Columbus Mississippi in 1911
• Born as Thomas Lanier Williams III
• Tennessee was a nickname from college
• honor of his southern accent and his father's home state
• 1918 the family moved to St. Louis
• The family moved 16 times in 10 years.
• Williams was shy/fragile, ostracized and taunted in school (bullied)

• At 16 Years of age, won a prize in national writing competition
• "Can a good wife be a good sport?"
• Published in Smart Set magazine
• Attended the University of Missouri to study journalism
• Worked at a Shoe Factory for 3 years
• minor breakdown
• This was the cause to return him to college.
• Attended Washington University in St. Louis
• Eventually dropped out but enrolled at the University of Iowa
• Graduated in 1938
• St. Louis theater group produced two of his plays The Fugitive Kind and Candles to the Sun.
• Plays influenced by members of southern literary renaissance
• Robert Penn Warren, William Faulkner, Allen Tate, and Thomas Wolfe
• Received a Rockerfeller grant and studying playwriting at the New School in New York
• Officially changed his name to Tennessee Williams in 1939 after publication of "The Field of Blue Children
• Scriptwriter in Hollywood
• A Streetcar Named Desire premiered ~1952 at the Barrymore Theater in NYC
• Set in Contemporary times
• Describes the decline and fall of a fading Southern Belle named Blanche DuBois.
• The characters are trying to rebuild their lives in postwar America
• Stanley & Mitch served in the war
• Blanche had affairs with young solders
• Cemented Williams's reputation 
• garnered him a Drama Critics' Circle Award
• Pulitzer Prize
• Received another Drama Critic's award and Pulitzer for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955
• Pathos found in his drama stemmed from his own life
• Alcoholism, depression, thwarted desire, loneliness, insanity
• Female characters
• modeled after Edwina and Rose
• Male characters
• modeled after his own father
• Setting of the plays were in the South
• Themes rendered Universal so he was able to appeal to international audiences
• Early plays connected with new American taste for realism following the Depression and WWII.
• Died in 1983
• Choked on a medicine-bottle cap
• Alcohol involved
• Elysée Hotel in NYC
• 25 full length plays (5 made into movies)
• 5 screen plays
• 71+ one-act plays
• hundreds of short stories
• two novels
• Poetry
• a Memoir

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• Epigraph
• Taken from a Hart Crane poem entitled "The Broken Tower."
• Blanche Dubois arrives at the New Orleans apartment of her sister Stella Kowalski
• school teacher from Laurel, MS
• Given leave notice due to bad nerves
• Heavy drinker
• Plans to stay with sister for unspecified amount of time.
• Tells Stella she lost Belle Reve
• Their ancestral home
• Lost due to Foreclosure
• Hates the cramped quarters of the Kowalski's two-room apartment
• noisy, diverse, working-class neighborhood.
• Stella's husband - Stanley
• auto-parts supply man
• Polish Decent
• Distrusts Blance
• Stella
• left behind social pretensions of her background in exchange for sexual gratification she gets from her husband.
• Pregnant with Stanley's baby
• Blanche tries to convince Stella to leave Stanley for a better man who is her social equal.
• Suggests assistance from Millionaire Shep Huntleigh 
• Stella laughs; Blanche admits she's completely broke.
• Stanley walks in as Blanche is making fun of him. 
• He hears the secret conversation of Blanche and Stella.
• Threatens Blanche with hints that he has heard rumors of her disreputable past.
• Unhappiness that accompanies the animal magnetism of Stella & Stanley's marriage reveals itself with a drunk poker game.
• Blanche gets under Stanley's skin
• Wins the affections of his close friend Mitch
• Stanley throws the radio out of the room
• Stanley beats Stella for defending Blanche
• Blanche and Stella escape to Eunice's apartment.
• Stella returns to Stanley and embraces him passionately
• Mitch meets Blanche to comfort her.
• Paperboy shows up one night for money.
• Blanche doesn't have money so hits on him and gives him a lustful kiss.
• Blanche is uneasy for the rumors Stanley mentioned.
• Blanche reveals greatest tragedy of her past to Mitch.
• Years ago her young husband committed suicide after she discovered and chastised him for his homosexuality
• Mitch describes his own loss of a former love
• Tells Blanche they need each other.
• A month has passed
• Afternoon of Blanche's Birthday
• Stella is preparing dinner for Blanche, Mitch, and Stanley
• Stanley tells Stella the news of Blanche's sordid past
• Blanche moved into a fleabag motel after losing DuBois mansion
• evicted because of numerous sexual liaisons
• Affairs with teenage student
• fired from job
• Stella is horrified to learn Stanley has told Mitch these stories.
• Birthday dinner comes and goes; Mitch never arrives
• Stanley indicates to Blanche he is aware of her past
• Gives her a one-way ticket back to Laurel
• Stella is upset with cruelty and appears that they might break up
• Onset Labor disrupts that.
• Stanley returns from hospital to find Blanche drunk.
• She tells him she will be leaving New Orleans with her former suitor Shep Huntleigh
• Stanley knows this is untrue but is happy about his baby so proposes to celebrate their good fortune
• A fight almost breaks out
• When Blanche tries to step past Stanley, he refuses to move.
• Blanche becomes terrified that she smashes a bottle on the table
• threatens to smash Stanley in the face
• Stanley says it's time for the date they've had set up since she came into town
• Blanche resists, Stanley uses physical strength to overcome her
• Pulsing music indicates that Stanley rapes Blanche.
• Blanche sits in an empty apartment drunk
• Mitch shoes up and repeats all he has learned from Stanley.
• Blanche confesses the stories are true; reveals need for human affection after husband's death
• Mitch can never marry her
• Mitch tries to have sex with Blanche but she forces him to leave by yelling "Fire
• Weeks Pass
• Stella and Eunice pack Blanche's bags
• Blanche is in the bath, Stanley playing poker with his buddies
• A doctor will soon arrive to take Blanche to an insane asylum
• Blanche believes she is leaving to join her millionaire
• Stella can't believe Blanche's assertion that Stanley raped her.
• Doctor and nurse arrive
• Blanche initially panics and struggles against them
• Eunice holds Stella back from interfering
• Mitch begins to cry
• Dr. convinces Blanche to leave with him.
• She does not look back or say good bye
• Stella sobs with her child in her arms
• Stanley comforts her with loving words and caresses