Keywords: plastic theater streetcar, streetcar known as desire plastic
1. Introduction
"I don't want realism. [. . . ] I want [. . . ] magic!" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 130)
It is Blanche DuBois who expresses this quotation in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. In this particular drama from 1947, two worlds, embodied by both personas of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, clash. That issue between realism and a romantic view of things is visible through the entire play, increasing from landscape to world, and reaches its maximum in Stanley's rape of Blanche in Field Ten. After that suppression of the romanticism and with Blanche heading to the asylum, one might think that the realistic perspective triumphs, however in my opinion her leaving and her behaving, still relying on the "kindness of strangers" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 159), causes the impression of your success of her dream world. She just "escapes from the demonic evening world and completes the pattern of romance" (Thompson 28). But I don't feel that her illusions win over Stanley's realism, as she actually is "an enchanting protagonist committed to the ideal but residing in the modern age, a shattered world" (Holditch 147).
In Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, things aren't always called by their brands, but he creates a feeling of indirectness. Using telling labels and special behaviour of the personas, he caricatures a truth behind things. However, this is not limited to the protagonists and their quotations, but also concerns the play itself, like the stage directions. The sensation of hidden truths is reinforced by effects and motifs, for example the adoption of light and music or the gestures of the celebrities. This realization of any play on a level is called the "Plastic Theatre", as the audience gets more included through the use of different senses. This contributes to a stunning impression of the emotions and thoughts of the protagonists. Williams himself created the word of the "Vinyl Theatre" in his production notes to The Goblet Menagerie. There he writes in regards to a "conception of a fresh, plastic theater which must replace the exhausted theater of sensible conventions if the theater is to resume vitality as part of our culture" (Williams, Goblet Menagerie 4).
2. Definitions
To provide a sturdy basis for the next thoughts concerning the different characters of any Streetcar Called Desire and their factors of view, I wish to introduce and describe the two terms of "realism" and "romanticism" briefly. Both of them can been seen as epochs in American Literature, but I just want to concentrate on the general statement. In addition, I wish to expose more info about the thought of the "Plastic Theatre".
2. 1. Realism
In the Longman Dictionary of Modern English, realism is referred to as "accepting and working with life and its own problems in a useful way, without being influenced by emotions or fake ideas". This means that one requires things as they are, evaluating situations only with the aid of the obvious facts, not counting on false expectations or pursuing non-realistic ideals. The human reason has, from an authentic viewpoint, an increased value and it is more important than feelings or spontaneous impressions.
2. 2. Romanticism
The romantic perspective is as opposed to the realistic one. Romanticism is related to "highly imaginative or impractical" (Longman Dictionary, "Romantic. ") attitudes, admiring ideals which are not reasonable or even unachievable. In romanticism, emotions and emotions are stated greater than rational thinking and real human reason, not only in the framework of love issues, but also in the form of dealing with situations and problems. Impressions are not based on visible facts, but on ideal conceptions, and these conceptions might be sometimes quite fictional or utopian.
2. 3. The Plastic Theatre
"To express his universal truths Williams created what he termed plastic material theater, a distinctive new style of episode. He insisted that setting up, properties, music, sound, and visual results - all the components of staging - must combine to reflect and enhance the action, theme, individuals, and words" (Griffin 22).
Like Griffin, many creators, including Tennessee Williams himself, tried out to clarify the Plastic Theatre, but it was barely discussed in public areas. After he proven the idea of the Plastic Theatre in the creation notes towards the A glass Menagerie, Williams never publicly reviewed it again. But from that moment on, his has were very theatrical, with lyrical and poetic dialect, his scenic information "draw on metaphors from the world of skill and painting" and with quite symbolic use of audio and light (Kramer).
3. A Streetcar Named Desire: THE REALITY Behind Things
In Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire, the audience gets the impression that fact is not just mentioned within the text, but between your lines. The heroes are often explained better through their patterns and gestures than through their real quotations. From landscape to scene it gets clearer that Blanche and Stanley are embodiments of two very contrasting viewpoints of life: extreme romanticism and down-to-earth realism. That is also obvious through different symbolic motifs, which emerge various times in the play. Linked to an extremely evocative use of music and light and many telling names right from the start on, the whole play seems conspicuously allusive.
3. 1. Romanticism and Realism in a very Streetcar Called Desire
We are offered inside a Streetcar Named Desire with "two polar means of taking a look at experience: the practical view of Stanley Kowalski and the 'non-realistic' view of his sister-in-law, Blanche DuBois" (Kernan 17). Williams brings both views into turmoil immediately.
3. 1. 1. Blanche DuBois as the Intimate Protagonist
When the audience fits Blanche, her appearance is described as "incongruous to this setting up" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 8). In Arena One she arrives at the Elysian Areas, where her sister Stella and her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski live. Her clothes are white and fluffy, looking very fragile and "as though she were coming to a summer season tea or cocktail party in the garden area" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 9). She actually is very surprised about the habitation of her sister and message or calls it a "horrible place" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 13). The audience is confronted instantly with her deranged self-awareness, as she asks Stella to carefully turn the "merciless" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 13) light off, because she does not want to be viewed in the glowing light. This tendencies is visible through the entire play. Blanche always tries to avoid over-light and glare. Her vanity about her looks is also exceptional in the manner Blanche presents her body to her sister, doing some fishing for compliments and stating that she's the same number as she experienced ten years in the past. (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 18). She often suggests very affectionate quotations through the whole play, e. g. concerning the very sky where she "ought to go [] over a rocket that never comes down" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 44).
When the partnership between Blanche and Mitch, a pal of Stanley, becomes more close, the audience gets the feeling of Blanche's passionate conception. She calling him her "Rosenkavalier" and wants him to bow, similar to the gentlemen in the Old South would do (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 90). Although she was committed once, she attempts to react like she would be untouched and a virgin, which she is naturally not. When Mitch says that he cannot understand France, she asks "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?" (Would you like to have sex with me tonight?) (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 95). The information about her history, that she possessed a lot of men in a hotel called the "Flamingo", and just how she speaks about her relationship with Mitch, that she will not love him, but just want a man with whom she can relax, brings certainty for the audience.
So Blanche's personality can be described as a very affectionate one. For her, outwardness is vital, and to appear very fragile and pure she actually is not scared of telling lies. She actually is a fake, a person who likes to be much better than she actually is, residing in a fantasy world which has nothing in connection with the true life. "Already destroyed by [] the harsh realities of disease and fatality, Blanche's Romanticism is reduced in some occasions to nothing more than sentimentality" (Holditch 155).
3. 1. 2. Stanley Kowalski as the Realistic Protagonist
Stanley Kowalski seems as the embodiment of an "real man", against or ignorant of the transcendent, very sexual and physical. When the audience gets in touch with him for the very first time, he carries a package of beef and throws it to his better half Stella. He's described as "strongly, compactly built. Animal happiness in his being is implicit in all his activities and behaviour" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 24). His relationship to his wife is an extremely sexual one, as Stanley snacks his wife in a very physical way and Stella state governments that she is very attracted to him. When Blanche leaves to the asylum and Stella cries, he consoles her by coming in contact with in a intimate way (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 160), which is quality of their romantic relationship.
His view of things is an extremely practical one. When Blanche informs Stanley and Stella that she had lost the plantation with their parents, Belle Reve, Stanley feels that in truth she didn't lose it, but perhaps sold it and didn't give them their area of the money. For him, this might be an affront against himself, as the property of his partner Stella is his own, too. He believes Blanche bought rings, clothes like a "solid-gold dress" and "Fox-pieces" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 32) from the results of the plantation. The truth is, the furs are "inexpensive summer months furs" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 33) and the jewelry is wine glass. This mistake is "the oversight of the realist who trusts to literal appearance, to his senses by itself" (Kernan 18).
Stanley's view of things, the practical one, is one which works in the present day, destroyed world. He embodies this tough world with all its physical, material and erotic aspects. His strong appearance and his human being reason is all he needs to go along in real life.
3. 1. 3. Conflict between Romanticism and Realism
The two details of view clash right from the start of the play on until the end. Blanche embodies the romantic one, whereas Stanley means the realism.
"In the course of the play Williams handles to identify this realism with the harsh light of the naked electric bulb which Blanche includes with a Japanese lantern. It shows pitilessly every line in Blanche's face, every tawdry aspect of the place. And in only this way Stanley's pitiless and probing realism manages to expose every collection in Blanche's heart by slicing through all the smooth illusions with which she's covered herself" (Kernan 18).
Kernan clarifies very descriptive the relationship between your two protagonists. Stanley does not treat Blanche with much respect, which is visible through the way he talks about her bathing and her way of dressing. But also Blanche comes with an aversion to him, getting in touch with him "sub-human - something not quite to the level of mankind yet" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 74). On her behalf, Stanley is a risk, because the guy can destroy her dream world and also to uncover her former and her real face. The discord increases from landscape to field and extends to its top in the rape of Blanche. Stanley has to verify his dominance and for that reason rapes her to power his reality on her. But she is not broken after the rape, she is just even deeper in her illusion world, which is shown incidentally she trusts the doctor, holding tight to his arm, still depending on "the kindness of strangers" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 159).
Finally the audience gets the impression that the "realistic perspective has the advantage of being workable. Blanche's charming way of taking a look at things, sensitive as it might be, has a fatal weakness: it exists only by ignoring certain positions of truth" (Kernan 18).
3. 2. The Vinyl Theatre inside a Streetcar Named Desire
Williams attempted to connect circumstances not only by the acting of the protagonists, but also through icons and various results. "The setting, lighting, props, costumes, sound effects, and music, combined with the play's dominant symbols, the bathtub and the light bulb, provide direct access to the private lives of the personas" (Corrigan 50). The countless telling names in the play give additional information and enforce the impression of your truth behind things. In the next subchapters I wish to discuss exemplary Blanche's bathing, the adoption of music and looks and the utilization of telling brands.
3. 2. 1. Blanche's Bathing
Blanche bathes very often in this play. She certainly wants to completely clean herself from her past. Following the bathing, she seems "all freshly [] and [] just like a brand new human being" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 35). Every time she is confronted with the true, brutal world, she wishes to flee in her desire world, which is highly linked with bathing. In Picture Three when the men have a Poker Night time and Stanley "provides loud whack of his side" on Stella's thigh, she instantly says "I think I will bathe" (Williams, Streetcar Called Desire 49). In Scene Seven, she bathes again, "little breathless cries and peals of laughter are observed as if a child were frolicking in the tub" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 110), while Stanley tells Stella about Blanche's recent and her affairs with a seventeen-year-old guy and many other men. The title of the track Blanche sings while bathing is It' Only a Newspaper Moon which is described as a "saccharine popular ballad which is employed contrapunctually with Stanley's talk" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 106). Especially the verse "- Nonetheless it wouldn't be make-believe If you assumed in me!" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 107) is very ironic, because Blanche will not seem very trusted at all, so the music even accentuates her disreputable history. After the rape, she bathes again in Picture Eleven and is very worried about her locks, as though the soap would not be completely beaten up.
The many baths in the play show that Blanche will never be achieved with bathing, because she actually is always confronted with real life and may not clean herself from her former. It gives her "a brand new outlook on life" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 115), but cannot change her life really.
3. 2. 2. Music and Sounds
The use of music and noises is also very theatrical in the play. The Blue Piano "expresses the spirit of the life span which goes on" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 6) and is always observed when the turmoil between real world and Blanche's dream world seems to increase. It is observed, for example, when Blanche finds Elysian Areas and grows up louder when she informs Stella about the loss of Belle Reve as well as when Stanley instructs her that Stella is going to have a baby. It also advises the fall of Blanche as it is bloating when Stanley rapes Blanche and later when he consoles Stella, who cries because of Blanche's leaving.
Another music, which is highly connected with Blanche's past, is the polka music. It will always be been told when Blanche discusses her dead spouse. It emerges for the very first time when Stanley mentions that Blanche was committed once (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 28). She instructs Mitch the storyplot about her husband's death, he taken himself after dance with Blanche in a gambling establishment. He was homosexual and she found out him with another man and said while dance he disgusted her (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 103) and therefore he taken himself. In addition, it shows up when Stanley gives Blanche a solution back again to Laurel where she resided and when he needs Stella to the hospital and Blanche remains in the toned. So the songs predicts Blanche's downfall, as it is always heard when she actually is haunted by her past.
3. 2. 3. Revealing Names
There are various sharing with names in Williams play. Blanche's name itself is quite telling, as "blanche" is French and means "white", which is very appropriate when looking at her persona. The name of her plantation, "Belle Reve" is also French, indicating "beautiful dream". Blanche behaves like she'd still reside in this fantasy, refusing to handle the truth and the real world.
There are many more telling labels, but I want to focus now on the perhaps most significant one, the "Streetcar Named Desire" as it is the title of the play. Blanche calls for the "streetcar called Desire" (Williams, Streetcar Named Desire 9) to access the apartment of the Kowalskis. That is very informing itself, as the audience finds out more and more about her history and that she leaved Laurel as a broken female somehow, but her prefer to live her life as a stylish, trustworthy and honest woman continues to be present. So she will try to live a, on her behalf, desirable life, and she dreams to realize that in New Orleans.
By the aid of the telling brands, which are obvious from the beginning of the play on, the utilization of music and the different symbols which show up often, it appears very theatrical and cheap. The audience gets the feeling of the personas and the circumstances in a variety of ways.
4. Conclusion
In Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, the discord between Romanticism and Realism, embodied by both protagonists Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski, is the major theme of the play. Using the characterization of the protagonists and the explanation of the conflict between them I could verify this thesis. Both of these persons are very polarized, obvious through their things of view, their behavior and gestures. But in the end, only one viewpoint is workable, namely the sensible one of Stanley. Blanche lives in her dream world, even in the long run after her rape. Stanley struggles to crush her, but she can only make it through in her passionate fantasy world, which causes the impression that she cannot are present in the present day age.
The Truth behind things in this play is also obvious through the "Plastic Theatre". Williams caricatured this concealed truth through music and sounds, icons and motifs, and revealing to titles. My notions about Blanche's bathing, the Blue Piano and the Polka in the play, and the showing titles were exemplary for this vinyl and sculptural theater, and for that reason I showed the existence of a real truth behind things and that the word of the "Plastic Theater" fits for just a Streetcar Named Desire.
