Southern Belle
To literally translate the term ‘Southern Belle’ its said
‘belle’ is derived from the French word belle, to mean 'beautiful.' A southern
Belle is a stock character representing a young woman of the American Deep
South's upper socioeconomic class. Some define them as coy, wilful, selfish,
and totally dependent on the men in their life. In reality the wealthy young
girls in the South 9Southern Belles) were generally well educated in the areas
of reading, writing, arithmetic, music, art, and the French language. Learning
to sew and do needlework were also an important part of their education since
the clothes were hand sewn back then. The purpose of their education was to
prepare them for an advantageous marriage.
New Orleans
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest
city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. New Orleans was founded
by the French May 7, 1718. The city itself is located in the South-East of
Louisiana right by the Mississippi river.
Immigration into
the USA during the 20th century
After the depression of the 1890s, immigration jumped from a
low of 3.5 million in that decade to a high of 9 million in the first decade of
the new century. Immigrants from Northern and Western Europe continued coming
as they had for three centuries, but in decreasing numbers. After the 1880s,
immigrants increasingly came from Eastern and Southern European countries, as well
as Canada and Latin America. By 1910, Eastern and Southern Europeans made up 70
percent of the immigrants entering the country. After 1914, immigration dropped
off because of the war, and later because of immigration restrictions imposed
in the 1920s.
Plays
Tennessee Williams has written 35 plays. And like them, he
was troubled and self-destructive, an abuser of alcohol and drugs. He was
awarded four Drama Critic Circle Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. His plays have a common, realistic theme.
Williams produces hard hitting truthful stories that don’t sugar cote real life
events to be something in the style of Hollywood. His work is hard hitting and
emotional, and that’s what was loved. He really showed lives how they were, and
he never avoided the unspoken truth.
Quotes:
{Blanche}:
“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but
the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”
“He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl.
When I was sixteen, I made the discovery - love. All at once and much, much too
completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding on something that had
always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. But I was
unlucky. Deluded.”
“They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and
transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at—Elysian
Fields!”
“There are thousands of papers, stretching back over
hundreds of years, affecting Belle Reve as, piece by piece, our improvident
grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their
epic fornications—to put it plainly! . . . The four-letter word deprived us of
our plantation, till finally all that was left—and Stella can verify that!—was
the house itself and about twenty acres of ground, including a graveyard, to
which now all but Stella and I have retreated.”
{Stanley}:
"Pig—Polak—disgusting—vulgar—greasy!—them kind of words have been on your [Stella's] tongue and your sister's too much around here! What do you two think you are? A pair of queens?" (8.14)
"Stell, it's gonna be all right after she [Blanche] goes and after you've had the baby. It's gonna be all right again between you and me the way it was. You remember that way that it was? Them nights we had together? God, honey, it's gonna be sweet when we can make noise in the night the way that we used to and get the colored lights going with nobody's sister behind the curtains to hear us!" (8.55)
{GENERAL NOTES AND SUMMARY}
Rising action · Blanche immediately rouses the suspicion of Stanley, who (wrongly) suspects Blanche of swindling Stella out of her inheritance. Blanche grows to despise Stanley when she sees him drunkenly beat her pregnant sister. Stanley permanently despises Blanche after he overhears her trying to convince Stella to leave Stanley because he is common. Already suspicious of Blanche’s act of superiority, Stanley researches Blanche’s past. He discovers that in Laurel Blanche was known for her sexual promiscuity and for having an affair with a teenage student. He reports his findings to Blanche’s suitor, Mitch, dissuading Mitch from marrying Blanche.
Climax · After Stanley treats Blanche cruelly during her birthday dinner, giving her a bus ticket back to Laurel as a present, Stella goes into labor. She and Stanley depart for the hospital, leaving Blanche alone in the house. Mitch arrives, drunk, and breaks off his relationship with Blanche. Blanche, alone in the apartment once more, drowns herself in alcohol and dreams of an impossible rescue. Stanley returns to the apartment from the hospital and rapes Blanche.
Falling action · Weeks after the rape, Stella secretly prepares for Blanche’s departure to an insane asylum. She tells her neighbor Eunice that she simply couldn’t believe Blanche’s accusation that Stanley raped her. Unaware of reality, Blanche boasts that she is leaving to join a millionaire suitor. When the doctor arrives, Blanche leaves after a minor struggle, and only Stella and Mitch, who sits in the kitchen with Stanley’s poker players, seem to express real remorse for her.
Themes · Fantasy’s inability to overcome reality; the relationship between sex and death; dependence on men
