Genral 'A Streetcar NAmed Desire' notes

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 20^th 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}

Major conflict · Blanche DuBois, an aging Southern debutante, arrives at her sister’s home in New Orleans hoping to start a new life after losing her ancestral mansion, her job, and her reputation in her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi. Blanche’s brother-in-law, a macho working-class guy named Stanley Kowalski, is so filled with class resentment that he seeks to destroy Blanche’s character in New Orleans as well. His cruelty, combined with Blanche’s fragile, insecure personality, leaves her mentally detached from reality by the play’s end.

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

Short summary of Arthur Miller’s Introduction for ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’

From Miller’s introduction I understand that the Williams’ didn’t just create a play using everyday words, he produced the play from ‘language flowing from the soul’ this extensive and dramatic comparison really accentuates the way that the play spoke to people. We know that in the first showing of the play ‘the play and production had thrown open doors to another world of theatre.’ The high praise from this quote simply reassures the reader how simple ground breaking the performance was, it’s a work of art that ‘left one excited and elevated’.

Honestly I think his introduction could be cut short to only the last one and two and a half pages, however, the intence detail he went into with description only highlights the amazing depiction Williams used to form his words into this play formed from poetic lines.

Study notes 'Echo'

Eyes:

• The speaker asks that the lover comes back with ‘eyes as bright / As sunlight on a stream' (line 3). This image suggests both youthfulness and good, accurate vision. It also works to merge the beloved with the natural environment and convey ideas of reflection. 

The door:

• The speaker imagines that ‘in Paradise', all eyes are fixed on the ‘slow door' opening and letting in souls, which hints at the potential reunion of lovers
• Several of Rossetti's devotional poems, such as Despised and Rejected, use the image of the door to depict the entrance to heaven. However, in Revelation, the image of heaven that is given is one of security, rest and peace. 

Water:

• The stream - In addition to alluding to ideas of reflection, the description of the brightness of the lover's eyes as ‘sunlight on a stream' suggests tranquility, peace and movement. Just as a stream glimmers in the sun and runs towards a river or the sea, so too, does the speaker wish that his/her eyes would gleam brightly and move towards her
• Tears - The speaker asks that his/her lover would come back to his/her ‘in tears'. As well as expressing sorrow, tears can express deep, heart-felt emotion. The hope that the lover would come in tears suggests anticipation that s/he would demonstrate his passion and love by reciprocating and sharing in the speaker's sorrow
• Brimful - The speaker describes the souls in paradise as being ‘brimful of love'. The word brimful is usually associating with an overflow of water. By describing souls as overflowing with love, Rossetti may be drawing on the words that Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman as she drew water from a well, declaring that he himself is the Water of Life. He told her that, whereas everyone who drinks regular water will inevitably be thirsty again: ‘Those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life'. {John 4:14 TNIV}

The tone is one of longing throughout. From the first repetition of the word ‘come' to the final expression of desire that the speaker can breathe life back into the beloved, the speaker's attention is focused solely on his/her love. Longing is expressed through the repeated call to the beloved and language associated with desire.

Goblin Market Summary

Goblin Market

‘Goblin Market’ is a poem by Rossetti that was composed in 1859 and published in 1862. The poem its self has 567 lines and is Rossetti’s longest and most scrutinized poem. In general the poem is about a relationship between two sisters; however in developing a deeper understanding we can denote that the sisters, Lizzie and Laura, are a metaphor for the conscious and unconscious thoughts and desires of Victorian women.

Lizzie and Laura, portrayed as sisters, highlight the two sides to a Victorian woman. Lizzie is a representation of the domestic depiction women had, and Laura contrasts her sister as she speaks for the hidden and maybe unconscious desires women had of that time. Lizzie is seen as ‘The Angel of The Home’ and rather sensible and responsible because ‘She thrust dimpled finger, In each ear, shut eyes and ran:’ this makes her seem eager to follow the rules, seeing as they have been told to not see or hear the ‘Goblin Men.’ Laura is shown as the more rebellious side of the mind-set because “Curious Laura chose to linger.” This act of choosing to ‘linger’ lets us know that Laura is easily convinced and could be seen as guilty for being too inquisitive.

The ’Goblin Market’ is described to be dangerous, it is a place between day and night, filled with rich fruits that are the epitome of perfection. The fruits are on platters and are detailed to be full of beauty and colour, Rossetti’s uses fruits that are all seasoned at different of the year and grown in different locations, this add to the strange atmosphere set in this environment. For example “Plump unpecked cherries,” and “Pine-apples, blackberries,” are all examples of fruits that are seasoned at different times, which add's to the mystical and magical overall theme.

Critical analysis of critics of Rossetti

Kathryn Dorothy's brief synopsis and critical analysis of Christina Rossetti’s 'Goblin Market' takes an very basic approach to the poem. Dorothy has identified the relationship between the sisters to be Rossetti's main point of the poem, to express 'there is no love, that of a sister.' However, I feel as if Dorothy missed a major underlying meaning within the bond between Lizzie and Laura.

Dorothy mentions "The strong-willed Lizzie, in a desperate attempt to save her sister, returns to the goblin men that only she can now hear and offers to buy their fruit, although she adamantly refuses to join them at their feast. After bravely resisting the evil creatures’ attacks, during which her mouth and face are smeared with fruit juices, Lizzie makes her way home." Dorothy is keen to point out the clear and literal figures of the sister, and I believe that she missed metaphorical points.

I think Dorothy has taken a very surface read analysis rather than delving deeper into the meanings of the relationships and problems the two sisters face in the poem. I believe that within the sisters, there is a representation of Adam and Eve. From "Like two blossoms on one stem," you understand that there are many similarities between them physically. Mentally, they are opposites, from the way that Laura gave in so easily to the 'Goblin Men' and how Lizzie remained strong enough to save her sister. Within this I see Laura as a representation of Eve and how she also ate the forbidden fruit, causing the problems.

As Rossetti is a clear Anglican believer, I can denote from this that God and Christ, are hidden within her poetry, sometimes its clear to see the links, and sometimes it takes a more in depth look into the words and what they really mean. Dorothy mentions the religious background of Rossetti but she has almost addressed it to be looked past. For Rossetti, no love is purer than the love of Christ, therefore this precious bond between the two siblings has to be something more than just family, but a bond between, Adam and Eve and God and his children.

Dorothy's angle on the poem acknowledges "Rossetti’s devout Anglican upbringing, in which her mother and her sister played such intrinsic roles, probably made her shrink from the idea of the fulfillment of love. To the quiet and often clinically depressed Rossetti, this may have been a way of reconciling her love of man with her love of God." This remark, shows the consideration of Rossetti's Religious background but still, Dorothy remains loyal to the idea of the family bond and how that is the purest form of love and how important it is to share between siblings.

I do agree with most points Dorothy has made, I believe there is a bond between the sisters that is vital, because the determination there is to help the other sibling is a force that is immortal. However, I believe that the 'Goblin Men' are metaphorical representations of the conscious and unconscious battles we have within ourselves.

Ode to Grey Line

I'm surrounded by your relatives,
damp wet grass, be-foot,
if I could ignore the cars,
you'd be more understood.

No longer the dew is here,
long gone the dusk,
replaced by streams of light,
and lingering mist,

Past the feet,
a yellow carpet adorned,
with hints of the dead,
brown leaves once more,

I can smell the grass,
sweet, cut fresh
but I feel the loss,
of all the leaves, all dead.

Sitting beside your past life,
I still to take a glance,
overwhelmed with strife,
I tattoo your surface,
we ruin your life.

Explore the way Rossetti presents nature in her poems.

Rossetti was raised in London, a location that doesn’t fit with her scenes of nature within her poems. Rossetti growing up in London would have given her a city life upbringing, her constant use of nature is Rossetti taking herself away to be with one in nature. This is a common theme within Rossetti’s work. Rossetti uses nature to represent her high Anglican Christian faith. Rossetti is always sure to link her sensual descriptions back to Jesus as an act to show her love and devotion for him, rather than the human and earthly objects.

Rossetti hints at being influenced on Romantic poetry. Even though Rossetti doesn’t distinctly mention what she has read, from evidence in her own poems, we can theoretically guess that the Romantic poet who most influenced her was John Keats. Rossetti makes references as if to be in conversation with Keats and to be challenging him in her poem ‘Song’ to his poem ‘Ode to a Nightingale.’ The nightingale was a common symbol in Romantic poetry. Keats used it in ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ to speak of joy, music, self-expression, nature and immortality. However, Rossetti, in ‘Song’ contradicted Keats by suggesting that the nightingale's song is associated with pain, Rossetti disagrees with the idea that the natural world is a place of pure joy.

Rossetti has a clear and deep sense of Religion; in her poems she does not preach God however she constantly makes reference to the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life. In her poem ‘Paradise: In a Dream’ she uses the line ‘The Tree of Life stood budding there’ the singular ‘Tree’ is a contrast to the plural inhabitants of nature. I think Rossetti has used the singular, in order to almost present Gods in the way he should be seen. To a Christian, you should not put God in an image, nor is there two of him. The singular ‘Tree of Life’ is also a medieval image of Christ on a cross at the crucifixion. The use of a ‘Tree’ allows us to denote that not only is the tree a representation of Christ, but an image that is supporting and strong. This use of nature to describe Christ expresses how natural the reciprocated love is and it links to how nature is an ongoing cycle that doesn’t stop, just like how she pictures Christ’s love.

Rossetti uses images of flowers to represent the cycle of life and the senses we experience within the ongoing journey. With the line ‘And faint the perfume-bearing rose’ it shows the senses which Rossetti is keen to describe, and turn the simple things into things of beauty and wonder. The quote ‘three silver fleur-de-lys’ is a out of season flower chosen to represent a perfect and specialised aspect Rossetti is trying to use as a metaphor, for love. The use of the ‘three’ flowers is a link to the Holy Trinity, The Son, The Ghost, and The Holy Spirit. This use of the three beautiful flowers, really stresses Rossetti’s devotion to Christ.

Rossetti presents the idea of birds in her poems to often be rather plain and normal creatures of song birds. However, Rossetti uses a ‘peacock’ in her poem ‘Paradise’ in order to express how the speakers love is great than all the extravagant and luxurious objects. A peacock is a bird of plural colours, those being green and blue which represent nature and royal status, similar to purple. The peacocks are birds often owned by royalty and people who are wealthy, the use of this bird really emphasises the purity and priceless-ness that is true love.

However, in other poems Rossetti uses normal everyday birds, like ‘doves’ to represent peace, love and religion. The birds are a symbol of freedom and the song birds give off a meaning of declaring emotion. This use of the animals really stresses her feelings and the emotions behind the words she has written due to the representation of the creature itself.