DEATH MOTIVES IN A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

In my essay I am going to examine how appears in The Streetcar named Desire the motif of Death. I will refer to another play, The Night of Iguana and I also examine the different types of music and their meanings in the drama.

Death as a threatening power is present throughout the whole play in different aspects. Firstly, it is the counterpoint of the central concept “Desire”. In Scene IX Blanche names the opposite of death, desire but not life. It is entirely true for her because her whole life is an unrestrainable desire, which remains unfulfilled unfortunately. Mortality has always been with her since her childhood and she has tried to fight against it. It was among the walls of Belle Reve with the elderly, dying relatives and later in the case of her husband’s suicide. Blanche escapes from Belle Reve, from death, from reality, from her past and from her remorse to Desire. The play shows her way to death, her personality’s death because in the end she goes crazy, on which way she is taken by desire. This is summarised symbolically at the very beginning: “They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and g

Blanche tells Mitch, whose beloved has also died, of her discovery that her adored young husband was homosexual and the consequences of her disgust and revulsion. ”It was because – on the dance-floor – unable to stop myself – I’d suddenly said – “I saw! I know! You disgust me…” She condemns him and it is she who drives him to suicide. “Blanche’s obsessive bathing is a nominal gesture of guilt and wish for redemption…The ritual cleansing which takes place in the tub restores Blanche to a state of former innocence. Once again she is young and pure in a beautiful world.” . Both bathing and drinking are escape mechanisms as well. She also escapes into different sexual relationships with men in which she tries to prove her femininity because that was hurt by the act of her previous husband.

The other music, which appears constantly in the play, is the music of the “blue piano”. “The most important extra-musical meaning of “blues” refers to a state of mind. Since the 16th century ‘the blue devils’ has meant a condition of melancholy or depression. But ‘the blues’ did not enter popular American usage until after the Civil War; and as a description of music that expressed such a mental state among blacks it may not have gained currency until after 1900. The two meanings are closely related in the history of the blues as music, and it is generally understood that a blues performer sings or plays to rid himself of ‘the blues’. ”The Blues is an expression of the loneliness and rejection, the exclusion and isolation of the Negro and their longing for love and connection.” So it can symbolise Blanche’s solitude and at the same time Stella ands Stanley’s miserable relationship and the melancholy of their environment. As Williams writes himself at the beginning of the play: “This “blue piano” expresses the spirit of the life, which goes on here.” It is heard mostly when Blanche is on the stage and amplified when she recounts the dead relatives at Belle Reve (Scene I). Contrasting the Blues and the polka the uncomplicated, obstructive rhythms of honky-tonk expresses Stanley’s personality. This music appears when Stanley’s masculinity, sexuality and brutality are emphasised. For example in Scene IV Blanche talks to Stella about her husband’s commonness but she does not have a success because when Stanley appears S

Some topics in this essay:
Fields” Blanche, Blanche Stanley, Belle Reve, IX Mexican, Civil War, IV Blanche, Streetcar Nonno, Middle Ages, Jackie Blanche, Shannon’s Blanche’s, belle reve, named desire, blanche husband, sea symbol death, sea symbol, night iguana, ‘the blues’, “blue piano”, music appears, streetcar named desire, symbol death, love desire,