Reviews with content warning for Death - A Streetcar Named Desire

i cried reading this. considering the time it was written, it’s so rare to find a male writer center female characters, from their own POV, and treat them with so much love and sympathy. he doesn’t forgive or excuse any of his characters, but he really breathes life into them in a refreshing way

there are moments where Tennessee’s fruitiness show in his stage directions and that really adds to the experience!

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samreadssometimes's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

it didn't really have much plot and i'm not entirely sure of the purpose or message of the story, but i liked it and think that emotions were displayed very accurately.

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zakcebulski's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I remember watching the film adaptation of this play when I was younger. When I was much younger I was very much in to film, and as such, I went through a period when Elia Kazan was my Christ. Watching his film On the Waterfront was a transcendental experience in the acting and storytelling of all involved. This viewing experience urged to me seek on the film he made four years prior- the film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Now, I thought that the movie was fantastic. Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden? Fucking hell yeah.
Reading this book, however, was more painful than I could have imagined. The trials and tribulations of Blanche DuBois- a former Southern Belle who is coming to live with her sister Stella and her husband- Stanley in a low-esteem apartment in New Orleans.

Throughout the story Blanche's character is seen as hifalutin, where she constantly bashes on Stella and Stanley's living situation. Blanche has no qualms with throwing shade at the couple's living situation, and at Stanley as a whole- calling him common, and ape-ish. Blanche has views of her life which are shaded with colors of unreality.
Blanche states that she is on a holiday from her work as a teacher, which is later revealed to be a falsehood as she was forced to leave Mississippi due to rumors of many affairs.
While living with her sister and her brother-in-law Blanche is exposed to the type of person who Stanley is. That is, to say, a domineering, overbearing, angry man, who served in the military during the Second World War. Stanley, more or less from the start, is very suspicious of Blanche and the stories for how she ended up in New Orleans.
He does not believe that she is a victim of circulmstance, rather, he sees her as someone who is trying to take advantage of the situation she is in. He acts very, very cruelly toward Blanche after snooping around and finding out the truth about her past. He even goes so far as to throw a birthday party for her, and give her a one way ticket back to where she came from. That is the most dickish of dick moves.
The saddest character, to me, however, Is Stella. Throughout the story Stella struck me as the best person, but she truly is a victim of horrid circumstances. She is married and is pregnant with a man who is manipulative, and coercive and violent- and with whom she has no escape from.
She is as well forced to face the trauma of her past when Blanche shows up telling her all of the things that she missed. She is as well forced to be in the middle of the blows between her husband and her sister, ultimately culminating in picking a side after Blanche tells Stella that Stanley tried to rape her. In the edition which I read, Stella said that she is unable to bring herself to believe Stella, and stays with Stanley. However, the revised story has Stella leaving Stanley. To me, I like the ending wherein Stella leaves Stanley. It feels like a more complete ending, wherein the seeds of doubt sewed by Blanche in the beginning of the play are ready to be reaped, which has Blanche essentially saving Stella from her marriage.

I thought that the back and forth between Stanley and Blanche was exquisitely done in the saddest way possible. They go back and forth in terms of mental and emotional sparring which leads to Stanley forcing himself on Blanche. Blanch suffers a mental breakdown on account of the attempted rape by her brother-in-law, which ends up with her in a psychiatric hospital.

Williams' writing throughout this play is nothing short of immaculate. There were so many scenes where I re-read passages over and over just to experience them again. Williams is able to so perfectly capture the raw emotions of grief, self-loathing, pain, and the feeling of chronic misplacement, that it is truly scary. I thought that Blanche's soliloquy surrounding the tragedies which she endured which led her to the steps of Stella and Stanley's is some of the best writing I have read recently. He is able to write such bombastic scenes with such a controlled nuance, it is absolutely awe-inspiring. The way that he conveys the mental state of Blanche, or the quiet (and then explosive) seething of Stanley, or the helpless indecision of Stella is fantastic, and is how real people would act. I think that the character work in this play is an absolute achievement.

I think that all of these characters in this play are absolutely fantastic. That is not to say that they are good people, but, they are not supposed to be. They are characters who are beleiveable. Their actions and their intentions are believable, which makes the bad that they do even more hellacious.
This was the first play which I have read by Tennessee Williams, and, after going through it, I can absolutely understand why it has such a high reverence. I thought that the subtle exploration into the frailty of the human mind, the analysis of self-esteem and self-worth, and the tragedy of not feeling that you are enough is amazingly realized to a level of uncomfortability, which is the point.

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