A Streetcar Named Desire: Scene 5 - Anxieties

Alternative transcript:

of the play through stage directions containing manner adverbs and adverbials indicating Blanche's emotions and anxieties such as: "suddenly clutches Stella's free hand with a moaning sound", "laughs shrilly", and "continuing nervously". The usage of such language gives off the impression that Blanche isn't as composed as she poses to be, the continuation of this instability is further progressed later on in the play. For example, in Scene 4, 6 and 10, Blanche's anxiety about her past and future, which is triggered by Stanley who hints about Shaw, seems to have caused high levels of anxiety. William goes beyond the melodramatic norms in his use of plastic theatre to reflect the bleak realities of anxiety. A.Griffin says that 'To express the universal truths Willaims created what he termed plastic theatre, a distinctive new style of drama. He insisted that setting, properties, music, sound, and visual effects - all the elements of staging - must combine to reflect and enhance action, theme, characters, and language.'. Williams criticised those who show 'a lack of respect for the extra-verbal or non-literary elements of the theatre, the various plastic elements, the purely visual things such as light and movement and colour and design, which play, for example, such a tremendously important part in theatre... and which are as much a native part of drama as words and ideas are.' Another way in which Williams presents character's anxieties can be shown when Blanche tries to confess and express her anxiety which is rejected by Stella who bides by disregarding anxieties of her own and others. This is shown in Blanche's repeated interrogatives which shows concern about Stella's knowledge such as when she says: "what have you heard about me" and "what are people telling you about me?". This conveys that Blanche cares a lot about how people perceive her, especially of what Stella thinks of her - seeing as Stella is all Blanche practically has left considering the loss of Belle Reve, her job and her husband - as well as the fact that Blanche has an on-going rivalry against Stanley to obtain the utmost amount of attention and respect from Stella. Stella herself uses dispreferred responses to ease Blanche's anxiety, which is seen through: "huh?" and "telling?", as well as the use of collective pronouns to reassure which appeals to Blanche's positive face like when Stella says: "all of us do things.". Further in the play, Stella's anxiety about the behaviour of Blanche and Stanley is shown in numerous scenes such as Scene 2, 7, 8 and 11. As this is one of the private encounters between Blanche and Stella in the play after Stanley has been probing Blanche for information about Shaw, seeing anxieties on stage is shocking and represents a shift in genre conventions. Williams uses a range of language patterns to represent anxiety within characters. For example, Blanche's use of figurative and euphemistic language conveys that she is too anxious to talk directly about her life, especially about her behaviour in Laurel. Blanche's euphemistic talk is used to avoid being specific about her behaviour, which is evident when she says: "I wasn't good in the last two years". Blanche also uses a repeated use of both 'soft' and 'hard' adjectives to explain her anxieties to Stella, like when she says: "soft people have to court the favour of hard ones". She also uses figurative language to allude to strategies she used with men as a way of solving her anxieties, which can be seen in: "the colour of butterfly wings, and glow, makes a little - temporary magic". Later on in the play, there is a constant inability for the characters to deal with their anxieties directly. This can be linked to Stanley's imposter syndrome which is prompted by Blanche's arrival and her relationship with Stella, which essentially threatens his control and his relationship with Stella which can be seen in Scene 2, 7 and 8. This can be reflected in a social and historical context or roles and identity in the 1940s American southern states as the role of uncontrollably social judgements essentially creates anxiety. Williams presents his character's anxieties through the focus of Mitch and Blanche's relationship. For example, when Blanche says: "leave here and not be anyone's problem" she refers to the fact that if she were in a relationship with Mitch, it would essentially solve all of her problems as well as allow her to be free from the Kowalski apartment. To reach her goal Blanche plans to 'deceive' Mitch, especially in relation to her age. This deception leads her to greater levels of anxiety as her past and her behaviours in Laurel are exposed and unravelled later on in the play - however, she begins spiralling in Scene 5 when she says: "I'm fading". Anxiety essentially leads to reckless and dangerous behaviour. TThis is evident in Blanche's interaction with the young man who follows immediately after this scene, despite the fact that it would dash her hopes for Mitch. Further on in the play, Blanche's anxieties about her relationship with Mitch is explored in Scene 6 and Scene 9. Blanche essentially breaks the gender stereotypes for typical 1940's women as she uses men to her own liking and not vice versa. Which displays that despite her expressed femininity she doesnt want to be classed as a woman that can't get her way, for example, Stella being obedient to Stanley all the time. It's almost as if she refuses to be the victim in any scenario because she wants to remain being the one with the upper hand or with some kind of stability, yet she continues to pose herself with so much innocence that it sort of gives her a victim complex all at the same time which contradicts the true intentions of her character and the complexity of her personality which has been altered most likely due to her mental illnesses. This is reflected in how she claims that she loves Mitch yet she seems to not love him enough to tell him all of the cold and brutal truths about herself and her past. Her reaction towards finding out that her husband was homosexual was not considerate nor understanding - which is a typical reaction of anyone in the 1940's towards an individual associated with the LGBTQ+ community. Instead, with the way she reacted, it essentially drove her husband to his death. When explaining the events of what happened between her and ex-husband. She appeared to be more upset over the fact that he was gay rather than the fact that he died. This essentially demonstrates that she is only really distressed over the entirety of the situation because he wasn't what she thought he was; she was played by him (as it was him involved in the affair and not her) and it gave her the sense that she did not have the upper hand over him because she was the naive one in the relationship. But later in the play she takes on what her husband did to her (feigning to be someone he was not) and mirrors it onto herself (by deceiving Mitch via imposing control by giving Mitch a version of herself that doesn't expose her age and her behaviour in Laurel). Furthermore, it also explains her tendency for younger men as they are more naive and therefore easier to manipulate, immediately allowing her to have all the control. Her adaptation of male behaviour shows that she wants to establish a sense of power and authority which women in the 1940s did not have. This explains her constant bickering with Stanley because he portrays himself as the usual masculine, sigma male and she challenges him to win Stella over. The battle between each other shows that they're both control freaks.