By close analysis of the extract, discuss how Williams explores gender roles. (p32 ‘Stanley (yelling): Sit down!...’ – p33 ‘...Blanche: 'DuBois.’)

The theme of alcohol is recurrent through ‘Streetcar’ to assist Williams in his presentation of complex gender roles. This motif becomes one which is associated with men, in particular Stanley as the alpha male figure, but also with Blanche, whose alcoholism becomes evident in scene 1. Mitch diverges from the rest of the poker players by not being as rowdy, and not drinking as much, however, when he first meets Blanche, the first thing he says to her is “we’ve - been drinking beer”. Williams uses this utterance as a way of Mitch trying to justify his masculinity to Blanche, and give her the appearance of him being macho and socially conforming. Williams uses this as a form of dramatic irony, because the theatre audience know that Mitch is not the masculine figure he tries to present to Blanche, although Blanche is not yet aware of his sensitivity. Similarly, Blanche puts a twist on the truth when she tells Mitch she is ‘not accustomed to having more than one drink’, but ‘tonight [she] had three’. This lie which Blanche tells Mitch about her alcohol habits is one of many untrue threads she weaves to gain sympathy from other characters in the play. Contextually, a woman would have been likely to lie about drinking because of the negative social outlook which surrounded women’s drinking in the 1950s. There was a general consensus that alcoholism in women was shameful, which is not a view that people held about males who were alcoholics. In ‘Streetcar’, Williams portrays drinking as a common occurrence for males, though not so for women, which likely affected the way in which the theatre audience at the time of production received the play.