How does Tennessee Williams present gender roles in A Streetcar Named Desire?

Sexually volatile, ‘gaudy’ masculinity pervades A Streetcar Named Desire, destroying Blanche and her ‘moth’-like femininity, from beginning to end. When Stella is struck by Stanley, Mitch says: ‘poker should not be played in a house with women’ but as her ‘luxurious sobbing’ fades out under the pervasive jazz sounds of the Quarter, Steve initiates a card game of ‘seven-card stud’. Williams choice for the last word of Streetcar, a play centred around the damaging yet inevitable effects of desire, to be ‘stud’ emphasises the control Stanley has regained through the removal of Blanche, both sexually and in terms of his territorial brood. The presence of the baby ‘in a blue blanket’ threatens to disrupt this newly re-established ‘equilibrium’ but as Stanley ‘finds the opening of [Stella’s] blouse’ in the play’s very last moments, it is clear that the male-dominated, desire-driven social order has been temporarily reinstated. 

EW
Answered by Emily Willow C. English tutor

4678 Views

See similar English A Level tutors

Related English A Level answers

All answers ▸

How can you tell if a poem is in sonnet form?


I'm having trouble connecting the two texts when asked to discuss in a compare/contrast question. How can I better approach this?


The Kite Runner. "Assef is solely a tyrant without any moral convictions by the end of the novel." How do you respond to this view?


Describe the use of setting in The Bloody Chamber


We're here to help

contact us iconContact ustelephone icon+44 (0) 203 773 6020
Facebook logoInstagram logoLinkedIn logo

© MyTutorWeb Ltd 2013–2025

Terms & Conditions|Privacy Policy
Cookie Preferences