Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “A Streetcar Named Desire” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams,

Arthur Miller (Introduction)

3.99 · Rating details · 266,528 ratings · 4,227 reviews

The Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning play—reissued with an introduction by Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), and Williams’ essay “The World I Live In.”

It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared—57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Will ...more

Get A Copy

Paperback, 192 pages

Published September 17th 2004 by New Directions (first published 1947)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about A Streetcar Named Desire, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Mississippi Writers - Best 100 books by

285 books — 103 voters

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Rory Gilmore Books Project

119 books — 40 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.99 ·

Rating details

· 266,528 ratings · 4,227 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of A Streetcar Named Desire

Oct 24, 2015 Lyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“He is of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since  earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it,  not with weak indulgence, dependency, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens. Branching out from this complete and satisfying center are all the auxiliary  channels of his life, such as his heartiness “He is of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since  earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving and taking of it,  not with weak indulgence, dependency, but with the power and pride of a richly feathered male bird among hens. Branching out from this complete and satisfying center are all the auxiliary  channels of his life, such as his heartiness with men, his appreciation of rough humor, his love of  good drink and food and games, his car, his radio, everything that is his, that bears his emblem of  the gaudy seed-bearer. He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images  flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them.”

Stanley Kowalski is the male equivalent of Faulkner’s Dewey Dell who proclaims “I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth”. Here is raw, primal, lustful sexuality that pulses and seduces a reader (or audience).

“Stell-lahhhhh!’”

The poker scene was made famous by Brando’s performance and Kazan’s brilliant direction, but before the 1951 award-winning film was Tennessee Williams’ masterful scene of primitive love and attraction.

“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers”

Blanche DuBois is an archetypal feminine tragic figure on the literary scale with Hemingway’s Lady Brett. But whereas Brett is the domineering, tyrannical alpha female, Blanche’s contribution to our dramatic culture is of the damaged, broken woman, heir to an inheritance that is literally and metaphorically lost.

Tennessee Williams New Orleans play, with the “blue piano” and polka music playing in the background is one our most powerful dramas.

A must read, but like all plays, it must also be seen.

** 2018 - I watched the 1951 film recently and was again amazed at the theatrical tension the play produces, especially when acted out by such talented actors. Interestingly, and sadly, Vivian Leigh, who suffered from bipolar disorder, later in life had trouble distinguishing her real life from that of her character Blanche DuBois. Also, Leigh was paid more than Brando for her performance. Both had previously played these roles on the stage.

description

...more

flag 186 likes · Like · see review

Oct 04, 2016 Brina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, plays, tennessee-williams, southern

It is the steamy summer in New Orleans in the late 1940s. Old war buddies have gone to their weekly bowling league after work. Meanwhile, young brides pass the time in their two flat apartment while waiting for their husbands to return. It is amidst this backdrop that begins Tennessee Williams' classic play, A Streetcar Named Desire, which still stands the test of time today and became a classic film featuring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy. This steamy play ran the gamut of human emotions, and It is the steamy summer in New Orleans in the late 1940s. Old war buddies have gone to their weekly bowling league after work. Meanwhile, young brides pass the time in their two flat apartment while waiting for their husbands to return. It is amidst this backdrop that begins Tennessee Williams' classic play, A Streetcar Named Desire, which still stands the test of time today and became a classic film featuring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy. This steamy play ran the gamut of human emotions, and for this I rate it 4 stars.

Tennessee Williams introduced the world to characters who have become archetypes for the post-war 1940s. Stella Kowalski, a young bride expecting her first child, who is very much in love with her husband and submits to his every want and need. Her husband, Stanley Kowalski, a war veteran working in a supply company to provide for his wife, and still feeling the need to gather with the men bowling or playing poker after work. Harold Mitchell "Mitch" the bachelor son who looks after his sickly mother. And, of course, the sultry Blanche DuBois, Stella's sister of an undetermined age, the independent, modern woman, who also has a myriad of problems.

Blanche DuBois, fresh off of another failure, has taken a streetcar named Desire to spend the summer with Stella and Stanley Kowalski in their one bedroom apartment. Heightened sexually whereas Stella is submissive, there is obvious tension between Blanche and Stanley from the beginning, with Stella acting as a go between. Not only is there tension, Stanley immediately sees beyond Blanche's gaudy clothes and jewelry and sets out to investigate her past. With only a sheet separating their living arrangements in a sweltering summer, the tension continues to escalate throughout the play.

As Stanley discovers layer upon layer of Blanche's past, Stella is forced to choose between her dominate husband and sister. While very much in love with her husband, as she points out, she still feels a loyalty to her sister and to her past. She is appalled when her husband reveals that Blanche compromised her role as high school English teacher to engage in inappropriate relationships with her students. If this play had taken place thirty years later, I can believe that Stella would have done some digging of her own to clear Blanche's name. Yet, it is clear that Stella's loyalties lie with her husband, and that what makes the denouement of the play all the more shocking for me, as I am sure it did for many others as well.

Tennessee Williams went on to have a hall of fame career as a playwright, including the classics Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie, which have been performed hundreds if not thousands of times over the years. He also was ahead of his time in Desire by discussing social issues such as homosexual relationships, domestic violence and a woman's monetary independence from her husband. While not my absolute favorite play, A Streetcar Named Desire introduced classic characters, and I look forward to seeing them portrayed on film. ...more

flag 155 likes · Like · see review

May 22, 2018 emma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, classics, reviewed, beautifully-written, 4-stars, non-ya, dark

Whoa.

I did not consume this play as I was intended to. I mean, honestly, you're not supposed to read a play. Tell that to any high school English teacher ever, but still. Tennessee Williams didn't write this like "Hopefully in sixty years a girl will read this alone in her room in one sitting so she can fulfill her goal of reading a classic every month." That's not his ideal.

That being said.

THIS MADE ME FEEL SO MUCH.

A play is supposed to be acted, obviously. Reading it leads to a less emotional ...more

flag 150 likes · Like · see review

Jul 11, 2008 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, script, united-states, classics, drama, 20th-century

A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams that received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948.

The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter. The London production opened in 1949 with Bonar Colleano, Vivien Leigh, and Re A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams that received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948.

The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter. The London production opened in 1949 with Bonar Colleano, Vivien Leigh, and Renee Asherson and was directed by Laurence Olivier.

The drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often regarded as among the finest plays of the 20th century, and is considered by many to be Williams' greatest. After the loss of her family home, Belle Reve, to creditors, Blanche DuBois travels from the small town of Laurel, Mississippi, to the New Orleans French Quarter to live with her younger, married sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.

Blanche is in her thirties and, with no money, she has nowhere else to go. Blanche tells Stella that she has taken a leave of absence from her English-teaching position because of her nerves (which is later revealed to be a lie). Blanche laments the shabbiness of her sister’s two-room flat. She finds Stanley loud and rough, eventually referring to him as "common". Stanley, in return, does not care for Blanche's manners and dislikes her presence. ...

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه نوامبر سال 2003میلادی

عنوان: اتوبوسی به نام هوس؛ نویسنده: تنسی ویلیامز؛ مترجم: مرجان بخت مینو؛ تهران، مینو، 1381؛ در 159ص؛ شابک 9649056386؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - سده 20م

نمایشنامه ی «اتوبوسی به نام هوس» در یازده پرده؛ به عنوان بهترین نمایشنامه ی سده ی بیستم میلادی، تلقی میشود؛ «بلانش دوبوا»، پس از از دست دادن خانه ی خانوادگی خود، از شهر کوچک «بل ری»، در «می سی سی پی»، به محله ای «فرانسوی»، در «نیواورلئان» سفر میکند، تا با خواهر کوچکتر و متاهل خود، «استلا»، و شوهر او «استنلی کوالسکی» زندگی کند؛ «بلانش» در دهه ی سی زندگی خود است، و پولی ندارد، او جای دیگری هم برای رفتن ندارد؛ «بلانش» به «استلا» میگوید، که به دلیل اعصابش (به دروغ)، از مقام آموزشی خود مرخصی گرفته است؛ «بلانش» از خانه ی محقر و دو اتاقه ی «استلا»، ابراز تاسف میکند؛ او «استنلی» را، پرسر و صدا و خشن میبیند، و سرانجام از او، به عنوان فردی پست و عامی نام میبرد؛ در عوض، «استنلی» به رفتارهای «بلانش»، اهمیتی نمیدهد، ولی از حضور او بیزار است؛ ...؛

از این کتاب «الیا کازان»، فیلمی با بازی «ویوین لی» و «مارلون براندو» ساخته است؛ که در سال 1951میلادی به نمایش درآمده؛ «بلانش دی بویس (ویوین لی)» دردسرهایی داشته، او پس از اخراج از مدرسه‌ ای که در آن تدریس میکرده، برای دیدار خواهرش «استلا (کیم هانتر)» و شوهر خواهرش «استنلی کووالسکی (مارلون براندو)» می‌رود؛ «استنلی» که یک قمارباز است، و از بدو ورود «بلانش»، سر ناسازگاری با وی را میگذارد، و از طریق یکی از دوستانش، از گذشتهٔ «بلانش» باخبر می‌شود و ...؛

نقش‌ها: «مارلون براندو در نقش استنلی کووالسکی»؛ «ویوین لی در نقش بلانش دی بویس»؛ «کیم هانتر در نقش استلا کووالسکی»؛ «کارل مالدن در نقش هارولد میشل»؛ «رودی باند در نقش استیو هابل»؛ «نیک دنیس در نقش پابلو گونزالس»؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 23/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی ...more

flag 128 likes · Like · see review

Apr 17, 2018 Elle (ellexamines) rated it really liked it

Shelves: z-2018reads, 4-star, literary-fiction, y-1900sreleases

Okay, first of all, may I just say: you should see the movie before you read the book. The thing about this play is that it absolutely relies on tension. And that tension is absolutely there in a quality rendition of this show. But it is not conveyed on page.

Likewise, most of Blanche’s character is in her nuance, in the subtext of each scene where she acts nervous and worried and in how she is framed and in her fear and turmoil. In a character like this, a character full of ambiguity and hu ...more

flag 72 likes · Like · see review

Mar 23, 2016 Candi rated it really liked it

Shelves: classics-shelf, plays

4.5 stars

Tragic, raw, and suffused with striking imagery and symbolism, this play is a must-read and now one that I must also see. Williams does a tremendous job of evoking the atmosphere of New Orleans during the 1940's – the music, the heat, the people. The prose is lyrical and truly astonishing at times. I felt as if I were a participant in each and every scene.

"The sky that shows around the dim white building is a peculiarly tender blue, almost a turquoise, which invests the scene with a kin ...more

flag 69 likes · Like · see review

Feb 29, 2016 Carol rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, plays, read-2016, drama

It's the late 1940's and I could visualize the setting of the New Orleans French Quarter (love it) and hear the jazzy blues music playing thru the window as Tennessee Williams brings to life the characters of a very well-built Stanley, his better-half Stella, and her delusional, whiskey-drinking southern belle of a sister Blanche who is in town for an "extended" visit.

With two women and one hot-tempered, suspicious man in a dinky one bedroom flat, trouble starts brewing at the onset and never le

...more

flag 66 likes · Like · see review

Aug 29, 2019 Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: best-books-ever, drama, books-loved-2019

"I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth"—Blanche DuBois

One of the great plays of the American theater, probably the very best Tennessee Williams play, acted first on Broadway by Marlon Brando (Stanley Kowalski), Kim Hunter (Stella Kowalski), and Blanche DuBois (Jessica Tandy), and it is riveting. I listened to a version of it with James Farentino as Stanley and Ros ...more

flag 64 likes · Like · see review

Sep 26, 2017 Alex ✰ Comets and Comments ✰ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: prose-before-hoes, lgbtq, sexual-tension, standalone, beautiful-doesnt-even-cut-it, buddy-read, never-forget, play-script, fiction, alex-goes-through-the-classics

“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields”

There is a certain high you feel when you read a classic. It's not one that can be repeatable or interchangeable. It attaches on to you and if it's good enough. It might never leave your system.

description

Enter, our setting: New Orleans in the late 1940s, post second world war and the American Dream is thick in the atmosphere. Jazz and sex and booze and gamblin ...more

flag 61 likes · Like · see review

Nov 15, 2011 David rated it really liked it

Shelves: theatre

There's a sort of invisible thread from Madame Bovary to A Streetcar Named Desire, which in its route gets tied up in a hot whorehouse and wraps vainly around the cosmetics section of a pharmacy in the Southern United States before knotting at its terminus in New Orleans. I find it almost criminal how often people mistake Blanche duBois' whimsy for female frailty, for I think she is an almost unnaturally strong character; far, far moreso than her timid sister Stella. Perhaps it is because her fo There's a sort of invisible thread from Madame Bovary to A Streetcar Named Desire, which in its route gets tied up in a hot whorehouse and wraps vainly around the cosmetics section of a pharmacy in the Southern United States before knotting at its terminus in New Orleans. I find it almost criminal how often people mistake Blanche duBois' whimsy for female frailty, for I think she is an almost unnaturally strong character; far, far moreso than her timid sister Stella. Perhaps it is because her foil, and diametric opposite, Stanley is so much so the iron casting of masculine strength and violence, that make Blanche seem to the reader/viewer so relatively weak. But the play is dominated by the very different strengths of these enormous characters: Stanley's violent force and Blanche's imaginative power.

Blanche, like her French-bourgeois predecessor, Emma Bovary, has an old fashioned ideal of romance which she cannot reconcile with her amorous experiences. Unlike Emma, Blanche has a much more sordid history, and as a result has become the battleground between her vain illusions and her knowing disillusionment. Having fallen in love with a gay boy in her youth, who subsequently died, she sought love in the many men of the local army camp, living a prostitute's kind of life, and even had an affair with a young male student, until she lost her family estate, Belle Reve (presumably from "belle rêve," french for "beautiful dream" - and appropriately a common name for sanitariums, along with belle vue) which she lost to debtors. Blanche's world: her home, her job, her love (or search therefor), everything, she loses, and flees her soiled reputation to live with her sister Stella and her husband Stanley Kowalski. She has a passionate imagination, which is her last remaining crutch of her fragile sanity:

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!”

Her desperation for romance, for magic, in her life is the only avenue remaining for her escape. That's what Streetcar Names Desire is about: escape. Escape from the shameful past, drinking to escape from the dully painful present, and escape from the violent future. Blanche eventually retreats fully into her own self-delusions of romantic escape when her past creeps unexpectedly into the present.

The story of Stella and Stanley is a time-creep of the opposite orientation: Stella is made aware of the dangers and disturbances of a future with Stanley by the mistreatment of her sister. Stella sheds her luxurious tears at the the curtain close as a rueful acknowledgement of the tension between reality and illusion. While she cannot fully believe Blanche's story, she cannot bring herself to fully deny it either. Her vision of Stanley, of her sister, and of her life spread out ahead of her are forever changed by what has transpired. Though she stays with Stanley, her relationship with him is tainted with something of mistrust and fear.

Illusion in the play, the main funhouse mirror, is the illusion of appearance. Everything has a surface and an interior, and there is a struggle, a contradiction, between the veneer of appearance and the truth of substance. Blanche becomes obsessed with her appearance, rather than reconciling herself with the maelstrom of emotion and fear which boils beneath the surface, she suffocates her own Self by the feint play of her made-up appearance. She has an imagination which approaches prolepsis in its improvisational fervor. She always has a lie, a fraud, a gloss-over for the truth which is black inside of her. She is fearful of the light, which not only shows her aging appearance, signs of aging she she cannot cover-up, but is also symbolic for the truths which are rising like slag to the surface, revealing the cold worn metal beneath. What she cannot escape is that the world does not have the magic which she seeks, the most powerful force around her is truth, and it is truth which she feels she needs to escape. The tension between truth and "magic" eventually destroys her psyche.

For Stanley, escape, illusion, is obtained through vice: drinking, gambling, domestic abuse and violence. His fears of incompetence and undeserving are evaded through his violent actions, which both evade questioning yet also show his hand. He is mirrored man to Blanche, and she the revealing pier-glass to him. Because they are so opposed, they reveal the truths in each other's characters. Stanley's violence is incompatible with Blanche's romantic visions of the world, particularly her vision of men. In Stanley she seems a savage character, almost like the stock ruffian of a Spanish romance, but one which is violent even to her, which is violent in its uncovering of her secrets: one which is deliberately cruel. This deliberate cruelty on the part of Stanley is something which Blanche finds "the only thing not forgivable" and the only thing which has the true power to shatter her war-worn illusions. For Stanley, Blanche represents the world which shares his wife, but which he fears has a stronger, atavistic claim on her. He can never offer Stella money or blissful security, he can never offer her culture. Blanche is the very manifestation of these ideals, and her romantic vision of the world is alluring to all around her, her imaginative power is a danger to Stanley's marriage, because it is a reminded to him and to Stella of the kind of life which they can never have with each other.

"They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at—Elysian Fields!"

Desire and death: the only ways to reach paradise! ...more

flag 58 likes · Like · see review

Jun 27, 2020 theburqaavenger➹ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: when-life-gives-you-lemons, you-made-me-a-believer, plays, classics, fiction

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”

Do you know the feeling you get when you read book and it has everything you have ever hoped for? The perfect beginning, the perfect tension, the perfect characters, the perfect plotline, the perfect ending? This book was that level of perfection for me.

This is a despairing and lovely play that tells us that beauty is shipwrecked on the rock of the world's v ...more

flag 45 likes · Like · see review

Dec 01, 2015 Sean Barrs rated it liked it

Shelves: plays, 3-star-reads

A mental breakdown is a gradual process; it is something that happens slowly over a substantial period of time. With this play it was like a smack in the mouth; it came suddenly and without any form of real warning. And I find that a little odd.

Sure, something can trigger us off though we don’t necessarily go from perfectly calm and collective to meltdown mode in an instant. Blanche is clearly delusional. She has convinced herself of a life that doesn’t really exist. This is her body armour, a A mental breakdown is a gradual process; it is something that happens slowly over a substantial period of time. With this play it was like a smack in the mouth; it came suddenly and without any form of real warning. And I find that a little odd.

Sure, something can trigger us off though we don’t necessarily go from perfectly calm and collective to meltdown mode in an instant. Blanche is clearly delusional. She has convinced herself of a life that doesn’t really exist. This is her body armour, a shell she uses to protect herself from what is actually happening in her life. She pretends to be a member of a higher class in which her life is perfectly fine, but it’s not really.

Nobody else is aware of this. Her persona convinces most and keeps the rest away. In this she’s not remotely insane or unhinged; she’s just damaged and on her guard. Life has got her down. So at the end of the play, when she supposedly gets raped, she loses it.

The sexual chemistry was there from the very first scene in which she met Stanley. She was drawn to his animalism and domineering masculinity; she clearly desired him even if she would never directly admit it to herself or others. So when he eventually makes a move on her, she doesn’t put up any convincing resistance; she lets it happen: she almost wants it to happen. And I find it difficult to conclude that it is rape. It happens off stage and we only know of the aftermath. The crime is implied, though it isn’t directly explicit.

“We've had this date with each other from the beginning.”

description

I may be arguing against the tide, though if you consider the history of Blanche the rape can be fairly doubted. She has a way of weeding her way out of situations. She’s escaped her first marriage because her husband killed himself. This, again, seems doubtful. Blanche relays her tale, but from her side of things (the only one that is available.) Apparently, her husband killed himself off the basis of one conversation which confronted his homosexuality. This doesn’t seem real. She walked in on him having sex with another man. Nothing happens. Time goes by. She brings the subject up later on, and then BAMM! he kills himself. I find the whole situation doubtful. We only have Blanche’s take on things, and I do think it’s far from the truth. I think the rape can be seen as her escape route out of another situation. I think she lets it happen just so she can have an exit point.

Indeed, the perfectly poised and delusional Blanche couldn’t simply walk out of the door; she couldn’t simply accept that her sister doesn’t like her and that she’s a complete manipulator of people and their emotions. No. That’s not Blanche. She has to go out with a bang, so to speak. I think the whole insanity thing was an act or to the point that she has deluded herself into thinking that it’s real. I am, again, arguing against the tide. I can’t find any sources that agree with me. But, I am almost convinced of it. I just can’t accept that she could have been driven to complete madness just like that. Not that I’m undermining the terribleness of rape, but in this situation I don’t think it’s a valid trigger to insanity.

It’s an interesting play, and it made me think, though I’m not certain that the ending everybody thinks happened did happen. ...more

flag 41 likes · Like · see review

Sep 30, 2013 Brian Yahn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: plays

Tennessee Williams writes some brilliant dialogue and distributes it perfectly across an explosive cast of characters. All of it makes for some crazy intense scenes.

So while it's natural to imagine this would be an awesome play (which I can't wait to see some day), the experience of reading it isn't, or at least for me it wasn't. Seems like this was clearly written to be performed not read, like most plays are... ...more

flag 38 likes · Like · see review

Dec 29, 2020 Roman Clodia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I'll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try and give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth. I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!

What a wonderfully claustrophobic and poisonous play! I've somehow never seen or read any Tennessee Williams before this, something to be corrected. This is a brutal indictment of post-war American culture which deals with domestic violence, rape (?) and emotional abuse, ...more

flag 34 likes · Like · see review

May 09, 2013 Sue rated it it was amazing

Shelves: drama, read-2013, favorite-authors, classics, favorites, american-southern

Such a powerful drama! Williams presents his word-portraits so amazingly. As I noted when I read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, he also is a master of stage direction. When reading this play, it's possible to "see" the surroundings, hear the music and voices on the street.

Stanley, Stella and Blanche come alive on the pages as Blanche drops in at her sister's home creating a simmering stew of growing emotion. The heat of a Southern summer is reflected by all that happens in the two bedroom apartment as s ...more

flag 34 likes · Like · see review

Apr 30, 2015 Karlyflower *The Vampire Ninja, Luminescent Monster & Wendigo Nerd Goddess of Canada (according to The Hulk)* rated it really liked it

Shelves: classy-to-the-core, traditionally-monstrous, mind-maladies

PopSugar Challenge 2015 SPILLOVER (because I am a challenge failure, oops.)

Category: A Play

4 Stars

What a deliciously depressive way to commence my 2016 reading year! After hearing and reading about A Streetcar Named Desire (*glares at Losing It*, seriously authors please stop putting massive spoilers for classic works in your books. PLEASE?! I didn’t get spoiled mind because I already knew, but still!)for many a year I have finally sat down and read it. And what I have to say is this: what ...more

flag 33 likes · Like · see review

Jul 23, 2013 Sketchbook rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"You are an ordinary guy and your wife's sister comes to stay with you," began Mary McCarthy in the Partisan Review. "Whenever you want to go to the toilet, there she is in the bathroom, primping or having a bath. My God, you yell, can't a man pee in his own house?" This variation on the mother-in-law joke, which stunned Broadway in 1947 with the heroine's rape, swiftly became an American classic with such lines for the sex act as "getting those colored lights going."

On arrival Blanche, played b ...more

flag 29 likes · Like · see review

Aug 11, 2016 Victor *True Unagi Master* rated it it was amazing

Shelves: plays, classics, reviewed

Stell-lahhhhh!

I read this back in the late 70s and I can honestly say that, while I enjoyed it, I never fully appreciated it. It was a good, short-read for a school assignment. Nothing special.

Then I saw the film adaptation and it quickly became an all-time favorite movie. And Blanche Dubois came to life as one of the most interesting characters I have ever happened upon. Even with her vanity, manipulative behavior, the loss of the ancestral home and her lies,

"I don't want realism. I want magic!

...more

flag 29 likes · Like · see review

Nov 27, 2019 Donna Ho Shing rated it it was amazing

A mentally ill woman in the 1940s does not stand a chance.

My heartfelt sympathies to Blanche DuBois. Imagine marrying a closeted gay man, catching him in the act- that's how you find out by the way- and when confronted about it, he immediately proceeds to blow his brains out, literally. Also, you've lost your home and have no place live. Broken and alone you turn to your sister (the only living member of your family) for help, but, alas, she's married to Stanley Kowalski, one of the most contem ...more

flag 29 likes · Like · see review

Jan 17, 2018 K. Elizabeth rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2-stars, fiction, below-average, reviewed

Read for class... Plays really aren't my thing. ...more

flag 21 likes · Like · see review

Mar 11, 2017 Julie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

To write or not to write that's the question!
So basically you read the play and your head is swarmed with so many things to say, to write but you don't know if you should or you could.
There was a self interview with Tennessee Williams at the end of the book and he was talking about what he wanted to say in this book so now I'm confused because at the same time I as a woman and as a feminist find the women in this book a little, more than a little a lot misrepresented, they are weak, they can't d ...more

flag 21 likes · Like · see review

Jan 23, 2018 Annie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Don't be fooled by the beginning. This book is about Blanche, pure and simple.

We have Stella, who ought to know better and does know better, but doesn't act on that knowledge. Not for herself- she refuses to accept her husband is a violent, worthless cad- and not for her sister Blanche, who she seems to love above all else. Who would rather lock up her sister than believe what her sister said: that Stella's husband raped her. Oh, she knows perfectly well; that's clear enough. But it's just easie ...more

flag 19 likes · Like · see review

Mar 27, 2016 Obsidian rated it it was amazing

Shelves: happy-birthday-2016-dws, favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I read this play as part of Dead Writers Society Literary Birthday Challenge for March. I am so happy that I selected Williams as one of the authors I wanted to read this month.

I think in school I may have possibly read one of the first scenes from this play and that was it. Reading the entire play in one sitting was fantastic. Tennessee Williams doesn't just focus on the characters, he focuses on the music being played in the scenes, how the music changes based on what characters are saying, ho ...more

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

Nov 12, 2012 Alex rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: rth-lifetime, 2012, reading-through-history

I had some idea, from the hokey friendliness of the name "Tennessee Williams," and the cute titles of his plays - "Streetcar Named Desire"! "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof!" - they sound like musicals - I had an idea that these would be friendly. Pop culture. In the great telephone game of pop culture, what I ended up hearing was Marlon Brando yelling "STELLA!", which sounded pretty goofy to me.

That was the wrong impression. This play is dark.

I love the mix of realism and poetry here. Stanley is almost ...more

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

May 02, 2011 Connie G rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, play, olli-discussion, southern-lit, louisiana

I was even more impressed with A Streetcar Named Desire when I revisited it recently after first reading it about ten years ago. It has a wonderful combination of lyrical language and interesting characters.

Blanche DuBois comes to stay at the home of her sister Stella, and her husband Stanley Kowalski in a poor area of New Orleans. Blanche has lost both her job and the family home of Belle Reve. There is a family curse where "our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchan I was even more impressed with A Streetcar Named Desire when I revisited it recently after first reading it about ten years ago. It has a wonderful combination of lyrical language and interesting characters.

Blanche DuBois comes to stay at the home of her sister Stella, and her husband Stanley Kowalski in a poor area of New Orleans. Blanche has lost both her job and the family home of Belle Reve. There is a family curse where "our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications" and the curse seems to have passed down to Blanche. She is a cultured person living in a fantasy world of lies. She tries to wash away her guilt over the suicide of her husband with long baths, and numbs her mind with alcohol. Living at a time when women were very dependent on men for support, Blanche has come to the end of the road, and will not let men see her in a bright light that will reveal her age as she searches for love.

Stanley is a passionate, realistic, common man who enjoys women, bowling, alcohol, and a night of poker with his friends. He is also abusive to Stella when he gets upset. He sees his homelife being destroyed by Blanche, and aims to breaks her by investigating her past.

Stella is caught between Blanche and Stanley. She is concerned about her sister's mental state. Blanche compares Stanley to an animal. Blanche says, "Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is--Stanley Kowalski--survivor of the stone age." But Stella was happy with him before Blanche moved in because Stella and Stanley share a great passion. Stella is also pregnant with Stanley's child.

As the play moves on, Tennessee Williams does a marvelous job of juxtaposing a fantasy world with reality. The play is violent, sensual, and heartbreaking as it reaches its conclusion.
________________________________________

Several movies have been made from this play. Marlon Brando starred in a famous version of this drama.

The recent Woody Allen movie, "Blue Jasmine," is a contemporary story with themes taken from A Streetcar Named Desire. Cate Blanchette is a terrific Jasmine. ...more

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

Aug 13, 2008 Becky rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Becky by: Leslie

Shelves: 2008, reviewed

I enjoyed the story... It really drew me in, which is saying something considering that I picked it to read on commercial breaks during the Olympics... and I ended up reading instead of watching.

I liked this play because the characters seemed like real, flawed people. Granted, Blanche was a little over-the-top sometimes, but I imagine all southern-belle types are a little over-the-top from time to time.

Blanche was an easily identifiable character... someone who deeply regrets a thoughtless act ...more

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

May 26, 2020 Trudie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-harder-2020, best-of-2020, plays, classic, 5-star-reads

I did a read / watch combo with this one, which really is the best way for me to absorb plays. My 5-stars is heavily influenced by watching the recently streamed 2014 production directed by Benedict Andrews.
The entire thing left me wrung out. So now I guess I like plays ? or just Tennessee Williams, I need to find out !

flag 17 likes · Like · see review

Jan 08, 2021 Chrissie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, drama, southern, relationships, 2021-read, audible-plus, usa, love, free, lgtb

Free for Audible-Plus Members.
Grab it, while it remains available!

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the play’s performance at Williamstown Theatre Festival was cancelled. Instead, solely an audiobook, directed by Robert O'Hara, was produced,

Blanche DuBois is played by Audra McDonald.
Stella Kowalski is played by Carla Gugino.
Stanley Kowalski is played by Ariel Shafir.

These three are the most important of the numerous voice actors taking part in the performance. I am totally satisfied with the perfor Free for Audible-Plus Members.
Grab it, while it remains available!

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the play’s performance at Williamstown Theatre Festival was cancelled. Instead, solely an audiobook, directed by Robert O'Hara, was produced,

Blanche DuBois is played by Audra McDonald.
Stella Kowalski is played by Carla Gugino.
Stanley Kowalski is played by Ariel Shafir.

These three are the most important of the numerous voice actors taking part in the performance. I am totally satisfied with the performance of all three. There are sound effects, which I have for the most part enjoyed, until the end when the background clamor becomes excessive, too prominent and too lengthy. I particularly like Audra McDonald’s narration, but all parts are well performed. I am awarding the audio performance four stars. I recommend listening to this rather than reading the script in a book.

At the audiobook's end is an interview with the director. He explains what he wished to achieve with this production. Don't skip it; it’s good and correctly placed.

The story takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana. Stella and her husband Stanley are visited by Blanche, Stella’s younger sister. She appears unannounced. Clearly, she is in trouble, but an ingrained fibber, all that she says must be taken with a grain of salt. Stella is happy to see her, at least at the start. Stanley is of another mind. He only wants to know how she has come to lose possession of the family’s Mississippi plantation.

As a drama, each production will be somewhat different. The focus is here placed on the two sisters, Blanche and Stella. Other performances have instead looked primarily at Stanley, Stella’s self-centered, violent, abusive and chauvinistic husband. How women are treated by society, men and family is one theme. Addiction is another. Mental illness and sexuality should be added to the list of themes covered. It is particularly interesting to compare Stella’s and Blanche’s very different attitudes toward sex.

This is by no means and easy listen. Brawls and screaming, excessive drinking, physical, sexual and psychological abuse play out before our eyes. We visually perceive what is rendered via our ears. The violence is palpable. To fully partake of the story is to throw oneself into the emotional turmoil of the tale. We are told in the audiobook’s concluding interview: “To emotionally participate costs.” I wholeheartedly agree. I am not looking for an easy ride!

One more thing—the lines are superb. ...more

flag 17 likes · Like · see review

Dec 19, 2016 Maddy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Maybe I'll change my rating after we study it in class but right now it is a dwindling 2 stars.

----- Update ------
Yep, this definitely got better after studying it properly. ...more

flag 16 likes · Like · see review

Jan 10, 2008 Selena rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: plays-modern

Not a fan, though, I should preface that by saying that I'm not really a fan of Tenessee Williams in general (what kind of name is that anyway? Who names their kid after a state?). I don't share his fascination with abusive relationships, nor do I find the tragic romance in them that he does (call me a prude, but I am offended at the idea that anyone could find redeeming romantic qualities in an abusive relationship, especially a male writer).

I find nothing redeeming in the character of Stanley, ...more

flag 14 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Catching up on Cl...: * A Streetcar Named Desire - March 2021	43	76	11 hours, 54 min ago
James Mustich's 1...: A Streetcar Named Desire — March 2021	4	8	Feb 26, 2021 05:28AM
Play Book Tag: [pb]The Streetcar named Desire, by Tennessee Williams 3.5-4.0 stars	1	5	Aug 02, 2020 07:34AM
Play Book Tag: A Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams - 3 stars	1	8	Jul 21, 2020 05:33AM
Goodreads Librari...: Missing page count	4	14	Feb 26, 2020 09:32AM
Books2Movies Club: A Streetcar Named Desire	1	12	Dec 15, 2018 03:51AM
Morris County Hig...: Possibility One:	1	5	May 08, 2017 07:15PM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

Plays

4,739 users

Classics

4,058 users

Fiction

1,315 users

Drama

1,312 users

Academic > School

608 users

Plays > Theatre

501 users

Literature > American

275 users

Academic > Read For School

264 users

Literature

262 users

Young Adult > High School

171 users

See top shelves…

About Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

2,578 followers

Thomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth.

Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, after years of obscurity, at age 33 he became famous with the success of ...more

Books by Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays

More…

When Famous Writers Met U.S. Presidents

Journalist and historian Craig Fehrman's new book, Author in Chief, tells the story of America’s presidents as authors—and offers a new window...

Trivia About A Streetcar Named...

46 trivia questions
6 quizzes

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from A Streetcar Named...

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.” — 2543 likes

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!” — 768 likes

More quotes…

See a Problem?

Preview — A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Tennessee Williams

Books by Tennessee Williams

Related Articles

Trivia About A Streetcar Named...

Quotes from A Streetcar Named...

See a Problem?

Preview — A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Tennessee Williams

Books by Tennessee Williams

Related Articles

Trivia About A Streetcar Named...

Quotes from A Streetcar Named...

new topic
Discuss This Book