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Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire
- Comprehensive reading and study guides for some of the world's most important literary masterpieces - Concise critical excerpts provide a scholarly overview of each work - The Story Behind the Story details the conditions under which the work was written - Each book includes a biographical sketch of the author, a descriptive list of characters, an extensive summary and analysis, and an annotated bibliography
143 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1998
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372 people want to read
About the author
Harold Bloom
1,717 books2,035 followersHarold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 24, 2009
This is the most powerful, well written, and moving American play. Williams' prose are like poetry. I hope to play Blanche someday (soon!).
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January 2, 2025“Blanche’s name has been the cause of much conjecture among critics. Some see it as a projection of purity, others see it as a part of a game Williams was playing with censors….Pagan suggests…might reference the verb form…’to bleach by excluding light’. Certainly, Blanche is a creature of the night, more prone to show herself in the gentle light of the evening rather than in the full sun of the morning. He also suggests that it might refer to the unconsummated marriage between her and Allan Gray, a sort of pure marriage, bereft of sexual contact. Pagan also links the name….colloquially used to express the idea of ‘white-washing, glossing, or more bluntly, lying….
Cohn suggests that it might refer to her obsession with men if the last name were anglicized.” (p 25)
{I love this one}
[Whats missing from this discussion of Blanche’s name is her married name: Gray. She is Blanche Gray. Has Blanche been sullied, and gone from white to gray? From marriage alone? Or from marriage to a homosexual?]
“Blanche runs to meet her, repeating her name and calling her by her childhood nickname…Pagan sees the nickname as part of Williams’s complex symbology. ‘Stella for Star’ is the first of a number of astronomical/astrological references…” (p 28)
[and why come nobody talks about Stella’s maiden name: does Stella DuBois have meaning?]
“Mitch…tells her he wouldn’t have minded her age…but the hypocrisy regarding her sexual history, he cannot forgive, telling her, ‘I was fool enough to believe you were straight.’ For critics interested in queer theory, many believe that this is the unveiling of Blanche as Williams, a kind of transgendered character and the question of straightness refers not so much to telling the truth as to sexual orientation.”
“he forces her to look at her appearance, from her mangled gown to her cheap tiara. He asks her, ‘What kind of queen do you think you are?’ reinforcing Pagan’s assertion that Blanche be read as a disguised homosexual character, this time in drag.”
“Quirino likens plot to another famous story…that of ‘Tereus, Philomela, and Procne—the rape of the visiting sister-in-law by her brother-in-law in the absence of his wife.’ As Quirino clarifies, though no dead child is served to Stanley, Blanche loses her ability to speak of the event because Stella chooses to believe that her sister is lying in order to continue living with Stanley. Though Blanche’s tongue is not cut out, it might as well be.”
“She turns to him and says, most famously, ‘I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.’ The irony is two-fold. First, one might expect to rely upon one’s family for support; however, in this family of death and fornication, little kindness is possible. In some ways, Stanley has certainly fit into the family in that way, although he is also effectively a stranger, one who has been cruel and destructive, which raises the second irony. Like the men before him, the Doctor is only misleading Blanche for the moment, to suit his purpose. Once he has her in the hospital, she will be forgotten as Blanche has been forgotten by the men with whom she had slept over the years.”
Bert Cardullo on Blanche’s Relationship with Stella:
“in Leonard Bergman’s words…’Blanches’s most fundamental regret is not that she happened to marry a homosexual,’ not the discovery of Allan’s homosexuality (Stella believes this). It is that, ‘when made aware of her husband’s homo, she brought on [his] suicide by her unqualified expression of disgust,’ her failure to be compassionate.”
Mary Ann Corrigan: On Illusion and Reality:
“Blanche has been sensitive to sound throughout the play…jumped at the screech of a cat; later when Stanley slammed a door closed, she winced in pain.”
“Williams depicts the total defeat of a woman whose existence depends on her maintaining illusions about herself and the world.”
Alice Griffin on Symbols of Light and Water:
“Blanche’s constant bathing suggests the traditional association of water with purification; there is also the implication of Lethe and forgetfulness”
[Lethe: a river in Greek mythology that caused anyone who drank from it to completely forget their past]
Britton Harwood on The Ethics of Blanche and Williams:
“her confession of responsibility for Allan’s death is collocated exactly with the dim light in which, throughout the play, she hides herself…In self-loathing, she turns the sixteen-year-old girl that she was into the Tarantula, the female version of the older man in bed with Allan, repeating the act that disgusts her, then tries to escape by starting again with virginal boys.”
Brenda Murphy on Kazan’s Perception of Steve and Eunice:
“The tragic failure in the play was Chekhovian, the failure of four people to get beyond their subjective visions of the events both in the present and in the past so they can understand their significance to the others. Kazan’s kinesic expression of that failure was the behavior of four people living out four separate visions of these events, their significance, and their consequences on the stage.”
Nicholas Pagan on The Significance of Names:
“Of course, Blanche’s commentary here is inaccurate because ‘white woods’ in French would be bois blanc. If adjective and noun are to be taken together as Blanche suggests, they should agree with each other in terms of gender; in other words, the adjective blanche would have to be blanc to agree with the noun bois, which is masculine. Thus, the name Blanche DuBois presents us with a confusion of gender.”
Stanley Hyman, however, has suggested that Williams employs the ‘the Albertine strategy, that is to say, disguises homosexual males as females as Proust has done in changing the name Albert to Albertine in A la recherche du temps perdu
Notice that Stanley Kowalski offers us this possibility of reading Blanche as a gay male when he says, ‘What queen do you think you are?…Similarly, Mitch’s observation, ‘I was fool enough to believe you was straight (emphasis added) can make us think of Blanche as not straight, as homosexual.”
[I would add to this, in Scene 6 coming back from the date with Mitch, Blanche, “I simply couldn’t rise to the occasion. That was all. I don’t think I I’ve ever tried so hard to be gay [emphasis mine] and made such a dismal mess of it.”]
Cohn suggests that it might refer to her obsession with men if the last name were anglicized.” (p 25)
{I love this one}
[Whats missing from this discussion of Blanche’s name is her married name: Gray. She is Blanche Gray. Has Blanche been sullied, and gone from white to gray? From marriage alone? Or from marriage to a homosexual?]
“Blanche runs to meet her, repeating her name and calling her by her childhood nickname…Pagan sees the nickname as part of Williams’s complex symbology. ‘Stella for Star’ is the first of a number of astronomical/astrological references…” (p 28)
[and why come nobody talks about Stella’s maiden name: does Stella DuBois have meaning?]
“Mitch…tells her he wouldn’t have minded her age…but the hypocrisy regarding her sexual history, he cannot forgive, telling her, ‘I was fool enough to believe you were straight.’ For critics interested in queer theory, many believe that this is the unveiling of Blanche as Williams, a kind of transgendered character and the question of straightness refers not so much to telling the truth as to sexual orientation.”
“he forces her to look at her appearance, from her mangled gown to her cheap tiara. He asks her, ‘What kind of queen do you think you are?’ reinforcing Pagan’s assertion that Blanche be read as a disguised homosexual character, this time in drag.”
“Quirino likens plot to another famous story…that of ‘Tereus, Philomela, and Procne—the rape of the visiting sister-in-law by her brother-in-law in the absence of his wife.’ As Quirino clarifies, though no dead child is served to Stanley, Blanche loses her ability to speak of the event because Stella chooses to believe that her sister is lying in order to continue living with Stanley. Though Blanche’s tongue is not cut out, it might as well be.”
“She turns to him and says, most famously, ‘I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.’ The irony is two-fold. First, one might expect to rely upon one’s family for support; however, in this family of death and fornication, little kindness is possible. In some ways, Stanley has certainly fit into the family in that way, although he is also effectively a stranger, one who has been cruel and destructive, which raises the second irony. Like the men before him, the Doctor is only misleading Blanche for the moment, to suit his purpose. Once he has her in the hospital, she will be forgotten as Blanche has been forgotten by the men with whom she had slept over the years.”
Bert Cardullo on Blanche’s Relationship with Stella:
“in Leonard Bergman’s words…’Blanches’s most fundamental regret is not that she happened to marry a homosexual,’ not the discovery of Allan’s homosexuality (Stella believes this). It is that, ‘when made aware of her husband’s homo, she brought on [his] suicide by her unqualified expression of disgust,’ her failure to be compassionate.”
Mary Ann Corrigan: On Illusion and Reality:
“Blanche has been sensitive to sound throughout the play…jumped at the screech of a cat; later when Stanley slammed a door closed, she winced in pain.”
“Williams depicts the total defeat of a woman whose existence depends on her maintaining illusions about herself and the world.”
Alice Griffin on Symbols of Light and Water:
“Blanche’s constant bathing suggests the traditional association of water with purification; there is also the implication of Lethe and forgetfulness”
[Lethe: a river in Greek mythology that caused anyone who drank from it to completely forget their past]
Britton Harwood on The Ethics of Blanche and Williams:
“her confession of responsibility for Allan’s death is collocated exactly with the dim light in which, throughout the play, she hides herself…In self-loathing, she turns the sixteen-year-old girl that she was into the Tarantula, the female version of the older man in bed with Allan, repeating the act that disgusts her, then tries to escape by starting again with virginal boys.”
Brenda Murphy on Kazan’s Perception of Steve and Eunice:
“The tragic failure in the play was Chekhovian, the failure of four people to get beyond their subjective visions of the events both in the present and in the past so they can understand their significance to the others. Kazan’s kinesic expression of that failure was the behavior of four people living out four separate visions of these events, their significance, and their consequences on the stage.”
Nicholas Pagan on The Significance of Names:
“Of course, Blanche’s commentary here is inaccurate because ‘white woods’ in French would be bois blanc. If adjective and noun are to be taken together as Blanche suggests, they should agree with each other in terms of gender; in other words, the adjective blanche would have to be blanc to agree with the noun bois, which is masculine. Thus, the name Blanche DuBois presents us with a confusion of gender.”
Stanley Hyman, however, has suggested that Williams employs the ‘the Albertine strategy, that is to say, disguises homosexual males as females as Proust has done in changing the name Albert to Albertine in A la recherche du temps perdu
Notice that Stanley Kowalski offers us this possibility of reading Blanche as a gay male when he says, ‘What queen do you think you are?…Similarly, Mitch’s observation, ‘I was fool enough to believe you was straight (emphasis added) can make us think of Blanche as not straight, as homosexual.”
[I would add to this, in Scene 6 coming back from the date with Mitch, Blanche, “I simply couldn’t rise to the occasion. That was all. I don’t think I I’ve ever tried so hard to be gay [emphasis mine] and made such a dismal mess of it.”]
March 2, 2023
~ i adore the duality of this book in being the reason i need therapy but also somehow providing me with some form of therapy. i feel broken and hopeless but also i want to go and hug strangers on the street and be the person whose kindness can be relied upon for the Blanche(s) out there.
~ also “sitting on your throne and swilling down my liquor” is how i intend to be dominant in the company of any and all men from now on. f you Stanley i will absolutely be looking down on you from my royal high horse and i will finish every last drop of alcohol you own. suck it.
~ also “sitting on your throne and swilling down my liquor” is how i intend to be dominant in the company of any and all men from now on. f you Stanley i will absolutely be looking down on you from my royal high horse and i will finish every last drop of alcohol you own. suck it.
June 7, 2007
Did this play in college... I was Stella ... love the messy chemistry between these characters.
January 30, 2025
reread after watching the play and good lord what an incredible writer AHHH. the stage directions are so beautiful and lyrical; he didnt just care about the audience he cared about the producers' experiences while reading. the constant sexual allusions are crazy though. some of them i wouldve never realised if i hadnt read about them online. glass menagerie is up next 😈🔥 or cat on a hot tin roof maybe .. recommend me some more good southern gothic pls
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October 18, 2023Some decent critics in here. I particularly liked 'The Metaphors of Space'.
June 6, 2025
ending was confusing
September 11, 2025
“I don’t want realism. I want magic!” – Blanche DuBois
Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar is not just a play but a path to the human psyche. I lived through a slow motion spectacle of identity, power, and illusion with this one. The eleven short scenes are charged with tension, and Williams’ at once beautiful and brutal dialogue peels away at every character’s surface.
Delicate but also delusional, broken but still very much honest in her protection. Stanley is raw, real and at times terrifying in his physical and emotional control. Stella which is between them is at once a part of it all and a observer in a world that is falling apart.
Themes of desire, illusion, mental health, and gender imbalance are issues which cross generations and which still we see play out today. Williams doesn’t provide comfort he provides confrontation which is what makes him genius.
If you are a literature student or also any person that prefers to feel out a text instead of just reading it, do not miss out on A Streetcar Named Desire.
I put together a in depth literary analysis and emotional response which you can find on my blog.(A no spoiler review...)
Link below 👇
https://TalesWink29.blogspot.com/2025...
Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar is not just a play but a path to the human psyche. I lived through a slow motion spectacle of identity, power, and illusion with this one. The eleven short scenes are charged with tension, and Williams’ at once beautiful and brutal dialogue peels away at every character’s surface.
Delicate but also delusional, broken but still very much honest in her protection. Stanley is raw, real and at times terrifying in his physical and emotional control. Stella which is between them is at once a part of it all and a observer in a world that is falling apart.
Themes of desire, illusion, mental health, and gender imbalance are issues which cross generations and which still we see play out today. Williams doesn’t provide comfort he provides confrontation which is what makes him genius.
If you are a literature student or also any person that prefers to feel out a text instead of just reading it, do not miss out on A Streetcar Named Desire.
I put together a in depth literary analysis and emotional response which you can find on my blog.(A no spoiler review...)
Link below 👇
https://TalesWink29.blogspot.com/2025...
December 3, 2015
There are some plays that are just as enjoyable a read as they are a play. Shakespeare is a good example, and so is Death of a Salesman. Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire is not an example of that. The script itself has, in my opinion, awkward dialogue, and it spells out how to interpret things instead of leaving it to your own individual interpretation.
For example, when we first see Stanley Kowalski on stage, there is a massive paragraph in the stage direction outlining every little detail of his character.
Do yourself a favor and just go see the movie with Marlon Brando. It's a great movie. If you ever have a chance to actually see it performed with good actors then go and see it, too.
For example, when we first see Stanley Kowalski on stage, there is a massive paragraph in the stage direction outlining every little detail of his character.
Do yourself a favor and just go see the movie with Marlon Brando. It's a great movie. If you ever have a chance to actually see it performed with good actors then go and see it, too.
August 24, 2012
I re-read this play after seeing the Broadway play. It was wonderful and brought back a lot of memories when I read this play in high school. A great story of family interactions, personal self-loathing and the choices we make in the relationships we have in our lives. Brilliant!
August 11, 2007
I loved the play! This book has it all, passion, jealousy, anger and drama....Marlon Brando WOW!!!! gotta see the film too guys.
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September 29, 2009Brute Force meets Southern Delicacy~ behind the decaying gauze of a Daydream~
October 15, 2011
I love the voice of Tennesse Williams's. I love his sensitivity to his character. I love all of his plays--they stay alive in me always.
July 31, 2012
Brilliant. Classic. Must read if you are in theater. Also a must watch, Brando and Leigh are amazing.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews