8/12/2019 Streetcar Themes

1/2

8/12/2019 Streetcar Themes

2/2

worked as a teacher, Blanche is nonetheless constrained by the

e&pectations of Southern society. She knows that she needs men to lean

on and to protect her, and she continues to depend on them throughout

the play, right up to her conversation with the doctor from the mental

hospital, where she remarks, 5*hoever you are, 1 have always depended

on the kindness of strangers.5 She has clearly known se&ual freedom in

the past, but understands that se&ual freedom does not fit the pattern of

chaste behavior to which a Southern woman would be e&pected toconform. 6er fear of re%ection is reali(ed when +itch learns of her love

affairs back home. By re%ecting Blanche and claiming that she is not the

ideal woman he naively thought she was, +itch draws attention to the

discrepancy between how women really behaved and what type of

behavior was publicly e&pected of them by society at large.

;iolence and $ruelty

;iolence in this play is fraught with se&ual passion. 'rying to convince

Blanche of her love for Stanley despite his occasional brutality, Stella

e&plains, 5But there are things that happen between a man and a woman

in the dark