Tennessee Williams has achieved superior status in the realm of American theater — amidst the critical discussion of America’s

greatest
playwrights, Williams’ name is consistently among the first to surface. Though Williams was a prolific author of drama, essays, poems, short stories,
novels, and screenplays, his status as an essential American dramatist seems inseparably linked with what is arguably his most famous play, A
Streetcar Named Desire. This play, premiering on Broadway in late 1947, seems to encapsulate Williams’ signature dramatic style, including poetic
imagery, cultural realism, and thorough portraits of life-like characters. Dramatic critic Philip C. Kolin visualizes Streetcar as the flagship play of
American theater; he quotes playwright Dennis Reardon as saying “The search for the Great American Play can stop with A Streetcar Named
Desire,” and adds that “Streetcar is the Huck Finn of our theatre” (Kolin 2). Clearly, Williams’ masterpiece is beyond skillful; it ventures to set an
iconic standard for any modern American play. Essentially, Streetcar defines the American play for two main reasons: first, that it displays a unique
American aesthetic, reflecting the cultural background of its time period, and second, that it spawns an original dramatic structure, separate from
past theatrical traditions.
Concerning Streetcar‘s distinct flavor of American aesthetics, Kolin explains how the play is stacked with notable imagery: “Embedded
in Streetcar are many American icons, sacred and profane . . . Jax beer on sultry poker nights and cherry sodas sipped on endlessly long, rainy
afternoons . . . neon-lit corner bars with names like a gambler’s coexist with Moon Lake Casino where love invites self-immolation” (Kolin 1).
Indeed, Williams’ lively images of New Orleans seem to be the very fabric on which the play is sustained. In observing the stage notes for the play’s
opening scene, we find that Williams’ portrait of New Orleans provides the underlying energy for the interaction of the characters:
You can almost feel the warm breath of the brown river beyond the river warehouses with their faint redolences of bananas and coffee. A
corresponding air is evoked by the music of Negro entertainers at a barroom around the corner. In this part of New Orleans you are practically
always just around the corner, or a few doors down the street, from a tinny piano being played with the infatuated fluency of brown fingers. This
“Blue Piano” expresses the spirit of the life which goes on here. (Williams 2187)
Clearly, Williams’ takes advantage of his theatrical medium in the opening scene: he is able to appeal to the senses through music, through
atmosphere, and even through spatial relationships. Combined, these images create not only a setting for the play, but also something of an
underlying character — as he addresses ‘the spirit of life which goes on here’ (2187), Williams seems to suggest that the sensory qualities of New
Orleans are, in fact, driving the lives of the individual characters. Kolin notes, “the Streetcar setting . . . is irreproducibly American,” and that New
Orleans, “that most intriguing of American cities . . . has long passed from geography to mythography” (Kolin 1). Williams, through his theatrical
arrangement of sights, sounds, and movement, is able to embody this American “myth” in an active physical space — he employs the ambiance of
climate, jazz music, and commerce to define American culture, and then sets it into visible motion. It is by this encapsulation of images
that Streetcar becomes an American icon itself; Kolin describes the play as “a bible of American passion” (Kolin 1), explaining how Williams’ work is
not only an imitation of American images, but essentially, an index for America’s richly sensual appeal.
In order to maintain a distinctly American atmosphere, Williams does not rely solely on imagery; he also provides frequent allusions to the
nation’s cultural history and make-up. For instance, shortly after Blanche DuBois reunites with her sister Stella, she says “Oh, I’m not going to be
hypocritical, I’m going to be honestly critical about it! Never, never, never in my worst dreams could I picture — only Poe! Only Mr. Edgar Allan Poe!
— could do it justice! Out there I suppose is the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir!” (Williams 2190). Through these lines of dialogue, Williams both
alludes to Poe’s ballad “Ulalume,” and also establishes that Blanche is literate in Poe’s work. As Edgar Allan Poe himself is an icon of American
poetry, Williams confirms that his characters are living, breathing, and absorbing the staples of American culture. Poe serves as one of several
American literary figures to which Williams alludes, and such figures are perhaps what Kolin considers to be the play’s “sacred” American icons —
the immortal and respected literary giants by whom Streetcar‘s characters are culturally and nationally defined.
In addition to historical figures, Williams addresses America’s social and ethnic composition. Stella describes her husband to her sister, saying
“Stanley is Polish, you know,” to which Blanche replies “Oh yes. They’re something like Irish, aren’t they?” (Williams 2192). Stella goes on to say
that Stanley’s friends are “a mixed lot,” causing Blanche to ask “Heterogeneous—types?” (Williams 2192). These lines signal an awareness of a
diverse cultural society. Indeed, following a second massive wave of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 1940s
America hosted much social and cultural diversity. As this integration was somewhat characteristic of American society, Williams was sure to reflect
the social condition through his characters. Once again, this reflection of society bolsters Streetcar‘s status as a standard of American literature. As
Kolin explains, “Like American society itself, the Streetcar gumbo tantalizes the palate with its dark roux, its blend of cultures. Streetcar potboils
black, Mexican, Creole, WASP, and southern aristocrat with plebeian Pole. Because of all this — and reflecting all this — Streetcar is one of our most
representative works of art” (Kolin 1-2). Williams’ unparalleled attempt to reflect American culture creates an masterful incarnation of the society
in which he lived — one that many critics feel has yet to be surpassed.
Besides filling his play with copious American icons, Williams distinguishes Streetcar as a work of American literature by keeping his play
independent from past theatrical traditions. In essence, Streetcar is not a play driven by a social agenda, a challenging of gender roles, or a well-
defined structure of tragedy (despite that it certainly offers perspectives with regard to these issues); it is instead a story driven entirely by human
nature, and a distinctly American nature, no less. By allowing the unique virtues and vices of his characters to direct the action of the play, Williams
puts aside the notion that American drama has one specified role, and rather, defines the play by the nature of Americans, no matter what the final
result may be. In their article “The Ontological Potentialities of Antichaos and Adaptation in A Streetcar Named Desire,” Laura and Edward Morrow
clarify the apparent lack of definite dramatic guidelines in Streetcar: “Since the play’s opening almost a half century ago, scholars have remained
divided over Streetcar‘s most fundamental elements: distinguishing the protagonist from the antagonist, identifying the play’s generic form,
discerning what Williams intended by a conclusion in which nothing is concluded” (Morrow 59). Certainly, when viewed as a component of
American theater, Williams’ play seems formally ambiguous; it is unclear whether a specific genre or formula was intended in its composition. In
observing the play, however, the answer seems to lie within the individual characters themselves. Streetcar is ultimately not a formulaic drama, but
rather, a close study of characters who have been raised with American perspectives.
Williams portrays many of his principal characters — mainly Blanche and Stanley — with a sense of sexual and emotional craving, that is, a
deep and uncontrollable desire to find belonging in the arms of another person. As Stella defends her sister, Blanche, against Stanley’s harsh
accusations, she describes this element of longing in Blanche’s character: “When she was young, very young, she married a boy who wrote poetry . .
. He was extremely good-looking. I think Blanche didn’t just love him but worshipped the ground he walked on! Adored him and thought him
almost too fine to be human!” (Williams 2229). Clearly, Blanche is characterized by both sensual and romantic fantasies. As her obsession with her
husband causes her emotional destruction upon his death, thus ushering her into a life of prostitution and irresponsibility, it is apparent that her
fantasies have facilitated her moral and societal decline. In this way, Williams depicts how desire is the chief influence over her actions, or how the
eponymous “streetcar” has carried her into her current conditions.
Stanley is defined by a similar sense of desire; although his yearning is more masculine, more brutally unrefined and sexual, we find that he
shares Blanche’s deeply rooted hunger. As he is about to rape Blanche, and annihilate what is left of her mental stability, he says to her “Come to
think of it — maybe you wouldn’t be bad to — interfere with,’ and Williams provides the stage notes ‘He takes a step forward her, biting his tongue
which protrudes between his lips‘ (Williams 2242). This suggestion of intense sexual fantasizing is a characteristically American notion; Kolin refers
to a “distinctively American sexuality” in the play, citing Stanley’s mannerisms as “pure American primitive” (Kolin 1). The key concept, however, is
the way in which Williams uses this American notion of sexuality to drive the action of his artwork. Just as Blanche’s sensual worship for her
husband led to emotional devastation and sexual desperation, Stanley’s animalistic instincts lead him toward rape, a summit of immorality.
Williams’ implementation of desire guides their actions, and leads them both toward somewhat tragic conclusions; they are bound by the flaws of
their distinctly human natures. As Laura and Edward Morrow state, “The most significant of complex systems in Streetcar is that formed by Blanche,
Stella, and Stanley; the network connecting them is Desire. Through an examination of the rules governing this system’s operation in Streetcar, we
can better understand the treatment of order and disorder, or determinism and free will, or adaptation and evolution in the play” (Morrow 61).
Indeed, the characters’ human foundations — mainly desire — are the play’s catalysts for error, tragedy, and disaster: “(Streetcar‘s) characters and
plot convincingly represent human behavior” (Morrow 60). Williams creates a purely American setting in which American dreams and vices are
responsible for the outcomes; the various political and social implications, endless as they may be, seem only to be the aftermath.
In conclusion, Streetcar allows American values and cultures to freely interact. In this way, it abandons certain dramatic guidelines (such as
restrictions to a specific genre) and serves as one of America’s most representational plays. Laura and Edward Morrow posit questions
concerning Streetcar‘s purpose, asking “Is this play Blanche’s — or Stanley’s? Is Streetcar a traditional Aristotelian tragedy or a modern, Milleresque
threnody?” (Morrow 59). In observing the play, we find that none of these suggestions seems to be Williams’ definite intent. Rather, Williams opens
questioning and debate through his portrait of a rich and distinct American landscape — a portrait that seals Streetcar as one of America’s literary
landmarks.