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A Street Car Named Desire - Sexuality

Can anyone tell me about this theme in the play? thank you, links would be useful too if you have any.

i read this last term...... its really shi*! basically sexuality comes into it because the relationship between stella and stanley is based on sex.... this comes through when they have a fight during the poker game and then stella runs upto eunices house and then when stanley calls her name at the bottom and she comes down n they both make up by having sex! blanche is also useful in this theme cos she got dismissd from her school teaching as an english teacher because she had sexual relations with one of her students! another part is when stanley rapes blanche (or so we are lead to believe) when stella is at hospital having the baby! "oh! so you want some rough house! all right, lets have some rough house".

Reply 2

maz69

also when blanche and mitch are on the boat and mitch wants to kiss blanche but she says "im not that kind of girl" even tho she has quite a reputation back in bel rev of bein quite the *****!

Reply 3

maz69

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/streetcar/themes.html hope this helps!

Reply 4

Annik

also homosexuality is a big thing..
blanche's husband was homosexual and so was tennesse williams

Reply 5

Mrs Rickman

lol sex is in everything in Streetcar...practically every sentence can be interpreted as having an underlying sexual meaning.

We see this right from the start of the play with Stanley throwing Stella the red meat (red's a big colour for Stanley, blue for Blanche). It was Blanche's 'epic fornications' that brought her to Elysian Fields (land of the dead) and her outward flirtaciousness (with Stanley, the teenage boy and Mitch) is an attempt to repress the insecurity that has haunted her since Allan's death, especially now she has to 'go on without Belle Reve to protect us'.

Stanley's primitive, sex-driven masculinity (see initial stage directions for Stanley) therefore easily overpowers the vulnerable Blanche. Also, Williams new a guy called Stanley Kowalski in real life who had very similar characteristics to the character in the play. Williams, being gay, was very drawn to the stereotypical straight, red-blooded male, link Williams' own sexuality therefore. Then there's Stella, who is equally as sex-driven as Stanley (note scene where she takes him back 'low animal moans' etc and refs to the 'coloured lights' - lots of colour - expressionism).

Mitch = lonely. Parallel relationship of Steve and Eunice - assumed way of life.

And not forgetting of course, the title of the play is 'desire'!! Desire dominates the characters and consequent action of the play right the way through to the (alleged - poss discuss ambiguity of this) rape.

Maybe also mention the baby (symbol of America).

Link between sex and death (the Mexican Woman). Other symbols like the polka music, light, colour...

Depends how open-ended your question is really, and how much you need to write, cause there's so much!

(Am revising this now for mock on Monday hence why i'm rambling on!)