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• A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams

• Literature Notes
• Essay Questions
• Play Summary
• About A Streetcar Named Desire
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Character Analysis
• Blanche DuBois
• Stanley Kowalski
• Stella Kowalski
• Harold Mitchell (Mitch)
• Tennessee Williams Biography
• Cite this Literature Note

Study Help Essay Questions

1. Why does Blanche avoid strong light?

2. How are specific physical symbols used to characterize the essential nature of Stanley Kowalski?

3. How is it possible that two such opposite people as Blanche and Stanley could possibly meet?

4. Why does Blanche so openly flirt with Stanley in the first part of the play? What significance does this later have?

5. What is the purpose of the two poker games?

6. What do Blanche's actions with the young newspaper boy indicate about her conflict?

7. Characterize the essential differences between the Kowalski and the DuBois worlds.

8. How do Blanche's many baths influence the action of the drama?

9. What implications are there in Mitch's act of forcing Blanche under the naked light bulb?

10. Why does Blanche's rape totally destroy her?

11. Justify Stanley's antagonism toward Blanche.

12. Using evidence from the play, try to determine which is the real Blanche, the innocent and charming Blanche or the degenerate and promiscuous Blanche.

13. Show how each subsequent meeting between Blanche and Stanley increases in violence and antagonism.

14. Justify the Kowalski world as being superior to the DuBois world.

15. In spite of Blanche's past life, her deceit, and her artificiality, most readers and viewers tend to sympathize with and align themselves with her. How can this emotional reaction (or attachment) toward Blanche be justified?

16. Describe how Stella's child offers the only hope of a reconciliation between the two opposing worlds of Kowalski and DuBois.

17. Show how a Mitch-Blanche marriage could have been a perfect marriage if Stanley had not interfered.

18. Where do you consider Williams' final view toward illusion and reality to lie? Does he align himself with Stanley's reality and brutal honesty, or with Blanche's illusion and pretense?

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107 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions, Topics, & Examples

Welcome to our list of best A Streetcar Named Desire essay topics! Here, you will find interesting ideas for discussions, essay questions, Streetcar Named Desire research titles, and more. In addition, if you click on the links, you can read excellent A Streetcar Named Desire essay examples!

🔝 Top 10 A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Topics

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• ❓ A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questionse

✍️ A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Prompts

• Blanche’s Descent into Madness
• Blanche DuBois as a Tragic Heroine
• The New vs. the Old South in the Play
• Reality vs. Illusion in Williams’ Play
• The Tragic Downfall of Blanche DuBois
• Light vs. Darkness in A Streetcar Named Desire
• Stella and Blanche’s Struggle for Autonomy
• Stanley Kowalski as a Symbol of Masculinity
• Music and Sound in A Streetcar Named Desire
• How Social Status Shaped the Characters’ Lives in the Play
• Stanley and Blanche Relationship in A Streetcar Named Desire The “impurity” of Blanche’s past suggests the final of the play and it is a quite logical completion of the story.
• Blanche’s Lies in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams Laurel is the hometown of Blanche DuBois. The lies of Blanche DuBois were concocted to win male suitors.
• Vulnerability in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams The author manages to demonstrate the power of vulnerability and raw emotions through the play’s characters, which keeps the story full of tension and interesting dynamics.
• Tennessee Williams’ Play “A Streetcar Named Desire” Williams’ view towards the ideas of illusion and reality works to highlight the fact that reality will always overcome fantasy and the two cannot coexist peacefully, and while we cannot completely admire Stanley in his […]
• Social Norms in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams In Blanche’s opinion, beauty is the true value of a woman since it enables her to win recognition of men. The main tragedy of Blanche DuBois is that she was conditioned to act and behave […]
• Blanche DuBois in Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” As DuBois is a female character, her tragedy is also to be seen as a result of her helplessness to transform her desires in a male-dominated world.
• Costumes in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) Film Although Blanche’s and Stanley’s clothes belong to the same time period and, therefore, allow the characters to coexist within the same reality and interact naturally, the differences in the details and the style serve more […]
• Female Characters in A Streetcar Named Desire & The Great Gatsby: Comparative It can be seen in the case of Stella and Daisy wherein in their pursuit of what they think is their “ideal” love, they are, in fact, pursuing nothing more than a false ideal that […]
• A Streetcar Named Desire A mentally stronger person, Stella is capable of surviving in the world that she and her husband live in and, more to the point, sacrificing the truth to preserve that world, even at the cost […]
• Comparison: Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire In the Death of a Salesman, Willy, the protagonist, is lost in the illusion that the American dream is only achievable via superficial qualities of likeability and attractiveness.
• Williams Tennessee’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” The fact that something wrong and evil will form part of Blanche’s life is depicted in the beginning of the work by the mysterious expressions that compound the descriptions of Elysian Fields.
• “A Streetcar Named Desire” and Other Hollywood Films: The Effect of Negative Sexual Acts and Values on Society The two entities feed off each other in a dependent state of co-existence, in that, the occurrences in society form the basis of the plots and ideas of various films, while films offer entertainment, inspiration, […]
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Literature Comparison Stella is a devoted wife struggling to make her marriage work, even though her husband Stanley, subjects her to a lot of pain and suffering.
• Mann’s “Death in Venice” and Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” Altogether Mann succeeds to convey his messages through the character of the boy, the artist, and the other objects in the story.
• Blanche in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Williams It is a perfect presentation of the two major characters Blanche DuBois whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly cover her alcoholism and illusions of greatness, and Stanley Kowalski, who is primitive, rough, and […]
• The Movies “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Cyrano de Bergerac” The movie is as tensed as the play. The sound is also very good as the music creates the necessary atmosphere.
• Blanche Dubois’ Costume in “A Streetcar Named Desire” This is the shape of dress: a sleeveless sweetheart neckline, ruched bodice, with dropped basque waist and long multi-gored, multi-layered skirt falling from the hips, with translucent overlay. The color is a girlish pink, the […]
• A Streetcar Named Desire: The Passion of Blanche The very movement brings back the fleur of the England of the XVIII century, to “Southern-Gothic imp of Poe-etic perverse” with all its ideas of Gothic culture and the features that are due only to […]
• A Streetcar Named Desire She is highly critical and snobbish when she regards the cramped up apartment that her sister and her husband lives in.
• Gender Struggle in Tennessee Williams “A Streetcar Named Desire” This observation is not merely the central idea of the play, but is an enhancement to the basic personality trait that goes along with the horrifying aftermath of the warfare, conducted in the name of […]
• The Conflict Between Stanley and Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• Alcoholism, Violence, Sexuality, and Happiness in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Two Different Worlds of Stella in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Link Between Desire and Death in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Theatrical Set Design of “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Loneliness, Female vs. Male Thoughts and Ways in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Presentation of Masculinity and Femininity in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Ariel”
• Romantic Love as the Center of Conflict in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Realistic Fantasy of “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Interrelationship of Characters and Themes in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Themes of Illusion and Fantasy in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• Historical, Social, and Cultural Context of Tennessee Williams on “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Use of the Grotesque in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Blending of Tragic and Comic Elements in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Fusion of Eros and Thanatos in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Similarities and Differences in the Presentation of Female Characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Decline of the American Dream in “Great Gatsby” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Symbolic Interactions of the Characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Role of Family in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Importance and Danger of Illusions in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Uses of Colors an Lighting in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Dual Conflicts Between Civilization and Savagery, Old and New, Appearance and Reality in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Tragic Heroine Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Tragic Comedy of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• Self Deception and Silence in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Complexity of the Main Characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Use of Illusions as a Defense Mechanism Against the Real World and Inner Demons in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• Williams’ Use of Imagery and Symbolism in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• Deluded Fantasies About Love and Aspiration for Life in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Theme of Domestic Violence in “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Relationship of Blanche and Stella to the Dramatic Effect of “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Picture of a Southern Belle in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Gender Stereotypes in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Theme of Past and Present in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Themes of Death and Desire in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”
• The Music’s Role in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Facing Reality Without Depending on Members of the Opposite Sex in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• The Skillful Use of Poetic Dialogue in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Prey and Predator in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
• Powerless Women: A Comparison of “The Duchess of Malfi” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”

❓ A Streetcar Named Desire Essay Questions

• How Are the Themes of Reality and Illusion Presented in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• Should Stella Leave Stanley in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams?
• How Does Williams Present Conflict Between Old and New in Scene Two of “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• Do Women Seek Independence and Individualism in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Does Wolfing Mean in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Were Common Societal Expectations of Women in the Time When the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire” Was Written?
• Why Are Women Dependent on Men in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• Can Stanley Be Named as the Ideal of American Masculinity in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• Why Has an Abused Woman Stayed With Her Abuser in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Changes Were Made to the Play’s Plot for the Screen Adaptation of “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1951?
• How Does Blanche Die in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• How Is the Theme of Class Difference Portrayed in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• How Is the Idea of Naturalism Presented in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Message Does the Writer Try to Convey in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• How Does the Past Influence the Present in the Novel “The Reader” and the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• How Is Marriage Represented in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Elements of Southern Fiction Are Presented in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Is the Overall Concept of “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Role Does Sexuality Play in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• Why Are Blanche and Stella Attracted to Each Other Despite Their Conflicts in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Secrets From the Past Does Blanche Hide in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Literary Techniques Does Tennessee Williams Use to Enhance Themes in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• Why Has Blanche Dubois Failed at the End of “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Is Unique About Tennessee Williams’ Word Choice in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• How Does Mitch’s Image Change in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by the End of the Play?
• What Is the Symbolic Meaning of the Shattered Mirror in the Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• Why Does Blanche Try to Escape the Reality in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Ideas of Gender Issues Does Tennessee Williams Try to Convey to the Reader in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• What Role Does Fantasy Play in Blanche’s Life in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• How Do Alcohol and Drugs Influence the Main Characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire”?
• Blanche DuBois’ Fatal Flaws and Downfall In this essay, you can delve into Blanche’s character arc. Explore her vulnerabilities, delusions, and how her past experiences contribute to her tragic end.
• The Southern Belle Archetype in A Streetcar Named Desire Here, you can explore the Myth of Southern charm and fragility known as “Southern belle.” Examine Blanche’s portrayal as a Southern belle and how it reflects societal expectations regarding women during that time.
• Symbols of Truth and Deception in A Streetcar Named Desire In this essay, you can analyze the play’s recurring motif of light and darkness. How does it enhance the themes of illusion versus reality?
• A Streetcar Named Desire as a Critique of Masculinity and Patriarchy This literary analysis can explore how the character of Stanley Kowalski. Show how it embodies traditional masculinity. What are the implications of his dominance over the women characters?
• Blanche DuBois as a Femme Fatale This essay can discuss Blanche’s seductive power and the consequences of her manipulative behavior on the people around her. Prove your point with quotes from the play.
• The Southern Gothic Elements in A Streetcar Named Desire This interesting topic focuses on the Dark and Macabre Aspects of the play. Analyze the incorporation of Southern Gothic elements, such as decay, madness, and secrets.
• The Theme of Desire and Its Manifestation in the Play Here, you can compare and contrast the characters’ desires. For example, focus on Blanche’s desire for security and love, Stanley’s desire for control, and Stella’s desire for stability.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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A Streetcar Named Desire

By tennessee williams.

• Literature /
• A Streetcar Named Desire /
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• Here's a peek at some of the better-known alternative titles for A Streetcar Named Desire : The Moth and Blanche's Chair on the Moon . Clearly, Tennessee Williams thought long and hard before finally arriving at a title that hit the nail on the head. So, what exactly does the title say about the play? What does it allude to, both metaphorically and literally ?

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A Streetcar Named Desire

By tennessee williams, a streetcar named desire study guide.

During the incredibly successful run of The Glass Menagerie , theater workmen taught Williams how to play poker. Williams was already beginning to work on a new story, about two Southern belles in a small apartment with a rough crowd of blue-collar men. A poker game played by the men was to be central to the action of the play; eventually, this story evolved into A Streetcar Named Desire .

Streetcar hit theaters in 1946. The play cemented William's reputation as one of the greatest American playwrights, winning him a New York's Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize. Among the play's greatest achievements is the depiction of the psychology of working class characters. In the plays of the period, depictions of working-class life tended to be didactic, with a focus on social commentary or a kind of documentary drama. Williams' play sought to depict working-class characters as psychologically-evolved entities; to some extent, Williams tries to portray these blue-collar characters on their own terms, without romanticizing them.

Tennessee Williams did not express strong admiration for any early American playwrights; his greatest dramatic influence was the brilliant Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Chekhov, with his elegant juxtaposition of the humorous and the tragic, his lonely characters, and his dark sensibilities, was a powerful inspiration for Tennessee Williams' work. At the same time, Williams' plays are undeniably American in setting and character. Another important influence was the novelist D.H. Lawrence, who offered Williams a depiction of sexuality as a potent force of life; Lawrence is alluded to in The Glass Menagerie as one of the writers favored by Tom. The American poet Hart Crane was another important influence on Williams; in Crane's tragic life and death, open homosexuality, and determination to create poetry that did not mimic European sensibilities, Williams found endless inspiration. Williams also belongs to the tradition of great Southern writers who have invigorated literary language with the lyricism of Southern English.

Like Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams wanted to challenge some of the conventions of naturalistic theatre. Summer and Smoke (1948), Camino Real (1953), and The Glass Menagerie (1944), among others, provided some of the early testing ground for Williams' innovations. The Glass Menagerie uses music, screen projections, and lighting effects to create the haunting and dream-like atmosphere appropriate for a "memory play." Like Eugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman , Williams' plays explores ways of using the stage to depict the interior life and memories of a character.

In Streetcar , stage effects are used to represent Blanche's decent into madness. The maddening polka music, jungle sound effects, and strange shadows help to represent the world as Blanche experiences it. These effects are a departure from the conventions of naturalistic drama, although in this respect Streetcar is not as innovative as The Glass Menagerie . Nevertheless, A Streetcar Named Desire uses these effects to create a highly subjective portrait of the play's central action. On stage, these effects powerfully evoke the terror and isolation of madness.

A Streetcar Named Desire Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for A Streetcar Named Desire is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What is the significance of the hand mirror Blanche looks into in this scene? What does she confront through this action?

I see no evidence of a hand mirror in Scene V. Please provide the text in question.

The difference between Blanche and Stanley’s social background is shown through their way of speaking. What are some quotes from scene 2 to support the following statements

STANLEY: What's all this monkey doings?

Blanche explains that she knows she fibs a lot, because "after all, a woman's charm is fifty percent illusion"

You can clearly see the difference in diction.

strange man

re you referring to Streetcar Named Desire?

Study Guide for A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire study guide contains a biography of Tennessee Williams, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About A Streetcar Named Desire
• A Streetcar Named Desire Summary
• Character List

Essays for A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of A Streetcar Named Desire.

• Chekhov's Influence on the Work of Tennessee Williams
• Morality and Immorality (The Picture of Dorian Gray and A Streetcar Named Desire)
• Traditionalism versus Defiance in a Streetcar Named Desire
• Comparing Social and Ethnic Tensions in A Streetcar Named Desire and Blues for Mister Charlie
• The Wolf's Jaws: Brutality and Abandonment in A Streetcare Named Desire

Lesson Plan for A Streetcar Named Desire

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Introduction to A Streetcar Named Desire
• Relationship to Other Books
• Notes to the Teacher

Wikipedia Entries for A Streetcar Named Desire

• Introduction
• Stage productions
• Adaptations

A Streetcar Named Desire

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A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Scene Summaries & Analyses

Scenes 10-11

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Sounds and actions on the street constantly interrupt or backdrop the dialogue taking place within the Kowalski flat. What are the purposes of these various interruptions? How might reading them on the page differ from seeing them enacted on stage?

Mitch and Stella confront life-changing questions in the face of information given to them by Stanley. How much does he influence their decisions to sever ties with Blanche? Do you think any measure taken by Blanche could have countered the breadth and scope of his domination over those around him?

Whenever Blanche talks about Belle Reve, her language becomes dreamlike—loose and associative. What can you piece together about her experience there given the visceral details she provides? How do this trauma and the past traumas of her life influence her manner of moving about the world?

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Plays — A Streetcar Named Desire

Essays on A Streetcar Named Desire

Choosing the right essay topic is crucial for your success in college. Your creativity and personal interests play a significant role in the selection process. This webpage aims to provide you with a variety of A Streetcar Named Desire essay topics to inspire your writing and help you excel in your academic pursuits.

Essay Types and Topics

Argumentative.

• The role of gender in A Streetcar Named Desire
• The impact of societal norms on the characters' behaviors

Paragraph Example:

In Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, the portrayal of gender dynamics is a central theme that sheds light on the power struggles and societal expectations faced by the characters. This essay aims to explore the significance of gender in the play and its influence on the characters' decisions and relationships.

Through a close examination of the gender dynamics in A Streetcar Named Desire, this essay has highlighted the complexities of societal norms and their impact on individual lives. The characters' struggles serve as a reflection of the broader societal challenges, prompting us to reconsider our perceptions of gender roles and expectations.

Compare and Contrast

• The parallels between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski
• The contrasting symbols of light and darkness in the play

Descriptive

• The vivid imagery of New Orleans in the play
• The sensory experiences portrayed in A Streetcar Named Desire
• An argument for Blanche's mental state and its impact on her actions
• The case for the significance of the play's setting in shaping the characters
• Reimagining a key scene from a different character's perspective
• A personal reflection on the themes of illusion and reality in the play

Engagement and Creativity

As you explore these essay topics, remember to engage your critical thinking skills and bring your unique perspective to your writing. A Streetcar Named Desire offers a rich tapestry of themes and characters, providing ample opportunities for creative exploration in your essays.

Educational Value

Each essay type presents a valuable opportunity for you to develop different skills. Argumentative essays can refine your analytical thinking, while descriptive essays can enhance your ability to paint vivid pictures with words. Persuasive essays help you hone your persuasive writing skills, and narrative essays allow you to practice storytelling and narrative techniques.

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An Examination of The Character of Blanche in a Streetcar Named Desire

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The Concealed Homosexuality in a Streetcar Named Desire

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December 3, 1947, Tennessee Williams

Play; Southern Gothic

The French Quarter and Downtown New Orleans

Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, Stanley Kowalski, Harold "Mitch" Mitchell

1. Vlasopolos, A. (1986). Authorizing History: Victimization in" A Streetcar Named Desire". Theatre Journal, 38(3), 322-338. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3208047) 2. Corrigan, M. A. (1976). Realism and Theatricalism in A Streetcar Named Desire. Modern Drama, 19(4), 385-396. (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/50/article/497088/summary) 3. Quirino, L. (1983). The Cards Indicate a Voyage on'A Streetcar Named Desire'. Contemporary Literary Criticism, 30. (https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1100001571&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00913421&p=LitRC&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E8abc495e) 4. Corrigan, M. A. (2019). Realism and Theatricalism in A Streetcar Named Desire. In Essays on Modern American Drama (pp. 27-38). University of Toronto Press. (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781487577803-004/html?lang=de) 5. Van Duyvenbode, R. (2001). Darkness Made Visible: Miscegenation, Masquerade and the Signified Racial Other in Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll and A Streetcar Named Desire. Journal of American Studies, 35(2), 203-215. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/abs/darkness-made-visible-miscegenation-masquerade-and-the-signified-racial-other-in-tennessee-williams-baby-doll-and-a-streetcar-named-desire/B73C386D2422793FB8DC00E0B79B7331) 6. Cahir, L. C. (1994). The Artful Rerouting of A Streetcar Named Desire. Literature/Film Quarterly, 22(2), 72. (https://www.proquest.com/openview/7040761d75f7fd8f9bf37a2f719a28a4/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=5938) 7. Silvio, J. R. (2002). A Streetcar Named Desire—Psychoanalytic Perspectives. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 30(1), 135-144. (https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jaap.30.1.135.21985) 8. Griffies, W. S. (2007). A streetcar named desire and tennessee Williams' object‐relational conflicts. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 4(2), 110-127. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aps.127) 9. Shackelford, D. (2000). Is There a Gay Man in This Text?: Subverting the Closet in A Streetcar Named Desire. In Literature and Homosexuality (pp. 135-159). Brill. (https://brill.com/display/book/9789004483460/B9789004483460_s010.xml)

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GCSE Literature 'A Streetcar Named Desire' extract and essay questions

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

5 December 2022

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Guest Essay

100 Days of Javier Milei

By Uki Goñi

Mr. Goñi is an Argentine author, essayist and journalist based in Buenos Aires, where he wrote this essay.

Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, has been in office for just over 100 days. Since his inauguration on Dec. 10, Mr. Milei, a far-right libertarian, has been on a mission to end what he has described as “an orgy of public spending” by previous administrations that left him with “the worst inheritance” of any government in Argentina’s history.

The extreme libertarian program that Mr. Milei says will make Argentina great again — along with his unruly hair and tongue — has attracted countless comparisons to Donald Trump and won him high praise from Mr. Trump and other powerful admirers. Elon Musk indicated that Mr. Milei’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year was “so hot” that it distracted from the act of sex.

But this political outsider is having a harder time convincing his fellow Argentines of his vision. A self-proclaimed “ anarcho-capitalist ,” Mr. Milei won the presidential race in November on promises to end Argentina’s sky-high inflation through a free-market transformation of the state. So far, he’s failed to deliver: Inflation doubled during his first month in office, though it has slowed down recently. Poverty rates have shot up; retail sales have plummeted . Mr. Milei has both faced widespread protests on the streets and hit a wall in Congress, which has twice so far rejected the plans he says will transform Argentina into “a world power once again.”

All of these headwinds have left a troubling question hanging over his new administration: Who is the real Javier Milei? Is he the economic visionary who won over voters and prompted Mr. Musk to predict that “ prosperity is ahead for Argentina ”? Or is he the power-hungry villain that tens of thousands of Argentines now march against on the streets, chanting “The country is not for sale!”

This much is certain: Mr. Milei is no Donald Trump. While his anti-establishment persona and inflammatory rhetoric invite easy comparisons to the former president, Mr. Milei is a product of a long South American history in which authoritarianism has been the norm and democracy the exception. Although he embraces some elements of the Trump populism flowing from North to South America — including the “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden flags he likes to pose with — Mr. Milei is more archetypal South American caudillo, or strongman, than Trump aspirer.

Mr. Milei, like the Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, his ideological opposite, is seeking extraordinary powers in the name of saving his country. For decades, Argentina has been held up by free-market economists as one of the world’s pre-eminent examples of how progressive economic policies can lead to disaster. The argument goes that while Argentina was ruled by conservatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was among the world’s top economies, before left-leaning governments came to power and bloated spending with unaffordable social welfare programs, generating Argentina’s chronic inflation problem. In his Dec. 10 inaugural speech , Mr. Milei waxed nostalgic for this long-ago time, boasting with undisguised exaggeration that Argentina was “the richest country in the world ” and “a beacon of light of the West.”

But Argentina was no paradise back then. A single political party clung to power through electoral fraud between 1874 and 1916. Although Argentina did become an agricultural powerhouse, the period was also marked by endemic corruption, excessive international borrowing, recurrent financial crises and empty state coffers that the government tried to fill the same way Mr. Milei wants to today — by privatizing state companies.

Argentina’s current democratic period, which started in 1983, has been the longest in its 208-year history. But the economy has proved nearly unfixable for both dictators and democratically elected leaders — left and right — since the country’s independence from Spain in 1816, marred by inflation, foreign debt defaults and various convertibility schemes.

Mr. Milei won over voters last year with the promise to end this long economic agony by attacking what he has identified as a root cause: “the aberration of social justice.” Many of his economic policies are inspired by the works of Murray Rothbard, a 20th-century American libertarian economist who befriended Holocaust deniers and whom critics accused of supporting racial segregation . Rothbard dogma were key tenets of Mr. Milei’s presidential campaign, including his “Taxation is theft” slogan and his pledge to eliminate the country’s central bank.

He blames progressive governments such as that of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was in power from 2007 until 2015, for the country’s many ills. As a cure, Mr. Milei has already started dismantling Argentina’s welfare programs and removing the government from the business of education and health care.

So far, Mr. Milei does not seem averse to putting democracy on the rack as his vision of a libertarian paradise has hit political resistance. On March 14, the Senate overturned a presidential decree in which Mr. Milei conferred upon himself the power to plow ahead with cost-cutting reforms without congressional approval. (The decree remains in force, however, unless the lower house, where the president faces better odds, also strikes it down.) Last month, congressional opposition also forced him to withdraw the free-market omnibus bill that was the cornerstone of his economic plan and would have permitted him to privatize state companies and deregulate vast areas of the economy, including environmental controls and the labor market.

Mr. Milei, according to one report , said that he was going to “piss” on the governors who refused to back the economic bill and added that he could close Congress. He called the legislators who voted against the bill “parasites.”

It is an open question whether Mr. Milei has misread his voters on how far they, too, are willing to go to turn Argentina’s economy around. Mr. Milei may be testing the limits of Argentina’s on-and-off-again democracy to fulfill his dream of transforming it from a soft, populist, welfare- and social-rights-driven nation into a libertarian utopia where the fittest can realize their full potential unshackled from the weight of sharing their bounty Even if Mr. Milei’s policies do eventually tame the price of basic goods, Argentines may not embrace being denied public health policies that generations have enjoyed — or having their elected leader threaten to shut down the legislature.

Argentina is, after all, not the unmitigated economic disaster Mr. Milei and like-minded critics make it out to be. It has a diversified industrial base and is a major agricultural exporter. It has the second-highest human development index in Latin America and is its third-largest economy, with a highly educated population and a still strong, if battered, middle class that knows how to fight for its rights.

In January, soon after he took office, Mr. Milei went to Davos with a message for the world’s business people. “Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral,” he said . “You are the true protagonists of this story and rest assured that as from today, Argentina is your staunch and unconditional ally.”

As the enthusiastic responses from Mr. Musk and others show, his message has been well received by the wealthy. But Mr. Milei will have to make an equally convincing appeal to the real protagonists in this story: the people on the streets and byways of Argentina whose patience may start wearing thin more quickly than expected if Mr. Milei does not soon slay the beast of inflation, which has seldom been tamed in our country’s long history.

If he fails, he will be remembered not as the libertarian genius that Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk make him out to be, but as just another in a long line of South American would-be caudillos who failed to deliver on their promises — and made life miserable for millions along the way.

Uki Goñi is an Argentine author, essayist and journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the Guardian and the New York Times. His book The Real Odessa: How Nazi War Criminals Escaped Europe was republished in an augmented edition in November 2022 by Granta Books.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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