An Interpretation Of Symbolism In A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams is generally known as one of the greatest American dramatistsin the twentieth century. A Streetcar Named Desire that is published in1947makes himwin the incomparable position in the literary world. As a rising star in the United Statesafter the Second World War, he has attracted much attention of the countries all over theworld. After the play is showed on the stage in1951in New York, it wins a great success.He has won many top theatrical awards, such as the Pulitzer Prize, New York DramaCritics’ Circle Award and Tony Award, so A Streetcar Named Desire is considered to bethe best works of Williams.In A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams tells a story of a common family thathappens in New Orleans in the early twentieth century-how a middle-aged womanteacher-Blanche destroys herself in the last journey of her life. Williams shows hisunique worldview and dramatic charm in this play. So far, the researches of manyscholars, at home or abroad, mainly focus on the perspective of feminism, ethicalcriticism and psychoanalysis, whereas is lack of certain interpretation on the charactersfrom the aspect of theatrics. Therefore, the writer of this thesis takes Williams’masterpiece-A Streetcar Named Desire as the research object, which is based onsymbolism in order to analyze the creative process of Williams from the script to thestage and explore the significance of symbolism in deepening the theme of the play.This thesis consists of three parts: an introduction, the main body and a conclusion.Its main contents are as follows:The first part is introduction, which gives a brief introduction of Williams’ lifeexperience and his literary achievements from the aspects of family and society, andreflects autobiographic feature in the works. At the same time, the thesis elaborateswriting background and specific content, revealing many factors that have a greatinfluence on the creation. Besides, the author presents the research background andsignificance as well as the research achievements of predecessors, and points out theunsolved problems, and then draws out the research purpose and content.The second part is the main body, which is made up of three chapters:Chapter One firstly elaborates the basic theory of the thesis-symbolism, which is one of the most important features of realism and has a deep influence on thedevelopment of drama. Secondly, it introduces the multiple symbolic elements and theuse of unique skills on the stage, which not only adds vigor to the traditional realismdrama and vividly shows the characters’ image, but also becomes a magic weapon to theplastic theatre. On the stage, the use of lighting and acoustics not only represents thecharacters’ psychology, but also foils emotional atmosphere and makes an invisible stagein the readers’ mind. Finally, through the advance processing to visual and auditory sense,Williams brings the readers into the wonderful world of drama with concise and refinedlanguage.Chapter Two makes an analysis of the symbolic meaning of the conflicts betweenthe characters. There are two kinds of conflicts in this play. One is recessive conflict thatexists in Blanche and her ex-husband Allan, and the other is manifest conflict that existsin Blanche and her brother-in-law Stanley. Williams’ southern complex and the evolutionprocess of southern gentlemen have expressed his complicated feelings, such as his love,sympathy and disappointment to the south. At the same time, it expounds the oppositionand contradiction that exist in the gay community represented by Allan and the anti-gaygroups represented by Blanche. The description about Allan who is seen as an invisibleman has reflected Williams’ own life experience to varying degrees and illustratedcultural connotations and social significance of gay image.In addition, the opposition and conflict between Blanche who stands for romanticistand Stanley as a representative of realist are deeply analyzed, which reflects the symbolicsignificance and theme. The contradiction between Blanche and Stanley represents theconflict of the old traditional southern culture and the northern industry. As a romanticist,Blanche has a kind of poetic character; Williams tries to portray Stanley as a spokesmanof the era and modern society, so as to reveal his devastating blows to the romanticist.Chapter Three focuses on the symbolic meaning of the illusion in A StreetcarNamed Desire. In the drama, Williams presents an illusory world to the readers. The threemain characters-Blanche, Stanley and Stella all sink into illusion and can’t pull out fromit. When reality and expectation cannot be mediated, illusion has become the only way oflife that they are forced to accept. Their performance also reflects the helpless anddesperate psychology when the modern people are in the face of reality. Nonetheless, they still cherish life and don’t lose courage and hope towards life. As a female evader,Blanche is a kind of tragedy in the aspect of character. In a more profound sense, she isthe victim of this social upheaval. Through this kind of image, Williams has a great painin his inner heart.The last part is conclusion, which sums up the viewpoint of thesis. The use ofsymbolism in the play and on the stage not only makes Williams successfully describethe features of characters and render the fate of the characters, but also shows his tragicfeelings in the whole drama, and also has a profound influence and inspiration to themodern people, especially the modern women. Through the interpretation of A StreetcarNamed Desire and the analysis of the characteristics of the two cultures, we can knowthat Blanche is a staunch defender of the southern traditional culture. In fact, this is akind of declaration of war to Stanley who is Blanche’s enemy. On the other hand,Blanche also hopes to find true love in the new world so as to obtain refuge, but all ofthese efforts end in bitter failure. Blanche is vulnerable in front of the cruel reality, so shehas to seek spiritual comfort in fantasy, and eventually become the victim of culturalconflict. At the same time, Williams’ works have great influence on homosexualplaywright of the next generation, and encourage them to come out from the chamber ofsecrets. From then on, there are more and more gay images on dramatic stage, whichpublicly display the real life of gay men who are seen as a common group in society.