Different Attitudes To Sexuality

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Dr Stephen Martteson

U.S Literature in the 20th Century

Outline the different attitudes to sexuality in a Streetcar named Desire.

As the title states, Streetcar named desired, is about love, sexuality and desire in its most extensions. The relationship and attitudes between characters have an important role in the play. Tennessee Williams plays with the emotions of the characters and sexuality as an innovation of this time. He wrote this play in 1947, which has several editions, and it also has a cinematographic adaptation. As he had said about Blanche, one of the most important characters of the play, "She was a demonic creature; the size of her feeling was too great for her to contain in" (Norton, 90). As a novel written after the war, it does not follow the convention called "the great American novel" as Hemingway and other writers do. According to his works, it can be said that, "Hemingway promoted his own example to influence a new generation of novelists who believed they had to act like "the great American novel"", (Norton, 9). One of the main themes that he used to write is about sexuality and homosexuality; these themes were not conventional during that period in America because it was a taboo topic in the American society. One of his biographies indicated that Tennessee Williams, "In New Orleans he change his name to "Tennessee" later giving – as often when discussing romantic reasons for doing so. There also he actively entered to the homosexual world" (Norton, 91). This play shows perfectly how sexuality is introduced in a natural way for the first time in a play and also in cinema. Consequently, in this paper I will comment on characters’ attitudes to corroborate their sexual feelings and emotions during the whole play and also the fact that they often behave in a certain way because of their backgrounds.

After writing this play, Tennessee Williams had a great reputation and his plays acquired great value between other writers: "A Streetcar named desire is a famous play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1984. He is highly praised and eulogized for its delicate construction refined writing, vivid characters and provoking thoughts"(Canadian social science, 1). Tennessee Williams is one of the first writers who talked about sex and sexual attitudes in a play and in the film adaptation, the sexuality had to be censored because it was not a common theme in the 20th century; his portrayal of sexuality was a revolutionary in all aspects of American life, and for this reason it was heavily criticized but during the years it came to be prized.

Everything started with the loss of Belle Reve, Blanche and Stella’s family house, for this reason Blanche said she was going to live with her sister, who was married with Stanley Kowalski and was against this. He had a strong personality and he could not express things in a formal way: the language that Stanley used was a sign of masculinity as he did not care about being formal or not, and if somebody was hurts by what he said about them. This had a big impact on Blanche.

At the start of the novel, we know very little about Blanche and her background, which she is trying to hide. This is one of the reasons why Stanley does not sympathize with Blanche; he does not trust her. Stanley’s suspicion is the starting point of the play and little by little, the facts were discovered and the truth is revealed. When Blanche arrived at Stella and Stanley’s home, to which she brings with her all her family problems and her obscure background, she was expecting a house similar to where she had lived but she found an ordinary house where her sister lived with her unknown husband. She also thought that she was going to have her own bedroom but she did not have privacy there, because the bedrooms were separated by curtains only, however she finally accepted not having privacy because she was a guest in the house.

There are also some situations that show how Blanche tries to catch the attention of some men who are around her; she is looking for them to "desire" her. One example of Blanche’s intention to catch attention of men was at poker night, when she was in the light while she was dressing up:

[She takes off the blouse and stands in her pink silk brassiere and white skirt in the light through the portieres. The game has continued in undertones.]

STELLA: …You’re standing in the light, Blanche!

BLANCHE: Oh, am I! (Norton, 111)

Adding to these scenes where she wanted to catch the attention, she wanted Stanley to button up her dress for her. She pretended that Stanley saw her body:

" Blanche: I’m going to ask a favour of you in a moment.

Stanley: What could that be, I wonder? Blanche: Some buttons in back! You may enter [He crosses through drapes with a smouldering look] How I look? Stanley: You look right (Norton, 105).

Some critics said that it is possible that at the end of the scene Williams may induce that Stanley had sex with Stella but it is not clear.

At the poker night, Mitch incites Blanche’s ability love again after the death husband, and that is the reason why she deliberately undressed behind the curtain in a in the light taking the risk that some of the men that were in the house can see her body. She also asked Stella if he had a good job and if he was more formal and educated than other men, which is telling of his social status.

Blanche’s big problem and maybe the reason behind her madness is rooted in her marriage with her husband, Allen. Everything started because of it; Blanche in one of her confidences with Mitch expresses some rejections about his marriage through a dialogue:

Blanche: … But I was unlucky. Deluded. There was something different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn’t like a man’s, although he wasn’t at least bit effeminate looking—still—that thing was there ….He came to me for help. I didn’t know that. I didn’t find out anything till after our marriage when we’d run away and come back and all I knew was I’d failed him in some mysterious way and wasn’t able to give the help he needed but couldn’t speak of! He was in the quicksands and clutching at me—but I wasn’t holding him out. I was sleeping in with him! I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything except I loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself. Then I found out. In the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I thought it was empty—which wasn’t empty but had two people in it… the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years…" (Norton , 132).

After she learnt that her husband was homosexual she was so angry with him that he committed suicide. Consequently she felt so guilty, and this led her to have relationships with other people. She also had been taught that homosexuality was unacceptable; it was one of the reasons of her behaviour with other men. Canadian social science’s view confirms the view that:

"Blanche’s deep love to her husband Allen and his death ignite the fuse of desire. In South, a kind of puritan ethics are carried out and homosexuality is universally unacceptable as an immoral deed. It is this idea that is implanted into Blanche’s mind since she was young. Naturally, when she finds she boy she loves deeply is a homosexual, she shocked and hurt, and doesn’t know what to do but pretend." (Fan, 105).

So, as mentioned before, she was guilty about her husband’s death and she felt lonely, so she had done unexpected things, which a conventional twentieth century woman never did. She had dates with unknown men just for feeling of being desired and spent her time with them; she tried to replace the empty place that her husband left; she never told anybody what she had done, because she was ashamed of it. So, when Stanley discovered it, he told Mitch what he found out. She tells the real story to Mitch about why she was in the hotel with other men and her reasons behind her behaviour. In his play, Tennessee Williams writes:

Blanche: Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers. After the death of Allan—intimacies with strangers was all I seem able to fill my empty heart with…I think it was panic, just panic, that drove me from one to another hunting for some protection – here and there, in the most –unlikely places even, at last, in the seventeenth-year-old boy but—somebody wrote the superintendent about it—"this woman is morally unfit for her position. (Norton, 144) Blanche also has a attraction with young men or men of low class, because of the suicide of her young husband, she wants to feel desired by these kind of men, in one occasion she forced him to kiss her. In making this comment, Williams writes in his novel:

Stella: Has anyone ever told you that you look like a young Prince out of the Arabian Nights?

...

Well, you do, honey lamb! Come here. I want to kiss you, just one, softly and sweetly on your mouth! (Norton, 127)

It was difficult for Blanche, as it is for women nowadays, to find out that her husband was homosexual and even more in the twentieth century, they were not used to that this theme. As it can be said "Blanche’s deep love to her husband Allen and his death ignite the fuse of desire. In South, a kind of puritan ethics are carried out and homosexuality is universally unacceptable as an immoral deed. It is this idea that is implanted into Blanche’s mind since she was young. Naturally, when she finds she boy she loves deeply is a homosexual, she shocked and hurt, and doesn’t know what to do but pretend." (Fan,105).

Blanche also used vulgar language: sometimes when she was speaking with Mitch, she spoke in French so that he could not understand what she had said; it is also a way to catch Mitch’s attention. According to that affirmation " Blanche: Voulez-vous couches avec moi ce soir? Vous ne comprenez pas? Ah, quelle dommage!—I mean it’s a damned good thing …. I’ve found some liquor! Just enough for two shots without any dividends honey…"(Norton, 129)

In addition, Blanche was educated as a lady of this period. Her behaviour was also the typical of a lady, she was very formal and she hoped that everybody admired her. However, her desire of feeling "desired" was not obtained; when she arrived to her sister’s house she was very surprised about men’s behaviour; nobody admired her, except her sister, who tried to convinced Stanley to tell her nice things, and sometimes she hoped that everybody in the kitchen would stand up to welcome her. According to Canadian Social Science, "She is brought in traditional South, a place full of aristocratic smells. She receives good education and knows how to behave as a decent a grateful noblewoman"(Fan,105)

Stanley is also an important character who has a sexual side in the play. He is a character who pretended to be a real and strong man, the head of a family. He is sometimes sexist as he shows in the poker night scene. He is a selfish person, and he wishes everything to be the way he wants them to be. He had the power in his relationship with Stella, and his behavior was not right in some occasions. At the beginning, even when he knows how the relationship with Blanche was, Stanley tells her that Stella is going to have a baby; she was very surprised about the news. Stanley’s intention was to make clear that he wanted to create a family with Stella and that he wanted to have a consolidated marriage which nobody (in this case Blanche) could break up. Blanche wanted to put Stella against Stanley but the couple´s love and sexual attraction were stronger than Blanche’s intentions.

The third and final main character is Stella Kowalski, who does not have a strong personality. She was under the figure of her husband, she was weaker than him and she believed in what her husband said, but sometimes when he behaved badly she radically changed her mind. Stella was almost Stanley´s puppet: she did what he wanted, and she was always creating an excuse for his bad behavior. After the poker’s night, Stanley was drunk and his behavior was not appropriate with Stella, however she decided to forgive him, According to Tennessee, there is a conversation between Stella and Blanche after this night:

Blanche: … How could you come back in this place last night? Why, you must have slept with him!

Stella: … I know how it must have seemed to you and I’m awful sorry it had happen, but it wasn’t anything as serious as you seem to take it. In the first place, when men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen. It’s always a powder-keg. He didn’t know what she was doing…. He was as good as a lamb when I came back, and he’s really very, very, very, ashamed of himself.

Blanche: and that – that makes it all right?

Stella: No, it isn’t right for anybody to make such a terrible row. But—people do sometimes. Stanley’s always smashed things. (Norton, 117)

Stella said that these fights occur regularly between them. She was sometimes ashamed of him but she does not care about Stanley’s behavior and what people think about it. She loves him and it was the only thing that really matters for her. Perhaps Stella is attracted side of Stanley: when he was drunk he broke everything and then at poker night, he hit Stella and then later he asked for her forgiveness. He started to scream at her door and then she accepted because of their sexual attraction. She was sublimed to him. He wanted there to always be reason in the marriage; he, however, was sexist, the prototypical man of North America. Blanche was trying to help her sister and made her to understand the situation that she was living in, but it was impossible to make her open her eyes.

In one occasion, Stella and Blanche were talking about Stanley’s behavior, and Blanche expressed her opinion about him, but she did not know that Stanley was behind the door of the house and that he had heard the conversation between them.

Stella and Blanche’s family has a sexual side, and for that reason they lost their house, as William expressed in the play in the dialogue between Stella and Stanley, "…our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications"(Norton, 108). One interpretation of this fragment of the play can be that Stella and Blanche have inherited this sexual side, and this is the reason they are how they are.

The film that was made for this play is very famous and it obtained a Pulitzer Prize. One important fact of this movie is that due to her sexuality some scenes do not appear in the movie, like homosexual scenes about Blanche’s husband, however this scene appears just how Blanche told Mitch that he had some "weakness". As one critic says that "the film was not a faithful adaptation; indeed, according to Manny Farber, "everything that kept the Broadway "Streetcar" from spinning off into ridiculous melodrama – everything thoughtful, muted, three-dimensional – has been raped, along with poor Blanche duBois, in the Hollywood version…"(Dowling, 233)

In conclusion, Blanche´s self-degradation through overly sexual behavior brings about her madness. She uses her body, her physicality and sexuality, to avoid or make up for the emotional emptiness that follows her husband´s death. So perhaps through Blanche´s deterioration, sexuality is presented as an unsubstantial way of fighting her emotional troubles. Stella and Stanley´s relationship is arguably also based on the latter´s sexuality and the former´s love: whilst Stella forgives him for treating her badly out of love, Stanley takes advantage of his wife´s emotional weakness. The women in the play are inferior to their emotions and therefore they turn to embrace their sexuality, whether it is in Blanche´s manner of sleeping with several unknown men, or in Stella´s routine of sleeping with her husband following an argument.