A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie; A Streetcar Named Desire; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Sweet Bird of Youth by Stephen Bottoms & Philip Kolin & Michael Hooper

Author:Stephen Bottoms & Philip Kolin & Michael Hooper [Bottoms, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472528728
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-09-25T07:00:00+00:00

Questions for Further Study

1To what extent is Blanche the controlling force in the play?

2Compare and contrast the attitudes of Blanche and Stella to the story of their past selves at Belle Reve.

3How far do the audience agree with Blanche’s assessment of Stanley as an ‘ape’?

4Discuss the dramatic devices which Williams uses in the play to suggest that Blanche is doomed.

5Stanley ripping away the paper lantern represents his destruction of lies, deceit and fantasy. Explore aspects of truth and fantasy in the play.

6‘A play must concentrate the events of a lifetime into the short span of a three-act play. Of necessity these events must be more violent than in life’ (Tennessee Williams). Examine the creation of tension as it is developed through the eleven scenes of the play.

7In his directorial notes on the play Elia Kazan suggests that through watching the decline of Blanche ‘[the audience] begin to realise that they are sitting in at the death of something extraordinary [. . .] and then they feel the tragedy’. Discuss the fall of Blanche in the play.

8Explore Williams’s use of colour as it impacts upon the changing atmosphere of the play.

9The ‘visual projection of Blanche’s inner life’ is a key aspect of Williams’s dramatic technique. How is it used?

10The ‘infusion’ of lyricism in the atmosphere of Elysian Fields is created using a range of visual and aural devices. Examine Williams’s creation of environment within the play.

11‘If Blanche belongs to the crumbling grandeur of the Southern plantations, Stanley is a new American, an immigrant man of the city.’ How does the play express the conflict between traditional values and the new world?

12‘The blind are leading the blind’ (Blanche, Scene Two). Examine the twinned themes of sight and blindness as they are expressed through character and dramatic incidents.

13‘Don’t hang back with the brutes’ (Blanche, Scene Four). Discuss the development of the character of Stanley as it is revealed, both through his own words and actions, and the perceptions of others.

14‘The relationship between Stanley and Stella is based on his need for domination and her need for protection.’ Discuss.

15The relationship between Blanche and Mitch offers an interesting perspective on the nature of gender relations in the play. Focusing on clear examples of at least two of the relationships, explore the issues which arise.

16‘He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits’ (Blanche, Scene Four). Explore the conflicts between gentility and animal brutality in the play.

17‘I lived in a house where dying old women remembered their dead men [. . .] Death . . . [. . .] the opposite is desire’ (Blanche, Scene Nine). Examine Williams’s use of this theme to affect the audience.

18The lurid reflections which fall across the walls in the final scene are a potential manifestation of Blanche’s terrors and fears. Discuss the dramatic devices used by Williams in the final scene.

19‘The language of the play is shaped by two needs: character-identification and thematic development.’ Explore this statement.

20Stella’s apparent betrayal of Blanche offers the audience a clear insight into her character.

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