 Hello and welcome to our video summarizing everything you need to know about the streetcar name desire. My name is Barbara and in this video we will specifically be looking into all you need to understand if you're writing about this play and you want to engage in understanding its context, more specifically the place biographical, historical, as well as its literary context. Now do remember that this video is a follow-on from our more detailed streetcar name desire video where we go over the plot if you want to understand the plot, lots of different aspects to understand with regards to the characters and themes, so make sure you do check out that other video. However this video will specifically go into lots of detail relating to context. So let's first start off with biographical context. Now Tennessee Williams who's recognized as one of the greatest American playwrights gained most of his notoriety for this play following its production in 1947. Now it's really important to understand that many of his characters in this play are based on his own family. So Williams' own mother Edwina was a beautiful southern belle born to a respectable southern family and just like Blanche she suffered from psychological problems and mental stress and she depended on her parents for financial support and following the family's decision to move to St Louis she lost a lot of the privileges that she enjoyed as well as the social status that she had in her hometown and she really struggled with this change. Also parallels can be drawn between Stanley the character in the play and Cornelius Williams, Tennessee Williams' own father who was a really angry argumentative drinker as well as a gambler. Now the marriage between his parents was a really unhappy one and also Williams' concern with the developing of madness in his protagonist is really also based on his own experiences. So Williams himself was really sensitive as a boy and he found a lot of solace in writing. Also do bear in mind that his own sister didn't really have much of an escape so she also became really mentally unstable she suffered from schizophrenia as she grew older and eventually her mother had her undergo a lobotomy which is basically a medical procedure removing part of her brain in order to try and cure this schizophrenia however this really caused his sister to completely suffer a mental breakdown in her 20s and Williams really held a lot of guilt and regret that he wasn't able to save his sister from this madness. So we can also see this in the play because Stella is faced with a similar predicament when she decides to commit blanche towards the end of the play to mental institution. So Williams' own family's history of psychosis really made him really paranoid and in later life despite a lot of the success that he enjoyed he himself also suffered from depression which was made worse by taking lots of drugs and also drinking alcohol. Also do bear in mind in terms of the setting that he chooses which is New Orleans in the Deep South but also of course Blanche is a southern belle who comes from Bel Rev. Although he was nicknamed Tennessee he was actually born in Mississippi and Blanche's romanticization of her family mansion Bel Rev can be linked to Williams' own maternal grandparents whom he adored as well as his nostalgia for a way of life that was really characterized by his early life. So the setting for Streetcar and its busy lively atmosphere is drawn from also his own experience of when he moved to New Orleans in 1938 and the French Quarter in particular had a reputation for its decadence and easy morality which is obviously shown in the Elysian fields. Now let's move on to looking at historical context. So now this play was published in 1947. Do bear in mind that the Second World War had ended in 1945. This was a time of great change globally but of course also in America. So Tennessee Williams explores the social tensions within America following this upheaval and the play really represents the changes to American culture and also what some saw as the decline of civilization following America's emergence as a modern capitalist country. Now this play shows the decline of the old south, its advantaged way of life and do remember that in the 19th century the success of the southern state's economy which largely was agrarian so dependent on its cultivation of its plants, things such as creating cotton and producing cotton through exploiting slaves, it really made the southern states very prosperous by the end of the 19th century. However following the American civil war, the abolition of slavery, the wealth of these plantations really declined and this actually didn't really affect the northern states whose economy was actually based more on industry whilst the southern states suffered economically. The north improved and of course this shift is also symbolized in the characters of Blanche. She represents the declining southern states especially the plantation states whilst Stanley represents not only the new south but also the north which is characterized by lots of immigration, lots of freedom, lots of mixing even racially and all of this is embodied in the two. Now do bear in mind that in the 20th century America's economy prospered and industrialization really grew lots of the cities including New Orleans so there was a lot of urban development modernization and thus the struggle between the north and south is expressed and reflected in the opposing values that Stanley and Blanche hold. So Blanche on the one hand symbolizes old word values of the south while Stanley who's a decorated soldier the son of a Polish immigrant he represents the new America. Now Williams portrays Stanley in a way that matches experience of many men at the time who returned home from the Second World War. There were the everyday American hard-working men who were also self-made in pursuit of the American dream so this play really explores the impacts of these cultural changes as well as the way materialistic desires and values destroyed the charm of the old south and also it's important to consider also the role and position of women in this time so Stanley does refer to the Napoleonic code in Louisiana in the second scene and this hints at the cultural misogyny that restricted women in American society a southern ladies the roles open to Blanche and Stella were quite narrowly defined and both women were constrained by social expectations of things like chastity being passive as well as dependent on men for survival so for instance Mitch's rejection of Blanche because of a sexual freedom reflects the social hypocrisy of the time. So now let's look now at literary context so this play can be viewed through very different literary contexts firstly it can be seen as a modern tragedy do bear in mind the concept of tragedy actually comes from Aristotle's definition a tragedy is a story where a character has a fatal flaw something about them that ultimately causes their demise so like other modern tragedies Williams really focuses here and this is what makes it a modern tragedy on domestic conflict and he finds interest in the minor dramas of common people within the play so the plot centers on Blanche's downfall in her social status and her fatal flaw is her inability to accept these changing social circumstances but also her sexuality which is also seen as another fatal flaw so Blanche is really confronted with her sleazy past as well as the fatal flaws that lead to this ruin also bear in mind that Tennessee Williams is really influenced by playwrights like Henrik Ibsen he wrote Adoles House and also just to plug this in we have created a summary to Adoles House so make sure you check that out however Williams was really influenced by Ibsen and how he used social realism in his plays and this is also apparent in Williams's own writing so he reflects the realistic detail of the city of New Orleans the apartment and the rendering of a family drama that explores all of these themes such as class and gender relationships also do consider the way in which Williams broke with tradition of realism and he developed what he called plastic theater which is a non-realist style that exploits expressionistic devices to symbolically reflect the psyche of the characters on stage so that's all if you found this video useful would really appreciate it if you gave it a big thumbs up and also consider subscribing to our channel but also we have plenty of revision materials relating to streetcar name desire make sure you visit our website which is www.firstretutors.com there you can download and purchase lots of useful revision material display and indeed other areas of English thank you so much for listening