Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams Essay

Symbolism in A streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee WilliamsSymbols atomic number 18 nothing but the natural speech of dramathe purest lyric of plays. Once, quoted as having said this, Tennessee Williams has certainly used symbolism and colour exceedingly effectively in his play, A Streetcar Named Desire. A lamentable story about fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois and her lapse into insanity, A Streetcar Named Desire contains much symbolism and clever use of colour. This helps the audience to tie-up certain scenes and take downts to the themes and issues that Williams presents within the play, such as desire and death, and the conflict amongst the old America and the new.Scene Three is maven of the pivotal scenes of the play. That Williams fancy of it in this way is indicated by his choice of the title The Poker company for the third interpreting of the play. The scene begins with extremely explicit stage directions, and one will note that Williams intends the stage to b e full of bright, vivid colour - to signify the coarseness and directness of the poker players and their surroundings. The yellow linoleum, the bright jet-propelled plane glass shade, the blue red and green of the mens shirts - exclusively are colourful and contrasting, and this is asserting(a) that they are impervious to subtlety and ambiguity, deuce of Blanches key characteristics. She is usually seen wearing whites and pinks, and looking very brushed and feminine. This will, on stage, contrast oddly with the colour and brightness around her. Williams uses this technique of colour to signify Blanches unfitness to fit in with her surroundings. However, she is to a fault seen in different colours, exemplary of what she is doing at that moment. She is usually seen in white, indicative of the purity she claims to possess. At other instances, she is urbane in a crimson silk robe, when she is flirting with Stanley and Mitch. This is suggestive of a scarlet woman, and draws the audiences attention to Blanches fatal flaw. When on stage together, Blanches frilly, skillful clothes are in sharp contrast with Stanleys fulsome seersucker pants, or his vivid green bowling shirt. Blanche herself is symbolical of the old, genteel South, eon Stanley epitomises the new generation of working-class Americans this clash is cleverly brought out by their contrasting costumes. It is also interesting to note that in Scene Eleven, Blanche is dressed in ... ... all the games. Blanches fear of bright light is symbolic of her fear of being exposed for who she real is, and her incessant bathing is approximately like a ritual cleansing of sins that she can never really purge. Her inability to use the telephone to contact Shep Huntleigh and Mitch is also indicative of her inability to communicate with the other people in her world, which is partly the reason for her posterior insanity.Few playwrights use symbolism as extensively as Tennessee Williams, and even fewer use it a s effectively as he. Even in The Glass Menagerie he uses Lauras collection of glass figurines as symbols, giving insight into her multi-faceted character, and her delicate, fanciful ways. The fate of the unicorn is also a smaller-scale version of her fate at the end of the play. Williams is fully aware of the fact that plays are meant to be staged. His themes and issues are complex, so he uses symbols and colours to highlight events and most-valuable issues, thus helping his audience. Looking deeply into his play, we see that not scarcely is A Streetcar Names Desire full of symbolism, the play itself is symbolic of the clashes between Old and New, the Past and the Present.