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A Streetcar Named Desire
certainly contains many potential themes. One theme of the play could be that time is precious, and to waste it is to lose it. This theme of carpe diem, or "seize the day" is strong in the play. As time goes on in Blanche's life and her social behavior changes, she wastes away her youth. The loss of her young husband Allan has caused her loneliness, sexual desire, and even certain signs of psychological instability. All of these problems were increased by her attempt to lose them through drinking. What Blanche does not realize is that she can not change the past through the present. Blanche's youth is gone, and she tries to give the appearance of being as youthful and innocent as she once was, but her illusion can not last. As an epigraph to the play, Williams quotes from the poem "The Broken Tower", by Hart Crane:
"And so it was that I entered the broken world
To trace the visionary company of love, its voice
An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)
But not for long to hold each desperate choice." The use of this poem helps to express Williams's choice of theme in A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche has entered a "Broken world" of fear, longing, and sorrow because of her simple desire to hear "the visionary company of love, it's voice", or tender, gentle words of love and appreciation from Stella and Mitch. However, these words are only "visionary". Blanche hopes that these words will bring to her what she needs to rebuild her life, but they do not last. Stanley feels he needs to prove that Blanche is not what she seems. To this end, he destroys her dreams of becoming what she wants to be, and not what she was. By telling Stella and Mitch about her activities in the past, Stanley ruins Blanche's illusion. Blanche won their love by covering the past, and she could no longer build a new person from herself. The breakdown of Blanche's character climaxes when Stanley rapes her, trying to prove to her that he always knew she was less than she appeared. After this event, Blanche is forced to deal with the reality that she can never change who she is, and she is doomed to live with her reputation. This final outcome for Blanche is a brutally realistic way of proving the idea that youth is precious and should not be wasted on trivial desires.
Thomas Lanier Williams, known as Tennessee Williams, was born on March 26, 1911 to Cornelius Coffin and Edwina Dakin Williams in Columbus, Mississippi. During extended periods of Tennessee Williams's early life, his father was on the road as a shoe company salesman. Williams and his family lived with his maternal grandparents in the parsonage of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Between the ages of two to seven years old, Williams lived in various locations in Tennessee and Mississippi. After a long bout with diphtheria and a kidney infection, [next page]