A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire shows a turbulent confrontation between traditional values in the American South – an old-world graciousness and beauty running decoratively to seed – set against the rough-edged, aggressive materialism of the new world. Through the vividly characterised figures of Southern belle Blanche Dubois, seeking refuge from physical ugliness in decayed gentility, and her brutal brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, Tennessee Williams dramatises his sense of the South’s past as still active and often destructive in modern America.