Blanche and Anxiety

Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire

In this course, Dr Alfie Bown (Royal Holloway, London) explores Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, focusing in particular on the characters of Blanche and Stanley. In the first two lectures, we think about Blanche in relation to anxiety and madness, respectively, before turning in the third lecture to consider Blanche in relation to desire. Blanche provokes desire in others, but what is it that she herself desires? In the fourth lecture, think about Stanley’s ‘ape-like’ behaviour, asking whether Stanley actively embraces a kind of animalism and, if so, why he might do so. In the fifth lecture, we think about Stanley in relation to ‘toxic masculinity’, before turning in the sixth and final lecture to consider Stanley in economic terms – that is, as someone whose domination of those around him is not simply physical, but also economic.

Blanche and Anxiety

In this lecture we think about the character of Blanche in relation to anxiety, focusing in particular on: (i) the importance of reading the stage directions in A Streetcar Named Desire as well as the characters’ dialogue; (ii) the description of Blanche as she enters the scene for the first time, including what she is wearing and her ‘moth-like’ behaviour; (iii) the description of Blanche as she sits in Stanley and Stella’s flat, in particular her body language and her impulse to pour herself a glass of whisky; (iv) Sigmund Freud’s account of anxiety, and in particular the distinction (for Freud) between anxiety and fear; and (v) the reasons for Blanche’s anxiety.