The Role Of Sexuality in Tennessee Williams´ 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, University of Wuppertal, course: American Literature, language: English, abstract: 1. In the play 'A Streetcar Named Desire', written by Tennessee Williams, the protagonist Blanche DuBois comes to New Orleans to visit her sister Stella, who is married to the Pole Stanley Kowalski. Blanche´s life has collapsed after the suicide of her husband Allan and the loss of the family estate Belle Reve. Blanche is not able to have a sexual relationship anymore and cannot understand the sexual connection between Stella and Stanley. She begins a romance with Mitch, one of Stanley´s friends, but only with the aim of marrying him. But when he gets to know that she had affairs with strangers and with one of her students in the past, he is not willing to marry her anymore. At the end of the play, Blanche is raped by Stanley which leads to Blanche´s final psychic collapse.