Ready Reference Treatise: A Streetcar Named Desire

Blanche comes from a very refined background. The Old South is gradually dying. They have lost their ancestral house and land. The life in New Orleans seems to be of low standard to Blanche. She can’t accept the world of the New South. She still believes in jeweled shoes and exotic dresses. She believes that by applying powder to her face, she will be able to hide her age. The conflict between the old and the new world is one of the significant themes of the play. She wants to live in the past which is irrevocable.

Blanche DuBois is a fading Southern belle, though she is still attractive. She lives in alcoholism and delusions of grandeur though she pretends to care for virtue and culture. She seems to be hiding behind the masks, trying to be shielding herself from her reality. Though she is losing the charm of her youth, she continues to try to make herself still attractive to new male suitors.

Her sister Stella Kowalski lives in her apartment in the Faubourg Marigny of New Orleans, on Elysian Fields Avenue. Blanche visits her sister. To reach her sister’s house, she takes a local transportation that includes a streetcar route named “Desire.”

She is shocked to find herself in the steamy and hot ambiance of the city. Stella, her sister, greets her with a little trepidation. She is worried how her husband Stanley will react.