A Streetcar Named Desire Language Analysis
Two levels of language are used in A Streetcar Named Desire - the words spoken by the characters in the play and the text of the stage directions.
Whether witnessing a performance or reading the text of a play we rely on the dialogue to enable us to create an image of the characters, to decide if we like or dislike them, to try to understand them and their actions. The nuances of speech set the characters in their class context and show the differences of social status and education as well as of character. In A Streetcar Named Desire the very marked differences between Stanley and Blanche are stressed by Stanley's non-grammatical, coarse, often slangy speech as against Blanche's high-flown rhetoric which often rings false (as it is meant …show more content…
Mitch too is defined by the way he speaks: his efforts at speaking properly are marred by grammatical slip-ups as much as by his genteel circumlocutions ("I perspire", never "I sweat"). He cannot follow or match Blanche's flights of fancy, and is acutely aware of this.
As we have seen, the language of the characters in a play is the most important way of defining their nature, their social status and their emotional make-up. Try to imagine forming an idea of the people in this play from their actions alone. The result would be flat, often incomprehensible unless the actors adopted the exaggerated gestures of mime.
Only their speech gives them life, and it is a measure of the dramatist's art that he can turn characters into credible human beings by what they say and how they say it. The words he chooses to put into their mouths and the way he makes them speak are …show more content…
It is to be expected that Tennessee Williams should make use of the evocative power of figurative language when he is trying to paint a word picture or convey in words the quality of a sound. The phrase "the infatuated fluency of brown fingers" conveys the black pianist's skilful playing, his total absorption in the music, and his pleasure in it.
The "Varsouviana" polka is "filtered into weird distortion" in Blanche's mind, the harsh discords signalling that the sad memories of the past are about to give way to a cruel institutionalised future.
The use of imagery is however not limited to Tennessee Williams's stage directions alone. When Blanche is moved, she frequently uses figurative language, as befits a teacher of English. So for instance we find in Scene 5 "Have got to be seductive - put on soft colours, the colours of butterfly wings, and glow"; in Scene 6 she describes love as being like "a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow"; and in Scene 10 she speaks of the paddy-wagon picking up drunken soldiers "like
Whether witnessing a performance or reading the text of a play we rely on the dialogue to enable us to create an image of the characters, to decide if we like or dislike them, to try to understand them and their actions. The nuances of speech set the characters in their class context and show the differences of social status and education as well as of character. In A Streetcar Named Desire the very marked differences between Stanley and Blanche are stressed by Stanley's non-grammatical, coarse, often slangy speech as against Blanche's high-flown rhetoric which often rings false (as it is meant …show more content…
Mitch too is defined by the way he speaks: his efforts at speaking properly are marred by grammatical slip-ups as much as by his genteel circumlocutions ("I perspire", never "I sweat"). He cannot follow or match Blanche's flights of fancy, and is acutely aware of this.
As we have seen, the language of the characters in a play is the most important way of defining their nature, their social status and their emotional make-up. Try to imagine forming an idea of the people in this play from their actions alone. The result would be flat, often incomprehensible unless the actors adopted the exaggerated gestures of mime.
Only their speech gives them life, and it is a measure of the dramatist's art that he can turn characters into credible human beings by what they say and how they say it. The words he chooses to put into their mouths and the way he makes them speak are …show more content…
It is to be expected that Tennessee Williams should make use of the evocative power of figurative language when he is trying to paint a word picture or convey in words the quality of a sound. The phrase "the infatuated fluency of brown fingers" conveys the black pianist's skilful playing, his total absorption in the music, and his pleasure in it.
The "Varsouviana" polka is "filtered into weird distortion" in Blanche's mind, the harsh discords signalling that the sad memories of the past are about to give way to a cruel institutionalised future.
The use of imagery is however not limited to Tennessee Williams's stage directions alone. When Blanche is moved, she frequently uses figurative language, as befits a teacher of English. So for instance we find in Scene 5 "Have got to be seductive - put on soft colours, the colours of butterfly wings, and glow"; in Scene 6 she describes love as being like "a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow"; and in Scene 10 she speaks of the paddy-wagon picking up drunken soldiers "like