“A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams – The Primitive Man Inside

Since the days when we crawled out of our caves to create larger societies we have striven to become more and more civilized... that is, to abandon the urges considered primitive in favour of intellectual pursuits, effectively transcending the inner caveman.

Of course, the world is far from being an ideal place, with practice often heavily differing from theory. Virtually all of us have to contend with the so-called inner caveman, the manifestation of base desires that often come into contradiction with what society has been teaching us.

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams illustrates that struggle perfectly through the troubled life of a very flawed woman.

Blanche DuBois occupies the centre stage in this piece, and things are looking rather bleak for her as the family estate has been foreclosed, leaving her with not much more than her manners and smile. She makes the most logical decision possible, moving in with her sister Stella and her husband Stanley... however, she is taken aback by their state of relative poverty, and even more so by the brutal, barbaric, and yet somehow attractive demeanour exhibited by the latter.

Slowly but surely, Stanley becomes Blanche's bane, pushing her further and further towards the primitive nature she has been taught to keep at bay her whole life. In the end, the question arises: really, how are they different from each other?

A Streetcar Named Desire is probably one of the many works of writing kids get introduced to a bit too early, for despite being only about one hundred and forty pages long it holds a an incredible wealth of knowledge on the human nature.

Not a single word is wasted, with virtually every single sentence carrying some additional meaning that relates to some truth about life Williams has come to observe.

The bulk of the story revolves around the interactions between Blanche and Stanley, around the downwards spiral he progressively pushes her down. As we see Blanche stripped bit by bit from her pretences and masquerades, it becomes more and more apparent that she has a lot in common with the untamed boor that is Stanley.

It's especially fascinating to watch how she projects all her self-hatred on Stanley, how she slowly comes to the realization that she sees herself in him, and that no amount of bathing, perfume or ladylike manners will change that.

The story does go into some more unsettling territory, and the ending certainly isn't of the happily-ever-after-type... but ultimately, that only gives it even more power and impact.

Needless to say, this is the kind of play you can read anew time and time again, always feeling like you're picking up something fresh. It's a work that can be interpreted differently depending on where you are in life and your current perspective on things.

Williams explores timeless themes, such as human frailty, deception, primitive drives, our tendency to shut out the truth, how fickle the meaning of family can be, and our inability to change our nature, just to name a few. If you wanted to, you could probably write entire books about all the philosophy at play here.

With everything being said and done, A Streetcar Named Desire is the kind of play that only comes along once in a while, standing the test of time and being as powerful today as it was decades ago.

It's a profound meditation on many aspects of the human nature, and no matter who you are it will stick with you and push you into some deep reflections of your own. It's a grandiose classic that I can't help but recommend to anyone capable of reading.

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Tennessee Williams (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) Born Thomas Lanier Williams III ,”Tennessee” Williams was a famous American writer and playwright whose rise to fame came with the publishing of The Glass Menagerie in 1944. Many of his best works were adapted to the silver screen, and in 1979 he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.