Williams, Tennessee (Vol. 30) - Winifred L. Dusenbury
WINIFRED L. DUSENBURY
In Blanche DuBois, the leading character of A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams is accused of having created a sexual pervert, who is insane by the end of the play, and whose portrayal is so particular as to have little relevance to life, or meaning to the American theatre. Williams, however, makes the point that it is the isolation resulting from social and hereditary factors which makes Blanche abnormal. Doubtless the accusation that Williams is strongly influenced by D. H. Lawrence is also true, but the playwright has made purposeful use of the sexual instinct by dramatizing its contrasting effect in two sisters and cannot be charged with mere sensationalism. The theme of the play, like that of Paul Green's The House of Connelly, indicates that members of the Southern plantation-owning class cannot exist in isolation. Stella is able to adapt herself to a new mode of living through her intense physical love for the...
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