The second reality for Blanche DuBois

Abstract

The essay sets out to interpret T. Williams's famous play A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) from the viewpoint of the characters' psychology as well as the eternal conflict between America's two fundamental civilizational elements - the vanishing and sophisticated culture of the South and the victorious and pragmatic culture of the North. In her detailed analysis of the plot and the symbolic structure of the play, as well as the psychology of the characters, the author finds that A Streetcar Named Desire incorporates a lot of the playwright's ideas inspired by the philosophy of F. Nietzsche, in particular, the latter's teaching of the Ubermensch. It is in this light that Remizova proposes to interpret the play's protagonist Stanley Kowalski - not only as the embodiment of ‘superhuman' traits, but also a metaphoric actualization of the same ontological ‘will,' which, according to Nietzsche, is life itself. Remizova believes that the conflict between Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois represents the antagonism between personified life and death, respectively, and that the play's ending, with life defeating death, resonates perfectly with the post-war era (1940s).