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Since the 1970s, more and more scholars abroad have begun to study A Streetcar Named Desire. For example, T Williams (1972) explained how Tennessee Williams combined lyrical intensity, haunting loneliness and hypnotic violence in the play. Rushton Health (1975) analyzed Blanche’s southern background and the influence of the declining plantation culture on South women. Moreover, TP Adler (1990) wrote the symbolic meaning of the moth and the Lantern, which help portray Blanche’s personality profoundly and Nancy C. Page (1997) tried to analyze the plot and the characters from the angle of the creative mentality. He pointed out that the story line and character features were both influenced by Tennessee Williams’s life experience.
Also, some scholars thought that A Streetcar Named Desire is a mirror of society and culture. From this point of view, it was called a social-historical drama by Roger Boxill. And MA Corrigan (1976) explained it from the realism. The conflict between the traditional southern culture and the modern northern culture in the process of industrialization was deeply revealed in his book. And the application of dramatic techniques, such as screen projections and music, reinforces it. They put forward that Blanche and Stanley’s conflict was more of culture against another culture than a human against another.
However, there was another group. Although they defined A Streetcar Named Desire at the social level, it was regarded as a work which described two species how to compete for dominance in one environment.
In addition, because A Streetcar Named Desire talks about how desire leads to Blanche’s mental destruction and psychotic disorder step by step, many critics pointed out it is a psychological drama. In this aspect, one school used the theory of Freudian psychosis to explain it and the other one centered on Blanche’s inner struggle to probe into the dialectic of the Puritan- Cavalier tradition.
The reasons of Blanche’ tragedies were also noticed. Harold Hobson (1984) once mentioned it was Stanley’s rape that led Blanche to become crazy. But obviously, there is no doubt that Stanley’s violence behavior is not the focus in the play. Williams once expressed that the only thing that the play ignored was rape, which is just a way to revenge in eye of man. We can be sure the rape is a kind of metaphor. Henry Terese (1997) investigated that the root is Blanche’s dependence on man influenced by male-dominated culture. It is advisable.
Of course, the study about A Streetcar named Desire never stopped. Recently, Jacobs Daniel (2007) analyzed the different characters’ personality. The relationship between superficial calmness and potential crisis was discussed by Sokol David (2009) and the necessary of commercial success was logically debated by Gooch (2012).
After A Streetcar Named Desire was introduced to China, it encouraged an upsurge of studying especially the reasons of Blanche’s tragic fate. Blanche’s introverted and sensitive personality and the unsatisfying environment were considered as the reasons in Wang Bing’s paper (2006). You Qian (2008) thought the conflict between the traditional southern culture and the modern northern culture is the root. Liu Ying (2012) pointed out that social ethics caused the tragedy. Whether Allan’s suicide, Mitch’s rejection of Blanche or Stanley’s rape, they were all associated with social ethics, which made Blanche crazy. Yang Yihua (2009) discussed how the desire destroys Blanche. All these opinions provided us new clues. 来`自^751论*文-网www.751com.cn
Apart from the studies about Blanche’s tragedy, there are many other discussions from different aspects. For instance, uncertainty and contradiction in the play was talked about by Xu Jing (2002) and Cao Huimin (2007) found out a lot of romantic elements in A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee Williams preferred the old to the new; he liked to use aestheticism rather than utilitarianism and he praised chivalry but satirize impertinence, which fully expressed romantic ideals. Besides, the functions of different symbols in A Streetcar Named Desire were studied by Zhang Jing (2008) by using of aesthetic rhetoric criticism theory. And a pragmatic study on it had been done by Guo Haixia (2009). By contrasting the various approaches, she drew the conclusion that drama had its special stylistics and different way of expressing, including pragmatic ambivalence, politeness principle and so on, which can help readers appreciate the dramatic works all-round and deeply. Zhu Yanyan (2011) analyzed A Streetcar Named Desire from the perspective of Reader- Response Criticism. At the very start, audiences disliked Blanche and thought she was the representative of “bad women” because she was dishonest, hypocritical and unclean. However, they changed their mind and began to feel sympathetic towards her. Zhu Yanyan (2011) discussed the reasons why people change their attitudes and explained how this change finished in details.