（英语语言文学专业论文）扑火的飞蝶——《欲望号街车》中布兰奇悲剧命运解析.pdf

ii 摘要摘要 欲望号街车一直被视为田纳西威廉斯最成功的作品，而其中的女主角 布兰奇杜波伊斯也是南方文学中最具有代表性的南方淑女之一。 本论文的研究目的主要有两个：第一，找出布兰奇最后疯狂的原因； 第二， 揭示她悲剧命运背后的社会意义。在这部戏剧中，田纳西威廉斯给我们提供了 总结布兰奇悲剧性毁灭的最好的工具， 即她从新奥尔良火车站到斯特拉家的那段 旅程。简单说来，就是欲望坟墓极乐世界。与此对应，我们也将探究布兰奇 在来到新奥尔良前后的生活，以揭示造成她最后疯狂的内部和外部原因。我们将 运用弗洛伊德的人格结构理论来分析布兰奇本我、自我和超我的内心挣扎；又运 用马克思的历史唯物主义理论来分析布兰奇与斯坦利、 斯特拉和米奇之间的人际 关系。最后，我们将分析田纳西威廉斯在文中运用到的暗示布兰奇最终命运的 象征物。 最后，我们得出结论：以布兰奇杜波伊斯为代表的那些南方淑女，她们只 活在过去，否认现在，最终也将被现实否定。她们要么变成疯子，要么死去。往 更大的方面说，任何否认社会进步的人，最终都将被历史淘汰掉。 关键词：欲望号街车，过去与现在，幻想与现实，内心挣扎，南方淑女，金钱 iii abstract a streetcar named desire is regarded as the most successful play of tennessee williams. and the heroine blanche dubois is also one of the most representative southern belles in southern literature. the study of this play aims at fulfilling two tasks. the first one is to find the causes for blanches lunacy, and the other is to find out the social significance of her tragedy. in this play, tennessee williams gives us the best tool to summarize blanches tragic downfall, that is, her trip from new orleanss railway station to stellas house. simply speaking, it is desire cemeteries elysian fields. in accordance with it, we will look into the life of blanche before and after she comes to new orleans, so as to find out both the internal and external reasons for blanches lunacy. freuds theory of the structure of the mind is applied to help us investigate the struggle of blanches id, ego and superego; and marxist historical materialism is used to analyze the interpersonal relations among blanche, stanley, stella and mitch. finally, the symbols that tennessee williams uses to imply blanches destiny in the play are also analyzed. at last, we come to the conclusion that those southern belles, represented by blanche dubois, who live in the past and deny the present, will surely be denied by the reality. they either live in illusions or die sadly. more generally speaking, anyone who refuses the progress of society will certainly be eliminated by history. key words: a streetcar named desire, past and present, illusion and reality, mental struggle, southern belle, money 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文原创性声明学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下， 独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本 论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。 对本 文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。 本人完全意识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名：张晓燕张晓燕 日期：2009 年 2 月 2 日 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定， 同意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版， 允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权上海交通大学可以将本学位论文的 全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫 描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密保密，在 年解密后适用本授权书。 本学位论文属于 不保密 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名：张晓燕张晓燕 指导教师签名：左晓岚左晓岚 日期：2009 年 2 月 2 日 日期：2009 年 2 月 2 日 i acknowledgements with deep gratitude and appreciation, i wish to acknowledge all those without whose help, the accomplishment of this thesis would have been impossible. first and foremost, i am greatly indebted to prof. zuo xiaolan, my supervisor, who impresses me with her great intelligence, and wide range of profound knowledge. during the process of writing this thesis, she provides me illuminating ideas, thought-provoking instruction, valuable suggestions and warm-hearted encouragement and dedicates her precious time to reading through each draft carefully and making comments. i feel really honored to be under her instructions throughout my graduate study. my sincere thanks also go to prof. hu quansheng, he weiwen and all my other teachers for their informative and inspiring courses. without their guide, i would encounter more difficulties during the writing process. moreover, i would like to extend my gratitude to the authors who produced those marvelous works for my consultation and quotation. last but not least, i want to extend my heartfelt thanks to my dear parents, classmates and friends who show me great love and care. it is their support and encouragements that make me have the confidence to overcome any difficulty i have met before. 1 introduction if williams is not the most important american playwright, he is certainly one of the most celebrated, rivaled only by eugene oneill and arthur miller. philip c. kolin1 tennessee williams ranks the second after eugene oneill among the most prominent dramatists in the history of american literature. born as thomas lanier williams in columbus, mississippi in 1914, tennessee was the son of a shoe company executive and a southern belle. williams described his childhood in mississippi as happy and carefree. however, this sense of belonging and comfort disappeared when his family moved to the urban environment of st. louis, missouri, where he began to look inward. williams early adult years were made up by attending colleges at three different universities, a brief working at his fathers shoe company, and a move to new orleans, where he began a lifelong love of the city and set the locale for a streetcar named desire. williams spent a number of years traveling throughout the country and trying to write. in 1944, his the glass manegerie was opened in chicago and was put on stage in broadway. it won a pulitzer prize, the new york drama critics circle award and, as a film, the new york film critics circle award. at the height of his career in the late 1940s and 1950s, williams worked with the premier artists of the time, most notably elia kazan, the director for stage and screen productions of a streetcar named desire (1947), and the stage productions of camino real (1953), cat on a hot tin roof (1955), and sweet bird of youth (1959). kazan also directed williams film baby doll (1956). their intense relationship, fuelled by a deep personal affinity lasted from 1947 until 1960. together they created some of the most influential theatrical events of the post-bellum age. 1 quoted from the preface of tennessee williams: a guide to research and performance, ed. by philip c. kolin, london: greenwood press, 1998, p. ix. 2 during his life time, williams wrote a dozen of short stories, over seventy one-act plays and many full-length plays, among which the most famous are battle of angels (1945), the glass menagerie (1945), a streetcar named desire, american blues (1948), and cat on a hot tin roof and so on. he was awarded four drama critic circle awards, two pulitzer prizes and the presidential medal of freedom. a streetcar named desire won a pulitzer prize for tennessee williams, and established him as a major american dramatist. it is a sheer artwork: the verisimilitude and poetic power of the dialogue, the compelling characters in a finely balanced struggle which constitute the most fascinating part of the play. martin gottfried, in his a theatre divided, ranks it along with arthur millers death of a salesman as “one of the two american masterpieces of the post war years, perhaps the most romantic, poetic and sensitive play ever written for the american theatre”. (gottfried 11) it premiered in new york on december 3, 1947 and immediately its commercial success and critical appraisal made it known throughout the nation overnight. it ran for 855 performances in broadway and perhaps the most popular is the one directed by elia kazan starring vivien leigh as blanche and marlon brando as stanley. it is the first play that has ever won tennessee williams all the three major awards, namely, the pulitzer prize, the new york drama critics circle award, and the donaldson award. in this play, williams traces the decline and fall of a southern lady blanche dubois. it is a tragedy of blanche who represents the myth of the old south. blanche dubois, a faded southern belle, after having lost their ancestral home “belle reve” and her reputation in laurel, comes to new orleans to visit her sister stella kowalski in search of refuge. in her sisters home, she encounters stellas husband stanley kowalski, a polish descendent. another couple steve and eunice live on the floor above them. though blanche does not seem to have enough money to afford a hotel, she is disdainful of the kowalskis two-room apartment in a noisy, color-mixed, and working-class neighborhood. blanches pretence and sense of superiority wins her the instant dislike of stanley. but it is clear that stella is happy to leave behind her noble background in exchange for the sexual gratification she gets from stanley. and we 3 know that she is pregnant when blanche arrives. talking about the loss of belle reve, stanley immediately distrusts blanche he thinks that blanche has cheated stella out of her share of the family inheritance. in the process of defending herself to stanley, blanche reveals that belle reve was lost due to a mortgage, which also hints blanches dire financial circumstance. blanches heavy drinking, which she attempts to conceal from her sister and brother-in-law, is another sign that all is not well with blanche. the unhappiness that accompanies the animal magnetism of stella and stanleys marriage reveals itself when stanley hosts a drunken poker game with his male friends at the apartment. blanche gets under stanleys skin, especially when she starts to win the affections of his close friend mitch. after mitch has been absent for a while, speaking with blanche in the bedroom, stanley erupts, storms into the bedroom, and throws the radio out of the window. when stella yells at stanley and defends blanche, stanley beats her. the men pull him off, the poker game breaks up, and blanche and stella escape to their upstairs neighbor eunices apartment. a short while later, stanley is remorseful and cries up to stella to forgive him. to blanches surprise, stella returns to stanley and embraces him passionately. the next day, blanche tries to convince stella to leave stanley for a better man whose social status equals stellas. blanche suggests that she and stella contact a millionaire named shep huntleigh for help escaping from new orleans; when stella laughs at her, blanche reveals that she is completely broke. stanley walks in as blanche is making fun of him and secretly overhears blanche and stellas conversation. later, he threatens blanche with hints that he has heard rumors of her disreputable past. blanche is visibly dismayed and seems to be afraid of stanleys news. at this time, blanche and mitch have begun to date. one evening, when blanche returns, she is exhausted and clearly has been uneasy for the entire night about the rumors stanley mentioned earlier. in a surprisingly sincere heart-to-heart discussion with mitch, blanche reveals the greatest tragedy of her past. years ago, her young husband committed suicide after she discovered and chastised him for his 4 homosexuality. mitch describes his own loss of a former love, and he tells blanche that they need each other and proposes marriage with her. when the next scene begins, about one month has passed. it is the afternoon of blanches birthday. stella is preparing a dinner for blanche, mitch, stanley, and herself, when stanley comes in to tell her that he has learned news of blanches sordid past. he says that after losing the dubois mansion, blanche moved into a motel from which she was eventually evicted because of her numerous sexual liaisons. also, she was fired from her job as a schoolteacher because the principal discovered that she was having an affair with a teenage student. stella is horrified to learn that stanley has told mitch these stories about blanche. the birthday dinner continues, but mitch never arrives. stanley indicates to blanche that he is aware of her past. for a birthday present, he gives her a one-way bus ticket back to laurel. stanleys cruelty so disturbs stella that it appears the kowalski household is about to break up, but the onset of stellas labor prevents the imminent fight. several hours later, blanche, drunk, sits alone in the apartment. mitch, also drunk, arrives and repeats all he has learned from stanley. eventually blanche confesses that the stories are true, but she also reveals the need for human affection she felt after her husbands death. mitch tells blanche that he can never marry her, saying she is not fit to live in the same house as his mother. having learned that blanche is not the chaste lady she pretended to be, mitch tries to have sex with blanche, but she forces him to leave by yelling “fire!” to attract the attention of passersby outside. later, stanley returns from the hospital to find blanche even more drunk. she tells him that she will soon be leaving new orleans with her former suitor shep huntleigh, who is now a millionaire. stanley knows that blanches story is entirely in her imagination, but he is so happy about his baby that he proposes they each celebrate their good fortune. blanche spurns stanley, and things grow contentious. when she tries to step past him, he refuses to move out of her way. blanche becomes terrified to the point that she smashes a bottle on the table and threatens to smash stanley in the face. stanley grabs her arm and says that it is time for the “date” they have had set up since blanches 5 arrival. blanche resists, but stanley uses his physical strength to overcome her, and he carries her to bed. the pulsing music indicates that stanley rapes blanche. the next scene takes place weeks later, as stella and her neighbor eunice pack blanches bags. blanche is in the bath, and stanley plays poker with his buddies in the front room. a doctor will arrive soon to take blanche to an insane asylum, but blanche believes she is leaving to join her millionaire. stella confesses to eunice that she simply cannot allow herself to believe blanches assertion that stanley raped her. when blanche emerges from the bathroom, her deluded talk makes it clear that she has lost her grip on reality. the doctor arrives with a nurse, and blanche initially panics and struggles against them when they try to take her away. stanley and his friends fight to subdue blanche, while eunice holds stella back to keep her from interfering. mitch begins to cry. finally, the doctor approaches blanche in a gentle manner and convinces her to leave with him. she allows him to lead her away and does not look back or say goodbye as she goes. stella sobs with her child in her arms, and stanley comforts her with loving words and caresses. since its debut, a streetcar named desire (streetcar for short hereafter) has provoked both positive and negative discussions and criticism from the audience and scholars. but for the most part, the dramatist and the play were critically acclaimed and commercially successful. as the saying goes, “there are a thousand hamlets in a thousand peoples eyes”. with the characters of complex personalities, different readers can find different topics they are interested in. philip c. kolin once acclaims in “reflections on a streetcar named desire”: “if streetcar has been diversely represented, it has been even more diversely read. criticism of streetcar reflects the shifts in our perceptions, assumptions, our awareness of awareness itself. streetcar sails through cultural/critical drifts. a multitude of critical voices speaks the different discourses of streetcar: love, hate, women, men, law, politics, reason, insanity, music, family, sports, and art” (kolin 1998 (2) :17) complicated characters, abundant historical background and supporting roles, multilateral interpersonal relationship, and newly-settled southern society after the civil war in this play result in a number of different themes. 6 a substantial number of critics believe streetcar to be essentially a social drama, but few have found themselves in concert in defining the type of social drama williamss play most resembles. the first school argues that blanche and stanley represent archetypes of cultures or species. from this perspective, roger boxill calls streetcar a “social-historical drama” (boxill 79). thus blanche and stanleys clash is not a human against another human but rather species against species. a second school, however, focuses on blanche and stanley as unique individuals and their conflicts are only personal. kenneth bernard in philip c. kolins essay “a streetcar named desire: a playwrights forum” describes an identical naturalism in streetcar similar to the cherry orchard. both portray the decline of one culture and the subsequent rise of another. streetcar is also regarded as a psychological drama because of its focus on blanches internal struggle with herself. there are also two branches of ideas: one sees the play as a study of freudian psychoses, and the other sees this play as williams working out the dialectic of puritan-cavalier heritage through blanches struggle between flesh and spirit, past and present, illusion and reality, and death and desire. generally speaking, there are over four hundred essays devoted to streetcar; seventeen critical books on williams and his works, including one monograph on streetcar: a streetcar named desire: the moth and the lantern by thomas p. adler in 1990; among the eight critical essay collections from 1960s to 1990s, four of them are contributed to streetcar: jordan millers twentieth century interpretations of a streetcar named desire (1971), harold blooms modern critical interpretations: tennessee williamss a streetcar named desire (1988), and philip c. kolins confronting tennessee williamss a streetcar named desire (1993) and matthew c. roudans the cambridge companion to tennessee williams (1997). there are also some book sections devoted to williams and streetcar, with the most renowned ones like thomas p. adlers american drama 1940-1960: a critical history and david savrans communists, cowboys, and queers