欲望号街车象征

姓名：鄢子雅 班级：英语师范101 学号：1007012029Analysis of symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire关于欲望号街车中象征主义的分析Abstract：A Streetcar Named Desire is one of Tennessee Williamss most popular plays and he is famous for this masterpiece. He uses a lot of symbolism to express the theme in the play. The purpose of this paper is to explore the specific symbolism in the play and to remind readers that although humans life has become abundant, people need to prevent spiritual and moral decaying. The author probes into the research from three aspects: the Overall use of symbolism in the play, main symbols in the play and effects of symbolism on the theme of the play. During the research, the author mainly uses the methods of description and illustrating with examples. Key words: symbolism gender conflict flower water theme 摘要：田纳西威廉斯是美国当代最著名的剧作家之一，被公认为是第二次世界大战以来美国最优秀的戏剧大师。欲望号街车是他的最著名的剧作之一。在这篇戏剧中，他运用了大量的象征手法来凸显主题。这篇论文是为了更好地研究象征主义在欲望号街车中的具体应用，以及通过这篇论文去警醒世人：尽管人们的物质生活丰盈了很多，避免道德精神沦丧仍然很重要， 不要像布兰奇一样，最终走向毁灭。作者主要从两性冲突的象征这一戏剧中的整体象征，一些具体的事物象征，以及象征对主题烘托的作用这几个方面来进行研究。作者主要使用了举例子，下定义，描述说明的方法来探讨这一问题。关键词：象征主义 两性冲突 花 水 主题1 Introduction1.1 Reasons of writing this thesisTennessee Williams was known as one of the most important and talented playwrights after World War. One of his masterpieces, A Streetcar Named Desire, which has played 855 games. And this play was the first one in the history of American theatre that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Donaldson Award at the same time. Symbolism, was considered as one of the longest and oldest campaigns in the literary history. Williams successfully used symbolism to make his work A Streetcar Named Desire have a strong artistic effect. Many papers about the drama focus on cultural aspect, such as character analysis and feminism. Few people pay attention to the skills that were used in the play. So this thesis will discuss about symbolism in details.1.2 Literature reviewFor the past many years, scholars have paid much attention to various aspects in A Streetcar Named Desire. For example, Yuan, kai ze probe into the symbolism of flowers in the play, he argues that “ Flower symbolizes the tragic fate of Blanche, suggesting the entire process of Blanches destroying”(23). Cai, fang fang analyze the use of water and fire in A Streetcar Named Desire, and she thinks that these two symbols can highlight the opposition between fantasy and reality. 1.3 Definition of symbolismSymbolism, in generally, is one of the writing skills. It refers to use concrete images as symbols to express an emotion or an abstract idea, to represent an ideal world, or to suggest another plane of reality. Besides, it means use the method of suggestion to evoke hidden meanings. For example, candle burning itself and lighting others, which can make us think of the noble spirit of sacrificing oneself to protect others. Therefore, we can say candles are a symbol of self-sacrifice. What is more? Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. It is a core and earlist branch of modern literature and the watershed of the classic literature and modern literature. The goal of symbolism is to convey elusive illusion and its content is mysticism. Whats the writer wants to expound isnt the realistic objective world, but the individual subjective inward world. We can find abundant examples of symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire, such as the card games，the rape and Blanches repeated bath, the color and so on.2 Overall use of symbolism in the play2.1 symbolism of Blanches journeyIn A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams designed the desire of Blanche that will not be met as the main symbol. Blanche took the Desire and graveyard number street car from beautiful “Dream park”-Belle Reve Manor in south America, and passed the Moon Lake Casino and Flamingo Hotel, to the dreamland（Elysian Fields）-her only sister Stellas home, which was in the slum in New Orleans. Thus she became insane gradually and tried to forget all things. These names not only indicate the route of Blanche, but also symbolize Blanches past experiences and the upcoming fate. Dream Park symbolizes her life is just a beautiful dream. Streetcar Named “Desire is a symbol of factors that cause her own misfortune. Graveyard number street car symbolizes the process of her doom. Dreamland is a symbol of the heaven that she will go to after her death.Blanche is a woman full of desire. After a series of unfortunate things happened, like bereavement and her husband committed suicide, she came to her only sisters house later. She desired some people to protect and accompany with her. She flirted with Stanley, seduced Mickey, and even seduced a newsboy. She kept holding her old ideas and living in her own fictional fantasy world, which led to her all sorts of cheating behaviours. So then she was hitted by the reality, Stanley mercilessly expose her past, her fragile nerves can not stand this blow, and she finally fell into the crazy insane. So it is not difficult to find that in the symbolic journey of Blanche, death is actually an incentive, and desire is a motivation that directly cause Blanches dementia.2.2 symbolism of gender conflict The gender conflict is the conflict between the hero Stanley and heroine Blanche. Stanley is a son of a polish immigrant. He is able to accept and is part of the changing face of America. He represents the industrial civilization in North American. To the contrary, Blanche is stubborn and unable to change. She is a relic from the dying Old South. She represents the sensitive, delicate old southern plantation-style agricultural civilization.First of all, the description of their appearance shows us the contradictions between them. Blanche was in a white dress: white waistcoat, gloves, hat and white pearls. She suggests the image of a delicate but fragile ”moth” when she first appearsin the playHer white skirt is a symbol of American south old culture and her tragic life. In my opinion, Blanche is a successor to Southern civilization, but also a victim of it. Her suitcase is her only property. The suitcase is not only a symbol of the declining southern culture, but also her permanent mental burden. Her dead husbands letters in the box reveal her attachment to her lost youth and love. Besides, these letters suggest the fact that she can not be freed from her husbands suicide. She will feel guilty forever. When Stanley first appears in the play, Williams describes him as “He worn a blue work clothes, shoulders draped bowling shirts, and his hand was holding a rusty paper bag which wrapped a piece of meat. Then he threw the bag to Stella and roared wildly”. He is a representative in this region. In A Streetcar Named Desire，the grossly realistic world is set in urban New Orleans and Stanley is such a New Man” living in the modem age，a sensual，sexual，broken world，a wasteland growing progressively more pragmatic and animalistic as the twentieth century advances Eventually, the northern industrial civilization which was represented by Stanley defeated the traditional Victorian-style pastoral civilization which that was represented by Blanche. Generally speaking, gender conflict is the result of the conflicts between two kinds of values, two lifestyles and two cultures. Own to this, the history took a step forward.3 Several main symbols in the play3.1 Implied meaning of names The implied meaning of Blanches name is white woods. Dubois means forest in French, Blanche means white. With Blanches own words, it just likes “a spring orchard”. The name symbolizes the purity and innocence of Blanche. However, she indulged in the pale, timid fantasy life that was away from the real world, so she must become a laggard of that era and a victim of illusion. Her sisters name-Stella means star in Latin language, the “star” came from a forest. And we can say she is a symbol of the savior. In Blanches eyes, she is the only person who can help her get out of the misery and start a new life. So after Blanche lost her house, work and her husband, she went and sought refuge with Stella in New Orleans. In the play, Stella really tried to mediate the relationship between her sister and her husband. But in the Materialistic modern society, she could save neither Stanley nor Blanche. The only thing that she could do is to watch the tragedy happened. At last, Stella has not been able to become a savior of Blanche.The name of Stanley means “an open space filled with solid stones“. It is a symbol of his powerful and violent character. Although he is a person of Polish descent, he represents the diversity of modern America.3.2 Implied meaning of lampshadeThe dim light suggests that Blanches dark inner world. Blanche likes dark, she will feel uncomfortable as soon as she sees the lamp without shade. This symbolizes his desire of dark, unfathomable inner secrets and her lack of courage to face the reality. Blanche has been trying to fight against the death with desire. Londre has pointed out that “Blanches desire for shade has the value of echoing the theme”. In the drama, When Mitch scolded her, and said that the room was too dark, she said:” I like this dark anf dark means safety for me.” She likes a photophobia plant, which can not expose to wind, rain and sunshine. Blanche placed hope in the help of Stanley and acceptance of Mitch. But the two people broke her dream and made her hope come to nothing.3.3 Implied meaning of flowers We can not do a analysis of a person without specific physical environment of his life and his spiritual environment. Flower first appears when Blanche told the funeral to his sister, “Stella, every time you go back, are going to the funeral. Death is not strange to Blanche, death of her families and her husband, even the decline of the beautiful park, all of these deeply shocked the Southern lady”. The way that Blanche use to fight against death is self-indulgence. she seduced the students, slept with vulgar soldiers and became a mistress of those rich people. It can be said that Blanche is a Flower of Desire. She can feel her existence only by having affairs with men. Another scene, when the two sisters shopping back, before opening the door, Blanche asked, I looked very tired?” Stella: Not by. You like fresh flowers, like daisies.” Blanche: Pick off for several days.” Here for the first time appears the specific names daisy. Daisy has gentlemanly demeanor and innocent style. Daisies imply that Blanche went to his sisters house, and she determined to say goodbye to the past life. But the sentence-“Pick off for several days.” reveals Blanches heart wishes. It reflected her helplessness towards the dirty world. Even if she wanted to say goodbye to the past, but the reality did not let him do so.Condole flowers also often appeared in the play. A Mexico woman shouted very strongly and loudly with Spanish: flowers, condole flowers. This scene repeatedly appeared. The playwright clearly used this image to imply death. The ghostly woman finally declared the end of Blanches tragic fate. Blanches self-salvation failed at last, her sister despised her, Mickey abandoned her and Stanley tore away her camouflage.3.4 Implied meaning of water Water, in A Streetcar Named Desire, has a rich symbolism. In the drama, the water appears in different forms in the heroines life. It can be just used to drink, and can also be the heroines purification products, or even the heroines yearning place. But no matter what form of water, they all have close relationship with Blanches illusion. To begin with, Wine constantly appears in each scene of the play. At the beginning, Blanche wanted to numb herself with alcohol, and she thought alcohol can take her away from this unbearable reality. Later, when she stay with Stanley, Mitch,etc., she was always accompanied with wine. Alcohol can to calm her down and can let her produce hazy beauty of the real world,Besides, in the drama, Blanche loves bath, immersed himself in reeky bath, even in hot days. Her indulgence in bath symbolizes the guilty in her heart and her atonement desire. Bath likes a kind of ritual purification of her soul, she even felt herself liked a “new born” after taking a bath. However, as she could not wash away her past, the water did not reach the effect and did not make her illusion become reality.Finally, water appears in the play in the form of Blanches yearning place, which is vast ocean. Blanche imagined that the rest of her life will be spent on the sea and the sea would be her final destination. Because water has a purifying effect, just like religious baptism, can wash your sins. And this illusion implied her desire to forget the trouble on earth and make a final preparation to enter into the heaven. However, water purification cant change her fate finally.4 Effect of symbolism on the theme of the play4.1 symbolism heighten the tragic fate of the characters In A Streetcar Named Desire, in order to achieve the ultimate tragic effect, Williams designed two main symbol structures: Blanches desire and poker game, at the same time, he also uses light, water, color, sound and other things to make a metaphor and in order to achieve a lasting aesthetic value and heighten the tragic fate of the characters.4.2 symbolism reflect the relationship between fantasy and realityThis is a play that finds adequate expression for the conflicts between and within individualsThe conflict between Blanche and Stanley is an externalization of the conflict that goes on within Blanche between illusion and realityThe illusion sustaining her is the image of herself as a Southern belle，a fine，cultured，young ladyIn reality she is a lonely woman desperately seeking human contact，indulging in”brutal desire” as an affirmation of life. Blanche always hovering between fantasy and reality, she did not want to face her own shameful past and ruthless social reality, on the contrary, she always lost herself in her own illusion, However, the cruel reality destroyed her fantasy world constantly and made her unable to escape from the tragic life.For example, Williams through the use of the symbols-fire and water to highlights the conflict between fantasy and reality. On the one hand, the water is used to wash Blanches past sins, also is to help her to change her fate in her mind. However, the purification of water did not change her tragic fate. Because water is also a representative of her loneliness and indicates that she can not escape from her tragic fate. On the other hand, the fire is Blanche illusion destroyer. The fire through the form of light let Blanche expose out her past life. Blanches hope and illusions are burned up eventually. In short,