A streetcar named Desire

Description

A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the most remarkable plays of our time. It created an immortal woman in the character of Blanche DuBois, the haggard and fragile southern beauty whose pathetic last grasp at happiness is cruelly destroyed. It shot Marlon Brando to fame in the role of Stanley Kowalski, a sweat-shirted barbarian, the crudely sensual brother-in-law who precipitated Blance's tragedy. Produced across the world and translated into many languages, A Streetcar Named Desire has won one of the widest audiences in contemporary literature. Also contained in: - [New Voices in the American Theatre](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15163013W/New_Voices_in_the_American_Theatre) - [Plays 1937 - 1955](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15077942W/Plays_1937_-_1955)

Excerpt

The exterior of a two-story corner building on a street in New Orleans which is named Elysian Fields and runs between the L & N tracks and the river.

Description

The play reveals to the very depths the character of Blanche du Bois, a woman whose life has been undermined by her romantic illusions, which lead her to reject so far as possible the realities of life with which she is faced and which she consistently ignores. The pressure brought to bear upon her by her sister, with whom she goes to live in New Orleans, intensified by the earthy and extremely "normal" young husband of the latter, leads to a revelation of her tragic self-delusion and, in the end, to madness.

Subjects

Other Editions

• A streetcar named Desire: A play in 3 actsDramatists Play Service Inc.1981-01-01
• A Streetcar Named DesireMass Market PaperbackNew American Library1947-01-01
• A Streetcar Named DesireHardcoverNew Directions1947-01-01
• A Streetcar Named DesireHardcoverCollectible First Editions1949-01-01
• A Streetcar Named Desire. (Lernmaterialien)PaperbackDiesterweg1975-01-01
• A Streetcar Named DesirePaperbackNew Directions1980-01-01