Genre blog post: Drama

For my drama blog posts, I will be looking at gender as my theme, due to it’s interesting relationship with A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Throughout the novel, gender plays an important role in developing the characters. I would like to focus on scene three of the play, more specifically, the following passage from pages 1131 - 1133:

STEVE: Anything wild this deal?

PABLO: One-eyed jacks are wild.

STEVE: Give me two cards.

PABLO: You, Mitch?

MITCH: I'm out

PABLO: One.

MITCH: Anyone want a shot?

STANLEY: Yeah. Me.

PABLO: Why don't somebody go to the Chinaman's and bring back a load of chop suey? STANLEY: When I'm losing you want to eat! Ante up! Openers? Openers! Get y'r ass off the table, Mitch. Nothing belongs on a poker table but cards, chips and whiskey. [He lurches up and tosses some watermelon rinds to the floor.]

MITCH: Kind of on your high horse, ain't you?

STANLEY: How many?

STEVE: Give me three.

STANLEY: One.

MITCH: I'm out again. I oughta go home pretty soon.

STANLEY: Shut up.

MITCH: I gotta sick mother. She don't go to sleep until I come in at night.

STANLEY: Then why don't you stay home with her?

MITCH: She says to go out, so I go, but I don't enjoy it. All the while I keep wondering how

she is.

STANLEY: Aw, for the sake of Jesus, go home, then!

PABLO: What've you got?

STANLEY: Spade flush.

MITCH: You all are married. But I'll be alone when she goes.--I'm going to the bathroom. STANLEY: Hurry back and we’ll fix you a sugar-tit.

MITCH: Aw, go rut. [He crosses through the bedroom into the bathroom.]

STEVE [dealing a hand): Seven-card stud. [Telling his joke as he deals] This ole farmer is out in back of his house sittin' down th'owing corn to the chickens when all at once he hears a loud cackle and this young hen comes lickety split around the side of the house with the rooster right behind her and gaining on her fast.

STANLEY [impatient with the story]: Deal!

STEVE: But when the rooster catches sight of the farmer th'owing the corn he puts on the brakes and lets the hen get away and starts pecking corn. And the old farmer says, "Lord God, I hopes I never gits that hongry!" [Steve and Pablo laugh. The sisters appear around the corner of the building]

STELLA: The game is still going on.

BLANCHE: How do I look?

STELLA: Lovely, Blanche.

BLANCHE: I feel so hot and frazzled. Wait till I powder before you open the door. Do I look done in?

STELLA: Why no. You are as fresh as a daisy.

BLANCHE: One that's been picked a few days. [Stella opens the door and they enter.]

STELLA: Well, well, well. I see you boys are still at it!

STANLEY: Where you been?

STELLA: Blanche and I took in a show. Blanche, this is Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Hubbell. BLANCHE: Please don't get up.

STANLEY: Nobody's going to get up, so don't be worried.

STELLA: How much longer is this game going to continue?

STANLEY: Till we get ready to quit.

BLANCHE: Poker is so fascinating. Could I kibitz?

STANLEY: You could not. Why don't you women go up and sit with Eunice?

STELLA: Because it is nearly two-thirty. [Blanche crosses into the bedroom and partially closes the portieres] Couldn't you call it quits after one more hand? [A chair scrapes. Stanley gives a loud whack of his hand on her thigh.]

STELLA [sharply]: That's not fun, Stanley. [The men laugh. Stella goes into the bedroom.]

STELLA: It makes me so mad when he does that in front of people.

BLANCHE: I think I will bathe.

STELLA: Again?

BLANCHE: My nerves are in knots. Is the bathroom occupied?

STELLA: I don't know.

[Blanche knocks. Mitch opens the door and comes out, still wiping his hands on a towel.]

Now, I understand that gender and gender roles are a huge topic with many implications, but I

would like to focus on traditional gender roles. In other words, I would like to look at how the play shows what men and women are supposed to do and how they are supposed to act. I believe this passage shows the clearest picture. What is interesting about this play in particular, is that it uses traditional gender roles in what would be seen in a lower-class neighborhood and the fact that this play was written in the years following WWII. During WWII, many women took up jobs to support the household and to help the war effort. While this did decline in middle to upper class families in the years following the war, lower class families kept with this trend out of necessity. This, however, doesn’t seem to be the case with Stella and Stanley. Stanley is portrayed as some sort of tradesman, and Stella doesn’t seem to be employed. I believe that this misrepresentation was done on purpose to appeal to the higher socioeconomic classes at the time.

Now, employment isn’t the only area that gender roles cover, household life is a very prominent fixture of traditional gender roles. Here is where the play is fairly accurately representing these roles. Let’s look at the passage that was cited earlier. First, the scene begins with all of the men sitting around the table playing poker. Right away we can see degrees of masculinity around the table. We have Stanley, who is shown to be the alpha of the group from what we previously have read and how he makes fun at the other two at the table, Mitch and Pablo. Pablo seems to be a neutral figure in terms of his masculinity because don’t know much about him. Mitch, on the other hand we learn quite a bit about during the rest of the story beginning with this scene. Throughout this scene, he is constantly berated by Stanley for having to go home and take care of his mother ( we can infer that this is because that job was that of women using traditional gender roles) and for spending time with the women in the other room. Then you get to the women. Stanley stresses that Blanche is not allowed to play poker with the guys and insisting that they go upstairs and spend their time with Eunice. Stanley obviously sees poker as a manly game that women should have no part in. Traditional gender role show that the men and women should keep to themselves and not cross into each others territory, meaning that if it is viewed as manly, women should have no part in it and visa-versa.

Finally, I believe that these stereotypical roles presented in the play might be satirical. This is partially due to the background information on Tennessee Williams that was presented by Cat, in-class. More specifically, the fact that he was raised solely by his mother and his father was a drunken salesman who was never present. Take Stanley for instance. He is presented as a manly man and slowly, throughout the play, none of his actions make him into a better or successful person and he is seen in a very harsh light (putting it lightly) towards the end of the play. Then, on the other hand, Blanche who also follows traditional women gender roles, is taken for granted and in in much worse shape at the end of the play then when she first came to New Orleans. This not to say that this was her fault but she also never took any actions towards improving herself and focused solely on what society wanted her to be.