A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Published 1947 · 112 pages · 23,675 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Drama, Tragedy

How hard is A Streetcar Named Desire to read?

A Streetcar Named Desire scores 67 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 62 out of 100
While much of the dialogue is accessible, Tennessee Williams employs a sophisticated vocabulary in both character speech and detailed stage directions. Words like "neurasthenic," "portieres," "raffish," and "attenuates" appear, alongside literary allusions and occasional French phrases, elevating the linguistic demands beyond typical contemporary fiction.
Sentence structure: 60 out of 100
The play features a mix of direct dialogue and longer, more descriptive stage directions that incorporate multiple clauses and complex phrasing. Blanche's monologues, in particular, exhibit extended sentence structures and rhetorical flourishes, requiring sustained attention to follow their emotional and logical progression.
Abstraction: 72 out of 100
Beneath its concrete narrative of character conflict, the play deeply explores abstract themes of desire, illusion versus reality, class, and mental fragility. Blanche's philosophical pronouncements on human nature and civilization, coupled with pervasive symbolism (e.g., Elysian Fields, the streetcar named Desire, light imagery), elevate the work beyond a simple story.
Information density: 68 out of 100
"A Streetcar Named Desire" is highly information-dense due to its concise dramatic form, rich subtext, and extensive symbolism. Every line of dialogue and stage direction is laden with psychological insight and thematic significance, requiring close attention to grasp the layers of meaning, character motivations, and the play's underlying critiques.
Narrative indirection: 68 out of 100
Blanche's elaborate self-deception and the unspoken tensions between characters, particularly Stella's complex feelings for Stanley, demand significant reader inference. The play relies on subtext and dramatic irony, forcing the audience to piece together the true nature of events and motivations beyond explicit dialogue. This level of inference is more pronounced than 'The Great Gatsby' (65) due to Blanche's profound psychological unreliability.
Symbolic density: 80 out of 100
'A Streetcar Named Desire' is rich with potent, recurring symbols that deepen its thematic resonance. The streetcars 'Desire' and 'Cemeteries,' Blanche's aversion to direct light (the paper lantern), her constant bathing, and the 'blue piano' music are integral to understanding the characters' inner lives and the play's central conflicts. These symbols are pervasive and crucial, placing its density higher than 'The Great Gatsby' (75) and closer to 'To the Lighthouse' (82).
Ironic distance: 78 out of 100
The play establishes a profound ironic distance through Blanche's self-delusion, contrasting her genteel facade with the brutal realities of her past and present. The audience is consistently aware of the gap between Blanche's carefully constructed illusions and the truth, creating a powerful sense of dramatic irony that underscores the tragedy. This distance is more central and pervasive than in 'The Great Gatsby' (70), where Nick's perspective still mediates much of the irony.
Resolution withholding: 65 out of 100
While Blanche's physical fate is resolved with her institutionalization, the play withholds clear moral or emotional closure for Stella and Stanley. Stella's final, 'luxurious sobbing' and surrender to Stanley leaves the audience with deep ambiguity about her future and the enduring nature of their relationship. The ending resists simple answers, leaving significant thematic questions unresolved, similar to 'The Great Gatsby' (60) but with more emotional ambiguity.
Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
The play maintains a largely linear chronology and a conventional dramatic structure, presenting events in a straightforward sequence. While it employs expressionistic theatrical devices like shifting lighting, symbolic music (the Varsouviana), and auditory hallucinations to convey Blanche's deteriorating mental state, these elements primarily enhance psychological depth rather than fragment the narrative timeline or alter point of view. This is more complex than a purely linear narrative but far less experimental than high-scoring anchors.

How A Streetcar Named Desire is regarded

A Streetcar Named Desire holds a literary regard score of 91 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where A Streetcar Named Desire sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (50 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, A Streetcar Named Desire scores 72 out of 100. A second mythos, irony, pulls at it with a weight of 0.2. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
Take a look at yourself in that wornout Mardi Gras outfit, rented for fifty cents from some ragpicker!
Symbol: Formal
I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.
Mythos: Tragedy v (Ironic Tragedy) (tragedy v)
Tiger--tiger! Drop the bottle top! Drop it! We've had this date with each other from the beginning!
Genre: Drama
Dissonant brass and piano sounds as the rooms dim out to darkness and the outer walls appear in the night light.

Where the story of A Streetcar Named Desire takes place

  • A French Quarter apartment, New Orleans, 1947 (1946 to 1947), the main setting
  • Elysian Fields flat, French Quarter, New Orleans, May to September (late 1940s) (1946 to 1947)

5 things that are true of A Streetcar Named Desire, with the passage for each

  1. Blanche reaches Stella's street by taking one streetcar named Desire and transferring to another called Cemeteries.

    They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at--Elysian Fields!

  2. On his wedding night Stanley smashed every light bulb in the flat with Stella's slipper.

    He smashed all the light bulbs with the heel of my slipper!

  3. Mitch states his exact weight and height while Blanche flatters him.

    I weigh two hundred and seven pounds and I'm six feet one and one-half inches tall in my bare feet

  4. Stanley's birthday present to Blanche is a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel.

    Ticket! Back to Laurel! On the Greyhound! Tuesday!

  5. The play's final line is a poker call, spoken as Blanche is being led away.

    This game is seven-card stud.

Scenes in A Streetcar Named Desire that Frye would name

22 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Agon, untitled
Oh! So you want some rough-house! All right, let's have some rough-house! The physical showdown between Stanley and Blanche with the broken bottle is the climax of the conflict.
Hamartia, untitled
I saw! I know! You disgust me... Her cruel public rebuke of Allan on the dance floor is the fatal misstep that precipitates his suicide and her ruin.
Anagnorisis, untitled
What it means is I've never had a real good look at you, Blanche. Let's turn the light on here. Mitch's insistence on seeing her in the light is the recognition that breaks their courtship.
Sparagmos, untitled
Tiger--tiger! Drop the bottle top! Drop it! We've had this date with each other from the beginning! Stanley's assault, the cracked mirror and the broken bottle mark the tearing apart of Blanche's world.
Demonic imagery, untitled
The night is filled with inhuman voices like cries in a jungle. Jungle, animal and flame imagery marks the demonic register at the assault.
Pathos, untitled
Whoever you are--I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. Blanche's committal is the sacrificial passing of the heroine, led away by Doctor and Matron.

Books that share these scenes with A Streetcar Named Desire

About the author

Tennessee Williams