Critics of Streetcar 12/11/15

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/18280

Old South versus New America:

The power struggle between Blanche and Stanley could represent the two sides of the American Civil war. Blanche symbolises the Old South who is defeated by Stanley who symbolises newly emerging society.

The distinction between Blanche and Stanley's social backgrounds is established by their state of dress. The way Blanche dresses identifies her as someone with a wealthy background who lived a privileged life of pleasure, not work. Stanley dresses in casual clothes, such as denim, which identifies him as a modern American who has to work in order to succeed and sport and popular culture is preferred over more intellectual pastimes.

Therefore, Blanche could be portrayed as an invader in a world which resents her and will eventually destroy her. The evidence of this is during the rape scene which represents the defeat of culture and values that Blanche holds dear; this is symbolised where Blanche's elegant clothes are described as "soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown" and Stanley's attire is described as "brilliant pyjama coat".

Stella is a bridge between the two worlds. She has the same background of inherited wealth as Blanche as she grew up in the Old South with her family. However, at the time of the play she lives in the new world of America witth Stanley which has far more modern ideals and mannerisms. The contrast between the two worlds she lives in is symbolised when Willaims first describes her as "a gentle woman...of a background obviously quite different to her husband's" which implies that Stella has kept part of her identity from the Old South as Southern Belles were expected to be dainty. However, she has allowed more modern American traits to influence her attire. When Stella and Blanche first talk, Blanche points out that she has "spilt something on that pretty white lace collar" which implies that although Stella dresses nicely she does not have such strong opinions on immaculate outfits as Blanche. Furthermore, this could symbolise the Old South fading away from Stella; it is significant that Blanche notices this because throughout the play she continuously attempts to make Stella behave more like a Southern Belle but because she fails, this symbolises the new world of America defeating the Old South.

The play symbolises how the Old South and its many ideals has been lost. Blanche represents the last, fading species of people who are desperately clinging on to the past. This is implied where Blanche and Mitch attempt to re-create romantic chivalry by waltzing to the radio. However, yet again, this fantasy is destroyed by the new world where Stanley throws the radio out of the window. This symbolises modern America rejecting the Old South and demolishing their essence. This is further implied by Stanley's brutish behaviour. Blanche's values dictate that men must be gentlemen and treat women like they are delicate whilst acting respectful at all times. However, Stella finds Stanley's primitive behaviour exciting and is exhilarated by his display of power.

Arthur Miller’s introduction to ‘A Streetcar Named Desire”

“It only took a few minutes to realize that the play and production had thrown open doors to another theatre world”

“language flowing from the soul”

“this play made it seem possible for the stage to express any and all things and do so beautifully”

“He[Brando]roared out Williams’ celebratory terror of sex”

“‘Streetcar’ is a cry of pain”

Context:

Southern Belle- a young woman from the Deep South who were middle to upper class. They would wear long, almost Victorian style, dresses and look beautiful whilst looking for a rich husband.

New Orleans- Where Jazz was born. After WW2,
Americans were very patriotic

Immigration- During the 1940s there was mass immigration into the USA from other countries

Stanley:

Masculinity-

“Stanley carries his bowling jacket and a red-stained package from a butcher’s. (Scene One, Stage Directions)”

Look at how Williams uses props to emphasize Stanley’s "primitive" masculinity.

“BLANCHE
Well, I never cared for wishy-washy people. That was why, when you walked in here last night, I said to myself — "My sister has a married man!"— Of course that was all that I could tell about you. (2.114)”

Blanche may be deluded, but she’s not dumb. She understands that Stanley prides himself on his masculinity, so this is the angle she works when trying to get into his good graces.

STANLEY
[booming] Now let’s cut the re-bop!
BLANCHE
[pressing hands to her ears]
Ouuuuu! (2.115-6)

Stanley’s masculinity is often expressed through loud noises, whether it be "bellowing" or "booming" or smashing things around. This takes a toll on the delicate Blanche.

STANLEY
You see, under the Napoleonic code – a man has to take an interest in his wife’s affairs – especially now that she’s going to have a baby.
[Blanche opens her eyes. The "blue piano" sounds louder.]
BLANCHE
Stella? Stella going to have a baby? I didn’t know she was going to have a baby! (2.151-2)

Stanley says this deliberately in order to hurt Blanche. He’s just been a bit humiliated since Blanche proved her story about Belle Reve with the financial papers, so this is his way of asserting his dominance once more.

STELLA
Drunk – drunk – animal thing, you!
[…]
[Stanley charges after Stella.]
STELLA
You lay your hands on me and I’ll –
[She backs out of sight. He advances and disappears. There is the sound of a blow. Stella cries out.] (3.165-8)

Violence is the unfortunate accompaniment to the assertive virility that Stella finds so attractive. Because the two are so closely tied together, Stella can’t distinguish between them, and finds even his aggressive streak to be attractive.

STELLA
He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself. (4.16)

Stanley’s dual nature makes it difficult for us to condemn him as readers (or as the audience).

BLANCHE
On the contrary, I saw him at his best! What such a man has to offer is animal force and he gave a wonderful exhibition of that! But the only way to live with such a man is to – go to bed with him! And that’s your job – not mine! (4.90)

Think about this passage in the context of the eventual rape in Scene Ten…


Since earliest manhood the center of [Stanley's] life has been pleasure with women [...] He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and
determining the way he smiles at them


Stell, it's gonna be all right after she [Blanche] goes and after you've had the baby. It's gonna be all right again between you and me the way it was. You remember that way that it was? Them nights we had together? God, honey, it's gonna be sweet when we can make noise in the night the way that we used to and get the colored lights going with nobody's sister behind the curtains to hear us! (8.55)

Basically, Stanley sees his marriage as suffering because with the sister-in-law in town, he can't relate to his wife the way he normally does.

"there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark—that sort of make everything else seem—unimportant."

Since earliest manhood the center of [Stanley's] life has been pleasure with women [...] He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them. (1.205)

Laura's Temptation: Goblin Market 15/10/15

Summary of Goblin Market

Two sisters, Lizzie and Laura

Laura and Temptation

“Despite its Christian morality, Rossetti gives all of the dramatic and poetic power to the character of Laura.” Explore the way Rossetti depicts temptation in Goblin Market in light of this quotation.

Compare the ways Rossetti Presents Nature in her Poems 13/10/15

Compare the ways Rossetti Presents Nature in her Poems

Christina Rossetti was a Victorian poet who uses nature in her poems to express her beliefs on religion and mortality. She was a High Anglican Christian and therefore her beliefs did not conform to the typical Victorian Christianity so she represents her views of God's power through nature. Specifically, she often uses flowers to symbolise spiritual purity in poems such as 'A Birthday', whereas in poems such as 'Paradise: In a Dream' she uses trees as a symbol for religion. Overall, Rossetti's poems are heavily influenced by her strong religious beliefs which is shown through the way Rossetti presents natural imagery.

Do a quick introduction about what the whole poem is about. Describe how the use of natural imagery is used to represent royalty. Like how peacocks are always thought of as a royal blue colour. Talk about the column how Rossetti uses nature to try and symbolise how royal and powerful God is. Mention how "silver" is not a natural colour for a flower to be so she is uses hyper-natural imagery in an attempt to represent her deity. In 'A Birthday', Rossetti uses a metaphor to symbolise the holy trinity. She describes "silver fleurs-de-lys" which are lilies with three parts. This implies a religious influence as the three parts of the flower could symbolise the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Religion was one of the biggest aspects of Rossetti's life- she was diagnosed with religious mania after a breakdown when she was 14- so the lily, which is delicate and beautiful, could represent the three most important things in her life which she believes to be the most beautiful. Similarly, in 'Paradise: In a Dream' Rossetti uses flowers to express how she interprets God's teachings. She describes "the flowers that bud and bloom in Paradise". The noun "Paradise" implies that Rossetti is describing the Garden of Eden and the flowers she describes represent the beauty and purity of the Garden before Eve ate the apple. The alliteration of "bud and bloom" emphasises the perfection of the Garden of Eden and highlights Rossetti's religious belief that God is all powerful and capable of creating complete "Paradise" in Heaven for those who deserve to go there. Furthermore, the alliteration implies that while in her "Paradise" everything is perfect where buds grow into flowers, she also believes that Postlapsarian times are sinful and imperfect as she firmly states that everything is much better in the Garden of Eden than on Earth.

Rossetti uses similes in 'A Birthday' to compare nature to her religious ideals. In the first stanza, the persona states "My heart is like an apple-tree" and the simile makes the tone of the poem more playful and carefree. Furthermore, the noun "apple-tree" may be a reference to the Garden of Eden where Eve gave in to temptation and ate an apple off one of the trees. This suggests that the persona finds happiness through Christianity and Rossetti is encouraging the reader to find peace through religion like the persona. The phrase "My heart" is repeated throughout the poem and Rossetti compares it to numerous forms of nature. This suggests that her poetry is often influenced by nature and the religious symbolism in the comparison to nature implies that she is able to find freedom like she can see in nature through her religion. On the other hand, Rossetti uses the metaphor of a tree in 'Paradise: In a Dream' to symbolise the image of Jesus Christ. She talks about "The Tree of Life" in the fourth stanza which is the medieval image of Christ on the cross. The structure puts the reference in the middle of the poem which may symbolise that Christ was at the centre of Rossetti's life. During her life, Rossetti turned down three suitors because they did not have the same religious beliefs as her which suggests she put her love for God before anything else and these strong beliefs heavily influence her poems as she makes numerous religious references.

Goblin Market analysis 08/10/15

Goblin Market Analysis



Summer Analysis:

Christian Interpretation-

Laura represents Eve, the goblin men are the equivalent of Satan, the fruit is the temptation to sin and Lizzie is the Christ figure.

Laura sins by eating the goblin's fruit, which is symbolism to Adam and eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Boom of Genesis.

The long list of the goblin's fruit represents the wide variety of temptation humans face. Similar to Adam and Eve, Laura discovers that the fruit brings consequences.

Lizzie suffers the consequences of Laura's sin when she rescues Laura from the punishment of death, just like Christ. The red fruit that Lizzie tries to get Laura to drink is like the blood of Christ in Eucharist. Rossetti describes Lizzie as pure "lily in a flood" and that is why she is the only person who is able to save Laura's life. The sacrifice Lizzie makes comes from pure love and sacrifice.

Sexual Interpretation-

In the poem there are symbols of repressed sexual desire and of sexual violence. Lizzie and Laura are both innocent and virginal at the start of the poem, but Laura's curiosity proves to be stronger than her sister's warning.

Amongst words such as "sucked" and "heaved", Laura loses her youth and virginity by taking the goblin's tempting fruit. In Victorian society, a woman's deflowering marks her transition into adulthood as a wife and mother. However, Laura is not married and is stripped of her 'maiden' status prematurely.

For Lizzie, Rossetti uses language of sexual violence when the goblin men attack her but she refuses to drink the fruit. She holds onto her virtue in the form of the silver penny- an Elizabethan term for female genetilia. However, virginity cannot be recovered so Laura's redemption could be in the form of her reintroduction into normal social relationships as she is married with children at the end of the poem.

Darker Interpretation-

The motto "there is no friend like a sister" coincides with the feminist theme. It suggests Rossetti hoped to show even fallen women could find redemption, leaving the past behind them.

However, there is a darker interpretation due to the language referring to buying and selling. In Victorian England, women were expected to conduct themselves to a certain standard. If they did not, it led to their depreciation of their worth on the marriage 'market'. Unlike Laura, Lizzie heeds the warnings about the goblin men and safeguards her money in he purse, thereby protecting her virtue.

JSTOR Resources:

Two readers-

"modern marketing techniques have identified two distinct readers-child and adult- and produced different meanings for each"

For a child reading it, the language in 'the goblin market' makes it sound like a fairy tale.
But to an adult the interpretation has more sexual undertones.

Rossetti's Sex Life-
Some people believe that the sexual undertones in 'the goblin market' was not intentional as she was not married so she did not have sex and therefore could not have been able to write about it as she did not experience it <--- I DO NOT AGREE

Heroic Sisterhood-
There is a sensuous energy throughout the poem but a feel of serenity at the end. This implies it is not a poem about bitter repression but a fantasy of feminine freedom, self-sufficiency and celebration of sisterly love. It is a dream/vision of the Pre-Raphaelite world from a woman's view.

Class notes:

Selfhood-
There is a theory that Lizzie and Laura are actually two halves of one whole.This can be seen in the mirroring of their names 'L'. It can also be seen in the metaphor "Locked together in one nest" which could represent a sense of self and the way multiple selves co-exist or be "locked together" in one identity. Lizzie represents the public self of Victorian femininity and Laura represents the private transgressive self of Victorian femininity.

Lizzie Quotes:

• "Lizzie veil'd her blushes"- first mention of Lizzie in the poem. This implies that Lizzie was shocked and embarrassed by the Goblin Market

Comparision of Song and Remember

"Compare and contrast how Rossetti shows her views on death and the after-life in the poems 'Song' and 'Remember'.

During the Victorian era, the mortality rate was much higher than it is today so therefore, death made a huge impact on a Victorian's life. In consequence of this, there were a number of unusual rituals Victorians used for funerals, such as the body being watched over every minute before the burial, which is reflected in 'Song'. Victorians also had strange mourning customs, such as black ribbons being hung from front doors, which is reflected in both poems as the main themes are mourning. Both poems imply the idea that the atferlife is silent and devoid of action. This directly reflects Rossetti's views on death as she personally believed in 'soul sleeping'; she thought that when you die your soul sleeps until the rebirth of Jesus Christ at whence you reawaken. Rossetti was influenced by mortality at an early age when her father was diagnosed with tuberculosis when she was thirteen years old. Despite the fact that he lived another 13 years, he was unable to work and her mother had to work to provide for the family while her older sister became a governess- a fate that Rossetti detested for herself. You need to nail the question in the last line of the introduction

Firstly, 'Song' shows Rossetti's strong Christian view on the after-life through the line "That doth not rise nor set" in the second stanza. The notion of resting in a place where the "rise nor set" of the sun is not necessary comes from John in the New Testament book, Revelation. This reflects Rossetti's Christian beliefs as she is referencing the bible which implies she has strong faith in God and feels more at peace with the idea of death as she is confident with her opinion of the after-life. Rossetti uses iambic trimeter perfectly here which infers that even though the persona's loved one cannot count on life to be predictable, the rising and setting of the sun can be depended on everyday. Furthermore, the steady rhythm and biblical reference implies that in times of trouble Rossetti felt she could always depend on her religion to help her get through her woes. You need to connect this to your thesis in the introduction where the afterlife is 'silent and devoid of action' as Rossetti isn't talking about religion Similarly, Rossetti also uses iambic meter in 'Remember' to reflect her views on death and the after-life. Rossetti uses iambic pentameter in the line "It will be late to counsel then or pray" about halfway through the poem. The persona in this poem shows a slightly different view on the after-life as they are inferring that religion cannot help them when they are dead because it will be too "late" to "pray" for them as they would have already been judged whether they deserve to go to Heaven or Hell. The verb "counsel" implies that the persona had acted improper some time in their life and the person the persona is addressing doesn't trust them to make their own decisions without advice. The Victorians had a strict set of social rules so an action that may seem like nothing to a modern reader would be viewed as scandalous to a contemporary reader such as women showing any skin above the ankle.

Secondly, both poems show Rossetti's view that people can find closure from death. In 'Song', the persona orders her loved one to "Sing no sad songs for me" in the first stanza. Even though most of the poem has an iambic trimeter, Rossetti changes this line to trochaic which puts the stress onto the imperative verb "Sing". The disrupt in the rhythm of the poem implies that the loved one's life will lose its rhythm and meaning when the persona passes away. However, "Sing" is an imperative verb

Overall: You need to work on the structure of your argument within your paragraphs

Helpful websites

http://www.s-cool.co.uk/a-level/english-literature/unseen-poetry-a-single-poem/revise-it/rhyme

I was revising rhyming used in poems. This helped with analysis of poems e.g alliteration, assonance