Though the extent to which A Streetcar Named Desire exemplifies traditional tragedy may command increasing attention as this paper progresses, a demonstration of that idea is not the central aim at hand. It is, rather, one fragment of the question of tragic stature that most concerns us here: the terms according to which "victory" may be considered within the heroine's grasp, the course of her struggle toward victory, and the pivotal moment in which the struggle turns to defeat. (p. 249)
[If] an argument is to be put forth that Blanche does not begin and proceed and end at the same low point, that argument must hinge on a value that … remains to Williams and to his tragedy. Decidedly there is such a value, one that American dramatists of the late 1940s and '50s cling to desperately (Miller, the most important exception.) This is the belief in intimate relationships (the establishing of the complex network of human love at least on a one-to-one basis) as paramount among life's pursuits. Not only is Blanche's struggle to achieve intimacy central to the tensions of the play, but the very difficult, clasically noble means which she must exert to achieve it—the admitting of humiliating truths, the giving of compassion in the face of shock, the learning to moderate her life so that her continued individuality is compatible with the individuality of others—stand in testament to a by no means peculiarly mid-twentieth century view of heroism. Conventionally phrased, can he who strives for order in his society succeed if he cannot bring order to his own house? (pp. 251-52)
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