A Streetcar Named Desire Essay & Criticism

A Streetcar Named Desire Critical Overview

A Streetcar Named Desire premiered in Boston and Philadelphia, then in New York on December 4, 1947, to almost unanimously laudatory reviews. The New Yorker described Streetcar as "deeply disturbing—a brilliant, implacable play about the disintegration of a woman, or, if you like, of a society."

Streetcar was highly praised by its first director, Ella Kazan, who, from his knowledge of Williams' character, was one of the first to point out psychological similarities between Williams and Blanche. Kazan noted that "I keep linking Blanche and Tennessee... Blanche is attracted by the man who is going to destroy her.... I also noticed that at the end of the play—all was an author's essential statement—Stella, having witnessed her sister's being destroyed by her husband, then taken away to an institution with her mind split, felt grief and remorse but not an enduring alienation from her husband.... The implication at the end...
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