The themes of desire and violence are not only prevalent throughout Tennessee Williams’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire but they are intertwined in a way that foreshadows the events that we see in the last few scenes of the play. These two themes come together in the first Scene when Blanche DuBois is explaining the route she took to her sister Stella’s house, “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!”. The names of these streets aren’t just a coincidence. Williams is quietly placing t
he idea that desire leads to the cemetery which represents death and then Elysian Fields which is known as the afterlife. Blanche is led to this afterlife because she had been acting promiscuously back in her hometown of Laurel by seducing not only young men but also her underage students. When Blanche explains her travel on the train car named Desire it sounds awfully like her circumstances when the readers enter the play. When she arrives at her sister Stella’s house she has entered a past life as she leaves her old Southern town, ideals, and its social norms behind to be rudely awoken to the different societal standards that are making way in the “new” south.
However, Blanche is not the only one to have her desires lead to violence. Blanche had previously been married to a man named Allen when they were both very young. At one point early in their marriage, Blanche had walked in on Allen having sex with an older male acquaintance, “ By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty–which wasn’t empty but had two people in it… the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years….” (Scene Six). Although Blanche originally tries to gloss this over she slips up later that night when the three of them are drunkenly dancing. Blanche cries out to Allen about how disgusted she is in his acts of desire towards the same sex. Her husband immediately ran out from the dance and shot himself. This particular instance highlights how acts of desire that are not accepted by society can lead to violence against one’s self. Allen could not live with his desire and the shame that came with it as homosexuality was not excepted at this time period so he decided the easiest way to cope with it was to not exist at all
The theme of desire and violence are most intertwined and prevalent in Stanley and Stella’s relationship as well as Steve and Eunice’s. In the south desires were always there but often covered up or hidden as it was seen as a sin to be sexually attracted to another person. However, with this new southern society that is arising desire is out in the open and so are its flaws when desire is in the wrong place. When Stanley hits Stella and she runs away she eventually makes her way back to Stanely later that where they sleep together. When Blanche confronts Stella about returning after she was beaten she replies about how she feels about Stanley’s temperament in the past stating,” I was–sort of–thrilled by it.” (scene three), Here it shows how the desire for the wrong person could lead to manipulation and violence. Steve and Eunice’s relationship is the same as Stella and Stanely’s however they are a much older couple. Their presence in this play foreshadows how Stella and Stanely’s relationship of pure desire will never change. They will continue to desire each other in a way that will inevitably hurt them both, especially Stella. At its peak, we see the most tainted and brutal form of desire when Stanley proceeds to rape Blanche while Stella is at the hospital giving birth. In a way, we find that all these characters had decided to take the streetcar, or path, of desire where it has led them to a life of violence.