Drama Paper Due: 10/5
Consider any of the following statements/questions as possible paper topics. You may use any of them. In your paper, please include some source material [textual evidence]. Consider the class discussions, the themes we discussed, issues about all of these characters, symbolic imagery [food, disease], plot issues, atmosphere, and tone. Using the language of the classroom and material from your notes and the book, you should be able to formulate a good 3-4 page essay on the play. Good luck!

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE:

1. Write a paper in which you discuss the theme of fantasy versus reality. This kind of paper would necessarily focus on Blanche Dubois and the many ways in which she avoids the truth of her own life-the many tragedies. In what ways does she escape into fantasy?
2. Stella also resorts to illusion in order to escape the reality of her own life, especially at the end-the choices she makes in many ways parallel Blanche’s own choices [both attempt to hide inside of an unreality]. This paper might compare the two.
3. The struggle between the old and the new. This kind of paper would focus on the old South and the new conditions Blanche finds herself in. This paper would focus on class, history, loss.
4. Write a paper in which you focus on one specific character or many characters with the aimof identifying their motivation. What motivates Stanely? Blanche? Stella? Mitch?
5. Compare the primitivism in Stanley with the feigned elegance of Blanche Dubois.
6. What are the effects of desire on all of these characters? This is a major theme of Tennessee Williams. Desire for what? To recover? To seek out something new? To hide? To find one’s power? Are their desires the same? Different?
7. This is a play about death in many ways. Consider this idea. In what was is the play about death? What’s dying? Is anyone avoiding the reality of death? Hiding from it?