Typical exam questions - Streetcar

This is you in 7 weeks time!

Here are some tough and not-so-tough questions on Streetcar.

I strongly urge you to practise these within an one hour time limit - if at first you don't succeed, try try again...practice makes perfect, time waits for no man, procrastination is the thief of time etc etc

You should at least attempt to write a plan for each of these. That way, you've covered everything and nothing will scare you in the exam!

1. Describe the use of light in the play. What does its presence or absence indicate?
2. How does Williams use sound as a dramatic device?
3. How does Blanche’s fascination with teenage boys relate to her decline and fall?
4. Compare and contrast Mitch to the other men in the play.
5. Compare and contrast Blanche and Stella.
6. What does Williams’s depiction of Blanche and Stanley’s lives say about desire?
7. The plot of A Streetcar Named Desire is driven by the dueling personalities of Blanche and Stanley. What are the sources of their animosity toward one another?
8. A Streetcar Named Desire can be described as an elegy, or poetic expression of mourning, for an Old South that died in the first part of the twentieth century. Expand on this description.
9. Streetcar is divided into eleven scenes rather than the traditional act and scene divisions. What is the effect of this structure?
10. How does Williams tend to end scenes? On a consistently dramatic note? A tragic one? With suspense?
11. Are there any moral or ethical lessons to be found in A Streetcar Named Desire?
12. We’ve spent a lot of time contrasting Blanche and Stanley as opposite characters and symbols of conflicting ideals. But in what ways are these two similar? And how do these commonalities complicate the interpretation of the play?
13. What sort of acting choices do you see the characters having to play, particularly Blanche, Stanley, and Stella? Are the characters pretty clearly mapped out in the script, or is there much room for interpretation?
14. How important is the final scene (Eleven) of Streetcar? What does it add to the play? Why not just end with the rape in Scene Ten?
15. In what ways does Blanche represent the faded American Dream?
16. What effect does the combination of fantasy and reality have in A Streetcar Named Desire?
17. Does Williams' presentation of all the characters in this play evoke sympathy and compassion from the audience?
18. Discuss the presentation of Stella/Stanley/Blanche/Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire.