SOUTHERN GOTHIC

 SOUTHERN GOTHIC

American Gothic

Gothic literature eventually began to cross the Atlantic, especially in the stories, poems, and novellas of Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849).  Poe is best known for poems like The Raven and short stories like The Fall of the House of Usher.  The raven appears as a kind of revenant with a message from the beyond for whomever wishes to hear it.  In Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher themes of incest and madness inform the story of brother & sister Roderick & Madeline Usher.  Eventually Roderick’s house falls into a swamp and disappears forever.  In The Pit and the Pendulum Poe places his tale in the past, at the time of the Spanish Inquisition, fashioning an unmistakable horror from material gleaned from his interest in the horrors of the Old World.  Other stories like The Tell Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Black Cat concern revenge, murder, retribution, and, sometimes, justice.  Poe was also the inventor of detective fiction as in Murders in the Rue Morgue and he also wrote about codes and ciphers as in The Gold Bug.  Poe might be seen to have initiated the genre known as American Gothic.  Later writers transferred some of its themes to the southern states and dealt with the issues that transpired after the abolition of slavery in 1865.

Later writers like William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, and Tennessee Williams developed southern Gothic themes and tropes.  In southern Gothic the decaying plantation takes the place of the Gothic castle.  Madness & decadence, repression & racism, are prevalent themes.  In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois is a last representative of southern aristocracy, descendent of French Hugenots. She has been deprived of her inheritance, the ancient plantation Belle Reve.

These themes are also present in William’s other plays such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly, Last Summer.  In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof injured baseball player Brick is unable to satisfy Maggie’s needs by giving her a child.  The issue becomes an open family secret.  Brick conflicts with his father southern patriarch Big Daddy Pollitt, who also happens to be dying of inoperable cancer.  Brick can’t give Maggie a child because he doesn't like Maggie the Cat, but Brick doesn’t like women at all.  However, he can’t admit to his feelings because of repressive social conventions.  The film is infused with oppressive thunder & lightning, much of the action occurs in dimly lit cellars, nooks and crannies.

In the film of A Streetcar named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan, the sexuality of Blanche’s first husband Alan isn’t mentioned.  This was because of repressive moral codes that dominated Hollywood at the time.  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was also censored but mention was permitted in Suddenly, Last Summer because it was felt that an attempt should be made to explain the issues surrounding homosexuality, to condemn it, of course.  By the time John Huston made The Night of the Iguana Hollywood’s moral codes had been relaxed.  Thus, when Maxine attempts to speak to Mrs Fellowes about her sexuality she is stopped by Shannon who says that Mrs Fellowes will never be able to cope with the truth, i.e., that she is an angry, repressed lesbian.

Tennessee William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire is unusual in having two scenes and no acts.  It refutes a play’s conventional structuring principles in favour of a cinematic or musical ordering.  Williams was clearly influenced by the cinema, indeed four of his films including A Streetcar Named Desire were made into films.  The music of the blue piano and the recurring motif of the ‘vasouviana’ polka are also significant.  Similar techniques are used in other Tennessee William’s plays like Suddenly, Last Summer where the band’s music in the Spanish town brings the repressed memory of Sebastian’s slaying back to Catherine. 

 

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Blanche DuBois

Blanche was formerly an English teacher, but she has lost control of her estate, Belle Reve (meaning ‘beautiful dream’ in French).  She travels to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella and her husband Stanley Kowalski who live in the ironically titled Elysian Fields area of the city.  Stella welcomes Blanche but she is dismayed to hear that she has lost Belle Reve, a former plantation.  Blanche is a member of the old moneyed southern aristocracy, genteel, learned, yet decadent.  From the very beginning Blanche and Stanley have a love – hate relationship, simultaneously attracted, and repulsed.  Blanche’s first marriage to Allen ended in tragedy after Allen killed himself.  Stella depicts Allen as a ‘degenerate’, the word homosexual was avoided at this time.  Blanche makes it clear to him that his proclivities disgust her.  When the polka music, the ‘varsouvianna’ (or Warsaw polka) begins, Blanche is reminded of Allen’s suicide, but it is never clear if the music plays or is merely playing in Blanche’s head.  Blanche wants a new start but Stanley, her brother-in-law, begins to suspect that she is not all that she seems.

Stella Kowalski

Blanche’s sister who is captivated by the energy and vitality of Stanley.  Stella can be submissive and weak.  In the play, Stella is pregnant, a fact that Stanley tries to keep away from Blanche.

Stanley Kowalski

Stanley is an immigrant married to Stella DuBois, Blanche’s sister.  When Stanley learns about the loss of Belle Reve, he invokes the Code Napoleon, a statute based legal system predominantly used in continental Europe but not in Britain.  The Napoleonic Code was never, in fact, used in Louisiana.  Stanley represents the energy and vitality of the newly arrived urban immigrants, in contrast to the corrupted aristocratic plantation owning class represented by Blanche.  Stanley is a war veteran and works in a factory.  He is a travelling salesman, and his friend Mitch works on the shop floor, a blue-collar worker.  Stanley resents Blanche’s presence, two’s company but three’s a crowd, and sets out to uncover her past.  Blanche also despises Stanley who she regards as inferior, a ‘Polack’ and an ‘ape’.  He discovers that Blanche lost her job as an English teacher following an affair with a student.  She then moved to the Hotel Flamingo an insalubrious dive known to be used by prostitutes.  Stanley reveals his findings to Mitch and thus destroys Stella’s chances of starting again.  Stanley rapes Blanche who is then sent to a psychiatric hospital.

Mitch

Mitch is interested in marrying Blanche, but Stanley interferes, exposing Blanche’s history to Mitch.  Mitch is dumb but open and honest.  Blanche quickly realises that he doesn’t speak French and asks him to sleep with her in French knowing he won’t understand.  Eventually Mitch tries to rape Blanche, but she screams scaring him off.