A Streetcar Named Desire Setting Analysis

Through explicit and detailed staging directions, the setting reflects the Puritan’s and a New Southerner’s lifestyle based on exterior and interior visual imagery. The “raw and unmellowed”(Miller 3) wood of Salem’s houses versus the “white frame, weathered gray” and “faded white stairs”(Williams 13) of New Orleans’ houses introduces a society in a new settlement, with the latter in the older, poorer part of town. The interior of Salem’s houses with just “the bed...a chest, a chair, and a small table”(Miller 3) of Rev. Parris’ home and the “plain bench[s], long meeting table, with stools”(Miller 77) of the meeting house are simple, tidy and minimally decorated to reflect the avoidance of beauty and lust away from religious belief. Ironically, it is through the lack of a free and imaginative setting that sparks the Salem girl’s imagination and the act of pretending to rebel against their restrictive society.

The muted whiteness of the apartment uncovers the “yellow linoleum” table, “green glass shade”(Williams 45), along with debris from watermelon rinds, beer bottles and Stanley’s pyjamas to reflect Stanley’s primitive and unrefined lifestyle. The use of primary colours further alienates Blanche from the New South as her pastel colours are incongruous with the setting. Through imagery, the audience is immersed in the play’s setting to experience the minimalistic Puritan and the colourful and unrefined nature of New Orleans during a different American time