Theme:
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, explores the theme of desire, death, and gender.
Summary:
It follows the tale of two sisters, reunited, and the conflicts that follow, created by the introduction of one to the other’s spouse. But it is also about the beauty and the ugliness of mankind in its simultaneous fragility and violence.
Famous Quotes:
“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.”
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
“Don’t you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour – but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands – and who knows what to do with it?”
“Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.”
“Physical beauty is passing – a transitory possession – but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart – I have all these things – aren’t taken away but grow! Increase with the years!”
“I don’t want realism. I want magic!”
“Oh, you can’t describe someone you’re in love with!”
“Show me a person who hasn´t known any sorrow and I´ll show you a superficial.”
“And funerals are pretty compared to deaths.”
“Never inside, I didn’t lie in my heart…”
“-You’re simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you a woman would have to…
“I want to rest. I want to breathe quietly again.”
“A fire smokes the most when you start pouring water on it.”
“The world is a funny paper read backwards. And that was it isn’t so funny.”
“Life has got to go on. No matter what happens, you’ve got to keep on going.”
“I like you to be exactly the way you are, because in all my – experience – I have never known anyone like you.”
“Sorrow makes for sincerity, I think… The little there is belongs to people who have experienced some sorrow.”
Literary awards
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1948)
- New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play (1948)
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