Is Street Car Named Desire a Tragedy

1598 Words7 Pages
Is ‘A Street Car Named Desire ‘a tragedy? Desire, fantasy and sensitivity in the play “A Streetcar Named Desire “moves around the vicious circle of tragedy. According to Aristotle, “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of an action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, where with to accomplish its purification of such emotions.” According to him, a tragedy must consist of six chief elements, namely, plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle and melody. The plot of the play, diction, tragic flaw of Blanche and Blanche’s tragic character in this play has made it possible to live up the standards of a tragedy. Plot is the sequence of incidents that is set in mood by the main character. The play here has a unity of actions, the entire drama occurring in the French Quarter in New Orleans, largely set inside the apartment of the Kowalski’s. The play opens with the arrival of Blanche at her sister's flat in New Orleans and ends with her departure a few months later. However; there is no unity in time since the whole drama does not happen with in twenty-four hours. There is a bit of peripeteia which means reversal of fortune of protagonist (the main character) ,Blanche, when Stanley makes it painfully clear to Blanche that they no longer want to help her by giving her the bus ticket back to Laurel (where she is no longer welcomed).The paralinguistic features, ” Blanche tries to smile. Then she tries to laugh. Then she gives up and springs from the table and runs into the nest room. She clutches her throat and then runs into bathroom. Coughing, gagging, sounds are heard.”(Page 81) manifest the pitiful condition of Blanche and her breakdown. Often a protagonist is
Open Document