Transcript SND06 Symbolism of Music

Symbolism
• Tennessee’s use of symbols as a dramatic technique.
• He integrates symbols very effectively with ideas and
thematic content.
• He once explained that symbolism is a way to “say a
thing more directly and simply and beautifully than it
could be said in words … sometimes it would take
page after tedious page of exposition to put across an
idea that can be said with an object or a gesture on
the lighted page” (Jackson 26).
• Thus Williams uses symbols extensively to create mood
and atmosphere on stage. It is also used to evoke
thematic concerns and give life to people and places.
Music, Mood and Emotion
• Music contributes in a haunting way to the tone of the play
• It corresponds with the different aspects of Blanche's
mental anguish, and increasingly with her emotional
deterioration.
• The Varsouviana Polka plays in Blanche's head when she
thinks of her deceased husband, Allen Grey and the
destructive path that it led to
• She relives this early trauma, and the guilt and
responsibility for the death of both Allen Grey and Belle
Reve.
• The music is thus presented as a phantom from the
traumatic past she is unable to shake off
Music gives gravity to emotions
• Music plays an important role in A Streetcar
named Desire because it appears in almost every
scene and stresses the atmosphere in a very
distinct way.
• There are two main types of music used in the
stage directions: the blue piano and the
Varsouviana Polka.
• Each one appears in scenes which are occupied
by a certain emotional state of the main
character Blanche.
The Blue Piano
• The blue piano is first mentioned in the introductory stage
directions of the first scene: “This ‘blue piano’ expresses
the spirit of the life which goes on there” (Williams 115).
• Throughout the play, the blue piano always appears when
Blanche is talking about the loss of her family and Belle
Reve, but it is also present during her meeting and kissing
the young newspaper man.
• The blue piano thus stands for depression, loneliness and
her longing for love, which the adjective blue already
suggests.
• It describes Blanche’s emotions and represents her need
for companionship and love, but also her hope, as the
scene with the paper-boy shows.
The Blue Piano
• Mitch tells her in scene nine that he will not marry her due
to her promiscuous past, “the distant piano is slow and
blue” (Williams 207).
• Later, in scene ten, it grows louder when she is on the
phone trying to get in touch with Shep Huntleigh. In this
situation, her hopes are rising, and so does the piano.
• In the last scene, Blanche is being taken away to a mental
institution, and Stanley and his friends play poker again:
“The luxurious sobbing, the sensual murmur fade away
under the swelling music of the ‘blue piano’ and the muted
trumpet” (Williams 226).
• The blue piano, accompanying the card game, symbolises
the sad reality of Stanley’s victory over Blanche.
The Varsouviana Polka
(Sc 1 ,6, 9, 11)
• The Varsouviana Polka on the other hand appears when Blanche is
being confronted with her past and the truth, or when she talks
about Allan. The reason for this seems obvious, for exactly this
polka had been played when her husband Allan committed suicide.
The polka represents death and immanent disaster.
• Blanche tells Mitch in scene six about Allan, and how she caught
him cheating on her: “Polka music sounds, in a minor key faint with
distance” (Williams 183).
• When Stanley gives her a ticket back to Laurel for a birthday
presents, the situation means disaster for Blanche. She realises that
she is not wanted anymore, and that she has nowhere to go, for
Laurel is an unacceptable place to go to after all the incidents
there:
• “The Varsouviana music steals in softly and continues playing”
(Williams 198). Again, the polka represents disaster
The Varsouviana Polka
• In scene eleven, the connection between the
polka and Blanche’s state of mind and emotion
becomes even more obvious.
• She gets totally lost in her illusions about Shep
Huntleigh and runs into her room when the
doctor arrives: “The Varsouviana is filtered into
weird distortion, accompanied by the cries and
noises of the jungle” (Williams 222).
• Therefore the polka’s weird distortion matches
the confusion in her mind
Cathedral Chimes
• (Blanche turns weakly, hesitantly about. She let’s them
push her into a chair)
• Blanche: I can smell the sea air. The rest of my time I
am going to I am going to spend on the sea. And when
I die I’m going to die on the sea. You know what I shall
die of? (she plucks a grape) I shall dies of eating an
unwashed grape one day out on the ocean. I will diewith my hand …That unwashed grape has transported
her soul to heaven. (The cathedral chimes are heard)
And I’ll be buried at sea sewn up in a clean white sack
and dropped overboard-at noon-in the blaze of
summer-and into the ocean as blue as (Chimes again)
my first lover’s eyes!
Cathedral Chimes
• This is the poignant moment in A streetcar, just
before a doctor and a matron arrive to take
Blanche Dubois to a state mental institution.
• Blanche’s death-fantasy is at the center of the
lyrical dramatist’s vision of American eros and its
tragic trajectory. (Harold Bloom)
• Cathedral chimes are the only pure things – do
the bells chime for Blanche signaling an escape
from the real world
It’s Only a Paper Moon
• The second song of note in the play is "It's Only a
Paper Moon.”
• The narrator of the song proclaims that without
his/her lover, nothing seems real, that out of the
lover's arms, the world is a "temporary parking
place." The last words of the song sum up
Blanche's feelings:
• It's a Barnum and Bailey world Just as phoney as
it can be But it wouldn't be make-believe If you
believed in me.
It’s Only a Paper Moon
• In fact, Blanche is living a lie but looking for
someone to believe it, and to believe 'in' her,
be it in actual reality, or in the one that she
has created. She prefers the latter, as she
herself does not want to believe the truth of
the past and what is has taken from her, or
turned her into.
It’s Only a Paper Moon
• In Scene Seven, Blanche sings this popular ballad while she bathes.
The song’s lyrics describe the way love turns the world into a
“phony” fantasy.
• The speaker in the song says that if both lovers believe in their
imagined reality, then it’s no longer “make-believe.”
• These lyrics sum up Blanche’s mental state which moves in and out
of different realities as she is unable to handle the ugly truth about
her life – the more she tries to hide it, wash it away , the more she’s
haunted by it…
• As Blanche sits in the tub singing “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” Stanley
tells Stella the details of Blanche’s sexually corrupt past.
• Williams ironically juxtaposes Blanche’s fantastical understanding of
herself with Stanley’s description of Blanche’s real nature.
Music, Mood and Emotion
• In reading the play instead of watching it onstage or the film,
the reader misses out on the effect that the music has on the
story. (Especially if they are unfamiliar with the music)
• Tennessee Williams could not have been more accurate in
choosing appropriate tunes;
• Though a polka is jolly music, mostly, the busy and quick notes
can evoke an anxious feeling, which is good overshadowing
both for Allen's suicide and for Blanche's mental state when
she hears it in her head.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Only_a_Paper_Moon(song) http://www.lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/i/itsonlyapapermoon.shtml