Long Description

Cover displays the title A Streetcar Named Desire in a large dark circle near the top right, with author by Tennessee Williams written below it. At the top left is the Study and Revise for A S and A-level logo in a red and white box. The background shows a sepia-toned photograph of a New Orleans-style building with ironwork balconies and stairs. A red box on the lower half of the image highlights three features of the book: written by experienced teachers and examiners, how to respond critically to your text, and in-depth analysis. Below this, Nicola Onyett is credited as author, and Nicola Onyett and Luke McBratney are named as series editors. The Hodder Education logo appears in the bottom right corner.

Long Description

Titles in the series with I S B N are as follows:

Study and Revise: A Room with a View for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 6 9 2

Study and Revise: A Streetcar Named Desire for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 7 3 9

Study and Revise: A Q A A - level Poetry Anthology: Love Through the Ages for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 8 3 8

Study and Revise: Atonement for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 8 0 7

Study and Revise: King Lear for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 8 6 9

Study and Revise: Measure for Measure for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 8 9 0

Study and Revise: Othello for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 9 2 0

Study and Revise: Seamus Heaney - Selected Poems for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 9 5 1

Study and Revise: Skirrid Hill for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 3 9 8 2

Study and Revise: Tess of the D'Urbervilles for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 0 1 9

Study and Revise: The Duchess of Malfi for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 0 4 0

Study and Revise: The Great Gatsby for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 0 7 1

Study and Revise: The Handmaid's Tale for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 1 0 1

Study and Revise: The Taming of the Shrew for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 1 3 2

Study and Revise: The Tempest for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 1 6 3

Study and Revise: The Wife of Bath's Tale for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 1 9 4

Study and Revise: The Winter's Tale for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 2 2 4

Study and Revise: Top Girls for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 2 2 5

Study and Revise: Wuthering Heights for A S and A - level - I S B N: 9 7 8 1 4 7 1 8 5 4 2 8 6

Long Description

Cover displays the title A Streetcar Named Desire in white text inside a large dark grey circle in the centre of the page. Below the title, in smaller text, it reads by Tennessee Williams. In the lower left corner, a red rectangle contains the name Nicola Onyett in white text and below it, in smaller white text, Series Editors: Nicola Onyett and Luke McBratney. Bottom right corner features the Hodder Education logo, with the text Hodder Education in blue and grey, followed by An Hachette U K Company in smaller grey text.

The publisher would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

Acknowledgements:

Tennessee Williams: from A Streetcar Named Desire (Penguin, 2009); p.15: Harold Arlen, E. Y. Harburg and Billy Rose: from ‘It’s Only a Paper Moon’ Words by E Y Harburg and Billy Rose, Music by Harold Arlen, © 1933 WB Music Corp, Glocca Morra Music Corp and Shapiro Bernstein & Co Inc (66.66%) Warner/Chappell North America Ltd, London, W8 5DA and (33.34%) Shapiro Bernstein & Co Limited, New York, NY 10022-5718, USA Reproduced by permission of Faber Music Ltd All Rights; p.18: Ben Hecht: taken from ‘Gone With the Wind’ (MGM, 1939); p.21: Primo Levi: from Other People’s Trades (Abacus, 1999); pp.21,36,52,69,70,74,77,80,82: Matthew C. Roudané: from The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams (Cambridge University Press, 1997), reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press; pp.23,36,65: Alycia Smith-Howard and Greta Heintzelman: from Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work (Checkmark Books, 2005), reproduced by permission of the publisher; p.30: Tennessee Williams: from The Glass Menagerie (Penguin, 2009); p.32: Aristotle: From Aristotle’s theory on tragedy (330BC); p.33: Tennessee Williams: from Memoirs (Penguin Classics, 2007); pp.33,39: Robert C. Small: from A Teacher’s Guide to the Signet edition of Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (Penguin Putnam, 2004); pp.38,61,68,70,71: Tennessee Williams: from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Penguin Classics, 2009); pp.53,56–7,60: Tennessee Williams: from Notebooks (Yale University Press, 2007); p.61: Ted Hughes: from ‘Ted Hughes’ from The Guardian (The Guardian, 22nd July 2008); p.62: Henry Luce: from ‘American Century’ from Time Magazine (Time Magazine, 17th February 1941); p.62: From the Declaration of Independence (4th July 1776); p.62: Emma Lazarus: from ‘The New Colossus’ (1883); p.62: James Truslow Adams: from The Epic of America (Simon Publications, 2001); pp.66,70: Elia Kazan: discussing Blanche and Tennessee Williams; p.67: Molly Haskell: from Frankly, My Dear: ‘Gone with the Wind’ Revisited (Yale University Press, 2010), reproduced by permission of the publisher; p.69: Hart Crane: from ‘The Broken Tower’ (1932); p.68: Flannery O’Connor: from Everything That Rises Must Converge (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996); pp.72–3: John Russell Taylor: from Vivien Leigh (H.Hamilton, 1984); p.78: Terry Eagleton: from Marxism and Literary Criticism (Routledge, 1976), reproduced by permission of the publisher; pp.78,79: Arthur Miller: from ‘Tragedy and the Common Man’ from The New York Times (The New York Times, 27th February 1949), reproduced by permission of The New York Times; pp.78,81: C.W.E Bigsby: from Modern American Drama 1945–2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2008), reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press; p.81: Arthur Miller: from Timebends: A Life (Bloomsbury, 2012), reproduced by permission of The Wylie Agency; p.82: Henry Hitchings: from ‘Rachel Weisz mesmerizes in magical Streetcar Named Desire’ from The Evening Standard (The Evening Standard, 29th July 2009), reproduced by permission of The Evening Standard, www.standard.co.uk; pp.82–3: Charles Spencer: from ‘A Streetcar Named Desire, Young Vic, review’ from The Telegraph (The Telegraph, 29th July 2014), © Telegraph Media Group Limited 2014.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the Publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

Photo credits:

p.3 © ITV/REX; p.5 © Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images; p.9 © Alastair Muir/REX; p.14 © cineclassico / Alamy; p.25 © The Washington Post - Getty Images; p.35 © JP Jazz Archive/Redferns/Getty Images; p.42 © Jerry Cooke/Pix Inc./The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images; p.50 © SNAP/REX; p.59 © Popperfoto/Getty Images; p.64 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_CSA_4.png - Public Domain; p.66 © Michael Ochs/Corbis; p.72 © SNAP/REX; p.77 © ClassicStock / Alamy; p.84 © Alastair Muir/REX

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© Nicola Onyett 2016

First published in 2016 by

Hodder Education

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Printed in the UK

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781471853739
eISBN 9781471853746

Contents

Using this guide

Introduction

1  Synopsis

2  Scene summaries and commentaries

3  Themes

4  Characters

5  Writer’s methods: form, structure and language

6  Contexts

7  Working with the text

Assessment Objectives and skills

Building skills 1: Structuring your writing

Building skills 2: Analysing texts in detail

Top ten quotations

Taking it further

Using this guide

Why read this guide?

The purposes of this A-level Literature Guide are to enable you to organise your thoughts and responses to the text, deepen your understanding of key features and aspects and help you to address the particular requirements of examination questions and non-exam assessment tasks in order to obtain the best possible grade. It will also prove useful to those of you writing an NEA piece on the text as it provides a number of summaries, lists, analyses and references to help with the content and construction of the assignment.

Note that teachers and examiners are seeking above all else evidence of an informed personal response to the text. A guide such as this can help you to understand the text, form your own opinions, and suggest areas to think about, but it cannot replace your own ideas and responses as an informed and autonomous reader.

Page references in this guide refer to the Methuen student edition of A Streetcar Named Desire edited by Patricia Hern and Michael Hooper (2009). This edition has excellent introductory material and comprehensive notes. Where a publication is given in the ‘Taking it further’ section on pages 105–106, the author’s surname and publication date only are cited after the first full reference.

How to make the most of this guide

You may find it useful to read sections of this guide when you need them, rather than reading it from start to finish. For example, you may find it helpful to read the ‘Contexts’ section before you start reading the text, or to read the ‘Scene summaries and commentaries’ section in conjunction with the text – whether to back up your first reading of it at school or college or to help you revise. The sections relating to the Assessment Objectives will be especially useful in the weeks leading up to the exam.