A Streetcar Named Desire: Style 1 key example

Williams is known for his use of local color and of vernacular that is specific to the early 20th century, which mixes the vocabulary of the Old South and the contemporary American South. Blanche's dialogue is poetic and sometimes pretentiously elaborate, which reflects her desperate attempts to cling to her former gentility. The way she speaks seems somewhat at odds with her behavior: she’s very ladylike but often behaves in ways she herself would condemn as “unladylike.” Her wordiness and tendency to anxiously babble are regularly juxtaposed with Stanley's blunt and straightforward speech. Stanley’s sentences tend to be to-the-point and abrupt. In between these two extremes is Stella's speech, which is the most conventionally patterned of the three. He words are soothing and sometimes conciliatory, aimed at diffusing the tension between Blanche and Stanley. Mitch's sentences, meanwhile, are unsure and sometimes immature and meandering, like him. Finally, the shouted interjections from Stanley's friends and the New Orleans neighbors reflect their content in their raucous delivery. 

The syntax of the play's dialogue varies depending on the character who's speaking. For example, Blanche's involved, clause-heavy sentences are a reflection of her confused thinking. They get more convoluted toward the end of the play as she loses her grip on reality, while Stanley’s and Stella’s remain largely unchanged. Williams's use of figurative language in stage directions is an important part of developing the play’s atmosphere. It’s crucial that it feels hot and cramped inside the Kowalski home, and the stage directions lean heavily into this. Williams also makes specific demands about lighting patterns and color palettes, which are intended to show the contrast between Blanche and Stella’s old life and their new life just off of Desire.