Tennessee Williams has become one of the best-known literary figures on the American scene and also one of the most controversial. A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play, which opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947 and closed on December 17, 1949 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. While you acknowledge his compassion for frustrated, sensitive people trapped in a highly competitive commercial world, ask yourself whether he sacrificed his talent for popular success (Mood 43). "He [Williams] continued this study with Blanche Dubois's A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)." Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire is the epitome of full-bodied male beauty and Williams' most radiant symbol of virility. “In A Streetcar Named Desire the Southern gentlewoman, the last representative of a dying culture, is too delicate to face the crudeness and decadence that surrounds her [Blanche Dubois]” (Mood 45). Blanche Dubois the last relic of the decade of the southern plantation “Belle Reve”. “It would take Williams to place the sexually happy adult children of the New Orleans slum in the Greek Isles of the Blessed” (Mood 45). “The entrance of Blanche Dubois, delicate as a moth and dressed in immaculate white – and looking as if Blanche Dubois were about to have a cocktail or tea in the best drawing room or garden, is an incongruous and shocking intrusion” ( Mood 46). “Williams was born on March 26, 1911, Williams experienced a difficult and troubled childhood. William's father, Cornelius Williams, was a shoe salesman and an emotionally absent parent” (Mood 48). William's father became increasingly abusive as the Williams children grew up. Williams' mother had experienced the adolescence and young womanhood of a spoiled Southern Belle. "While success freed Wil... middle of paper... rapes her (Cardollo 89). Works Cited Bigsby, CWE "Tennessee Williams Streetcar to Glory." Modern Critical Interpretation. (1988): 41-48. Print .Brekman, Leonard. "Tragic fall of Blanche Dubois." Modern critical interpretation. (1988). -92. Print..Corrigan, Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams. `17-20 .Mood, John J. “Structure of a Streetcar Named Desire.” (1998): PrintQurine, Leonard . (1988): 61-78. Print. Tennessee, Williams. A Streetcar Named Desire. 1-144.