LEITURA FEMINISTA DO COMPORTAMENTO DE GÊNERO, DECADÊNCIA E LOUCURA EM UM BONDE CHAMADO DESEJO (1947), DE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Abstract

It is known that from the perspective of a patriarchal society, social rules are made with the male gender having the decision-making power. Thus, there are expectations for female behavior, since childhood, in which their family, educational and social education does not allow them to respond for themselves autonomously, without seeming disrespectful or breaking pre-established rules. Besides this, in the United States during the middle of the 20th century, a period after the World War II, specifically in the southern part of the country, society was experiencing significant changes, from a failing agrarian system based on slavery, to life in big cities, where factories provided a large number of jobs, in a setting common to the second Industrial Revolution. The present work shows a report about the adaptation of the play A Streetcar Called Desire (1947), a play by Tennessee Williams, in July 2015, at PUC SP, connecting it to an analysis based on the original text of the play, in order to explore questions of power and sexuality, gender behavior and decay. When the character Blanche Dubois is completely deteriorated, she goes crazy, and the tragic ending happens. The aim is to understand why this work is a great success, what is the influence of patriarchal society in Blanche's life, what or who led her to decay, and also, why at the presentation of the play at PUC SP, part of the audience was unable to empathize with the tragic hero, Blanche, and demonstrated greater identification with the character of Stanley Kowalski. For the analysis, it was essential to present biographical data of the playwright, an overview of literature in the United States and a brief introduction of drama in the US. Following this, in the choice for theorization are highlighted studies of the literature by women with Johannes Willem Bertens (2001), gender construction through Simone de Beauvoir (1949) and Judith Butler (1990), power and sexuality with Michel Foucault (1977), and the feminine point of view of foucaultian work through Deveaux (1994). Furthermore, we continued analyzing madness as a theme easily drawn towards tragedy, with Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (1979), Sandra Luna (2009) e João Dóia de Araújo (2016).