After two world wars, the balance of power between the sexes in America had completely changed. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a stark but powerful work that exposes the reality of gender struggle. Williams illustrates society's changing attitudes toward masculinity and femininity through his eloquent use of dramatic devices such as characterization, dialogue, setting, symbolism, and foreshadowing. Stanley, the protagonist, is a symbol of society's view of the stereotypical male. He is muscular, energetic and dominant. Stanley's dominance becomes so overwhelming that it requires absolute control. This view of the male as a large animal is revealed in the opening of the play where Stanley is described as “bestial”. Her power and control throughout the play are foreshadowed in the opening stage directions.[...She screams in protest...Her husband and his partner have already gone back around the corner.]Stanley does not he notices his wife's concern, but instead continues on his original course, asserting his own destiny, without thinking about the effect it might have on those around him. This taking of blood at any cost from those around him is foreshadowed in the first scene, with the package of mets he forces on his wife. It is through actions like these that Stanley asserts power, a symbol of male dominance throughout patriarchal society. It also earns a nice... middle of paper...as a game, Tennessee Williams poses a question to society, whether these portrayals are accurate or not. Works cited and consulted Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Tennessee Williams. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 1-8.London, Felicia Hardison. "A tram that runs for fifty years." Tennessee Williams' Cambridge Companion. Ed. Matthew C. Roudane. New York: Cambridge UP, 1997. 45-66. Nelson, Benjamin. Tennessee Williams: The Man and His Work. New York: Ivan Obolensky, 1961. Williams, Tennessee. "Tennessee Williams Interviews Himself." Where I Live: Selected Essays by Tennessee Williams. Ed. Christine Day and Bob Woods. New York: New Directions, 1978. 88-92.