A Streetcar Named Desire Theme/Topic/Subject

A Streetcar Named Desire is a call to action for all women in the late 1940s early 1950s in an attempt to have women become independent and able to support themselves without the help of a man. During the time period that the story was written our country was just coming out of the Great Depression. This meant that money was still tight for most American households and aside from that there were still limited opportunities for women in the work force and in athletics. In Blanche's last line of the play she says "Whoever you are-I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." Her inability to provide for her self meant that she had no choice but to use her body as a means to get her by and relied on the constant men she gave it to for satisfaction. Throughout the story Williams tried to show the consequences of Blanche's dependence on these men till eventually her slow decay led to her ending up in an insane asylum. This was a sort of wake up call for the women of that time as it showed what could ultimately become of them as well (although I don't think many of them would have ended up in an insane asylum.) Do you think the women of that time period received the message?