Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal

ISSN: 2278-9529  |  www.galaxyimrj.com

Abstract

This paper examines gender and sexuality in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire through a synthesis of feminist, queer, and psychoanalytic theory. Drawing on Judith Butler’s performativity, R. W. Connell’s hegemonic masculinity, Michel Foucault’s discourse of sexuality, Laura Mulvey’s theory of the gaze, Adrienne Rich’s compulsory heterosexuality, Jacques Lacan’s symbolic order, and Eve Sedgwick’s account of homosocial desire, itself indebted to Gayle Rubin’s earlier anthropology of kinship, the analysis traces how Stanley Kowalski’s masculinity is socially rewarded while Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski negotiate, resist, and ultimately submit to patriarchal expectations. Close readings of key scenes, including Blanche’s arrival, Allan Grey’s suicide, the poker night, and Blanche’s rape, show how discourse, spectatorship, and economic precarity combine to police gendered identity, at considerable psychological cost.

Keywords

Gender Performativity Hegemonic Masculinity Compulsory Heterosexuality Patriarchy Trauma Tennessee Williams

Article History

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How to Cite

Chouhan, Namita. “Breaking the Stereotypes: Sexuality and Gender Roles in A Streetcar Named Desire.” Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal, vol. 15, no. 5, Sept. 2026, pp. 18–35. https://doi.org/10.66376/galaxy.v15.n5.2

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