Sex and desire are ever-present forces in human conflict. However, not until Named Desire premiered in 1947 had the physical act of sex been so explicitly depicted on stage as a source of power and dominance. In Streetcar, the New Orleans street, Elysian Fields, is an urban jungle where the laws of nature are the abiding rules of engagement. As in the wild, sex and violence are intimately connected. Intercourse is a product of aggressive competition, dominance, and submission rather than romance. Although Williams repeatedly claimed that this work warned against a world where brutes were allowed to rule, at the play's end, the dominating and sexually imposing Stanley conquers Blanche, and her illusions of love. Streetcar forces modern audiences to decide if society should not tolerate such carnal behavior, or if there is some logic in following one's desires down the darker avenues of human experience.
