“Go Out” and “Come Back”: Illusion of Return in A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire exhibits dynamic spatial movement, featured by Stella’s repetitive return of “going out” and “coming back.” The movement reveals her desire to escape the undesirable parts of her marriage, e.g., vulgarity, poverty, and violence. Yet her inevitable “coming back” is because she depends on Stanley for survival. In terms of space, Stella and Stanley run out on the street, which privatizes the street and publicizes the home. Blanche’s physical intrusion causes crises to the marriage, and she tries to point out the undesirable truth of it. So the Kowalskis respond with different actions, which ultimately bring Blanche to her destruction. This choice traps the Kowalskis in the eternal loop of “going out” and “coming back,” and they continue to live in an illusion of progression, as they are caught in the same state.