A Street Car Named Desire: Historical Context and Setting Many of the major themes of A Streetcar Na med Desireare embodied in the history and culture of New Orleans. The lively setting of the French Quarter, with its streetcars, bars, entertainment, and jazz and blues music, rovides a rich bac!ground for the emotional events of the lay" the setting also draws symbolic attention to changes which were ta!ing lace in #merican society, esecially in the $outh during the ost%&orld war '' years. The action ta!es lace between May and $etember in a shabby aartment building in the wor!ing%class district of New Orleans in the ()*+s, shortly after the $econd &orld &ar. The rotagonist, -lanche ubois, comes to New Orleans from /aurel, Mississii, the site of the family homestead. #lthough no scenes are set in /aurel, the effect of the town and its Old $outh culture on the main character, -lanche u-ois, is imortant. /aurel is a real town in southeastern Mississii. 't has a resent oulation of about (0,++ + and is the seat of 1ones 2ounty. /aurel, which was named after the laurel shrubs growing abundantly in nearby forests, rosered early in the 3+th 2entury as a lumbering center. Tennessee &illiams, the author ofA Streetcar Named Desire, was born in eastern Mississii in the town of 2olumbus and was well aware of Mississii customs and traditions. Napoleonic Code &hen $tanley feels he is being swindled by -lanche4s loss of -elle 5eve, he aeals to the Naoleonic 2ode, a set of laws devised by the French and imlemented when they ruled the region !nown now as /ouisiana. The state of /ouisiana continued to oerate under some of the recets of the Naoleonic 2ode, such as the 2ode4s emhasis on inheritance law6 any roerty belonging to a souse rior to marriage becomes the roerty of both souses once they are married. $tanley, therefore, is legally correct to claim that, by deriving $tella of her share of the family inheritance, -lanche has also derived him. The South On a more general level, the lay reresents the decline of the aristocratic families traditionally associated with the $outh. These once%influential
