A Streetcar Named Desire Chapter 19 Analysis

In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams explores the internal conflict of illusion versus reality through the characters. Humans often use illusion to save us pain and it allows us to enjoy pleasure instead. However, as illusion clashes with reality, one can forget the difference between the two. When people are caught up in their illusions, eventually they must face reality even if it is harsh. In the play, Blanche suffers from the struggle of what is real and what is fake because of the difficult events of her past. Blanche comes to her sister Stella seeking aid because she has lost her home, her job, and her family. To deal with this terrible part of her life, she uses fantasy to escape her dreadful reality. Blanche’s embracement of a fantasy world can be categorized by her attempts to revive her youth, her relationship struggles, and attempts to escape her past.

“Stella has embraced him with both arms, fiercely, and full in the view of Blanche. He laughs and clasps her head to him. Over her head he grins through the curtains at Blanche.” (Williams 73) A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams exemplifies the theme of a struggle to attain happiness. The play not only portrays this theme in its characters and setting, but through the literary devices of Foil, Imagery, and Intertextuality. Williams took great care in applying each of these literary device techniques to the theme as he presents an intriguing contrast between Blanche and Stanley, vivid images both animalistic and broken, and imploring the use of the Odyssey to further

This 1950's theatrical presentation was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Tennessee Williams. It is about a southern bell by the name of Blanche Dubois who loses her father's plantation to a mortgage and travels to live in her sister's home in New Orleans by means of a streetcar called Desire. There she finds her sister living in a mess with a drunken bully husband, and the events that follow cause Blanche to step over the line of insanity and fall victim to life's harsh lessons.

The play A Streetcar Named Desire, was remade into a movie that was filmed in New Orleans. The film takes place in the 1950s with Blanche who moves in with her sister, Stella, and her brother in law, Stanley. The movie is about Blanche’s experience and eventually demise all in New Orleans.

From the very title of the novel and beginning poem Levi implores us to consider the essence of what it is to be human, presenting to us the thought-provoking question, if this is a man? Levi this way allows us to engage on an emotional level with the events of the holocaust and examine our own consciences, and as he details in his preface ‘furnish documentation for a quite study of certain aspects of the human mind’, and accuses society of subconscious reasoning that ‘every stranger is an enemy’. In explicit stripping the prisoners depicted in the text of their humanity, making this uncomfortably apparent to us as we are consistently encourage to draw comparisons, or rather contrast, with our own lives and hence are perhaps

The author, Tennessee Williams, does a phenomenal job of portraying Blanche Dubois as a deceiving, manipulative, arrogant person in his book “A Streetcar named Desire”. Williams first showcases these characteristics during the arrival of Blanche. This introduction not only sets a mood and tone but it gives us our first impression of Blanche. Overall this impression leaves the audience with a sour taste in their mouths and ill feelings towards the new girl. However, don’t be so quick to jump the gun. What if I said Blanche isn’t the villain she’s depicted as in this story?

In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois is thrust into a series of unfortunate events and undergoes drastic changes in an effort to come to terms with her completely changed life. Through these events, Blanche happens to be the only remaining individual left to take care of the once valuable and prestigious family belongings, and her psychological mind spirals out of control in her attempts to restore the family’s honor. In addition to experiencing loneliness and feeling isolation from humans, Blanche faced many new challenges in stressful situations, which contributed to her poor decision making skills and inevitable negative outcomes in most of those situations. Through the characterization of Blanche DuBois, Williams’ intends to display the power of significant experiences in one’s life, which serves as a warning of how the effects of significant experiences on individuals should not be underestimated. Unfortunately, in Blanche’s case, abandonment by her sister was the perfect example of an individual underestimating the result of their actions, as this action was the initiation point of the events that would eventually lead to her unfortunate fate. Specifically, Williams’ focuses on portraying the disastrous effects of human isolation, which is often the result of an individual’s mindless actions. Human isolation plays an important role in the outcome of the play, as Blanche is known to have been abandoned at a young age, and her

In the classic fairytale of Cinderella, the main character is trapped in an abusive household. However, Cinderella’s self-perception of optimism and hope, enables her to believe that ultimately, her life will naturally improve with these attributes. True to her convictions, Cinderella gets her happily ever after by going to the ball where the prince falls in love with her. Cinderella is saved from her evil. On the other hand, Cinderella can be viewed as a victim who does nothing to enable herself to escape her abusive reality, insteads helplessly waits for fate to intervene. She does not confront the situation nor independently strive to improve her circumstances. Correspondingly, how individuals act when faced with conflict is strongly influenced by their self-perception. It is possible to become confused between reality and illusion, which is determined by their level of self-awareness. In Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the character of Stella struggles between the control of her husband and sister. Throughout the play, this conflict is demonstrated as she struggles with becoming aware of her abusive household and the contrast to the fairytale illusion she desperately clings to. Ultimately, Stella’s choice to maintain her illusion, rather than confronting her reality, is due to the self-perception of her need to depend on others and desire for idealism, which overall controls her fate.

and self - pitying ways from the death of her husband and the lies of

Two cavemen stumble upon a burning log, neither familiar with fire, the first trusts his instincts proceeding to run away cowardly, he survives only to later die a lonely cold death succumbing to hypothermia; while the second takes the log to his cave and proceeds to thrive, living a long, prosperous life, despite being haunted by the fact his greatest accomplishment was picking up a exaggerated stick. See the first man trusted his instincts, a strategy that kept him alive until then, while the other took a risk and it payed off but we have those instincts because risks do not always pay off. These primal instincts allow humans to quickly fall back to the tried and trusted safe path but can also lead a person to do something to meet the needs

In Scene 4 of A Streetcar Named Desire, examples of Blanche’s material and emotional hold over Stella are presented, yet leads to display how the roles will reverse at the end of the play as the audience view Blanche breakdown due to the combination of her past and her new morally-grey environment, which is shown through the racial and sexist abuse that both Blanche and the residents of Elysian Fields display. This extract is particularly significant in highlighting these traits due to its placement after a case of Stanley’s true temper showing through, coupled with the fact that Stella and Blanche believe themselves to be alone, which in turn allows Blanche to display what her true nature and worries over what is to come at the end of the

Stanley directly attacks Blanche's vision of the world in Scene Eight. Throughout the play, Blanche has frequently hurled slurs at or about Stanley. She has called him ape, oaf, and in this case, Polack. In this scene, Stanley is short-tempered and finally retaliates in response to Blanche's insults when she calls him a Polack. In doing so, he forcibly reveals Blanche to be an ignorant bigot and successfully corrects Blanche’s many misapprehensions about the world surrounding her.

After the accident, Jamie’s mother tells her, “You know you got to help them,” referring to Charlton’s family (Rash 246). Her mother expects Jamie and Matt to give up all their dreams and plans, including their house, to help them. But the reason Linda, Charlton, and their family have no money is because they waste it on booze, unnecessary make up, and an abundance of vehicles that are not needed. Jamie feels there is no reason to give up what she and Matt have when there is plenty of other ways for Charlton to receive help. Jamie’s mother believes, “That lake house, you had no right to expect such a place so young… It was a miracle you got it in the first place. You cannot expect miracles in this life, girl.” Jamie will not sell her miracle and says “Maybe not, Momma, But when they come a person has got the right to take them” (Rash 247).

The second scene happened at 6pm in Stella’s house. Stella kisses Stanley and tells him that she is going out for dinner and watching a show with Blanche tonight because he will play poker at the apartment. He is annoyed because of this. Stanley asks about Blanche and Stella tells him that Blanche needs time to peace because they have lost Belle Reve and she also asks Stanley to admire her dressing. However, Stanley wants to see some statements that can prove it and he talks about law of Napoleon which says that everything belonging to the wife also belongs to her husband. Stanley open Blanche’s case and find lots of luxury things and wants to know how can she get these as a teacher. Stella is trying to explain but Stanley does not care. Stella

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams follows the unhinged lives of an immensely unsteady family during the mid-1950s. Stella and Stanley Kowalski’s relationship, at the beginning of the play, is romanticized to the reader as being a grand tale of a rich, country girl downsizing and leaving her family to pursue big city life for the sake of maintaining her romance. Blanche, Stella’s sister, barges into town unexpectedly and starts to debauch the lives of the people she claims to care most about. One of the main themes Tennessee Williams expresses in this play is the continuous acts of cruelty and the condemnation of the characters that portray such devious actions. Blanche and Stanley both commit heinous acts towards one another and the people they adore, each equal in severity