A Streetcar Named Desire Compare And Contrast

It is clear that Blanche DuBois is willing to do what she believes is necessary to get what she wants. This often includes deceit. She feels that she needs to lie about herself in order to seem more appealing. Because Blanche is so afraid of aging, she keeps her age to herself. While she is dating Mitch, she often deceives him by never letting him see her in bright light in order to conceal her faded looks. When she comes to New Orleans, Blanche does not tell her sister that she was fired from her job; she says that she is merely taking a vacation from the job. She says this in order to keep up the fake persona she holds. Blanche is very open about her lies with her sister. “I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth.” (69) This shows that Blanche’s lifelong choice of avoiding harsh realities leads to her breakdown. With all of the lies and deceit Blanche tells, she is living an unreal existence.

Comparing the play versus, the movie versions of A Streetcar Named Desire has been entertaining and enlightening. Originally written as a play, Tennessee Williams later adapted it into a screenplay for the film version. Consequently, both versions were extremely popular in their own right. Drama and social taboos create an emotionally charged viewing adventure. Williams characters are complex, exciting and just crazy enough to keep the audience spellbound. The DuBois sisters are complete opposites sharing only their love for each other as common ground. Blanche, the older sister, shows up for an impromptu visit with her sister Stella Kowalski. Stella and her husband Stanley live in New Orleans, in the French Quarter. Blanche has become destitute and has lost the family plantation. Stanley, incensed by the idea that Blanche has taken the plantation from him, sets out to destroy her by any and all means. The characters and performers provide a riveting and consequently soulful performance that is hauntingly unforgettable. Williams writing moves the audience to tears with dynamic characters, conflict and catastrophe of unimaginable depth.

It is clear from the beginning that Blanche is not a very honest character. She lives in a fantasy world of her own design. One of the very first things she does when she enters Stella’s

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is a play about a woman named Blanche Dubois who is in misplaced circumstances. Her life is lived through fantasies, the remembrance of her lost husband and the resentment that she feels for her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Various moral and ethical lessons arise in this play such as: Lying ultimately gets you nowhere, Abuse is never good, Treat people how you want to be treated, Stay true to yourself and Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Based on Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Elia Kazan creates an award winning movie that helps readers visualize Stanley’s primal masculinity, the inner torments of the Kowalski women and the clash of the other characters’ problems which create a chaotic mess. Using stage directions in the play, William hints that Blanche is not who she appears to be while the movie subtly sheds light on Blanche’s strange little habits that suggests a bigger issue. The movie also censors many of the main themes in Williams’ play but makes up for it by having its actors flawlessly portray the characters’ emotions, allowing the readers to see the

Blanche repeatedly lied to make herself look pure to others. It only served as a masquerade to hide her dirty, sinful reality. She lied about her age, alcoholism, promiscuity, and why she had to leave Laurel. When Stanley asked her if she wanted a shot, she replied, “No, I—rarely touch it” (Scene 1, page 1548). She could not confront her reality, so she retreated to her world of illusion. This was Blanche’s most prominent flaw. If she could have accepted things for what they are, she could have salvaged her sanity. If, from the beginning, she had been truthful to Stanley’s friend Mitch, he could have forgiven her. Dismally, Mitch would not trust her after finding out everything she said was fabricated. “I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it” (Scene 9, page 1590). Blanche feared lights which symbolized her fear of reality. She claimed that with Alan’s death, all light had gone out of her life. “And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that’s stronger than this—kitchen candle.”

He abuses his wife Stella physically and emotionally as he strikes and hits his pregnant wife while Stella represents the self-deprecating, submissive wife who tolerates and excuses her husband behavior. Another central theme in Williams’ play is the theme of illusion; Blanche lives in a fantasy world of sentimental illusion. She exerts efforts to maintain the appearance of being an upper-class young innocent woman, even though she is a fallen woman. Another theme is the theme of loneliness as Blanche is lost and alone in the world and she desperately seeks protection and companionship in the arms of strangers. Mitch is another character who is a victim of loneliness and he needs to find a woman to love him the way his mother does. The theme of sexual desire is related to destruction. Blanche wants to be a lady but she continually tripped up by her sexual desire. Stanley leads a violent brutal desire and views Stella as a sexual object and his final act as he rapes Blanche emphasizes his lustful desire. The theme of hatred is prevailed throughout the play as Blanche’s insult and insolence aroused the hatred of Stanley. The play focused on the feeling of repulsion between

Blanche's devistating past is just one of the reasons I felt sympathy for her. Troubled from her past, Blanche has a sence of falseness, which increasingly becomes apparent to Stanley. Her secrets are revealed, and this unveals a haunting past, and insecurities which were unknown to Stella. It would appear that the lies and desperate clutches to hold onto

due to her past blanche’s actions are unusual and to many they are considered inappropriate. Blanche lives through some very dark and intense incidents before the play takes place, she witnesses the death of her entire family, she loses her family home, and to add to the misery she believes she is the reason her husband killed himself. In an act to move on she retreats into illusion acting as if these incidents never happened. Blanche decides to lie to everyone, from her sister to the man she potentially wanted to marry, she does not give them the truth. She wants to marry mitch but does not tell him about her past, mitch had all right to know, yet she led him on, actions like these in an environment of connection is inappropriate beyond a doubt. Because of her lies and illusions Blanche ends up losing everything, she loses her only chance at a future with Mitch and her freedom when she is sent to the mental institution. Blanches motivation by the past caused her life around her dissolve.

In the opening two scenes of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams, the audience has its first and generally most important impressions formulated on characters, the plot and the mood and tone of the play overall.

The A Streetcar Named Desire film starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando has several differences from the play. However, the two that are the most significant to me are when Stanley comes into the house unbeknownst to Stella and Blanche, and the very end between Stella and Stanley.

Naz Ismael The poison of lies The two protagonists of “ A Streetcar Named Desire” and “ Death Of A Salesman” try to escape the realities of their lives by creating an ulterior reality for themselves. Blanche and Willy flee the reality of their physical existence and decide to mentally live in an ulterior world in an attempt to escape the cruelty of their lives especially the insanity and the deaths that surround them. The pain in their lives scratches and wounds them deeply, and this pain spreads like an infection and takes over their beings more and more with every lie.

Blanche marrying and losing her husband at such a young age created her attraction to male teenagers. She wants to believe that the teenage boys she has these relationships with are like her husband was. What made this worse also was that she is a teacher, while she might be a very good teacher, bringing in an adult who is attracted to teenage boys as a high school teacher might not be the best fit. Thus the school fired her and the town banned her from ever returning. Having lost her home in Belle Reve and now her job as a school teacher, Blanche was left with very few options but to find her sister Stella. Stella, who although has very similar genes as her sister Blanche, never had the mental breakdown as her sister because she was able to leave Belle Reve before dealing with the death of her family and she found a husband who has not scarred her for life. Despite Blanche’s problems, Stella does not know of any of them. Thus creating Blanche’s lying problem. Blanche does not want to seem like she is depending on her younger sister for her own life, so she creates an image of herself that she hopes everyone will believe. This image is that she is young, wealthy, employed, and not struggling in her life. The reader soon finds out that this image is not what she actually is, in the first scene Blanche steals Stanley’s whiskey and drinks it by herself. Yet when asked about the missing whiskey, Blanche denies having anything to do with it. This continues throughout the book leading the reader to believe that Blanche’s problems have also made her an

A streetcar Named Desire is a play written bij Tennessee Williams in 1947. The play received the Pulitzer Price for Drama in 1948.

Elia Kazan directed the film A Streetcar Named Desire and produce by Warner Brothers in 1951. The novel was originally written by Tennessee Williams and promoted as a play in 1947 and turned into a film later through out its success . The awards received were the Pulitzer price award in 1948 and was nominated for best motion picture, best writing and screen play. The novel was basically about a former English school teacher named Blanche Dubois (played by Vivien Leigh), who decided to join her sister at her house, Stella Kowalski (Kim Hunter) and her husband Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando) in New Orleans. During Blanche is at Stanley’s and Stella’s home, Blanche is trying to