A Streetcar Named Desire Rhetorical Analysis

Blanche’s financial decline, illuminating her vulnerability, links to Aristotle’s theory that the tragic heroine must fall, allowing the audience to relate to her. Her insecurities – “I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!” stereotypically reflects the insecurities women feel about their appearance and age. The uses of imperatives and exclamatory sentences suggests Blanche’s obsession over her appearance, a flaw leading her to dismiss her true identity. Her inability to avoid drink and her compulsive lies, demonstrated in her frequent references to Shep Huntleigh’s letters, makes her a more authentic woman than Stella, who is described by Williams as the “gentle, mild and contented one”. Blanche’s loss of identity, dominated by her homosexual husband’s suicide, exacerbates her solitude – “The boy-the boy died. (She sinks back down) I’m afraid I’m – going to be sick!” The fragmented, repetitive speech Blanche uses illustrates her guilt and pain, whilst the physical act of “sinking” highlights the extent of her regret, giving a sense of foreboding for her downfall. Her guilt is also exacerbated by the implied physical act at the end which shocks the contemporary audience, who would not sympathise with homosexuals, evoking pity and reinforcing that “Streetcar” is a tragedy for Blanche.

In Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois unveils the theme of the story through her representation of the struggle to maintain innocence in a tragically guilty world. The main theme of the story is that the façade of performed perfection will always be unsuccessful; fantasy cannot overcome reality. As hard as Blanche tries to hide in her fantasy, eventually truth persists and, in the end, overtakes the delusions she holds. Blanche uses her appearance to suggest innocence and youth, yet with a closer look, readers see that, though she attempts very hard to be, she is neither. She also has a symbolic relationship with Mitch; the further they draw apart, the further into madness she descends. While it is clear that Blanche is not entirely innocent, the author creates her as a symbol of such. This way, as she slowly loses her mind—and Mitch—she symbolizes the loss of said innocence. Blanche can also be considered an embodiment of Williams’s older sister Rose, who is known to have been institutionalized for her erratic behavior. Rose Williams’s inability to overcome her mental instability is directly represented through Blanche, a character who also cannot maintain fantasy and ultimately succumbs to reality. Had Blanche been able to sustain her pretense of innocence, it is possible she could have avoided the harsh realities of life.

The play A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is a play about a woman named Blanche Dubois who goes to live with her sister after she loses her home in Mississippi. Between the hardships of her previous life and the way she is treated now, she is not in a good way by the time the play ends. She basically has a mental breakdown. There are three stages of Blanche’s mental state. She lives in a fantasy, Mitch rejecting her, and Stanley raping her, Blanche is mentally unstable by the end of this ply.

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

A short amount of time has passed after Blanche’s encounter with the stranger following the departure of her to the mental institute, Blanche is wearing her piece of silky white robe. In her bag is a small bottle half full of liquor that she has slipped past the doctor. Whilst Blanche drinks to escape the feeling of regret she sings “Paper Moon” just so the doctor in the front seat of the car cannot hear her. Constantly taking sips of the strong liquor, she hums the song to herself until there is no more liquid in the glass bottle. Blanche looks up into the ceiling and tips the bottle upside down in hopes of the small puddle at the bottom to come out. With no liquor left in the bottle, Blanche frustratingly throws the bottle out of the window

Blanche is unable to cope with her loss of her fortunes and estate at Bell Reve, and the abrupt social shift erupted after World War Two, and this inability to adapt shapes her ultimate anagorisis. In addition, Blanche’s botched relationship with Allen Gray and his subsequent suicide were in all likelihood even larger catalysts for her plunge into delusion. In addition to having a more externally-catalyzed delusion, Blanche more selectively and maliciously employs her delusion. Williams continually points this out throughout the play with profuse use of a metaphorical light to represent truth. The employment of this metaphor reveals to Blanche’s fear of the truth, shown in “…turn that over-light off. I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!” The clear link to Willy Loman here is that both characters refuse to hear the truth in fear of what it might destroy, whereas in actual fact only through letting go of the past will they reach a true stage of final

“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

A point for Blanche is that she is fear of aging and get lost of beauty. She is scared on  appear on bright light which will reveal her look to Mitch. In scene one, the author Williams make Blanche life of sexual going down like when her husband’s suicide result from her disapproval of his homosexuality which lead to a unwanted end. In scene nine, where the Mexican woman appears selling “flowers for the dead” which made Blanche reacts with panic feeling inside of her like she don’t know what to do. The author uses Blanche experience of sex and death are link up together.

Blanches’ emotional state of mind is also conspicuous at the start of the play as she circumvents direct light, fearful of showing her fading looks and the light would make her vulnerable to the truth. Blanche is unable to withstand harsh light, calling the light a ‘merciless glare’(S1:pg.120*) because with Allan’s death, the light had gone out of her life and the effect this had is that she wanted dim lights hiding the reality of her painful memories. This links to the theme of dream and reality as Blanche, a delicate character, refused ‘to accept the reality of her life and attempts to live under illusion’ (*2), living on the borders of life similar to a moth which creates the image of Blanches’ fragility.

Williams’ also uses animal imagery to show the subordination of women in a big patriarchal society. During Stanley’s games he doesn’t want any interruption from the women in the household and even when they’re not disturbing anyone he tells them “you hens cut out that conversation in there” (Williams 54). Hens are the female chickens and they are mostly just used to lay the eggs. Stanley calling Blanche and Stella hens shows that he is specifically calling them out because they’re women. He could of chosen to call them another animal but stuck to hens because since he is considered a “rooster”, the hen will always be below. Later on in the play, Blanche describes the poker night as “this party of apes! Somebody growls- some creature snatches

She begins to ramble on more, have more delusions and lie about crazy things such as Shep Huntleigh inviting her on a cruise to the Caribbean. She begins to shower more often or “hydrotherapy” as she calls it, because it “is necessary for her probably to wash away the feeling of guilt as also the stains of her promiscuous life” (Kataria 96). As the play comes to an end, Blanche becomes more psychotic and no one is on her side. Blanche appears to swirl into oblivion towards the end of the play when a fiight with Stanley gets physical. “She finally realizes to her dismay that she has lost her reputation, a place to go to, and what is worse, her charm. This realization, painful as it is, coupled with the rape, sends her reeling into a world of shadows from which she was never really far away” (Kataria 182.)

I agree that characters in the book A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, use lying and deception to fuel their social status. These lies develop trust and relationship issues and threaten the wellbeing of everyone involved. Blanche, was a high school english teacher in mississippi who was forced to leave her life behind there. With nowhere to go Blanche moves in with her sister Stella and husband Stanley, who has a suspicion about Blanche's past life which lead to some unwanted events.

Williams uses light to symbolism appearance. Blanche is often seen wearing white. Since the color white stands for purity, innocence, and virtue, the symbolism of Blanche's first name reveals these qualities, which stand in contrast to her actual character traits. Liang Zhang states that Blanche lived in a perpetual panic about her fading beauty, her manner is dainty and frail, and she took a wardrobe of showy but cheap evening clothes, all these details reflected her character weakness. (Zhang). Blanche turns the light and says “… And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare!” (79). Blanche says this when she is first reunited with her sister, Stella, in the bowling alley and they sit down in a booth to catch up. Throughout the play, Blanche avoids direct light. She does not want anybody to see her real appearance. Blanche abhors the light because it reveals her fading youth and beauty. She avoids light to prevent Mitch from seeing her fading beauty caused by tragedy and aging. She does not want Mitch to know her real age. Blanche asked Mitch to put a paper lantern over the exposed light bulb in the Kowalski apartment. Blanche tells Mitch, “She can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can stand a rude remark or a vulgar action.” (97). The light bulb symbolizes reality and the truth she cannot

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.

In his staging of “A Streetcar Named Desire”, Tennessee Williams is creative in his unorthodox fusing of realistic elements with an expressionistic style. We can see the themes and ideas that Williams is trying to portray through more than just the dialogue and good acting. Dramatic strategies such as form, staging and set design, the costumes and so on, these all help convey to an audience the themes of the play in either quite obvious or subtle ways; most of the time it’s subtle, we have to really look into even the tiniest of details as more often than not they have more meaning than previously thought. Williams used an array of dramatic strategies such as coloured symbolism and a creative use of lighting that distinguished him from the