Name Professor Subject Date Scene Three of Williams' a Streetcar Named Desire: Question One a) What do we immediately learn about Mitch in the beginning of the scene? The scene starts when Steve, Pablo, Mitch and Stanley are playing poker in the kitchen bather with sinister green light. While Stanley talks tough on the table, Mitch gambles on whether to go home and attend to his sick mother. One thing that is clear about Mitch at this point is that he is the most sober. He is sensitive to the fact that all the other men are married, unlike him. He only has an ailing mother who may leave me lonely when she dies. Thus, he goes to hide in the bathroom for a while. This shows the internal conflict that build on Mitch’s life because of his sick mother. He is a caring man …show more content…
The men respond very negatively to the women’s return from a night out. First, it starts with Blanche. When she tries to powder her face at the door in anticipation of the male company, she receives negative feedback. This is seen when Stella makes polite introductions but the men do not show any interest to Blanche’s presence. When the women try to join the poker game, Stanley refuses by disrespectfully slapping Stella’s buttocks. He ushers them to go upstairs to Eunice. c) How does the night end? The night ends in romantic drama after a quarrel that Stanley had with Stella. Blanche had put on radio and started dancing with Mitch. This irritates Stanley who goes, switches off the radio and throws it outside the window. Stella is not happy about this. When she yells at Stanley, he slaps. The other men stop the fight and Stella goes upstairs to Eunice accompanied by Blanche. It is after Stanley comes back to his senses that he bellows out for Stella. Stella comes out and embraces her husband as they head back to their room. Mitch and Blanche remain to continue with their chat and
Stella's marriage to Stanley, on the other hand, seems to have given her the happiness and fulfillment, which Blanche has attempted to find in a guilt-ridden life of loneliness with promiscuity. As a result Blanche has become neurotic and alcoholic, slipping increasingly into insanity. Stella, meanwhile, appears to have been thriving in a profane, coarse, but wholly satisfying sexual relationship with Stanley. Thus, superficially, the main contrast between Stella and Blanche seems to be one between sickness and health, perversity and normality, particularly in the sexual relationship. Stella is thriving; Blanche is disintegrating. But a closer examination of these sisters begins to show more complex differences in their characters and situations. Blanche is disintegrating for reasons other than sexual perversity, and Stella is paying a rather steep price for her so-called "normal" life with Stanley.
Finally, Stanley rapes Blanche because “he has tried and tried to keep her down to his level” (Kagan 26) but she cannot go there. The rape is his way of getting her there. In the powerful scene where Stanley loses total control of his actions and strikes the person whom he has sworn to protect, love and cherish, William's shows Stanley's lack of control and hatred of the new threat in his life, Blanche. What makes this scene so important to the topic is the way that the three characters react once the party has broken up. Blanche is in her usual state of panic; Stella has retreated upstairs, while Stanley stumbles around calling out 'Steeelllaaa' in a drunken sweaty animal-like manner. Surprisingly Stella answers her mate's calls and embraces him, the two of them exchanging words of compassion and kisses. Stanley then picks up Stella and carries her off to his den to make love, which is Stanley's way of apologizing. Stanley has to be the dominant male figure in all his relationships, not only with Stella and Blanche, but with his friends as well. He is a leader and instantly rises to the challenge whenever his status is threatened.
and self - pitying ways from the death of her husband and the lies of
Mitch has a very courteous and gregarious perspective on life. He basically believes that everyone deserves a chance. When he first meets Blanche, he begins to fall in love with her but soon after Stanley reveals the true Blanche to Mitch, he feels betrayed. At that point, his perspective changed because, he begins to become a little more like Stanley. An example of this is when he finds out and comes to meet Blanche and tells her
Stella and Blanche grew up on a southern estate, each were implanted with respectable Southern manners that made them upper-class and showed them what place they have in society. Blanche takes this to heart never letting Stanley forget that he is below the sisters,
Blanche tells Mitch about how hostile and rude Stanley is to her and how she thinks he hates her. It is important that Mitch knows this as at the end of
Harold Mitchell or Mitch is the best friend and old war buddy of Stanley Kowalski, he is shown to have little confidence but a big heart. Mitch is a lost soul, he was in love to a girl who passed away. He’s been looking for a new romance ever since the audience first see him within the play, he wants to find love before his mother passes away. His actions to seduce Blanche were noble at first, but afterwards we see his selfish motivations
Unlike Stanley, Mitch has learned to be sympathetic towards Blanche and her representation of femininity. Mitch however, still cultivates toxic masculinity when he does not bring correction to his friend, Stanley, when he sees him being openly abusive. He also allows Stanley to ruin his chances at happiness with Blanche.
It was not just her self that put her in the lime light of being a victim; it is also her new change of environment and people. Stanley is Stella's husband; he is described to be very masculine and aware of his sexual magnetism. “Strongly, compactly built”. He is mostly at ease with people however, if they lack loyalty and affection to him, he will bully them. Especially women, as he believes them just to be easy conflict. It is seen in scene 3 that Stanley has little respect for women. “I said to hush up!” This is addressed to his wife who is seen emotionless and impassive in this play. As for Blanche how is fussy and at edge, she would be very effected by the crude attitude that Stanley presents and so tries to hysterical take Stella away from her husband. Stanley does not forget of this act of interference and makes him all the more determined to be rid of Stella’s “charity case”. The real reason for Stanley’s bulling is that Blanche immediately received all Stella’s attention. “How about my supper huh? I’m not going to no Galatorires’ for supper” This made Stella dominant in power over Stanley and Blanche, something Stanley was not used to. “I put you a cold plate on ice”.
Although there is nothing wrong with Stella offering her sister a help and let Blanche stays in her place, but the biggest missing component, in this case, is the cause a huge embarrassment, that is Stanley. Stanley is Stella’s husband, they live together with peace and entertainment so far; nevertheless, the involvement of a third person would interrupt or even shatter the situation, and this person is Blanche. Stanley represents the new rising Americans, and we can envision him as urban-hunkey. His lifestyle is full of manhood; he goes to bowling, loves poker party, and we gain the picture of him as an aggressive, dominant and very sexual person. To satisfy Stanley is quite simple, first, his sexual desire would override his other senses, which means his sexual relationship with his wife is extremely important to him; second, Stanley enjoys maintaining stereotypical gender roles in his home and being respect as the head of the household. After Blanche’s visit, both of his old habits are being disturbed because Blanche takes herself as someone who’s more superior which goes against his gender role and she sleeps right across them with only a thin layer of the barrier which also stops his lovely night party with his wife. These reasons caused Stanley being so unsympathetic to the way Stella treats Blanche, which furthermore
The reader may view Blanche as someone who tried to escape her sordid past in Laurel and wanted to start a new life with her sister, yet due to the continuous investigations from Stanley, was unable to do so. Stanley reveals Blanches’ lies and deceits, commenting on them as her ‘same old act, same old hooey!’ This tells the reader that his research of Blanches’ past is way of stopping her from finding a new life. Blanche attempts to redeem her life by finding love with Mitch, yet Stanley again reveals to Mitch that she was not ‘straight’, resulting in Mitch not wanting to be with her and also contributing to her fate. Stanley, after mercilessly divulging all her truths and bringing her to the edge of her mental capacity, rapes Blanche which brought about her final collapse. The reader may view Stella as someone at blame for her sisters’ fate, as though she shows some moral support of Blanches’ situation and listens to what she has to say, Stella continuously throughout the play neglects to notice Blanches slow mental deterioration and ignores Blanches’ outcries and incessant need for attention. Stella chooses Stanley over Blanche, despite her warnings about him being ‘volatile, violent and sub-human which represents not
This male domination is emphasised with the use of the different games at key moments in the play, all involving the men and intentionally excluding the women. In the first scene the men go bowling, while the women run behind and watch, this establishes the role of each sex in the society in which they live. When Blanche asks to join in and “kibitz” in the first game of poker, she is told by Stanley, in no uncertain terms, that “[She] could not”. The game of poker also acts as a metaphor, in the first game, when Blanche has just arrived and is beginning to threaten Stanley and Stella’s marriage, Stanley is losing the game. Stella begins to
Although Stanley’s power works mainly to downgrade Blanche, his violent and aggressive nature also disempowers Stella. She is abused during poker night, a moment of masculine bonding. Following the poker night she is made powerful when she retreats to Eunice’s Flat. However, she returns to disempowerment when she leaves Eunice’s flat and Stanley ‘bears her into the dark flat’. Stella’s decision to stay with Stanley is not based on choice, but rather on the fact that she must. This enforces the dominant belief that women are unable to support themselves, emotionally and financially.
Stanley overhears these comments as they are ‘unaware of his presence’ (S4:pg.164*; and wants to dispose of Blanche to protect his marriage as Blanche has a hysterical determination to urge Stella to leave Stanley. Stanley refuses to accept Blanches’ conduct as she had no right to intervene and arbitrate as a guest in Stanley’s home supporting the idea that Stanley was preparing her downfall all along.
The play A Streetcar Named Desire revolves around Blanche DuBois; therefore, the main theme of the drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the tragedy of an individual caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present. The final result is her destruction. This process began long before her clash with Stanley Kowalski. It started with the death of her young husband, a weak and perverted boy who committed suicide when she taunted him with her disgust at the discovery of his perversion. In retrospect, she knows that he was the only man she had ever loved, and from this early catastrophe