A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is the chronicle of the tragic deterioration of Blanche Dubois. The play begins as Blanche enters the home of her sister after struggling to uphold herself and the family property, known as Belle Reve. Her sister, Stella, is “all [she has] in the world (Williams 13),” because all of her other known relatives had died. She is presented as a broken woman, therefore most of the audience sympathy lies with her. However, once Stanley – Stella’s husband – begins to question Blanche’s past, sympathy begins to waver. Ultimately, it is Blanche that receives a majority of the sympathy because she is the most visibly emotionally vulnerable throughout the play. In scene one, there is a monologue in which …show more content…
As a whole, Streetcar is an illustration of man versus woman conflict and is meant to be an exploration of a woman’s psyche as a result of said conflict. Since the age of sixteen (Williams 114), Blanche has been unlucky in love and even unluckier in life. She has lost every man she has ever cared for, and while she lives alone she yearns for the attention of the opposite sex. The strengths and weaknesses of Blanche and Stanley embody the effects of the alpha-beta relationship between a man and a woman. As the alpha, Stanley finds strength in binding women to him so that they depend on him. Blanche’s craving for male attention is her primary weakness. This weakness and Stanley’s strength fuel each other, creating a harmful cycle of which the effects can be seen in Blanche, who is left empty and warped by the end of the play. The recipient of audience sympathy may vary for personal-belief reasons or due to variances on stage, but it is undeniable that Blanche is the most visibly damaged character in Streetcar. Tennessee Williams’ use of subtlety and symbolism creates a rich, realistic tragedy that resonates with audiences because it explores humanity in a raw, poignant
“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.
Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ is set in the ‘Roaring Twenties’ when America was going through a great deal of change in the order of society. The three main characters; Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski and Stanley Kowalski jostle claustrophobically in a small apartment, set in Elysian Fields in New Orleans, Elysian Fields is an ironic name as it evokes the sense that the apartment is heaven, when in reality it is very much the opposite. Stella and Blanche are sisters, but during the course of the play, we notice very clearly that Blanche is stuck in the in the Old World of plantations and inequality, with very large social divides. In contrast, Stella has almost seamlessly evolved to live in the New
A Streetcar Named Desire is a socially challenging play in light of the way in which Tennessee Williams depicts the capacity of human nature for brutality and deceit. He takes the viewpoint that, no matter how structured or 'civilized' society is, all people will rely on their natural animal instincts, such as dominance and deception, to get themselves out of trouble at some stage in life. William's has created three main characters, Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski and Stanley Kowalski. Each of these characters is equally as civilized as the next, yet all are guilty of acts of savagery on different levels. Throughout the play Williams symbolically relates these three characters to animals, 'savages,' through the disclosure of
Throughout Tennessee William’s play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Blanche Dubois exemplified several tragic flaws. She suffered from her haunting past; her inability to overcome; her desire to be someone else; and from the cruel, animalistic treatment she received from Stanley. Sadly, her sister Stella also played a role in her downfall. All of these factors ultimately led to Blanche’s tragic breakdown in the end.
The audience always had the feeling that Blanche was a little nuts, but we see her condition worsening as the play goes on. During the final scene we see Blanche go with a doctor and nurse to, presumably, a mental hospitable. Eunice
One could say that the novel is simply just how one group of people all succumb to desire, and how this leads to their downfalls. However, when viewed through the lens of Feminist Criticism, one can see that it is not that simple: Stella and Blanche are women of their time. They wish to have a happy home, with someone to love them and a comfortable life ahead of them. This is the wish that society has conditioned them to want- Stella would never strike out on her own and though Blanche does so, all it does is bring her shame and heartache. A Streetcar Named Desire displays the view of women in this society, and how, if they decide to stray from the path dictated, it will only lead them to self
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 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
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.
Like many people in the world, the characters in Tennessee William’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire, are troubled by anxiety and insecurities. Life in New Orleans during the 1940s was characterized by the incredible variety of music, lively and bright atmosphere, and diverse population, while in the midst of the ongoing World War II. Culture was rich and fruitful because the city developed into a “melting pot” of people from all over the world. Due to the wide-range in population, the people of New Orleans adopted an identity like no other. Instead of their identity being entirely pieced together, almost like a puzzle, the people took on one that was shared by the entire community. However, with this being said, people had the ability to use this to their advantage and mask their true selves. This idea translates well into the play A Streetcar Named Desire, and is exhibited through the character Blanche. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams uses the theme of vanity to reveal the importance of appearance, and the insecurities of Blanche and how they influence her actions.
In the beginning of the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Blanche first arrives from Laurel Missouri and immediately becomes the antagonist. As the play goes on Stanley starts to go against Blanche. At the end of the play Blanche becomes the victim. In the end, Stanley sent Blanche off to a mental asylum. This plays demonstrates domestic violence. In the beginning of the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams shows how society accepted it and ignored it.Stanley, one of the characters in the play, found domestic violence to be a positive and very sexual part of him and his wife, Stella's, relationship. Throughout the play, Williams shows that he believes that it is wrong.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, a tragic play, is based on the theme that desire leads to ruin. After losing her home and life due to her sinful actions, the main character Blanche DuBois travels to New Orleans to stay with her sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley. Blanche’s lies about her past and excessive drinking lead to the main conflict between her and Stanley. Blanche’s poor decisions from her past haunt her, and she continues to engage in self-destructive behavior during her time in New Orleans. Tension between Blanche and Stanley climaxes when Stanley rapes her in the tenth act of the play. Blanche loses her dignity, home, and hold on reality in this tragedy, and, as she is the main character, her downfall makes
The play “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams is a story of taboos from the 1950’s. The story begins with the arrival of a young southern belle named Blanche DuBois at her sister’s house in New Orleans. Blanche is forced to relocate there as her father and grandfather squandered what money they had left, to the point of losing of their home estate Belle Reve. As the play continues Blanche develops a relationship with Stanley’s friend Mitch. The addition of Stella’s husband Stanley, Tennessee Williams creates a catalyst to the taboos he desires for his story. As the play continues the stress of the new people and locations force Stella and Stanley to commit Blanche into a mental ward. In the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” Tennessee
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