A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennesee Williams Essay

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.

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.

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

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

“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

Established as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 20th century, Tennessee Williams used his writing as a form of therapy. The author came from a troubled background consisting of alcoholism, mental breakdowns, and general unhappiness; Williams exploited these unfortunate events and allowed them to motivate his literature. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois’ struggles represent the reality of people’s lives, “an enduring concern of [Williams’] throughout his writing career (Henthorne 1). Blanche captures our focus with her seemingly sincere and fragile nature, but it is later revealed that this is just an illusion within her own mind. She resides in a world of fantasy to shield herself against the harsh threats of reality and her own fears. Blanche’s main objective in the play is to keep herself from falling apart in a world of cruelty through alcoholism and illusion. Through the characterization of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams depicts the coping mechanism of fantasy and its detrimental repercussions by exploring the specific experiences that eventually impede her happiness.

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.

Adversity can present itself in a wide range of severities, and it can have drastic effects on an individual. A man is insensible to appreciate prosperity until he has gone through some kind of adversity. Hardships and adversity develop and shape a person’s identity and also plays a big role in shaping one’s personal values. John Locke, a famous philosopher, once said that “Let us suppose the mind to be, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it be furnished? To this I answer, in one word, from experience”. The quote says that humans are born like clean slates and adversity plays a major role in shaping people. In the modern play A Streetcar Named Desire, the author, Tennessee Williams, suggests that individuals are blank slates and adversity plays a major factor in shaping their values and their perspective on things. This is shown through the characters of Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski and Stanley Kowalski.

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

Ms. Leslie 2/10/14 What Would You Do To Feel Loved? Even though destructive and abusive relationships should be avoided at ALL costs, we see that the female characters in A Streetcar Named Desire are heavily dependent on feeling desired by men since they do not want be alone, and are longing for the affection from others; thus Tennessee Williams suggests in the play that people will disregard violent acts, mistreatment, and will often lie to others and themselves to feel important to someone. Tennessee Williams shows us that women are too afraid to leave their husbands, because they would rather deal with the pain in order to be desired.

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

Stella is innately cruel because of the claim that Stella’s sister Blanche made, saying that Stanley raped her in which she does not believe. While fantasy and illusions begin with Blanche, they do not end with her withdrawal in the play. As Blanche leaves with the doctor, Stella is still living in denial of Blanches claim “I couldn’t believe her story” she tells Eunice beforehand. The only way Stella could live with herself and still have Stanley was by telling herself a much greater lie one much greater than anything fashioned by her sister. Stella wants to be with Stanley because she in fear of becoming socially unnormal.

The darkness all begins when Blanche arrives at Stella’s apartment after her family home was lost. Stanley initially doesn’t trust Blanche and thinks she swindled Stella out of her share of the family home to pay off her own debts. The two are sisters and immediately Blanche begins to criticize their apartment because of coming from a high-class place. This immediately bothers Stanley and he becomes agitated with Blanche since they have taken her in and let her stay in their home. This adds issue between the characters right away because of both of their backgrounds. Blanche come from money and Tennessee Williams quotes “Her appearance is incongruous to the setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district.” This is all build the plot showing contrast in difference in the two characters right away, the darkness begins to come upon Blanche.

He is married to Stella who is Blanche’s sister. In the play Stanley is the theme of realism. He is shown in the play as a working man, and a masculine character who in the play will do what he wants and does not care what people think.

My expectations from seeing the film A Streetcar Named Desire, I expected this to be in-depth about Blanche’s life that she lives. The plot for the most part does convey her life and that is good how the author/director was able to portrayed that and I think that is the most developed part of the plot of this film, and even early on I see some different things from the play. I think this film told a story of how Blanche went to live with her sister and she tried to help her sister from her husband.