A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams Essay

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.

In his plays, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams uses different ways to show in the play of social realism. It show each of individual character and focusing on how particular way of viewpoint contrast with men, and the perspective of looking at women. The play explores struggle of two character Stanley and Blanche, between appearances and reality which made the play’s plot more affected reality. Throughout this play, it show the symbolize of the gender roles and the power of men over women in the 1940’s in New Orleans.

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.

Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire is a web of themes, complicated scenarios, and clashes between the characters. Therefore, it might’ve been somehow difficult to find out who the protagonist of this play is if it wasn’t for Aristotle’s ideas of a good tragedy because neither of the main characters, Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois, is completely good nor bad. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, a good tragedy requires the protagonist to undergo a change of status which only happens with Blanche Dubois.

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

     Stanley shreds the dreams of Blanche DuBois, revealing her ugly past to her sister and her beau. He refuses to

In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, a main theme was domestic violence and how women were not respected before the 1970’s. Beating your wife was considered “family matters” and many people ignored this huge issue. Women were supposed to take care of the situation by themselves or ignore it. Ruby Cohn argues that Stanley is the “protector of the family” and that his cruelest gesture in the play is “to tear the paper lantern off the light bulb” (Bloom 15). Even though critics tend to ignore the ongoing domestic violence occurring in the play, it is a huge issue that even the characters in the play choose to ignore. This issue does not surface because of the

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams uses setting to illustrate various themes and messages as they pertain to the events of the play. The setting plays a crucial role in the story line and the outcome of the play.

is true in the extreme for Stanley, he does what he wishes and disregards the consequences. It is not a motto he actually employs towards the remaining characters; thinking only of himself, he does not care if anyone else is "comfortable" or not. Through dialogue such as this, Williams asserts to the reader/audience the fact that Stanley inherently fails to take into account the repercussions his own requirements and desires have on others. He is in total control and the only person endowed with power; therefore the only person he takes into consideration - and the only person his wife is allowed to take

It is Williams's brilliant and intriguing characters that make the reader truly understand the play's meaning.   He also presents a continuous flow of raw, realistic moods and events in the play which keeps the reader fascinated in the realistic fantasy Williams has created in A Streetcar Named Desire.   The

Tennessee Williams was an American writer known for short stories and poems in the mid 1950’s. His more famous writing was A Streetcar Named Desire. His writings influenced many other writers such as August Strindberg and Hart Crane. His writings A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie was adopted to films and A Streetcar Named Desire earned him his first Pulitzer prize. In A Streetcar Named Desire there is many elements that build the plot and story line. The story is about a girl who is drove crazy by his sister’s husband and eventually sent to the mental hospital. The main plot is towards the end of the story when Blanche Dubois is blackmailed by her sister’s husband and raped by him. Everything takes its toll on her until she begins drinking heavily and is thought to have gone crazy and placed in a mental hospital. In this story, many things play affect in the contrast of the writing such as Blanche arriving at her sister’s house, seeing her sister’s husbands attitude, the poker game, Blanche getting raped. These events make Blanche an easy victim. In Tennessee Williams, a street car named desire, the start of kindness turns to tragedy and pain.

Stanley Kowalski is a vicious and cruel representation of the male within American society at this time. He dominates with absolute control of his household, including his wife, and is referred to as "downright bestial” (82). Animalistic in his character, Stanley’s dominant assertion of all that is male shows blatant disregard for his wife’s feelings and well-being. Williams depicts Stanley welcoming his wife's affection with "lordly composure" (29), implying that Stanley believes that he inevitably deserves his wife's love and commitment, without having to put forth any effort for it, merely because he is a man. He is in total control; he is the only person endowed with power. Therefore, the only person Stanley takes into consideration is himself, and he is the only person his wife is allowed to have concern for, as well. Williams also focuses on Stanley's

Initially, Stanley believes Blanche has sold her and Stella’s family estate without giving Stella her cut of the profit. Stanley’s feels that his power is threatened as he believes he is being cheated by Blanche and brings up the Napoleonic code which states that a wife and husband’s belongings are shared. Stanley tells Stella, “… and when you’re swindled under the Napoleonic code I’m swindled too. And I don’t like to be swindled” (Williams, 33). Stanley explains to Stella how if she loses money through Blanche, the code states that he loses the money too due to the sharing of possessions between spouses. This is where we first see Stanley’s desire for power and control as it is seen that he becomes angry with the fact that Blanche potentially manipulates him. In many scenes of the play, Stanley’s assertiveness and need for control is seen through his actions. In scene eight of the play, Stella is angered by Stanley’s actions at the dinner table and demands that he wash up and help clear the table. Angered by Stella’s demands, Stanley feels that Blanche and Stella see him as weak. His desire to regain his power and control takes over as he states, “…And I am the king around here, so don’t forget it! (He hurls a

Throughout the plot Stanley Kowalski constantly confirms his representation of the id. The id accounts for all the biological and instinctive parts of our personality, such as, sex and death. It also responds to the pleasure principle which is that every wish should be immediately satisfied regardless of the consequence. Very early in the play Williams’s paints a picture of him as aggressive, dominant, and very sexual masculine