'A Study on the Social Causes of Insanity' How Appropriate Do You Find this Statement as a Comment on Streetcar Named Desire and Regeneration?

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.

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.

“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

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 Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams explores the internal conflict of illusion versus reality through the characters. Humans often use illusion to save us pain and it allows us to enjoy pleasure instead. However, as illusion clashes with reality, one can forget the difference between the two. When people are caught up in their illusions, eventually they must face reality even if it is harsh. In the play, Blanche suffers from the struggle of what is real and what is fake because of the difficult events of her past. Blanche comes to her sister Stella seeking aid because she has lost her home, her job, and her family. To deal with this terrible part of her life, she uses fantasy to escape her dreadful reality. Blanche’s embracement of a fantasy world can be categorized by her attempts to revive her youth, her relationship struggles, and attempts to escape her past.

“A Streetcar Named Desire” is not only considered to be the best play written by Tennessee Williams but is also arguably one the greatest plays ever written. The play has a very Shakespearean sensibility with a southern twist while also having an original complexity woven throughout the entire body that became unique as William’s signature artistry. The most important attributes of the play is the construction and motivation of the characters, the juxtaposition of illusion and reality, as well as the relationship between the dialogue and stage directions. The play’s characters are ultimately defined and driven by their gender identity and sexuality, hence the title “A Streetcar Named Desire”. This is evident in the number of

The dawn of the twentieth century beheld changes in almost every aspect of the day-to-day lives of women, from the domestic domain to the public. By the midpoint of the twentieth century, women 's activities and concerns had been recognized by the society in previously male-dominating world. The end of the nineteenth century saw tremendous growth in the suffrage movement in England and the United States, with women struggling to attain political equality. However, this was not to last however, and by the fifties men had reassumed their more dominant role in society. Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire around the time this reversal was occurring in American society. In this play male dominance is clear. Women are represented as delicate, reserved, and silent, confined to a domestic world that isolated them from the harsh realities of the world. By analyzing the character of Stanley; a masculine and Stella; a symbol of femininity; and other characters of this play, readers can clearly see how male-dominated world it was.

In A Streetcar Named Desire, the male protagonist, Stanley, was the northern progressive hard worker and Blanche was the Southern Belle holding onto her southern ideals of social class, elegance, and beauty. Like many other southerners, Blanche lived in the dark hiding from the progression and new ways. Blanche’s web of lies and obsession with the past could not protect her from the “new” and eventually she was forced to accept the truth of her society. Using the binary conflict of old vs. new, Williams characterizes Blanche as a damsel in distress, in order to condemn the aristocratic souths unwillingness to change. Blanche is established throughout the novel as the old south in order to directly contrast with the new southern society that is emerging.

Mental Illness is shown throughout nearly the entirety of the play. It is revealed right from the beginning of chapter one, and it carries out throughout the majority of the book. Throughout the play, readers are presented with characters who battle mental illness in different forms. In particular, one character, Blanche DuBois strongly possesses mental issues that are clear in every chapter read. It is unclear exactly which mental illness Blanche really has in the play. However, there are many clues and indications that she has signs of schizophrenia, anxiety, post traumatic stress syndrome, and/or personality disorder. Blanche is Stella’s sister who comes to stay with her and her husband, Stanley, from Mississippi. She appears in a

In Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” madness continues to get progressively worse in the lives of the main characters Stanly, Stella, and Blanche. Because of low self esteem and her delusional thought process Blanche is most affected by the madness. Blanche’s delusional life style leads her to compulsively lie, live a promiscuous life style, and alcoholism. Blanche tries constantly to deal with her own madness, but her delusional mental state is constantly effect by the people around her. Although she causes most of the problems in her life some of her madness is justifiable. By the end of the play Blanche can no longer fight off the madness and is sent to an insane asylum. Even though most of the madness that occurs

The play A Streetcar Named Desire takes place after World War II in New Orleans, Louisiana. Stella is 25 and pregnant; she lives with her blue collar husband, Stanley. Blanche who is Stella’s older sister came to visit them and her and Stella had a heart warming reunion until Blanche had to tell Stella that there family mansion (Belle Reve) has been lost. Blanche has always secretly resented her sister because she has to stay behind and take care of their sick family while Stella left to live her life with Stanley. The longer Blanche stay there the more her and Stanley continue to disagree and not get along. Stanley believes that Blanche cheated Stella out of her share of the mansion and Blanche doesn't like that Stanley is so rough with Stella

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

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 Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire a variety of symbols are used to forge the meaning of the text as a whole. The play was published in 1947, just a couple years after WWII, and it follows the main characters of Blanche, an idealistic woman, Stanley, an Army engineer during WWII, and Stella, the sister to Blanche and the wife of Stanley during the period of rebuilding after the war. Williams uses symbols such as light and drinking to show insecurities, traits, and the true nature of characters throughout the text.

Although I explored the literature from the prescribed text list for 2017 in depth, upon reading Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, I was captivated by his brutally honest depiction of the destructive effect of machismo within his society. Williams’ portrayal of the female experience during the 1940’s, especially the physical and emotional violation, was immediately shocking to me as a young, contemporary female. Concurrently, after reading the drama, my ambiguous response to Stanley’s character confused me. Although he had treated women so crudely, I found myself feeling sympathy for him. Samuel Tapp’s critical examination of the play in which he asserts that Stanley is “a victim of a masculine ideology that… dehumanises him,”