Examples Of Gothic Elements In A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams uses the constant battle between illusion and reality as a theme throughout his play A Streetcar Named Desire. Many use illusion to escape the reality they are living in. This theme is present in all of his characters in different ways.

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.

The genre of Southern gothic strongly contributes to the principle themes of human cruelty and kindness in “A Streetcar Named Desire” because it sets the necessary tone for Blanche Dubois’ heart wrenching story to be told. Southern gothic, a genre that combines the suspenseful elements of gothic stories with Southern charm, is certainly the genre of Kazan’s film, as the film incorporates many gothic elements, such as the melancholy that surrounds the family apartment in the midst of the loss of the family estate, a willful villain, a heroine who tends to need rescuing, and clearly horrifying events, with the Southern setting of the small apartment building in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Examples of the incorporation of the gothic elements into the film include Stanley Kowlaski, Blanche’s abusive brother-in-law, as the willful villain and the implied rape of Blanche by Stanley as the horrifying event which serves as a catalyst for the rest of the plot. Because of the elements of Southern gothic that Kazan incorporates into his film, this genre of choice contributes to the main underlying themes of human cruelty and kindness by necessitating an environment where the events of the plot are made possible and bringing the emotionally devastating story to life.

The arts stir emotion in audiences. Whether it is hate or humor, compassion or confusion, passion or pity, an artist's goal is to construct a particular feeling in an individual. Tennessee Williams is no different. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the audience is confronted with a blend of many unique emotions, perhaps the strongest being sympathy. Blanch Dubois is presented as the sympathetic character in Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire as she battles mental anguish, depression, failure and disaster.

Tennessee Williams is regarded as a pioneering playwright of American theatre. Through his plays, Williams addresses important issues that no other writers of his time were willing to discuss, including addiction, substance abuse, and mental illness. Recurring themes in William’s works include the dysfunctional family, obsessive and absent mothers and fathers, and emotionally damaged women. These characters were inspired by his experiences with his own family. These characters appear repeatedly in his works with their own recurring themes. Through The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams presents the similar thematic elements of illusion, escape, and fragility between the two plays, proving that although similar, the themes within these plays are not simply recycled, as the differences in their respective texts highlight the differences of the human condition.

Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams are each widely considered to be two of the most illustrious and groundbreaking modern American playwrights, and their signature work -- Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire – respectively, are also their most tragic pieces. Miller’s Death of a Salesman is, ultimately, a play focusing on the tragic consequences of Willy Loman’s unwavering belief in the American dream and its associated progress and success, where he is tragically too human, believing the values that matter in family are equally important in the world of business. Similarly, Blanche DuBois in Tennessee William’s Streetcar feigns her appearance and refuses move on from her past life of luxury, holding onto and creating new desires

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 one of the most renowned 20th century American plays and films. The playwright is Tennessee Williams, a respected author whose works artistic and structural merit warrants their study into the 21st century. There are numerous aspects and points Williams makes with his works, including "A Streetcar Named Desire." Out of the richness this text offers, this paper will focus upon issues of mental illness and abuse in the play. No doubt an aspect that makes Williams' characters so vivid are their flaws, weaknesses, and desires. Where a person's character lacks weakness and what a person desires reveal a great deal about that person and provide insight into the choices they make. The paper will discuss aspects of abuse and mental instability in the characters and plot of "A Streetcar Named Desire," and will reference the play directly to underscore any points.

How does Williams present the themes of illusion and fantasy in A Streetcar Named Desire?

In the opening two scenes of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams, the audience has its first and generally most important impressions formulated on characters, the plot and the mood and tone of the play overall.

Social upheaval in many senses was explicit through the beginning of the twentieth century; two world wars had - for a short time - shifted the balance of power between men and women. Women were increasingly employed to fill positions which had previously been considered masculine. This was not to last however, and by the fifties men had reassumed their more dominant role in society. People were finding new voices at this time by taking pre-existing forms and pushing the boundaries to re-voice established literary forms. Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire around the time this reversal was occurring in American society. Williams was a homosexual from the deep south of America, and his play is about physical, emotional

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's play, A Streetcar named desire, took place in the mid 20th century. At that time, American society was going through a chaotic transformation. The Second World War had just happened, and the Great Depression in the decade before. Williams’s play reveals the new American taste for realism that emerged during the Great Depression. Williams’s early plays also connected with the new American taste for realism that emerged following the Depression and World War II.

Tennessee Williams was a well known Modern English playwright. He was born in Columbus, Mississippi and moved to St. Louis, then to Memphis, and later graduated from the University of Iowa in 1983. Williams began to turn his short stories into plays and later on into films. His wildest audiences were in contemporary dramatic literature. Williams’s plays have been produced in England, France, Hally, Germany, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Cuba and Mexico. One of William’s most intriguing plays is Streetcar named Desire. Streetcar was produced around 1947. The “setting of Streetcar” is a combination of raw realism and deliberate fantasy” (Riddel 16). The main character of the play is Ms.

The genre of Southern gothic strongly contributes to the principle themes of human cruelty and kindness in “A Streetcar Named Desire” because it sets the necessary tone for Blanche Dubois’ heart wrenching story to be told. Southern gothic, a genre that combines the suspenseful elements of gothic stories with Southern charm, is certainly the genre of Kazan’s film, as the film incorporates many gothic elements, such as the melancholy that surrounds the family apartment in the midst of the loss of the family estate, a willful villain, a heroine who tends to need rescuing, and clearly horrifying events, with the Southern setting of the small apartment building in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. Examples of the incorporation of the gothic elements into the film include Stanley Kowlaski, Blanche’s abusive brother-in-law, as the willful villain and the implied rape of Blanche by Stanley as the horrifying event which serves as a catalyst for the rest of the