How does Tennessee Williams build up dramatic tension between Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski in Scene 10 to make it a theatrical climax of A Streetcar named Desire?

The most ostentatious of the group, Stanley is a flawed man that is forced into the role of husband and father by the women around him. Stanley enjoys avoiding his real life and problems by socializing with his other equally macho friends playing poker and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol which in turn makes him stereotypically violent towards his wife. Stanley’s actions to Blanche as well are possessive and domineering as he looks through her things and criticizes the gifts she has garnered from the various suitors she had. “After Stanley's rummaging around in the trunk, Blanche exclaims: "It looks like my trunk has exploded" (38). When he violates that space - "Stanley crosses to the trunk, shoves it roughly open, and begins to open compartments" (41) - he betrays Blanche's intimacy. Rapaciously investigating the love letters, "He rips off the ribbon and starts to examine them, Blanche snatches them from him, and they cascade to the floor." Furious, she shouts: "Now that you've touched them, I'll burn them" and then starts scooping "the floor, gathering

The reader may view Blanche as someone who tried to escape her sordid past in Laurel and wanted to start a new life with her sister, yet due to the continuous investigations from Stanley, was unable to do so. Stanley reveals Blanches’ lies and deceits, commenting on them as her ‘same old act, same old hooey!’ This tells the reader that his research of Blanches’ past is way of stopping her from finding a new life. Blanche attempts to redeem her life by finding love with Mitch, yet Stanley again reveals to Mitch that she was not ‘straight’, resulting in Mitch not wanting to be with her and also contributing to her fate. Stanley, after mercilessly divulging all her truths and bringing her to the edge of her mental capacity, rapes Blanche which brought about her final collapse. The reader may view Stella as someone at blame for her sisters’ fate, as though she shows some moral support of Blanches’ situation and listens to what she has to say, Stella continuously throughout the play neglects to notice Blanches slow mental deterioration and ignores Blanches’ outcries and incessant need for attention. Stella chooses Stanley over Blanche, despite her warnings about him being ‘volatile, violent and sub-human which represents not

The Uses Williams Makes of Setting, Dialogue, Stage Direction and Effects in Scene 6 of A Streetcar Named Desire

Similar to Stanley, Blanche also faces a power struggle. Her ultimate downfall is a result of Stanley’s cruelty and lack of understanding for human fragility. Comments about Stanley’s ‘animal habits’ and ‘sub-human’ nature act as the agent of Blanche’s downfall. Stanley cannot deal with her mocking him in his own home and is fed up with her lies. During the final scenes his

It was not just her self that put her in the lime light of being a victim; it is also her new change of environment and people. Stanley is Stella's husband; he is described to be very masculine and aware of his sexual magnetism. “Strongly, compactly built”. He is mostly at ease with people however, if they lack loyalty and affection to him, he will bully them. Especially women, as he believes them just to be easy conflict. It is seen in scene 3 that Stanley has little respect for women. “I said to hush up!” This is addressed to his wife who is seen emotionless and impassive in this play. As for Blanche how is fussy and at edge, she would be very effected by the crude attitude that Stanley presents and so tries to hysterical take Stella away from her husband. Stanley does not forget of this act of interference and makes him all the more determined to be rid of Stella’s “charity case”. The real reason for Stanley’s bulling is that Blanche immediately received all Stella’s attention. “How about my supper huh? I’m not going to no Galatorires’ for supper” This made Stella dominant in power over Stanley and Blanche, something Stanley was not used to. “I put you a cold plate on ice”.

In the second part of the tripartite structure in Scene Two, Blanche and Stanley flirt and argue with each other. This section emphasises the contrast between old and new as Stanley’s main reason for talking to

Stella's marriage to Stanley, on the other hand, seems to have given her the happiness and fulfillment, which Blanche has attempted to find in a guilt-ridden life of loneliness with promiscuity. As a result Blanche has become neurotic and alcoholic, slipping increasingly into insanity. Stella, meanwhile, appears to have been thriving in a profane, coarse, but wholly satisfying sexual relationship with Stanley. Thus, superficially, the main contrast between Stella and Blanche seems to be one between sickness and health, perversity and normality, particularly in the sexual relationship. Stella is thriving; Blanche is disintegrating. But a closer examination of these sisters begins to show more complex differences in their characters and situations. Blanche is disintegrating for reasons other than sexual perversity, and Stella is paying a rather steep price for her so-called "normal" life with Stanley.

The themes of A streetcar Named Desire are mainly built on conflict, the conflicts between men and women, the conflicts of race, class and attitude to life, and these are especially embodied in Stanley and Blanche. Even in Blanche’s own mind there are conflicts of truth and lies, reality and illusion, and by the end of the play, most of these conflicts have been resolved.

Stanley is the antagonist, he is violent and an enemy to the Protagonist, Blanche. “He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one!”(scene 4) He hits Stella, and rapes Blanche. “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!” (scene10). It is also found that Stanley also reveals “the survival of the fittest,” in

A Streetcar Named Desire is a play of multifaceted themes and diverse characters with the main antagonists of the play, Blanche and Stanley infused by their polarized attitudes towards reality and society ‘structured on the basis of the oppositions past/present and paradise lost/present chaos’(*1). The effect of these conflicting views is the mental deterioration of Blanche’s cerebral health that, it has been said; Stanley an insensitive brute destroyed Blanche with cruel relish and is the architect of her tragic end. However, due to various events in the play this statement is open to question, for instance, the word ‘insensitive’ is debatable, ‘insensitive’ can be defined as not thinking of other people’s feelings but Stanley is aware of

Stanley is a character in this play, whose perspective is clearly reality based. Since Blanche’s outlook on life is fantasy based, there is a lot of hostility between the two characters. Stanley is the one that always exposes the lies that Blanche is always hiding behind. He is constantly trying to get her to accept his perspective. When she finally begins to understand him, it’s too late. With such a huge change, she loses her mental state. Her personal beliefs get interchanged between fantasy and reality, to such an extent, that it seems as if she no longer realizes what is true or what is malign.

All three of the main characters do not want to accept the truth and have the covet to live in an allusion to hide the past from everyone including themselves. Stanley does not like when Blanche questions his manhood and nationality by calling him a Polack; which he takes very offensively. Stanley has had enough of Blanche and yells at her, “But what I am is a one hundred percent American” (110). Stanley has pride in his native land and when Blanche downgrades him, he takes those remarks she makes to heart. He wants to dominate and use his

She begins to ramble on more, have more delusions and lie about crazy things such as Shep Huntleigh inviting her on a cruise to the Caribbean. She begins to shower more often or “hydrotherapy” as she calls it, because it “is necessary for her probably to wash away the feeling of guilt as also the stains of her promiscuous life” (Kataria 96). As the play comes to an end, Blanche becomes more psychotic and no one is on her side. Blanche appears to swirl into oblivion towards the end of the play when a fiight with Stanley gets physical. “She finally realizes to her dismay that she has lost her reputation, a place to go to, and what is worse, her charm. This realization, painful as it is, coupled with the rape, sends her reeling into a world of shadows from which she was never really far away” (Kataria 182.)

Before one can understand Blanche's character, one must understand the reason why she moved to New Orleans and joined her sister, Stella, and brother-in-law, Stanley. By analyzing the symbolism in the first scene, one

Tennessee Williams' Use of Dramatic Devices To Create Contrast And Conflict In "A Streetcar Named Desire"