Nurture And Nature In Tennessee WilliamsA Streetcar Named Desire

One of the oldest debates in the history of Psychology is about Nature versus Nurture. Today, we know that both play a significant role in human’s life. Some people believe that it is genes which affects our way of life and some people believes that it is none other but our environment that greatly influences our lifestyle and some believe that both has tremendous impact on one’s way of life. Indeed in certain cases both our nature (our genes) and our environment roughly play an equal role in human life.

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.

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.

The classic debated topic of Nature versus Nurture has been and will always be a quarrelsome subject in the scientific world. Meaning, the issue of the level to which environment and heredity sway behavior and development in a person. Nature can be defined as, behaviors due to heredity. This means the behaviors is based on the inherited makeup of an individual and is an influence of the growth and development of that individuals’ all through life. On the other hand nurture is causes of behaviors that are environmental. This Intel’s the influence is from the individual’s parents, siblings, family, friends and all other experiences that individual exposed to during life. However, these concept of ideas supports the inborn genetic framework,

The nature of motivations is driven by an individual’s need to pursue self interest, which directs their course of action. One’s interest is dependent on their influences as well as ambition to achieve goals. In Tennessee Williams’ modern play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley’s actions are directed by his need to maintain power in his relationship with Stella even when these actions are immoral or wrong. The setting of the play takes place in late 1940s of New Orleans; where relationships are predominantly patriarchal. Stanley initially lived life in a stable relationship, taking the dominant role as a man. However, when Blanche is introduced into their lives, Stella is reminded of her upper class roots, interfering the life Stanley originally had. When Stanley’s predominant role is being challenged, Stanley’s need to reattain his personal equilibrium develops, impacting his course of action and treatment towards others. Due to this, Stanley struggles with fear and uncertainty, resulting in increased violence and a short-tempered nature. Therefore, when individuals have strong motives to reach their ambitions, their actions follows, even when these actions may be morally flawed.

Theoretical Propositions: The question of why people are who they are and why they behave the in the way that they do was asked. The researchers wanted to understand if people develop into who they are primarily from factors in the environment or because of there genetic makeup. In the second half of the 20th century most psychologists agreed in the theory of behaviorism, human behavior is caused only by factors in the environment. This study would answer the common “nurture vs nature” question that many people still ask today.

When examining human development, the universal idea of conflict between nature and nurture often arises. The argument presented by the “Nature vs Nurture” debate is extremely controversial and has been discussed and critiqued for decades. “Nurture” is cited as being a combination of elements from one’s environment and experiences that shapes a person and their life, whereas “Nature” is cited as being a combination of genetic and hereditary aspects that dictates who a person is and will become. The controversy surrounding the argument most directly stems from the differences of views on whether or not nature or nurture affects a person’s life more. Historians, scientists, psychologists, and everyday philosophers have all studied this uncertainty, and many of whom have developed countless theories. Among these is the

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 Tennesee Williams In this piece of coursework i will assess how effectively the director understands the play and how she translates this knowledge when making the film starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh and I will be weighing up the similarities/differences between the first scene of the film and the first scene of the play. The director of the film A Streetcar Named Desire represents the first stage direction of the play very well. The description given in the first stage direction is very similar to the first shots that we get of the film which is of Elysian Fields and it runs between the L&N tracks of the river.

“You can disguise any set with lights and shadows” - indeed one can, even with a paper lantern. It simply depends on what type of “set” one has. It could be a scene, a place or even a person, as in the case of A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee Williams describes the main character in his play Blanche DuBois, as a woman, desperate to cover her true self. She believes she is a victim of the harsh world that deprived her from love and forced her to succumb to indecent desires. Feeling guilty and filthy, she tries in many ways to cleanse herself from the mistakes of the past, which haunt her in the present. Spending all her time wearing white, being clean, presenting a certain image, Blanche finds herself most comfortable in the dark. Although Blanche

he has never had the chance to really fall in love with someone and is

In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams’ portrays Blanch DuBoise as the character who suffers inner struggles all through her life. She is a fallen woman in the eyes of society. She would prefer to live in her own imagination. Her name is befitting for her in that she acts more as a woman of the night - she would rather be out at night or in the dim lights. She is a southern woman on all counts who lives in Laurel, Mississippi. Her life has been full of disappointments, death, and sexual propriety. Through her misfortunes, she becomes more unstable. She wants to create a life within her life to cope with all the stresses of her reality. Blanche is unable to find an escape from herself. She finds herself as a victim at the hands of her sister’s husband. Blanche hopes for new beginnings when she leaves Belle Reve from which she has been evicted. She moves to New Orleans to be with Stella, her sister, and her husband Stanley. Leonard Berkman “pities her and views her as a ‘misunderstood’ character, a tragic figure trying to start a new life for herself in New Orleans” (34). As much as she tries, she can never fully gain peace.

Scholars around the world commonly discuss the topic of “nature vs. nurture” in relation to the importance of an individual’s inherent qualities. All aspects of human behavior are affected by both nature and nurture, operating together. Nature refers to the factors that have shaped the genetics that we inherit from our parents and ancestors. Nurture refers to all the things that have influenced us since we began to develop- even from the moment we were conceived. Therefore, nature determines the range of our human potential while nurture affects the ways that our human potential is objectified, being helped or hindered by good or bad environmental contributions.

One of the oldest, most prominent topics of academic debate is the Nature vs. Nurture argument. Nature vs. Nurture is a largely psychological term, in which the Nature aspect places more significance on genetics and personality; our innate predisposition to various circumstances tell us a great deal more about who we are. On the other side, the Nurture aspect places more focus on our environment and stresses the salience of the majority of what we do in our daily lives have been “learned” We see a wide array of examples of this specific argument in literature, popular culture, and even in our everyday lives. While no one can deny that both sides have extremely valid points, it would be very naive to assume that one had more of a dominant factor;

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.