Personal Narrative Essay: A Streetcar Named Desire

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.

Foreshadowing – “ And there was the living room, signs of a struggle. I already knew Amy wasn’t phoning back.”(31) This gives the book a fairly dark twist, suggestion that the wife might be dead, or murdered.

“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

This 1950's theatrical presentation was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Tennessee Williams. It is about a southern bell by the name of Blanche Dubois who loses her father's plantation to a mortgage and travels to live in her sister's home in New Orleans by means of a streetcar called Desire. There she finds her sister living in a mess with a drunken bully husband, and the events that follow cause Blanche to step over the line of insanity and fall victim to life's harsh lessons.

There are 3 major themes in the play A Streetcar Named Desire, the first is the constant battle between fantasy and reality, second we have the relationship between sexuality and death, and lastly the dependence of men plays a major role in this book.

Motivations are the fuel of our lives, we are motivated to do just about anything. Motivations both positive and negative are valid. Tennessee William’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” we are introduced to a very unique roster of characters, These characters are all very different and unique, throughout the play we see the struggle between the characters, and how they interact and conflict with one another. Stanley Kowalski, Blanche Dubois and Harold Mitchell are all very different yet very similar. Tennessee Williams develops the idea that, when one is motivated by the past, their actions may not be appropriate for their present environment.

I agree that characters in the book A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, use lying and deception to fuel their social status. These lies develop trust and relationship issues and threaten the wellbeing of everyone involved. Blanche, was a high school english teacher in mississippi who was forced to leave her life behind there. With nowhere to go Blanche moves in with her sister Stella and husband Stanley, who has a suspicion about Blanche's past life which lead to some unwanted events.

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.

Life on death row is not pleasant so inmates neither is jail. “North Carolina’s death row inmates live in 11x7- foot cells and have access to a community room with stainless steel tables for playing chess, writing, watching a small TV or listening to music on their see-through audio paler. Outside each death row pod, prison guards sit behind dark-tinted glass monitoring inmates… Two days a week… they get to spend one hour in an exercise yard” (Life on death row: 'Am I going to be next? ') They only get two hours a week to be able to get out of there cell less than most offenders in maximum security prisons that get an hour a day outside. Although they will be able to exercise, workout, they can still make some money doing janitor work they will only get a few cents though. “They can also receive one visit a week with a maximum of two visitors” (Life on death row: 'Am I going to be next? '). Mainly the only good part about this is they can visit with one or two people a week so not all their freedoms are taken away even though guards are watching they get to spend time with their loved ones if anyone decides to visit. I cannot imagine having almost all my rights taken away. Although these offenders are considered highly dangerous they are still human, and you can never be sure that one committed a crime or not. Nowadays with new technology man people are taken out of jail after spending half their lives in confinement are set free, but most are set free with nothing but the

Hours after the state has taken Blanche, Stella is on the porch bawling in Eunice 's arms. Some time has passed and the sun is now setting. The grieving sister begins to try and pull herself together but gasping sobs continue to escape her frame. Pulling herself up, she leaves Eunice's arms. Eunice slowly backs away after guiding Stella to her husband. Still sobbing, Stella glances at Stan who is leaning against the doorframe, and looks away.

There are nine types of heroes in this world, each of them with their own unique stories, plots, cliches etc. Among those is the classic tragic hero, one who is destined to fail no matter what. In a Streetcar Named Desire, the tragic hero is Blanche Dubois, an aging Southern Belle living in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. In this essay it will be discussed what makes Blanche a tragic hero and how she compares to a typical tragic hero.

A tragic hero in literature is a type of character who has fallen from grace, where the downfall suggests feelings of misfortune and distress among the audience. The tragic flaw of the hero leads to their demise or downfall that in turn brings a tragic end. Aristotle defines a tragic hero as “a person who must evoke a sense of pity and fear in the audience. He is considered a man of misfortune that comes to him through error of judgment.” The characteristics of a tragic hero described by Aristotle are hamartia, hubris, peripeteia, anagnorisis, nemesis and catharsis which allows the audience to have a catharsis of arousing feelings.

The best example fantasy is found in the protagonist of the story Blanche Dubois. Throughout the play it clears she is a troubled woman with a troubled past who lives her life in illusion. The story begins with Blanche visiting her sister, Stella, in New Orleans where she will be living with both Stella and her husband Stanley. Blanche came from a wealthy family just like her sister, but when her husband died and began losing other family members, she ended up using up all the money and lost their home. She later then gained a bad reputation sleeping around with many different men. She wanted to escape so she went to visit Stella, here she acted as if everything she did in the past actually never happened, and so began her fantasies. Blanche is constantly giving remarks to show that nothing has changed in her life “You know I haven’t put on one ounce in ten years, Stella? I weigh what I weighed the summer you left Belle Reve. The summer Dad died and you left us.”(15) For Blanche looking good is maintaining her youth thus giving the illusion that nothing has changed. “I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.”(60). When Blanche says this

The play A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, is a play about a woman named Blanche Dubois who goes to live with her sister after she loses her home in Mississippi. Between the hardships of her previous life and the way she is treated now, she is not in a good way by the time the play ends. She basically has a mental breakdown. There are three stages of Blanche’s mental state. She lives in a fantasy, Mitch rejecting her, and Stanley raping her, Blanche is mentally unstable by the end of this ply.

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